Larick House

For a lot of people, I think that visiting Kintyre may also be a bit like going north of the Wall in George RR Martin’s, “Game of Thrones”. Certainly, their comments on arrival nearly always seem to contain something akin to, “It took us a lot longer to get here than we thought it would”. Having wall to wall rain for the entire  journey from Glasgow certainly doesn’t seem to help. So it’s good to see the hardy souls who make it past Inverary, starting to appear in the village. It’s just a shame that they haven’t seen it at his best yet. Fingers crossed!

 

Continue reading “News from West of the Wall”

Other things did happen in March but the mammoth snowfall on 21/22 March  was the major event. Things kicked off overnight on the Thursday with a strong easterly winds blowing wet snow into massive drifts. Most of us assumed that the normal Kintyre situation would prevail and that the snow would disappear overnight. Well it didn’t!

 

Continue reading “Welcome to Siberia!”

Despite the way of the world, good things still happen and we now have Caitlin Rose Birch to admire and be grateful for. She has the same birthday, 22nd February, as John Hargreaves Jnr. who is thriving in Melbourne. Congratulations to Wishaw General, Maternity Unit who gave Emily, Richard and Caitlin such excellent service.  Well done one and all. Now the fun begins! Too early to tell though whose genes she might have.  I can officially confirm that there wasn’t any red hair in evidence but we left Richard pondering the complexities of the “sweepstake”. He may need an Open University Maths degree to sort things out.

 

Continue reading “Meantime Life Outside Goes On All Around You.”

The month kicked off with a trip to the Tarbert Village Hall to see Skerryvore. They weren’t my cup of tea (too much soft rock and not enough ceilidh) but they were well supported and most of the people there seemed to be enjoying themselves. I read the Wiki entry regarding the lighthouse which was built on the skerry in the mid 1800’s and some story it was! We used to try and visit at least one new Scottish island a year and I suppose with kayaking we still do but a trip to Tiree and then to the big skerry would get us back on track.

 

Continue reading “Busy Making Plans”

Phew! So far, although we encountered Noro-stricken relations in Morecambe we seem to have avoided anything too serious ourselves. Fingers crossed for the rest of the winter which seems to have set in with a vengeance. At least Ba’ Bag and his wind band haven’t reappeared!

 

 

Continue reading “The Sign of Noro!”

Looking back over the last month has definitely brought it home to me that the pace of life up here is definitely slowing down. I think it’s to do with the clocks going back and the much shorter days. There again, we’re not getting any younger! How’s that for a nice cheery opening? Am off to singing practice where I’m the third youngest. Continue reading “Life in the Slow Lane”

After we got back from Jo and John’s wedding we got stuck into the garden. A final strim from me. Dolly the Solitary Sheep seems to be doing her best to help out but unfortunately, she finds it hard to differentiate between grass and our recent garden planting. Suse has been weeding, harvesting and making glutney in between chasing Dolly. Meanwhile, the strimmer decided to throw a wobbly and much time was spent looking for bits that had spun off from the line spool into the long grass. Continue reading “Hello Dolly”

What a crazy mixed up summer it has been. At the end of August, we had a huge thunder storm with hailstones that culminated in a huge crash of thunder, a crack of lightning and the smell of warm electrics in Suse’s office.

 

Continue reading “Lightning Strikes”

Thanks to Ali Jardine’s good idea of producing a map, we’ve finally managed to work out how to display the mementoes which people brought to the Rubydo. The numbers on the map (left) show the location of the items in the list. Below, you can see who brought what and what we think it means . Please let us know if you would like to add anything. Other people generously gave us presents which we couldn’t include in this display. Thanks to all. Continue reading “Mementoes”

Our exciting purchases arrived in time for the rubydo on 11th August, but before that, we had a trip to the Edinburgh Festival to see the 3 Chinese Tenors,  made some new gardening contacts and celebrated Emily and Richard’s first wedding anniversary by lighting the unity candles. The day was doubly celebratory when a scan confirmed that they are expecting their first baby.

Continue reading “Rubydo”