De Gaulle

Ewan recently mentioned a new French film about De Gaulle that has been released in the UK recently; in fact it’s two films, one called De Gaulle: L’Age de Fer (also called Résistance) and the other one called De Gaulle: J'écris ton nom (also called Liberté) we intended to go to see it last week, but with all the excitement about baby Jessica’s birth it went out of my mind. However James reminded me about it yesterday so we looked up where the first film was showing, only to find that we had just about missed it; the only place that we could find that it was showing today (within travelling distance) was the Vue Cinema in Edinburgh near the Playhouse. Nothing daunted, we booked the 9.40 a.m. showing and set off to Edinburgh in good time this morning by train. What an excellent film. The actor who plays De Gaulle, Simon Abkarian, was fantastic. What a character De Gaulle was, he can’t have been an easy person to be around! He and Churchill (played by Simon Russell Beale) had such great chemistry. I learned lots about De Gaulle’s part in the war that I didn’t know before, and about how the French Resistance began, and I can’t wait to see the second film. 

Meeting Jessica

James and I met Jessica for the first time this afternoon. It was truly amazing to hold my granddaughter in my arms. James held her too and was terrified of dropping her! My son’s daughter. She is so small and pretty; her nose and lips and chin and forehead and little ears are all perfectly proportioned. She slept throughout our visit so I still haven’t looked into her eyes, which I am told are hazel coloured. Her baby hair is dark brown on her beautifully shaped head. After we took some photos I just stood beside the pram looking at her while we chatted with Chanel and Davie. James and I were careful not to stay too long; her mummy and daddy need their rest because she is of course keeping them up at night. It was so great to meet her. 
In the morning James and I had been over to the south side; James had his second physiotherapy session for his sore knee at Hampden and I had a chest x-ray and a hand x-ray at the New Victoria. What a pair of old crocks we are! Afterwards we had brunch in the Brooklyn Cafe which was very pleasant. 

Kilt!

It has been a busy week; quite social and also quite useful, which is always satisfying. Socially I have met up with quite a few of my chums and also played Pickleball which was most enjoyable. We had an interminable meeting with a bathroom designer on Monday. It had to be done because the en-suite really needs redone, but James and I both hate planning this kind of thing. The endless choices and decisions are exhausting, and by the time we went home we both had headaches! Much more satisfying was my visit to the dentist. I have been nervous about my fragile feeling front teeth for years, they have been increasingly thin at the tips and I have been expecting one of them to simply snap off at any moment. In the other hand I didn’t want John McG to stick big veneers on to them which might fall off themselves. However he reassured me that the new material that he uses is fantastic and will work well. I am particularly pleased that my teeth feel very normal and not too thick in my mouth. 
Another useful event was a very overdue appointment at the hairdresser for me, the lovely Britney smartened me up quickly and pleasantly, and I was home in plenty of time to accompany James to the Kiltmaker in Giffnock. Yes it has finally happened! Former kilt hater James has decided that with three weddings next year (and perhaps more on the horizon) it will be sensible to buy a kilt to match those of our sons. It will also be cost effective compared to hiring a kilt. So James will be sporting a kilt soon for the first time in more than fifty years. I can’t wait! 

Baby Dreams

After all the excitement we had a pleasantly quiet weekend. Saturday was another beautiful sunny day and we had breakfast in the garden with Ally and Cat, all of us so happy about the safe arrival of Jessica. Ally and Cat packed up and set off after lunch to Ullapool where they will be spending the week. I hope that they will have a lovely relaxing week; Cat will be working but hopefully will also have some time to enjoy being in the north-west. 
Today James and I had a video call with baby Jessica (and her Mummy and Daddy of course!) Chanel and Davie are having a week with Jessica to settle in at home after their long haul in hospital last week, so we won’t meet her in person until Friday. They are very happy although somewhat sleep-deprived! Oh she is so very sweet! She was fast asleep but we could see her eyes moving under her eyelids as she was dreaming. I wonder what a two day old baby dreams about? Her features are so neat; she is a very attractive baby. 

Jessica’s Birth Day

At about 4 a.m. in the morning we got the message that Davie and Chanel’s baby has been born at 00.46 a.m. Her name is Jessica Anne Anderson and she is 5 lb 7 oz / 2.475 kg. It is the most wonderful news. I won’t give details of the birth here because that is Chanel’s and Davie’s own story for them to tell, however I can report that Mummy and baby Jessica are both doing well and that Daddy is very happy. And James and I are grandparents! Jessica is absolutely beautiful. 
Jessica has been born on a lovely sunny early autumn day. The leaves are not yet falling from the trees but the berries on the rowan trees are very red. Chinook helicopters were flying over Uddingston as part of a training exercise. 
James, Ally and I headed over to Uddingston in the morning to finish off a few tasks in Davie & Chanel’s house. I did the second half of the stencilling while Ally and James put up shelves in the nursery. We had a break for lunch and nipped to the café in Sterling in the Birkenshaw Industrial Estate. We then pressed on and got finished by tea time. 
Cat arrived by train and the four of us had dinner together and raised a toast to baby Jessica. Welcome to the family Jessica! 

Stencilling

We are still waiting for baby but keeping ourselves busy. I don’t like to contact Davie too often to check on progress; he is being very good at keeping us informed. I was at a very eventful Children’s Hearing on Wednesday, and today I was stencilling all morning. This has been organised by Ally; he is being such a fantastic uncle to his niece even before she is born! Davie mentioned to him that it would be great to have a stencil of safari animals on one of the nursery walls. So Ally searched online and found an attractive large stencil and then he and James shopped for paints and stencilling brushes. They used the laser level to affix it to the wall and the rest was up to me. I was quite nervous because I haven’t done stencilling for a long time, decades in fact. I did a sheep jumping over fences frieze for Davie’s own nursery (with one little black lamb among the white ones!) and I did quite a time consuming frieze consisting of several colours of flowers in our old bedroom. Both are long gone due to room changes; although some golden stars that I stencilled on Davie’s bedroom ceiling still shine faintly through the paint that was painted over them! 
There was nothing for it but to get started; I worked all morning bring while listening to Gyles Brandreth’s Rosebud podcast. Meanwhile downstairs James and Ally were building a flat pack dresser for the kitchen; it was more complicated than they thought and it took them more than five hours in total! 
The three of us later had a convivial lunch with Christine and Gerry at Caulders Garden Centre, it was great to see them. Still no baby news. 

Waiting for baby

Chanel is now in hospital, having been induced yesterday, so we are excitedly awaiting baby news. On Saturday evening we went over to Gordon’s for dinner with him and Morag, and also Pamela and Alasdair who live near us and kindly gave us a lift there and back. Alasdair goes to Australian Pink Floyd with James and Gordon every year. We had a very pleasant evening. 
Ally and I have now moved all of the food that we made into Davie and Chanel’s freezer, and Ally had been doing doing model aeroplane construction and painting. 
On Sunday the weather was beautiful so James, Alasdair and I decided to go for brunch in Troon and then for a walk along the beach. We saw kite surfers scudding along in the sea, and there were lots of people out enjoying the sunshine: 
Later we watched a film recommended by Ally called Masters of the Universe which is a recent reboot of the old franchise. It was good fun and sent itself up nicely as well as relating a good yarn. 
Yesterday I went to the Burrell Collection with Sue H to see their current exhibition, Drawing Inspiration. It consists of thirteen drawings, by artists such as Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, Édouard Manet and Jean-François Millet. You can see close up the pencil or charcoal strokes on each drawing, so it demonstrates the techniques and process of drawing. We both enjoyed it very much, and we also enjoyed our brunch in the Burrell Café! 
The impending Anderson baby is in our minds at all times. At Pickleball today I had my phone handy just in case there was news and during one of the games it rang! I rushed over to answer it and the whole room fell silent - it turned out that it was Ally phoning about some stencilling he is planning! 

Batch Cooking

Heather and Ewan set off home on Tuesday; we did a bit of tidying and cleaning around the cottage before heading home with the cats on Wednesday. And now we are on the countdown to Davie and Chanel’s baby! 
Ally is in Cambuslang, where he has been working with Davie to paint and decorate the baby’s nursery. He has been a bundle of energy and has worked really hard. He has done work in our house two; replacing the hinges on the utility cupboards to make the “soft close” again, he cleaned and fixed the gutter at the back of the house, and fixed the security light on the garage. Now that we are back home, Ally has also been encouraging James and I to join in the preparations! So for the last two days Ally and I have been batch cooking meals to put in Davie and Chanel’s freezer for after their baby is born. We have made chilli con carne, basque chicken, boeuf bourgignon, and lasagnes. They are all in freezer to oven containers ready to be transported to Uddingston. If it hadn’t been for Ally’s insistence I would probably have put this task off, but he was so keen to get going that I was swept along by his enthusiasm and I actually really enjoyed it! Hopefully this will be a good help to Davie and Chanel. It has also been great to spend time with Ally. James too was engaged in culinary activities; he has made some delicious damson jam from our own tree.