December at last in Scottish Meanderings

I seem to be constantly chasing my tail these days and never getting out of the bit - I'm determined to keep the 'one entry a month' goal going though so here's December's jollies.

It seems weird to be talking about Christmas in January - it always seems to be such a stressfest for ages before the event then a few days later it's all 'Christmas? Oh yeah that thing that happened last week!' and it's all forgotten about!

I started the month off with a meal with the Italian class - or as many of them as could manage that day. I've missed a few get togethers they've had so it's nice to be able to join them in events like that now.


We went on lots of freezing walks with Alfie and played Pooh Sticks whenever we came to any bridges.


We went to the flicks with the kids to see Matilda the Musical - it was pretty good - took me a few minutes to realise Miss Trunchbull was Emma Thompson - she looked very like her mother I thought which is a total insult to the beautiful Phyllida Law but it was something about the facial bone structure I think.



Here's Lilah doing her best Matilda impression - I can totally see her in the rôle actually!


Ruari got a new haircut which lasted for all of about five minutes.


He was a King in the Nativity Play this year and I was able to get out to see it. I was soooo disappointed not to take any photos or a video though - there was a member of the nursery staff taking one so of course I thought I could just watch a copy of that and get stills from it. She was sitting next to Nikki and after it was over and she'd moved away, Nikki told me she was so frustrated because she realised the girl wasn't panning the screen round - she just kept it in the centre of the stage and the kids at both sides were completely missed (she could see it out of the corner of her eye). Ruari was at the left-hand side at the front so he's not in the video! How stupid is that?? So I've just got this pic of him afterwards before he went back to nursery.


I so felt for him though - he was all gung ho with the actions and singing for the first half then I don't know if he'd had enough or found it all too much but he started to shut down in the second half and just stood there, eyes down, occasionally glancing at Nikki and he just looked so totally pissed off with the whole thing - but also so uncomfortable. My heart was breaking for him! He was fine afterwards though.

And we went to a light show in Brechin - about an hour's drive away - on Christmas Eve - and it was just magical! Nikki had decided to do something that night to keep the kids going till bedtime but was regretting it because she was shattered by the time the 24th rolled around. It was also outside and the lovely Scottish rain came on just as we got there so we thought the whole thing would be a bit of a disaster but it was really lovely even through all the rain.

It was a big garden centre and the whole of the outside was decorated with all sorts of lights and light related stuff - it must have taken them absolute ages to do it all - but it was very well organised I must say. I'm not sure photos can do it any justice.

All set to begin!


All the trees were lit up in different colours like this round the whole place.


And there were lights in the trees which had the effect of a starry night - not sure how they did that.

And there were even lights in the ground with words from Christmas songs. Not sure how they did that either.



Cute little touches as you walked round.


A real fire breathing dragon! (sort of)

A snow machine (because obviously the real life rain wasn't enough!).


Lily Angel!


Warming up with roasted marshmallows - yum!


There was a laser light show as we came in but it was over a stretch of water quite far away and we couldn't get nearer - a couple of swans made a timely appearance though!


They had kept the outdoor play area open and lit up so even when we'd been round it all the kids had go-karts they could go on, sleighs on a track they could go down and there was an inside play area with a tractor track for little ones, a play house and table tennis. It was well worth the money I would say. We had so much fun despite the rain and finished the night off with chips from the café :)


Christmas Day was lovely - I went out to Nikki's and we took Alfie to the dog park for an hour before we had our meal then opened all the presents from each other. Lily got a virtual reality headset as part of her booty so I had a shot of it and made myself very dizzy going on a VR rollercoaster! (And looking very stupid with it).


Once everyone was in bed though, Nikki and I had a proper shot and I got more used to it.

Nikki had told me you could see inside Anne Frank's house and I couldn't imagine what that would be like so gave it a go - I was gobsmacked! You could go through the bookcase and feel like you were in each room and could pick things up and walk right beside her bed and everything - it was absolutely amazing! To the extent by the end my eyes were filled with tears. It's a fervent wish both Nikki and I have to visit the house so if I can be moved with just a VR headset, goodness what it would be like to actually be there in real life!

There's a short trailer of the VR here which gives a flavour of it - the whole thing was around half an hour. (You don't have to download anything).

https://www.annefrank.org/en/about-us/what-we-do/publications/anne-frank-house-virtual-reality/


And I have a fence!!

The disaster it was at the start of the year.




Then this happened.


Lots more to do but Phase 1 complete. At least I don't have to lie awake worrying every time there's a storm outside now.

When I looked out the window after it was finished I realised it wasn't just a fence - it was something of a milestone because it represented the first big thing done to the house/garden in around 10 years. And that gave me hope that the other ten thousand things which needed done yesterday might all come to fruition one day.

I could have had the new summerhouse up at Christmas as well if I'd been more organised (well no I need to change that language - it's not being disorganised, it's just not having good enough health to get on and do what needs to be done). I'd mistakenly thought the landscaper would be building the summerhouse as well but apparently they don't do that so I got in touch with the company who were providing the summerhouse and this is their quiet period so they said they could come out and do it that week if that was convenient!

I had to explain (in more polite terms) that actually no it wasn't because there was a huge shed full of shit to be cleared first and of course that just increased the stress and pressure of getting that done. However I'm proud to say the process has at least been started this week so hopefully by the time I come to do January's entry there will be some progress to report.


Still having very variable days - no sleep at all on Monday night then diarrhoea and a very irritable bladder all day the next day - many days are like that making it hard to do anything. I was supposed to do another drop this week but I think I'll have to hold a bit longer to see if this settles down.