Trip to Dundee in Scottish Meanderings

OMG doesn't it just drive you crazy when an update or a website completely changes the way they do things? Imgur have changed their settings and it's driving me nuts just trying to upload a photo nowadays and put it into one of my albums - I now have to do a long, convoluted and unnecessary process just to add one flipping pic to the album I want and to get a link to put it on here! Is anyone else finding it a frustrating process?

Anyway ...... clearly the once a month entries are not happening this year. But that's ok - I'll just do what I can. The lady who was dealing with the Zoom licence and e-mailing list for the Tuesday support group was moving house and finding it all a bit much so asked if I would take it over. It's been quite a bit of extra work but I'm coping ok so far and folk are so appreciative of having somewhere to come and say how they really are that it makes it so worthwhile. Our main problem is allowing people to offload but not take over in the 2 hours we have - some need more support than others and there are one or two recently who are in dire straits and need a lot of help so it's a difficult balancing act making sure everyone is heard.


We're really not having a good summer in Scotland - there have been lots of rain and grey, cloudy days so that any time the sun shines you feel like you should be outside no matter what in case it disappears again! I hope it brightens up soon.

However I was greatly cheered by the fact I was able to get out at the weekend and get the whole garden weeded and grass cut. Had to leave the edges till yesterday but that's ok. I only have a small front patch to deal with now that the back is all paved.


There's a path and another border to the side of this as well but it was becoming too much last summer and I honestly thought my gardening days were over. I did get someone in to do the first weeding and grass cutting after the winter this year as that's always a worse one but I was very reluctant to get regular help. Previously I would often only get part of the weeding done and have to give up. Or I would get the grass cut but not the edges or the weeding done so that the job was never finished properly - and then of course I would have to wait for another dry day and hope it coincided with having enough energy to be able to get the rest of it done and in Scotland that's no mean feat!😁

So I decided to give it a go as it was sunny and warm on Saturday so was stoked to get most of it done - also pruned two bushes that day as well, one of which (the Berberis) is really difficult to do as the top branches are hard to get to. I usually wait until my neighbour on the other side is out and go up her path to do it as the houses are on a gradient so hers is higher up than mine! I still have to stand on our shared wall though so it's a dodgy business.

That gave me hope that things might be going in the right direction though. On this withdrawal journey nothing is linear - it's very often 2 steps forward, 400 back and I'm not exaggerating that at all - it really does feel like that a lot of the time - so anything that shows there's progress, no matter how tiny, feels like a win.


I had another experience of that this month as well. We had our annual family get together the weekend before last. After COVID was past we all decided to get together once a year on or as near to what would have been Mam's birthday on the 15th May - this year it was the 18th May and we went back to the hotel in Dundee where we were last year as it worked pretty well for our age range. It has plenty of outdoor space for the kids to run around -


- a nice space to sit outside if the weather is good and a swimming pool which is handy when there are so many little ones. I think we were 33 in total this year and that's still not all of us - there were 3 missing from the UK contingent and my nephew, Arran, and his family live in New York so - just a bit far for them to come!!

Last year we had booked a function room to ourselves from 5 p.m. onwards and just had afternoon tea in it. That worked quite well but was pretty expensive with the cost of the food plus the room then the bedrooms on top. So this year we decided to ditch that and just have dinner in their conservatory at 5 p.m. but we were worried we wouldn't have much room to move about in the evening or for the kids to do stuff. However as it turned out, they were a bit short staffed and couldn't cope with putting on meals for residents and us as well so they blocked off the whole conservatory for us which was great! I mean not so great for the other residents right enough who had to make do with the lounge bar for their evening meals instead😬

The white bit on the right hand side is part of the conservatory - it's an L shape so if you can imagine another bit of a similar length at a right angle that was where we were so we had plenty of room - and the evening was warm enough that we could open a door to let the kids run around outside and burn off all their energy.


It also meant we could spread out 'the road' along the floor for the kids to show off their artistic traits and it was just as popular as last year.


And we remembered to get a photo this year! When we thought about it last year some folk who couldn't stay overnight had already gone home so I was determined we were getting one in time this year.


We all gathered round and behind Ian (my oldest brother at the front) as he had to stay sitting so we were trying not to make him feel self conscious. Poor soul I really felt for him. He's completely dependent on Margaret now for mobility so as they had come down the night before, it was a lot for him and it was a long time to be sitting in one place on the Saturday when he's not really able to join in conversations. He must get so frustrated.

And we got to meet the newest addition to the clan - baby Cairn.


This is my brother Mike's third grandchild and first child for his Mum and Dad, Malcolm and Kate. Malcolm was living in Sri Lanka and Kate comes from Ukraine - she wasn't living there but her family was caught up in the conflict so Malcolm flew her parents over to Sri Lanka and found somewhere for them to stay there - her grandmother refused to come but relatives there were able to look after her. They came through it unharmed and are all reunited back home now thankfully. Malcolm and Kate got engaged last year then Kate found out she was pregnant so they got married on the 6th March this year, baby Cairn was born on the 23rd April and here they were bringing him up all the way from Manchester (Kate was working and living there so Malcolm sold up his business in Sri Lanka and moved to be with her) to see us on the 18th May not even a month old! Quite a year for them!

He has a very cool birth date and time - born on 23.24 p.m. on the 23.4.24! Here he is saying hi with his Mum and Dad and my cousin Jane.


They even took him in the pool for his first swim!

Of course you can guess who was in her element!! She was in this position for half the afternoon!


Malcolm has taken to fatherhood like a duck to water - I was really surprised - he's come to it late in life at 43 and I wasn't sure how he'd cope but he's been totally hands on and says he's finding the newborn stage a lot of fun. But - you know - priorities!


I couldn't get over how alert Cairn was though - when anyone held him you would swear he was totally taking them all in - Nikki said it was like he was looking right into your soul and honestly that's just what it felt like! He was so good the whole time we were there - my room was opposite Malcolm and Kate's and when Nikki was in it, she was able to hear him cry through the 2 closed doors and a corridor so I was a bit worried about getting any sleep but I didn't hear him at all - I think her ovaries were doing the reception bit :)

Apparently he was saving it all up for when we all left though - Malcolm posted in our chat that they weren't able to leave the hotel for another 3 hours after we had all gone because he had a major tantrum and it took them that long to calm him down so maybe meeting all of us was too much. We are a lot to deal with all at once when you've just entered the world😁

I finally managed to get a cuddle the next day when Nikki had let him go😊


On the Sunday Nikki and the kids and I plus my niece Catriona and her two boys went to the Discovery ship berthed in Dundee harbour and that was amazing.


It just blew my mind that we were walking on the same deck Captain Scott and Ernest Shackleton walked on when they went to Antartica all those years ago - I mean yes a very much refurbished deck but still. I was also amazed how much of the ship we got to see - they've done a fantastic job restoring everything as much as possible.

Captain Scott's room.


The Wardroom where they all ate and around which all the main berths are.


You can actually have a private dining experience for up to 14 people in here apparently - it would set you back £95 each but you get a piper to pipe you onto the ship, a guided tour and 3 courses of some very elaborate dishes for your buck. Would have to be a very special occasion for that money though!

Here are all the kids playing outside afterwards.


We were so lucky with the weather - it was lovely and sunny most of the Saturday afternoon so we were able to sit outside until the meal at 5 p.m. then Sunday was dry as well and warmer than predicted. Maybe Mum had a hand in that :)

What was also nice for me was that I could see the progress I'd made in the 3 years we've been doing this. I remember the first year we did it, I was ill for about half the time there. I had driven myself down - took a wrong turn on the way down on a road I had driven many times before - had to leave the party for a couple of hours and sit in Nikki's room in the afternoon and wasn't able to go in the pool at all. I hadn't booked into the same hotel as the rest of them but had got bed and breakfast at a place about 10 miles away and I remember thinking how am I going to drive that 10 miles feeling like this? I was so dizzy and nauseous. I managed it in the end but it took much longer than it should have. I hardly slept at all that night and felt very sick next day but was a little better later on and actually had a nice drive back home.

Last year was a bit better although it was hard to be 'on' for the length of time we were together and I didn't have the capacity to have any proper conversations with people which was frustrating. I was able to let go of the control of having my own car though and go down with Nikki & the kids. I didn't sleep much at all overnight but was able to go in the pool with the kids next morning - however that absolutely exhausted me for the rest of the day - we went round the Victoria and Albert museum in the afternoon and I could hardly put one foot in front of the other.

This year I felt a lot more 'present' - I was able to have a few decent conversations with family I hadn't caught up with for a while and play games late in the evening, still have energy for a bath when I went to my room at 11.30 and got about 5 hours' sleep overnight. I didn't go in the pool next day as I remembered the exhaustion from last year and I knew we were sight seeing later that day so that worked in much better. Still exhausted when I got home at 8 and this week hasn't been much fun but I was expecting that.

So it was encouraging to see the difference in the 3 years and see that healing is happening albeit extremely slowly!

Nikki and the kids are all fine - Nikki and Ruari had birthdays in March - 36 and 5 respectively and Lilah was 9 in April. All growing up too fast. Ruari starts school after the summer and Lily goes up to secondary school in a different village so big steps for each of them. The good thing is my niece, Catriona, works as a teacher in the school Lily will be going to so there will be a familiar face there if she needs it.

Ok I've rambled on enough I think. Need to go get some lunch then go to Specsavers for yet another visit as I try to sort out my first prescription glasses. This will be my fifth visit I think - varifocals didn't seem to work for close up sight so we're trying bifocals this time - cross your fingers this is better because I'm sick of trying to sort this out and don't think I could face going back again. I don't know - we seem to have so much more choice of everything these days but it just seems to complicate life a lot of the time!