Farewells

Goodbye to the Commonwealth Games - they were great, much better than I expected! I'm pleased that Davie enjoyed being a Clydesider so much, it was a really good experience for him. It was a positive, happy time for the whole city and we rounded it off by attending the Closing Ceremony at Hampden. The occasion was suitably celebratory; Lulu set the tone with "Shout" and my favourite part of the evening had to be Deacon Blue singing "Dignity". We all sang along; as a long time council worker (which teachers are of course) the words of the song mean a lot to me. And while we sang a procession of council vans, school buses, fire engine, police cars drove round the track - it made me feel strangely proud! The star of the evening was Kylie and she was brilliant, but if I was being picky I would have preferred her set to be a bit shorter so that we could have had more Scottish music. James however was very happy and would have liked even more Kylie! The evening ended with Dougie McLean singing Caledonia and then the crowd singing Auld Lang Syne. A fitting ending to the games.
Goodbye to the summer holidays - I may not officially start back until Monday but I have been working part of last week and all of this week. I applied for this job so I can't really complain. I can however reflect on my future plans.
And most importantly, goodbye to Ally. Tomorrow he is going to spend the night at Aisling and Jamie's flat in Edinburgh before flying to Oslo the next morning. It's a wonderful opportunity for him to spend a year studying abroad but I will miss him very much. It will not be the same in the house without his dry sense of humour and earnest political speeches! He's a good boy. However luckily we will see him in a few weeks, because we have booked 3 nights in Oslo at the September weekend.