BBQ'd Spook.

It was a sociable week. Emmy came round for dinner, having cooked it first. I managed to peel some tatties. We had a lovely evening ourselves as all other members of the family disappeared in different directions, but the children came back in time to have a lovely chat with 'Aunty Emmy', who regaled Finn with tales of deer stalking. Meg the Vegetarian, forgave her as she loves her anyway.

I went to a Switching party on Friday night. I am pictured with our very funny and lovely hostess, and I am wearing someone else's husbands knickers, as he thought they would be good for a switch. It is a potentially embarrasing kind of party as you may find the items of clothing you took along to swap, are left hanging on the rail. I was very brave about the lady who tried on an item of clothing I had taken along, having worn it on many occasions, when she declared to everyone that she wouldn't be seen dead in it. For that reason, with a terrific mix of respect and restraint, all things considered, I have cut her out of the attached photo which did show her trying it on in the back ground. We had an entertaining evening.

Uncle D came up on Saturday night, so that he could get a days skiing in ahead of his holiday in two weeks time. He is standing in the photo with Spook sitting down, and Ben Nevis in the back ground. Also standing with me. The weather was yuchy cold in the morning for everyone in my party except me, as I had 3 pairs of long johns on - for which I had been ridiculed, in the warmth of our kitchen this morning. I have not forgotten the pain of the cold on that chair lift. But the day got better and better and the skiing was as good as it gets. Especially when skiing, and not trying to snowboard.

Spook had a week of surprises, not least, the barbeque skewer which flew through the air at him, in the bathroom, as he grabbed a towel from the rail. In slow motion, it will have looked like a samurai sword - or at least, that's what you would think it looked like for all the fuss he made. He could not understand why it was hiding in a towel in the bathroom, and he simply had not been prepared for it. I had been using it in lieu of a comb, to separate my hair when dying it, in order to get that genuine sun kissed look.

The other surprise is that, despite a huge amount of time spent on our vehicle, a lot of it by his father while we were away, and lot's more by himself and his father + bits and pieces bought for it, it still doesn't work. Most people would have bought a new one by now, but not a Munro......

Boarding Babe.

Spook headed off to 'work' and I took the opportunity to cheat a little. I figured one afternoon on the slopes was not going to be enough to turn me into a babe, so I resorted to artificial means. I got out the tin foil and the hair dye and with only two hands instead of the required 8, I managed to get my head dotted with scrunched up foil, bits of hair within smeared in amonia and a few other things smeared beside. I had just sat down to enjoy a long chat (well, 35 minutes or my hair would fall out in chunks) with my dearest pal, when Spook turned up. He smelt me before he saw me. If he had lit a match I would probably have gone up in a fireball. I had to get off the phone and into the shower before it was too late.......(to save my marriage?)

I saved the hair, but the finished result was yellow bits of hair, none of it anywhere near the roots, and funny lines accross my head where the tinfoil had been. Spook said it had a bit of a Monk-like effect.

So I covered it in a hat and took Meg's snowboard up the hill to get the tan. I had a few shots on the beginners run to get my boarding legs, but decided she had the board set with the wrong foot forward for my style. That was presumably why I was not gliding in an impressive manner. I went to look for some help but only managed to get a tool to change it myself. Of course, I have never paid any attention to what Spook does when he adjusts it and by the time I had finished, I had neither foot going forward. This caused my old body confusion when I got up to the top of the chair and I had no idea which way to attempt my turns. I did get a lovely view and there was no-one to bump into on my way down.

As for the tan, I had two matching pink spots on iether cheek, but I think that was temper.

Scotland The Brave.

SPook spent the weekend with my brother, somewhere between Ayr and Peebles. My sister-in-law took him out to buy him some new clothes which do actually fit him. I am posting this picture from Josh's blog, from a day out they had together up in Nelson. It reminds me of how good he looks when his clothes fit.

Ski Monday?

Finally, I made it up the distillary zigzags for a run. The dogs came with me but kept by my side so much I was nearly tripping over them. They were great companions and distracted me from the unaccustomed pain of keeping going up a hill without stopping. At the point at which I took their photo, I also took the photo of the ski slope (zoomed in a bit). Finn was up here at this time, but he wouldn't have had to wait in many queues from the look of it. Both children had a day each, one on Saturday and one on Sunday. Happy kids. I turned round and took a picture of home from the same point. Also zoomed in. I'll leave you to guess which house. The last photo is from Granny and Papa's house. They look at the other side of the mountain that we look at from our house. It felt like we lived in Italy. The ski holidays we have had there have the same wonderful dry and warm weather with all that snow and cold nights. Can't believe it has gone on for so long. I had thought I might go for another run with the dogs on my day off tomorrow when the children reminded me that I have still only paid off £10 of my £120 ski pass. So I am being advised to go boarding tomorrow. That would take another £26 off it. I wonder if I could get a tan and sun streaked hair in one sitting? But I must be mindful of the time I tried to get a tan on the ski slopes and got a big red balloon of a face which scared the hell out of everybody who saw me. It was especially frightening when the blisters burst and crusted over.

Skye No More.

Skye was mostly about getting together again. No phone, xbox (because it wouldn't work - oops), or friends. Poor kids had to rely on each other and their parents for entertainment. The view far accross the water was iether Harris or Lewis, we couldn't quite work out, but we could see the Harris Ferry crossing regularly. The wind turbines were majestic in their own way, as was the Quiraing. The coral beaches were just accross the inlet that we were staying on, near Dunvegan, and we could see the Cuillins if we lent out the window and strained.

Our welcome on arrival at Dunvegan came from a tiny wee place called Jan's Cakes. She was from Bedfordshire but of African or Carribean origin - far too cheery to be a Skianach! She made her own bread, chocolates and cakes and did coffee and toasties. She was a very charming start. We could have topped off the cosmopolitan experience with Bollywood dance classes in the Dunvegan Hall on Saturday, but the children just didn't fancy it. We kept to ourselves, explored a little each day, ate, drank and watched a movie each night. We started with Forrest Gump which Meg loves and Finn hadn't seen. That got top marks. Schindlers List got bottom marks for being in black and white (just as well, I think), and was long and harrowing - no surprises there. Finn had covered 'harrowing' quite well in year 7 in NZ, so we thought they might handle this. Spook and I probably suffered most.

So we opted for the The Worlds Fastest Indian the next night. Apart from it being charmingly Kiwi and about a man from Invercargill which Spook thought was a great wee town, unlike every report he'd ever had of the place - it was about a man called Burt Munro. The children took ownership of him, and the boy in the movie reminded them of a boy that featured large in our life in Wanaka.

We finished off with Witness. After Schindlers List, they were a bit wary of our choice, but there was enough drama, suspense, cute kid and interesting culture, to keep them going.

We ran out of movies, wine, and figured we would be as well to get home a day early and get on top of things needing done. The children had left us within the hour, as they picked up their busy lives again. The snow fell and Spook spent quite a lot of time in the sleet trying to bleed brakes that wouldn't bleed - nothing new there. Spook's mum has spent all of her adult like pressing pedals while his dad bleeds brakes, and I see no reason why I should be any different.

On the last day of our holidays, Finn has gone snowboarding on beautiful fresh snow, Meg has gone to the Fired Art Cafe with a friend, Spook is under the car with his dad, and his Mum and I are avoiding them.

Finn Lom and The Battle to stay out of school as long as possible.

It was a fantastically lovely day today. Warm and sunny, tempting even me to don hill running shoes. I came home at mid day from a sleep over at work, determined to get up the zig zag track behind the distillery that leads up towards the CIC hut on The Ben. I knew Finn was home for his 2nd day in a row with a nasty, racking cough. I asked him if he minded and he kindly said it was ok. But he also said it would be nice to have someone around!!!! So the hill running shoes were on, but they only walked up a couple of zig zags (there are about 8). I decided that if he wanted someone around he could come with me. So this is him sitting on Ian Lom's stone, the Lochaber Bard who sat here and wrote whilst watching the battle of Inverlochy in 1645. I'm not quite sure what he is thinking about, but his High School sits on the edge of the battle site (pictured) and he should have been in it at this time. I suspect he is wondering if he can push it for another day.

Spook has gone back up to the CIC hut with John. Amanda and Kieth were not in the competition for the 40minute time scale as they ran from their house, carried milk, orange juice, and most of the other items on the extensive shopping list, including 2 old style ice axes for filming purposes. Spook and John chose to take another lift to the top of the climbers road. That takes off at least half of the distance. When we arrived up there we doused the lights on the car and the stars were really bright. We could see a very bright, yellow star which was different from the white ones. No sooner spotted than he whipped out the fancy phone which was able to pick up our position and identify the stars we could see. The yellow star was Mars! John whipped out his fancy phone and had the same system. I left them to run up to the hut and hoped that they wouldn't spend too much time star gazing as it was pretty cold. They had a cup of tea in the hut. They are not actually providing food for all these people - just 5 of them. The others are French climbers who are obviously part of the exclusive club that gets access to this hut. It is clearly not your regular mountain bothy which sits nestled very discreetly at the foot of the Ben's north face.

I have finished work for the week now and have a day to plan for Skye. We are all looking forward to it.

Running out of excuses.

The big black dogs went home today and the cats returned to roost. The partridge lives over at Mels in the East, as it took a fancy to her hens and moved in with them.

I don't really know where the days of the week went. Work mostly, and certainly no running OR painting. Also no housework, which has put Meg into a frenzy of cleaning as I write this. She has cleaned upstairs and downstairs bathrooms, the kitchen, the kitchen cupboards, fridge and has now moved onto the washing pile and the living room. It didn't help that the crate also came home to roost after several weeks stuck in port. Now there is the contents of our house in Wanaka added to overflowing contents of home here. There was great excitement when Spook brought it up from Glasgow and they reclaimed snowboard gear, bikes and loads of books and nick nacks. The house was also full of boys for the weekend, who had spent a lot of time burning rubbish outside and had been dragged around the croft on a sledge on the back of the tractor which Spook managed to get working. The horse poo made extra slidy patchs and the stench in the house was quite strong at times. I have worked all weekend, which turns out to be a good thing.

Spook ran up to the CIC hut on Ben Nevis after dark tonight. There is a documentary being made for the Fort William Mountain Film Festival and they require the memory stick to be brought down each night. They were also hungry and needed some food brought up. Spook ran up with John and set a target of 40mins to run in (from the top of the climbers road), so with absolutely no need for any kind of competition, they will be watching closely to see how Amanda and Kieth get on tomorrow night. The climbers sent down a shopping list, so that might slow them down. Spook and John will be back on the Wednesday night shift. I think the filming goes on for about 6 days.

The most artistic attempt I made this week was to buy 3 sketch books. The most athletic thing was to park 3 mins away from work instead of right outside the door. We have building work going on and there is very little parking space. The most organised thing was to remember to leave home 3 minutes earlier. I overdid that on Saturday by mis-reading my rota and arriving 2.5hrs early - 8am instead of 10.30am, so that was a big loss in the long lie stakes.

There are 4 more days of work and one day off before we go to Skye this week, and lot's of opportunities for avoiding things.