Scotland – Day One

Scotland – Day One

Pensby to Bankfoot near Dunkeld, Perthshire

The car was packed and the two of us ready to go around midday.  You can tell why home is called The Willows.

 We decided to take Washington with us – it seemed a shame to leave him on the Wirral for the ten days…

But he wasn’t allowed to sit up here except on special occasions.

The sun shone as Partner-who-loves-tea drove us North on the M6.

 

We entered Scotland.

And Scottish weather hit us…

But then the sun came out again as we went North through the Borders and past Glasgow into Perthshire.

 

And we arrived at the Bankfoot Inn in time for a most enjoyable dinner.  

We can strongly recommend the accommodation and the food.   

It just remained to send a text to  family to let them know we had arrived.

 But if you are at the Bankfoot Inn on a Wednesday night there is a special attraction which will feature in the next posting.....

Colin (1964-2014)

Yes, we are back from Scotland, and yes, we did have a splendid time.  I shall blog all about it over the next few weeks once I have my photos sorted.

But two days after we arrived home Jo was called into hospital where her youngest brother, Colin, was critically ill as a result of a brain haemorrhage induced by a fall.   

Sadly there was nothing the doctors could do and Colin died on Tuesday morning.  The only consolation, if there can be one, is that he had all his siblings, his sister-in-law and his nieces with him at the end.  Family solidarity counts for a lot at a time like this.

Colin was a lot younger than Jo and she helped look after him as he was growing up so his death is especially meaningful to her.  This photo was taken in happier days when she took him for a donkey ride.

 Condolences go to Colin's siblings Jo, Brian, Sue, and Geoff, his sister-in-law Moe, his nephew Richard and his nieces, Lucy and Emma.

We are off to Scotland

 We are off to Scotland

Hopefully in a couple of hours’ time.  The weather has just broken and in place of blue skies and sun we have rain and more rain.  Ah well – let’s see what it’s like a few hundred miles north…

Not much has made me laugh out loud of late but this did –

Ironically, it was Canadian Chickadee who posted this on her Facebook Page.   She lives in the USA’s North West coast area.  On July 23^rd Seattle received 0.74 inches of rain. The previous record for July 23^rd in Seattle was 0.54 inches in 1949, the year I was born – and that’s a long time ago folks.  “We’ve received more rain today than we normally get in the whole month of July,” said National Weather Service Meteorologist Johnny Burg.  Bearing in mind Seattle’s reputation that must have been quite some downpour.

 Since we are heading for my nephew's wedding there is a double reason to hope for sunshine this weekend.

I may be incommunicado for a couple of weeks but hopefully this time it will be for good reasons and not health so please don’t worry.

A Wedding Kiss

We passed a wedding taking place at the Bluecoat Chambers in Liverpool the other day.

Excuse me – isn’t it the bride and groom who are supposed to kiss?|?

 A new Blog

If you are feeling bored (or even if not) why not check out the new blog of a recently acquired local friend, Tommy.  The first July 25^th page shows you what it can be like around here on a beautiful summer’s evening while the second one from that day will make you hungry, even if you’ve just eaten....   

Have a good couple of weeks 

A Giant Post

Another (expletive deleted to keep this blog child-friendly) week.

As I write this it is Saturday lunchtime and apart from a very brief excursion out into Heswall for a coffee on Thursday morning I have spent most of the week in bed.      I think I overdid it a bit when we went to see the Giants the Friday before last.  Partner-who-loves-tea has womanfully (to my surprise the Microsoft Office Spillchucker didn’t reject that word - blogger did!!) stepped in and kept the show on the road despite an exceptionally busy week at work where she was working her multi-coloured socks off.   I may have mentioned this before but I love her very much and cannot imagine where I and Son-who-watches-films would be without her.  She is a gem in a million.  I'd show you a photo but then she'd chop my head off...  Ah well - if you never take risks what is  life worth?  Here is one of the first photos I ever took of her in March 86 when we began courting. 

I’ve been off Facebook for a week and there are 99 notifications.  That seems a few too many to go through at the moment!!  I had a quick look at my e-mails and one of them was from the Royal Signals asking to see the photo from a few posts back – thanks for the idea Adrian.  We shall see what they come up with.

Until Thursday I had no interest in what dropped through the letterbox (of which the above is only a small sample).  Shows what a sad state I was in!  But since then I’ve been delighted and helped a lot by the postcards and letters and bits and pieces that have come through the mail.  I hope those concerned will forgive slow replies.

You were promised the Giants…

 You were right, Marcheline, not these Giants - 

 These Giants -

 

On Friday 24th July the Giants paid their second trip to Liverpool.  It lasted till Sunday and they were here to tell the story of Liverpool’s involvement in World War I.  The Giants came to Liverpool in 2012 and their popularity was such that they were welcomed back by an estimated 1 million viewers on the streets of the city and along some of its outskirts.

There were plenty of people all around the city centre waiting to see them on Friday morning.

 

We saw Xolo the Dog first.  It is pronounced Chohlow.  I picked a space between two young ladies to get a view because I knew that a dog, even at ten feet tall, would be hidden by the crowds.

Just as Xolo arrived at the gap so did a marshall – damn…

  Oh well, at least the Superlambanana on the Royal Court got a good view.

And so did the police helicopter that took those fantastic photos I blogged about last week.

The Little Girl Giant had only just woken up from her sleep in the Queensway Tunnel.

At around 20 feet tall she is quite splendid.

 

We walked across St John’s Gardens to see the Grandmother as she woke up.  An ideal spot to view from would be the Museum steps but they were roped off for health and safety reasons.  I suppose the Museum was afraid of being sued by someone who couldn’t tell a step from a step.  The world has gone mad, I tell you!

Any way, back to more sensible and fun things.  All ages were there and the excitement built as the music around the front of St George’s Hall changed.

On the radio someone had asked how the Lilliputians who attend to the Giants manage for toilet facilities seeing as they will be out all day. That’s always a popular subject to ask astronauts, Formula One drivers, etc.  The answer in this case was a wooden portaloo for the Little Girl Giants attendants and a posh ‘welfare’ van for those of the Grandmother.

 

I have to show the British bobby with his helmet.  It was 28ºC - you can tell it’s hot when the bobbies are in their shirt sleeves. 

This seagull has a good spot. 
 

The original statue of the Spirit of Liverpool was located on top of the Walker Art Gallery on William Brown Street for more than a century from 1877 but it had to be removed in 1993 as the marble had deteriorated so badly that the sculpture was no longer structurally safe. A replica Spirit of Liverpool was carved from a 41 ton piece of Chinese marble in 1993-1994. The replica was put back in place of the original on the roof of the Walker Art.  

 

This seagull has a good view as well but seems more interested in the crowds below.  He’s obviously wondering what on Earth is going on. 

 The Grandmother Giant spent the night snoozing in her wheelchair and that was the first thing to arrive on the scene. 

And here’s the grandmother.   Strewth, she’s tall. 25 feet tall, actually. 

“Hello little people.”  

She weighs five tons.  But she doesn’t look overweight.  Weight Watchers eat your hearts out.  “SHE'S 85, half Irish, half Breton, smokes a pipe, spits and if you see her lift her skirts run for cover - she’s about to fart.”  Unfortunately there was a slight accident in Liverpool – she farted and her head fell off (well, not quite off but it got dislodged causing a fifteen minute delay to the evening schedule.  “She looks just like me Aunty May,” said a girl from Birkenhead.

Some of the movements are made by the Lilliputians jumping off the lorry on ropes.  Great fun.   One small step for Grandmother, one giant leap for Lilliputiankind.

And here comes the live music lorry with Jean-Luc Courcoult, writer/director of Royal de Luxe, the creators of the giants. 

Since 1979, led by Jean-Luc Courcoult, Royal de Luxe have travelled around the world with their small and large scale shows. They are invited into the heart of the cities, surprising all generations and allowing them to escape from reality for a short time.  From 1993, Royal de Luxe became synonymous with over-the-top, extravagant theatre: the Saga of the Giants began and became a major chapter of the company’s history. Manipulated by Lilliputians, these Giants bring stories to life on city streets over several days. Their audacity and their poetry, mixing time and genres, with different giants moving at the same time at various ends of a city results in thousands and even millions of spectators.  In 2013, Jean-Luc Courcoult was decorated with the title of Knight of the Order of the Arts and Letters of the French Republic by Jean-Marc Ayrault, Prime Minister of France.

If you ever get the chance to see them it is worth the squash of people and the traffic jam home and there aren’t many things I’d say that about.