Burns Night

We went to the church Burns Supper last week for a feast of neeps & tatties and of course haggis. Once again the entertainment was hilarious....not least because Dunbar has not yet heard about women's rights and sexual discrimination. All the jokes in the 'toast to the lassies' came straight from the 1970's comedy shows. I was expecting Bernard Manning to walk in. Anyway the innocence of it adds to the occasion. Warning! Excessive consumption of 'neeps' (turnips) leads to very smelly farts...for several days!

Here is a couple of pictures of the haggis being piped in and carried by Mr Twaddle the minister at the church.

Clan Gathering

The annual family gathering of Taylor's or those connected to them took place in Alston, North Cumbria. Boasting the claim to be the highest market town in the UK this sleeepy backwater became the venue for a weekend of excess food, drink, walks and karaoke. Apart from being high, Alston doesn't reallly have any highs (although Jane and Andy bumped into John Snow from Channel 4 News whilst we were there). We did get to go on a long walk through some really muddy fields. The kids loved it and Andrew was acting out the McDonalds advert....'Dave, Dave' as his wellies got stuck in the mud. Here is a picture of Isabelle, Luke and Andrew mucking about on a wreck we found in a field next to an old Roman road. I never realised the Romans were so advanced.



Saturday was rounded off with the karaoke challenge. I think Sarah won it. I was humiliated. Emma Beddow who can't read and therefore just makes a noise beat me. Some think I let her but I was genuinely trying hard and she still beat me on a Rick Astley song. Jane wasn't much better either and if Trefor had been there he would have beaten her.

Sunday was all a bit sad and traumatic. Sarah & Rob had gone for a drive around the miles of countryside and came upon a car on fire. On closer inspection they discovered a woman on fire too and it later emerged she had attempted to commit suicide. Sarah and Rob had the ordeal of extinguishing her and getting help and as you can imagine has left some fairly unpleasant images in their minds. The woman, aged 53 died the following day with 90% burns. Not wanting to miss a scoop, Woody (Rob's brother in law who is a journalist) put this article in the York Evening Press.



Apart from that the weekend went well and surprisingly the highly explosive combination of the Taylor girls together under one roof for 48 hours or more passed without incident. Here is a happy family photo to prove it!

Harold

I had to pay a visit to the vets again this morning, this time with Harold. He seemed to have had a stroke which left him unable to walk and without control of his functions. Basically he was destined for a life of lying in his own pee and having Trefor biting his ears constantly. In fact he did manage to give Trefor one last bark and nip before I took down to the vets. Once at the vets he did the longest wee ever all over the floor. It even went under the door of the surgery into the waiting room. Like Frank he left one last mark for us to remember him by. So there we go, Frank and Harold who have been with us since we were married...in fact before...are now longer. An end of an era, but Trefor marks the start of new one. I suspect it will be several months before the traces of white dog hairs around the house disapear as they seem to stick to everything. Here are some of the last pictures we took of Harold last week where surprisingly he had a spurt of life and even gave Trefor a chase.

July to September 2006

July was the start of the school holidays. In fact they finished at the end of June and the long holidays were ahead of us. Fortunately there were plenty of things on offer locally to give them to do, like tennis lessons, surfing lessons, football coaching, basketball coaching and hanging around street corners. Despite all that was on offer here, we went on a return visit to Manchester to see the family. This turned out to be a tour of all the places we never bothered with when we actually lived there.

First stop...Old Trafford Football Ground. Andrew thinks he is Rooney so a trip to Old Trafford would help him fulfill his fantasy (one step nearer to our early retirement thanks to his footballing gifting). Surprisingly Isabelle and Stuart really enjoyed it too. I simply told them about the legend of Cantona...the footballer who kung fu kicked a bloke in the crowd, and that was them sat on the video archives for hours looking at footage of him. We also acted out Match of the Day in the tunnel. Here's some pictures of it all, including one of Rooney who was looking out on the pitch whilst we were there!





We also paid a visit to Joddrell Bank where there is a massive telescope and you get to go on a virtual tour of Mars. If you have ever wondered what happened to those geeks who used to present the Open Univeristy, then go to Joddrell Bank. Here they are employed to run the gift shop and do tours. The rest of the week was spent people watching on the streets of Burnage. The ethnic diversity of Manchester is one of the things I miss here. Also the choice of food. Dunbar's Co-op is not exactly well stocked with 'foreign muck' food. It's a choice of Uncle Bens Korma or Uncle Ben's Tikka Massala or pies. Therefore when I went to the giant Tesco's to get a curry I was stuck there for 20 minutes trying to decide which country's curry I was going to choose. In the end I landed on a idea that I think could go a long way. Curry Pizza! Not just curry flavour, but an actual pizza base with a curry on top of it. There has got to be money to be made selling that outside the pubs when they close.

July was the end of the season for Andrew's football team The Dunbar Colts. He had a good season and I think was the top goal scorer. Either way he was given the Players Player of the Year Award which he was really pleased about and got a nice trophy to show for it. The football has been a good way to meet people but they do keep trying to get me to volunteer as a coach or ref. They have obviously mistaken me for someone who knows something about football, can make quick decisions, can take on stroppy parents and coaches and who can actually see what's going on. Here's Andrew and some of the boys.




We get various people coming to visit and in July Woody and Anna came up with Rob & Sarah. We had a BBQ on the beach, dug a big hole and had big fire. We also braved the waters for a swim, but somehow Woody and Rob managed to loose their pants in the sea.


We also went to watch Hearts play Ossasuma at Murrayfield. I think we ended up on the beach every day that week it was so hot.



At the end of July we went on our family holiday to Wensleydale. Because Emma and the kids were going to be missing Criccieth we wanted to give them something similar so we went on the Explorer camp run by CYFA vetrans Derek and Anne Wooldridge. I was not entirely looking forward to a week with a load of 9-11 year olds, but in fact it turned out to be quite a good laugh. I had no particular role except operating the projector and inflating the giant swimming pool. At some point the wind had blown it on to the barbed wire fence and despite several attempts to repair the punctures it kept going flat. By the end of the week I had blisters on my hands from using the pump. Still it was all worth it for the 5 minutes of madness the kids enjoy in the flan fight and throwing the leaders in the pool. We are going back again next year but taking on a bit more responsibility this time...which means delegating the pumping to someone else. It was also good to be able to let our own kids hear about the Christian faith through someone else. They got really stuck into the bible breaks, the songs and quizzes. Our biggest fear is they go to something like that and come back with very negative views of Christianity. It was also good for them to meet kids from different backgrounds. There were kids from one of the poorest estates in England as well as slightly more well off kids from posh parts of Newcastle and London. Anyway here are some photos of the proceedings.






August brought with it my last time running the CYFA Camp at Criccieth. After 25 years or more going to the camps and 12 running it the time had come to hang up my sleeping bag for the last time. A few days before I set off for camp I recieved a very sad letter from a parent telling me that her son and husband had been killed in a diving accident a few weeks earlier. Rhydian had been to the camp the previous year and it had made a big impact on his life. I looked through the photos and the only one I could find was of him rock climbing at the climbing wall and the other of him wearing a pair of Tigger pyjamas, trying to look the part of a Roman gladiator. And there were the highs and lows of running camp captured in one persons life. I discovered from his obituary that he had recently celebrated his 16th birthday by visiting a climbing wall. I will miss the real privilage it is to be part of people's lives in that way, but look forward to the future. The camp itself went really well and you can read a bit about it in my August blog.

Another era ended in August, and that was our Sarah and Rob getting engaged after being 'just good friends' since they were about 11. This means that through marriage I will become related to Woody, who is married to Anna, Rob's sister. The wedding bells will be ringing in October.



I ended up doing the Haddington Half Marathon...memorable for the spooked horse half way round. The sight of several hundred people running at it seemed to upset it and the whole incident added valuable seconds to my time. And August saw the kids go back to school. It just doesn't feel right going to school in August. Stuart started at the Primary school and began to realise that school is somewhere you actually do work and not just play.

September was my first term teaching in the primary school. I was not really looking forward to it, but somehow it all went well and I am in there on a regular basis now.
We were in Manchester for my mum and dad's 40th wedding anniversary which was a goodopportunity to catch up with people. Here's a picture of Sharon, Bungle and my mum at the chinese restraunt.



Finally, Andrew and Stuart signed up for the Celtic FC Community coaching scheme. It's actually exploitation of the community as it is the most expensive local football coaching...the rest is run by volunteers for very little. Anyway it gives them a game and we have discovered Stuart's football skills are hidden...he hasn't found them yet. Here's both Stuart and Andrew with the Scottish Premier League trophy. I think Celtic won it or something!

2006 April to June

In April Andrew was 8. Mum and dad came up for a visit and purchased us an Historic Scotland card. This gets us in to all the castles around here. We visited Direlton Castle and Stuart may as well have been in Disneyland as they were having a demonstration of kights in shining armour. Stuart got to have a sword fight with one and later with some little kid in the audience and decapitated him!






I've started entering an online photo competition through DigitalPhotographyChallenge and this one of my mum and dad did ok.




May was an interesting month. Stuart was 5 and we had a party at Junglee Fun, Dunbar's answer to Whacky Wharehouse. It's the same idea where you feed the kids loads of sugary foods and then let them loose in a cage full of balls, slides and most importantly padded walls. The 3 of them did the Edinburgh 'Run for Life' race in Edinburgh.



All of us go to Dunbar Running Club and the Junior section is strong and gives the kids loads of chances to race and make some wee pals! May however was dominated by Emma's mum being taken very ill with what is commonly known as the flesh eating disease. Within hours of getting it she had to have substantial parts of her leg removed...her organs packed up and yet remarkably she pulled through. I won't put any pictures here because it's grim, but if you want to see how grusome it is then GoogleImage search 'necrotizing fasciitis' and have a bucket to hand.

June continued to be dominated by Emma's mum who eventually came out of her coma and began to make a speedy and miraculous recovery. Loads of local things were happening like Dunbar Civic Week. Basically they have a parade and crown the gala queen. Here's Andrew having a fight with the fire service on the parade.



I was asked to speak at the Dunbar Churches Together open air service down at the harbour. I was accompanied by the Salvation Army band and I was pleased to do the whole thing because I had recently been teaching children about John Wesley who often preached in the open air in Dunbar. So much so, the first ever Methodist Church in Scotland was formed here and still exists. I did feel a little bit vulnerable and wished I had brought an umbrella when I noticed the seaguls flying overhead. Our Jane and Andy were also up visiting in June and they were staying in a cottage down the harbour.

Dunbar is one of those places where they still do traditional stuff like gala's. I had the pleasure of opening the church fete...at the same time England had their first game in the world cup..it was a quick opening and I managed to catch the second half. Andrew had his flag hanging out of his window and despite reports of English kids getting beaten up in Edinburgh he kept it there. Only a couple of neighbours complained, but that's probably because Kellie Place is like little England full of us no good incomers! Another local tradition was the Sunday School day out to Carberry Towers. It was as traditional as you can get, with egg and spoon races, sack races and stuff like that. The church here has played a big part in helping us settle down. Here's the kids in some of these events.




Emma went on a flying visit to Manchester to see Take That and came back the same day. Apparantly Take That are staying here in Dunbar as I write this. A new posh hotel has opened up and rumour has it they are stopping there for a few days. Emma started to help out in the church youth club. It's mostly kids that don't go to church who are involved.