Happy Birthday Prince Philip

This week I was on a Duke of Edinburgh expedition and today happens to be the Duke's 90th Birthday! The expedition went really well although we were not very lucky with the weather. It was quite rainy on and off especially in the evening, so after dinner with the rest of the staff we all went off to bed rather early because it was quite chilly as well as damp. I had hired a wee bothy for £5 and I planned to sleep there. The staff all had dinner on the covered area outside it. I thought it would be comfy (it has bunk beds) and would save me the trouble of pitching my tent. However it was really grotty and the rest of the staff wound me up about it, pointing out the holes in the floor which they said would let in rats or maybe even foxes! And that the mattresses looked as if they had mice nesting in them. One of my colleagues even made a pretend poo out of earth and put it in on a mattress! At least I hope it was pretend! So in the end I decided to sleep in the car. I reclined the front seat and got into my sleeping bag. At first I was quite cosy but during the night it got very cold so I kept waking up. Not the best sleep. The weather continued mixed the next day but the good news was that the pupils all did really well and passed the expedition section of their awards. Our assessor was a good laugh and told us all sorts of stories about his life, including meeting the Duke of Edinburgh on numerous occasions because of being involved with the award for many years. Shona was doing a supervised assessment with him and she passed it and is now fully qualified, so now we have our own assessor, hooray! By the afternoon the weather had brightened up and we all ended up sitting outside a pub in warm sunshine while the pupils got their feedback. I was so proud of the whole lot of them, they literally screamed with delight when they were told that they had passed! The girls that is, the boys were suitably cool about it, but were pleased too. Moments like that make it all worthwhile! 

The gang's all here!

"The gang's all here!" is something my Dad used to say when the four off us were all together. He said it on the day before he died when Jennifer arrived back from Africa to see him and the four of us were together in the hospital. It's a phrase that always reminds me of him, and I think of it in relation to my own children and James - I like nothing better than the five of us being together. This of course used to be all the time but since Jamie went to University in Dundee four years ago it has become rarer and thus more to be treasured. Of course I know how lucky I am that he is only an hour and a half's drive away, but I still miss him. And I will miss Ally and Davie just as much when they move out, although I know that it's a good thing for them to "fly the nest" - the alternative would be them all living at home when they were forty with me looking like Granny out of the Beverley Hillbillies! Anyway he arrived back this weekend to bid farewell to his friend Chris who is going to spend the summer in America teaching soccer, so we will all be having tea together shortly. However we have all spent a very diverse weekend; Ally and Davie at parties, Jamie out, James hill-walking, me at book club. So I am thinking about Australia and how nice it will be for us all to spend three weeks together on our big adventure!
Book club was great on Friday evening, it was a lovely warm day and we all sat in the beautiful garden at Doreen's house and had a great discussion about "The Man with the Wooden Hat". I also got lots of ideas for holiday reading and Lesley was telling us about a literary magazine that she subscribes to. It was a very pleasant and summery evening.
On Saturday James and I went over to Margie and David's for dinner in Howwood. We haven't seen them for ages and it was good to hear all their news, they have bought a house in Largs that they are going to retire to in a few years. They are both looking very well and happy. Dinner was absolutely delicious - gorgeous stew with dumplings (by coincidence we had been discussing earlier in the day how we both like dumplings!) and a magnificent summer pudding.
I hear James reversing up the drive after his hill walk up Beinn Maol Chalum so I'm off to finish making tea with Jamie, for the whole gang!

All the right words but not necessarily in the right order

It's a new month and very exciting because we will be going on holiday at the end of it! But also a lot to do before we go both at work and at home! On Monday (the last day of the holiday weekend) I worked from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on my final Diploma essay. It is weeks since I worked on it so it took me ages to get back up to speed on it, but after a couple of hours I was into my stride and I worked really really hard. At 6.30 Grandma came for tea and we had a pleasant meal and chat, at 9 o'clock I excused myself and went upstairs to continue working - and the great news is that by midnight I had finished the first draft of my essay. I am very happy with the content, and the quotes are all properly referenced. All it will need in a few days is a final going over to make sure it reads smoothly and to make any adjustments necessary. It reminds me a bit of the Morecambe and Wise sketch where Eric is playing Grieg's piano concerto really badly. Andre Previn gets annoyed with him and tells him that he is playing "all the wrong notes". Eric then grabs Andre Previn by the lapels and says "I'm playing all the right notes - but not necessarily in the right order." Well that's my essay! 

Finishing the first draft means that I will definitely be able to post it off before the holidays. 

Up the Whangie

It's a holiday weekend and I have been having a lovely time. On Friday I went into town and had lunch with Jackie in Wagamama, I had a curry of vegetables fried in panko breadcrumbs and it was absolutely delicious. We had a really nice chat and a coffee, then I headed up to Great Western Road and went to a few shops and got some shopping in Waitrose - I felt as if I was out to play! In the evening we all went to see Pirates of the Caribbean 4 - On Stranger Tides. It was at the Imax in 3D and we took Kyle with us. It was a decent enough film but as the fourth in the series it has lost its novelty and was very like the others, the 3D didn't make much difference. I thought the first one was absolutely brilliant when it came out because it was new and exciting. It was all good fun, it's nice to go to the cinema. On Saturday James and I collected Ewan (Heather is away on a walking weekend) and we went for a walk in the Botanic Gardens. I was impressed by Ewan's speed and skill on his crutches. As we walked along looking at the plants James put his hand in his pocket and found that there was a bee in it which promptly stung him! The weather was very mixed, as it has been all week, and sunshine alternated with sudden showers. We were lucky on our walk and it stayed dry until we arrived at Oran Mor for our lunch. The meal was very pleasant, nice pub food, and afterwards we crossed back over the road to have a look round the Kibble Palace before heading home. Today James persuaded me to go for a walk at Auchengillan and we walked the second half of my upcoming Duke of Edinburgh expedition. Just as well we did because there are new deer fences and tree plantations below the Whangie which mean that we will have to change the route a bit. It's good practice for a walking leader to walk the route shortly before the expedition and I'm glad I did! The strangest thing about the walk was that despite sixty-three mile an hour winds (I heard it on the news later), and driving rain (some of the time) I felt full of energy and thoroughly enjoyed myself. In fact I don't know when I last enjoyed a walk so much. The rocks at the Whangie were spectacular - when we eventually found them! They were a bit further along than we expected and James kept looking at small outcrops and saying "I'm sure it's bigger than this!" We had a good laugh and a chat - unusual on a walk since I am usually too stressed and exhausted to chat much! James asked me in deceptively innocent tones if I prefer the Douwe Egberts coffee that I buy to cheaper brands. I answered that I do prefer the flavour, at which James gleefully informed me that for the past two weeks I have been drinking Morrisons own brand coffee, with which he has refilled the Douwe Egberts jar! How crafty he is! 

Ash and Wind

The winds on Monday were so strong that some trees were blown down and lots of branches and leaves were scattered over the roads. It was Davie's first day of work experience in Boots and after school I went into town to meet him for tea in TGI Friday's (his favourite restaurant). Alasdair was going to meet us there but he couldn't get into town - all the trains were cancelled because of the weather. Renfield Street was jammed with buses when I arrived because there were so many people trying to get on them. David and I had a pleasant meal, he had really enjoyed his day. The staff at Boots had been very welcoming to him and he had been filling shelves, putting prescriptions in alphabetical order and giving out advantage cards. He really liked the young pharmacist who was mentoring him. Meanwhile James was in London and his plane was delayed by the windy weather. When he got to Glasgow it had to circle round before it could get in low enough to land. As a result he wasn't home until nine - a fifteen hour working day. He was very tired. However he was lucky to get home before the ash cloud from Iceland arrived from the north - a couple of hours later and he would have been stranded in London overnight. This is the second time that volcanic ash from Iceland has closed airports; the first time in April 2010 it lasted for a week, and there was a huge amount of disruption. Many flights to and from Europe were cancelled and people were stranded all over the world! This time it cleared after a day. The next day the roads were shiny with rain, and when I was driving up to East Kilbride I saw a strange sight; every car had a plume of spray behind it that was lit up by sunlight, it looked amazing.

Alasdair has now sat four out of his six Highers. He doesn't give us a lot of feedback about how he got on, but he seems to think that he's doing ok. Next week he has Biology and today I got him some Biology revision notes from my school to give him some extra practice. So now it is the holiday weekend and my aim is to finish my final diploma essay by Monday evening. We shall see. 

Follow every rainbow

On Friday evening I went to see "The Sound of Music" with Heather. It was at the King's Theatre and starred Jason Donovan, who must be in his early forties now, I remember watching him in Neighbours when Jamie was a baby so that's 21 years ago! He's not so boyishly pretty as he used to be, but has a nice face and in fact I think he looks very like his Dad, who was also an actor in Neighbours in the 1990s. In those days it was actually very cool to watch it and one of my former colleagues even recorded it so that she could watch it when she got home from work! Eastenders was the same; nowadays it's just a sad old soap, but when it started in the 1980s everyone was watching it and we were all riveted by the scenes between Dirty Den and Angie, and gymslip mum Michelle. When I was working for ICL in 1985, I was down in London on a training course and we all waited in to watch some exciting storyline on Eastenders before going out drinking to Covent Garden. I can't imagine anyone staying in to watch it now!
Heather and I also saw Jason Donovan in "Sweeney Todd" a couple of years ago, he has made a good career for himself as an actor in stage musicals. He was very good as Captain von Trapp, and the actress who played Maria (Verity Rushworth) was excellent - what a great voice! The von Trapp children were very good too, it was an extremely enjoyable evening. I have been humming all the songs from it ever since, occasionally breaking into song, especially in the shower or when walking around the house, and I have decided that my favourite song from "The Sound of Music" is "I must have done something good" sung by  Maria and the Captain when they realise that they love each other.
"For here you are, standing there, loving me, Whether or not you should,
So something in my youth or childhood,  I must have done something good.
Nothing comes from nothing, Nothing ever could,
So somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good".
Lovely - mind you, all the songs are good. 

Watching for pigs on the wing

Great news from Jamie on Tuesday - he phoned me at work just after twelve and I could tell that something had happened from a certain jocular tone in his voice. Turns out that he had heard that his 3rd year results were coming out early and he had been checking on his computer all morning. At twelve he got the news; he has passed his 3rd year exams first time! So no re-sits! I was relieved and delighted for him, he has worked so hard this year and he deserves this success. When he had to repeat 2nd year I tried to get him to look on the bright side; that he was so young for his year group that an extra year of consolidation might do him good in the long term. And it could be that this has worked out! I was very touched that he had phoned me as soon as he got his results, nice that he thought about his old mum! In the evening James and I went to see "Brit Floyd" at the Clyde Auditorium, a Pink Floyd tribute band which James assures me was very authentic. I liked some of it, for example "Wish you were here", "Shine on Crazy Diamond" and "Great Gig in the Sky", but some of it was simply appalling and actually hurt my head - "Echoes" and "One of these days" from the "Meddle" album were particularly tuneless and dire. James however thinks that it is very clever music with reverberations and echoes. But I don't need music to be clever, I need it to have a good tune. It was nice to see James enjoying himself though, he was singing along with all the lyrics. And the stage show was good, with images, lights and even the front half of a giant inflatable pig floating in from stage left! Wednesday's main event was Ally's Maths Higher. Ruth came round the night before for a final two hour tutoring session! Ally felt that it went all right - next one is History on Friday.