On Christmas Eve, we continued our tradition of watching a Christmas movie before the kids went to bed. We got them bathed and into their new pyjamas and settled down to watch the flick – The Nightmare Before Christmas. The kids were then in bed by about 9.

We were awoken on Christmas morning with the phone ringing. It was 8.15 and my mum was calling to wish everyone Merry Christmas. Amazingly, the kids hadn’t heard the phone and slept on!!! Once we gave them a shout and reminded them of the day, they were downstairs like a shot to see if he’d been.

Santa was good to the kids this year…

Heather got (amongst other things) Guitar Heroes for the Wii, a watch, Cluedo, make-up, dolls bed, chemistry set, sweeties, money, clothes, etc etc etc.

Hamish got (amongst other things) Mario Kart for the Wii, Lego Batman for the PS2, remote control tarantula (which he’s terrified of), Battleships, Dandy Annual, Ben 10 toys, Lego, Playmobil, Remote control car, Hot wheels, etc, etc, etc.

Alan and I had a quieter time as far as gifts go (this was agreed beforehand). Alan got a maintenance stand for his bike and I got a fast track ski lesson.

After the presents, we had our usual festive breakfast of Coco Pops then chilled out until dinner. We had a stress free Christmas dinner, just the 4 of us, which was really nice. In all, a quiet but enjoyable Christmas Day.

…this is where the quiet part ends!!!

Happy New Year everyone!

Firstly, apologies for not updating the blog sooner, I was away over the whole festive period so am just catching up with everything now. This post is more about the photos than the text. They’re just random bits from before Christmas. The actual Christmas and New Year posts will follow.

Washing of Teddy

I washed ‘Teddy’ just before Christmas as he was getting grubby. Hamish was happy enough for me to do this as long as he sat in front of the machine until it was finished!!!

Albyn School Nativity Play

Hamish played a snowman in the school nativity play (and there’s me thinking Bethlehem is hot in December!!!)

Work Bowling Night Out

If you look at the cocktails on the table, you’ll see why I didn’t drink much during the weeks that followed!!!

I could have written this post about my birthday on Sunday and how I got lovely presents and had a nice day and how it was all about me…but I won’t. A brief conversation with my parents on Sunday brought back the horrors of the Lockerbie disaster so I thought I would dedicate this post to all those who lost their lives.

I remember it vividly. It was the 21st December 1988, I was celebrating my 16th birthday by attending a school Christmas dance in the evening. My parents were enjoying a late vacation in Tenerife returning on Christmas Eve. I only found out about the distaster after the dance when I was picked up by a school friend’s dad. I was sleeping at his house that night and I remember us all sitting glued to the TV for what seemed like hours.

Pan Am flight 103 bound for New York had been blown out of the sky over the small town of Lockerbie. All 259 passengers and 11 people on the ground were killed. The flight departed Heathrow 25 minutes behind schedule – had it been on time, it would have blown up over the sea making the investigation more difficult. Lockerbie was only an hour away from Glasgow, where I lived. I guess that’s why it’s still so fresh in my mind.

My parents returned home on Christmas Eve as planned. Christmas was quiet as I recall. My dad was a constable in Strathclyde Police at the time of the disaster. Lockerbie was in the Dumfries and Galloway region of Scotland but given the scale of the disaster, additional police officers from other divisions were called in to assist in the massive clearup operation that followed. My dad was called away several times in the following weeks.

He never really spoke of what he saw. I was only 16 at the time and don’t really remember it all but one thing I do remember was the night my dad came home after his first visit to Lockerbie. He didn’t utter a word, he had a whisky then straight to the bath.

At this time of year, please just take a minute to remember all those who died and their long suffering families and also those who, like my dad, witnessed horrific scenes during those sad weeks that followed.

As it’s Christmas, I thought I’d do a wee Christmas poll. As this is a free blog, I can’t do a proper poll as such, so just leave your choice as a comment, look it’s just for fun ‘kay!

From the choices below, which is your favourite Christmas movie?

The Nightmare Before Christmas

The Muppet Christmas Carol

National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation

The Polar Express

Home Alone

It’s a Wonderful Life

PATIENCE

Because that’s what I’ll need in truck loads waiting for the Take That gig next June. YES I GOT TICKETS!!!!! So the next question…what are the bets Robbie Williams will be on stage with them?

It’s important to fill you in on the background to this story first…

Heather has always had trouble with her ears, she’s had surgery to correct fluid build-up and had gromits inserted for much of the time. This in turn has held her back from swimming as she wasn’t allowed to get water in her ears. She’s always enjoyed swimming she just wasn’t very good at it.

When we returned to the UK last summer, Heather had swimming as part of her PE curriculum. Her ears have suitably recovered now but she was quite far behind with swimming. In the December of last year she had her first ever swimming gala. As expected, she did poorly. She was very upset that night (tears as I recall) which is unlike her. My heart really did go out to her that night.

Anyway, fast forward 8 months to August of this year. During our holiday to Menorca we enrolled Heather [and Hamish] into 1-to-1 swimming lessons every day for 2 weeks. They loved it, who wouldn’t? Outside pool, soaring temperatures, kids…

So when she started this years block of swimming with school, she was a different person. Her teacher even commented on her progress. We then enrolled her into the local council run swimming club once a week just to keep her improving.

On Monday this week she had her annual swimming gala again. I must admit I was dreading it based on last year’s performance, but I was pleasantly surprised. She won all her races bar 1 where she came second and her clan (house) won the whole event.

Chuffed? I would say so

PS. There were no spectators allowed hence no actual photos!

Now I’ve mentioned in previous posts that my kids are possibly not the greatest athletes to walk the earth, however this week I have been proved wrong (well kind of…)

On Wednesday, my Boy had his first karate grading and passed. He’s now a fully fledged red belt.

Then on Thursday, Heather competed in her first ever inter-school netball tournament. She was so chuffed to even be picked for the team let alone compete in a tournament. Unlike her old mother who played Goal Defence or Goal Keeper, she was pride of place in the team playing Centre. They played St Margarets and Robert Gordon’s and happily kicked their butts…that’s my girl.

She has her swimming gala on Monday, let’s just hope she manages to do well in that too (or at least better than her feeble attempt last year before she could swim).

“Go Heather…Go Hamish…Go Heather…Go Hamish”

I should really call them drapes rather than curtains because I think they look more luxurious than mere curtains! Ok so I’m more than a little chuffed with my first pair of curtains. I bought some fabric – last 15 metres so got it for a bargain. As the fabric is so heavy it took about a week of evenings to put them together, they’re double width, fully lined with a 285cm drop!

I bought a book on curtain making and followed the instructions to a T. I even allowed extra fabric for the repeat pattern of the fabric so that the widths would line up!!!

So 3 heavy weight machine needles, 2 rolls of upholstery thread and 5 metres of header tape later and the curtains are up.

Total cost = £127
Cost to have them custom made = £500 min!!!

UPDATE – I should have mentioned before that the tie-backs are not the final ones! I borrowed them from another room late last night to see how it looked.

What do you think? (I’m taking orders )

We’ve had pretty crap weather this week here in the ‘deen. Snow started on Monday night and it’s been cold and icy ever since. This is no surprise since we live so far north and we get it every year. However it STILL amazes me that we’re never ready for it – we don’t do winter tyres and the roads are never treated quickly enough.

Anyway, I digress. On Tuesday morning Alan was approaching the car park at work and lost control of the car on the ice skidding sideways and crashing into the kerb. Fortunately there was no-one else involved and he’s fine. So he managed to manouevre the car into the car park and called the insurance company.

They took the car away yesterday for an assessment of the damage. On the surface it looks ok, no bumps or anything just the wheels look a bit misaligned. Nothing too serious.

WRONG…

The garage have informed us that the front steering column is damaged, the drive train is broken, the suspension is damaged and the alloy wheels need replaced. They reckon we might get it back by Christmas but no guarantees as they need to take the engine out to repair the damage!!!

The cost of the damage is easily into the thousands and to think we were complaining about the £250 excess we have to pay. As the title says…Thank the Lord for insurance!

For those of you who don’t know, last week was Thanksgiving. I had managed to ‘wangle’ a business trip to Stavanger on Thursday so I decided to make a weekend of it and fly up to JEDA’s in Bergen for Thanksgiving (she’s American you know!).

I arrived late on Thursday, managing to slip through customs unnoticed with a suitcase full of contraband! They took one look at my black, red and white polka dot suitcase and thought…shoes. Works every time. So once JEDA had picked me up from the airport in her shiny new car, we headed to hers to crack open the box of wine (meant for Saturday!).

On Friday we met Michelle for a spot of shopping and coffee. I was supposed to be helping JEDA prepare things for Saturday’s dinner party but the box of wine had other ideas. Although her apple and pecan pies tasted really good even though we made them drunk!

Saturday was spent cooking: turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, stuffing (made with bread and apples), green beans and the weird but yummy mashed sweet potatoes with a marshmallow topping. There were 10 of us for dinner. More wine then onto the baileys and finishing off with the Morgans Spiced rum (a delicacy in Norway).

Given the lack of sleep and excess alcohol consumed, Sunday was a quiet day. Torbjorn spent much of it asleep on the floor!

On Monday we met Michelle again for a final coffee before I left. I did a bit more shopping (snow boots etc) then heading back to JEDA’s to pack. My flight left at 6pm and arrived in Aberdeen at 6pm! Always freaks me out that!

Anyway here are some photos I took. I’ll post these on Facebook along with some choice videos! I just can’t do it from work.

Thanks for a most excellent time JEDA.

Miss Amanda

Yo is my bitches!

Michelle and JEDA

More tea vicar?