Happy Hols.

The holidays are going well, with lot's of variety. Late nights, long lies, home cooking, skiing, hanging out with friends and cousins, and tomorrow we will take the West Highland Line to Glasgow and then on to Dunblane to catch up with some more cousins. We could take the car, which would be a 2 hour journey, but I thought the train would be more of an adventure, even though it will take us about 5.5hrs. 4hrs to Glasgow and then possibly an hour to catch train and travel to destination. This should still be easier than taking the train to Liverpool with Meg when she was 4 and making her debut on the Liverpudlian Soap "Brookside". It took 4 trains and 9hrs, there was still smoking carriages in those days and all our toilet trips involved making our way through them. I finally got some peace and quiet to read my book while Meg hid under the table and drew on her face with my eye-liner. A small price to pay. I am expecting intelligent conversation, and much exclamations over the amazing landscape this time.

Finn has progressed to 'making' tomato soup for his dinner when he has to fend for himself, since the disaster with the noodles when he followed all the instructions except the one about putting the water in.

Crowds rush to Nevis Range for the last days skiing.

Spook and Uncle D went for what was surely the last day's skiing/snowboarding. Finn went up too and joined some friends, never to be seen again until back at the house. Meg couldn't be bothered, but took the gondola up with some dry shoes for me as I ran/walked up, in time to join them for a coffee at the end of the day. When Meg saw the conditions and bumped into a friend, she was sorry not to have made the effort. Nevis Range reported 3500 people up that day (Easter Sunday), but it certainly didn't look like it!!

The rain came through the night and continued for 2 days to wash all this away in a one-er.

A lady on the TV news promised the rain would stop on Wednesday and that the rest of April would be lovely.

I believe her.

Flash back to Marrakesh.

The food budget took a further pounding after I worked out the ratio of olives to red wine. An extra bottle was purchased after my brother (Uncle D) turned up with more olives. We all acknowledged that his wee tub from Marks and Spencers was a bargain compared to the Mediterranean market where they clearly count on our Britishness to not make a fuss. There was no doubt that we had been robbed. The last time I tried to fight back was in Marrakesh. I wanted to buy one rastafarian bunnet with hair attached, for 1 dirham. I gave the stallholder 10 dirham for which he had no change. He asked his nephews to man the stall while he went to get change. He walked into the crowd, holding my tenner high and never came back again. By the time we had waited 15 minutes, the nephews were no longer nephews and claimed they had never seen the man in their lives. I declared that if they didn't know him, they wouldn't mind if I took 10 dirham worth of rastafarian hats. I selected 10 and ran off with them, to the amusement of a large crowd who had gathered to watch the scene.
The equivalent in Fort William would have been to grab his large bowl of olives and head off up the High Street, but I'm older now and it's more embarrasing on ones own back door - they know that.
We had a great night out, drinking red wine, eating olives, sun dried tomatoes and most appropriately - Morrocan Lamb Tagine........delicious.

Does anyone want an olive? I mean really, ANYONE???

The Mediterranean Market came to town today. We are going out for dinner tonight, so when I went through the market whilst at work, I couldn't resist a tub of Queen Olives and sundried tomatoes. Teamed with a glass of red, they taste of The Mediterranean itself. Spook phoned me to say not to buy olives when shopping after work, as he had been to the Mediterranean Market and bought me a tub as he knows I love them so much. He was with Aileen, who is also going out for dinner with us tonight. She has witnessed me munching my way through olives before, so she thought she would buy some just so we didn't run out. My box cost £11.50 as he had piled them in a big tub before I could resist. Spook's were £8 and Aileens were similar - our food budget has got a big dent in it for this week. I was thinking of dipping the olives in chocolate and hiding them in the garden in lieu of easter eggs. After all, the fun is in the hunt, isn't it?

Our Cycle at Nevis Range.

Where'd They Go?

The children and I had a great day out on Monday. We cycled up to Nevis RAnge, had coffee and then did a cross country route through the forest that involved a lot of climbing and some vaguely technical riding. The children are much stronger than before we went to NZ and we cycled almost as equals - except that they did the downhills far more competently than me. We thoroughly enjoyed 14 miles, except for the boggy bit where Finn got his front wheel stuck in the mud and the seat of his bike came up and bit him on the bum. There was a bit of death throes in the bog but he recovered eventually. I was so glad we had gone that day as a storm moved in that night and blew for 2 days. The snow came back, the wind chill was nasty and roads and rail around us closed. This was bad luck for Spook who had 3 days of cycling with a bike journalist and photographer, around some of the No Fuss event routes. He has travelled the length of the country and I have yet to hear how it went, other than that the Distillery visit was the most memorable part of the first day - no relevance to cycling other than that they are sponsors of No Fuss and do a terrific tour with many samples of the golden liquid which gets the feeling back into chilled limbs.

I have worked most of the week and had a caravan to clean after work today to get ready for some fishermen. Over dinner the children decided they would sleep in the hut. I tried to point out that they wouldn't last the night but allowed myself to be persuaded to help light the stove, get electricity out to it and oversee the sweeping out. The dogs (who were dropped off for their easter hols today) were going to stay out there and keep them cosy. I had only just got to the caravan with all the bedding, 5 mins after they completed their nesting, and looked up to see them running back into the house with all the soft furnishings again. When I got back up, I found the dogs looking a little lost and forlorn, and the children tucked up in Megs room with the mod cons of a DVD player. At least it saves Spook and I being woken up at midnight.......

After 4 laps of the croft, I came in and did an extra lap round the kitchen to Tiuana Taxi on the radio. Then I enjoyed an uninterrupted afternoon drawing - bliss.