Big Wave Day

Every now and then there is a really high tide and a bit of wind to whip it all up at the same time. It happened last week and here are a couple of photos of it. It all very exciting and it brings the crowds out to see what's going on. The bridge is at Belhaven and although it always gets the sea coming up to it, it never reaches these heights. The other is of the East Beach looking towards Dunbar Parish Church. We thought about buying the tall house just behind the wave....glad we didn't now, the washing would never get dry.

Eddy

It was half term and we put our historic Scotland passes to good use by visiting Edinburgh castle. Those passes get you into a priority queue, so whilst all the dumb Americans and Japanese tourists stand in line for 10 minutes...we just walked straight in and only had to pay 80p for our audio guide headset. If any of you come and visit then you can use them. Once inside we had a quick tour of the prisons, looked at the view and wandered around aimlessly for an hour or so. The last time we were there was for Claire's wedding and those 3 were the subject of the tourist photo's. One day I am going to hire Stuart a kilt and charge Germans £1 to have his photo. I was reminded of the panic we had at that wedding when Stuart was walking with us to the castle, Isabelle was a bridesmaid in the hire car and Andrew was supposed to be with granny. Granny arrived but Andrew didn't! As the line of tourist photographed the wedding car arrived with the bride the panic was over. Andrew was sat in the front of the Rolls Royce and he was really excited about not wearing his seatbelt.

Back at Edinburgh 2007 we headed off to the National Museum. We didn't get past the first main room where there is loads of stuff for kids. Andrew and Isabelle got stuck into the virtual formula 1 car and Stuart was an astronaught. This post is becoming a promotion for Edinburgh...but the museum is worth a visit if you go...and its free. We had decided to get the train but realised it was £20 for a family return ticket from Dunbar and they are less than hourly. Sod that! we drove to the outskirts of Edinburgh and then got the local line for £6 every 30 mins. Even better still the conductor insisted Stuart was under 5 and didn't have to pay. 'We get allsorts trying to get half tickets on here mate...last week I had someone with a beard trying to get a kids fare'. I think our honesty to pay had given him some faith in humanity. In the next holidays we are going to put Isabelle's Blue Peter badge to use and hit the zoo.

Scotland vs Wales

Dunbar has got an unusually good sports facility called Hallhill. They are so good that on Saturday they hosted an international game of rugby...women's rugby. Whilst several fools paid lots of money to watch the blokes play at Murrayfield, we paid diddly to watch Scotland and Wales finest roll around a muddy field. I didn't tell Andrew it was women's rugby as he wouldn't have gone...and I wanted to see his reaction to it. 10 minutes into the game he turns to me and says 'I see Wales have got a woman playing for them'. I replied 'yes...and they are all playing like girls'. Another 10 minutes past and the ball came over to our side and it was a chance to get a closer look at them. Only then...and he wasn't 100% sure (as was I) when he said 'Is it girls rugby?'

To be fair on the lad some of the players were quite burley and hairy and to the untrained eye could easily be mistaken for Bill Beaumont. To some extent lots of the cliches about women's rugby were actually true. Butch dykes and ugly (I can spot them a mile off...for all those years working for Stockport Council it was an all too familiar sight). There was however a few posh horsey types who had obviously come throught the ranks of the Edinburgh private schools like Watson's, and one or two slightly more fem looking characters. It has to be said Wales was the better looking team...and they won so better at the game too. however I don't suppose there is much market value in looks in this game. Regardless of image they looked like they were having a good time, and the punch up's were very entertaining. Isabelle came to watch it too, but thankfully she was not that interested in pursuing the sport.

Anyway, we have got another international there on Friday. Scotland under 15's vs Hibs Under 15's football. Andrew's footy coach is also Scotland's U15's national coach and has arranged the fixture. Andrew and the boys are hoping to get picked to be the mascot. We will see.

Snow Time

It's been snowing and as the schools are only in for half days on Fridays, we decided to head off for some sledging. In Dunbar itself it was cold and wet, but only a couple of hundred feet higher and 15 minutes drive away were hill cloaked in the white stuff. We decided to head for Aikengall Farm (former residence of the MacDonald's) as we knew of some good hills. We took our Fife County Council wheelie bin lid that I had found last year washed up on the beach. It was ideal for sledging as long as you didn't lean forward and allow its lip to dig in. Fife'ers don't just chuck their litter in the sea...they chuck the bin in too! After an hour of mucking about I noticed Stuart was now a blue colour and was complaining about being cold. I took his wellies off and about 3 pints of ice cold water poured out. He spent the next 2 hours crying as he thawed out. Trefor liked it all and Isabelle and Andrew made a few poor attempts at building a snow man. Whilst we were there we met the residents of Emma's old house who were unable to resist coming out to nosey at us strangers.

Last night it was the running club annual dinner. Someone decide to have it at one of East Lothian's most remote restraunts...up in the hills at a place called Garvald. Needless to say the snow there was also pretty thick and the journey back was a bit dodgy. Today it's just wet and cold...really wet and really cold. Poor Emma has been conned into running a cross country race and is off to Falkirk to run in the cold, whilst I keep warm doing this. here are a few pictures of the kids in the snow.

Bible Brainiacs

Richard's Club is no more! But it's been rebranded as the Bible Brainiacs and is going from strength to stregnth. On monday we had a record number of 67 children in. I don't know why they come, but they do. On Friday we took 23 of them to Mussleburgh on a trip out to join up with all the other Scripture Union groups in East Lothian. Friday was also the Primary 4's (8-9 year olds) assembly. I have been working with 3 classes on the theme of friendship and playground games.

One did a clappy rhyme song that we made up. It took me a couple of weeks to realise that one of the lads was Polish and didn't speak English. never mind he enjoyed it anyway. The other did a piece of drama based on a skipping game. Remember I have not done drama with P4's and I quickly realised that they are hard work. To add to the pressure I am a youth worker who really is only interested in the process, not the product. Try telling that to a primary school teacher. As teachers go they are the most attentive to detail. Several have confessed to me that they are control freaks and actually malfunction like a robot if they don't have control. Everything has to be spot on and word perfect. What's more, the currency between themselves is 'who has the best control method' (the strap worked ok at my school but probably more for the gratification of the head). It's quite oppressive but well meaning. If you go into a primary school teachers house, everything has a label on it...there are rotas on the walls...charts where you get stars for eating your greens...and everything is boxed in a plastic storage box. It's a strange partnership and its tempting to wind them up....although they do that to themselves. It works well though because I don't really have any control over the little urchins whereas the teacher just needs to clap her hands and they stop what they are doing. There's only one male teacher in the school of 850 kids, so I don't know if this is a woman thing, but I suspect it is. By the end of it i think we all learnt to appreciate our strengths and compliment our practicce. On top of that they slipped in the fact that the children's parents were invited to see it. No pressure?

My get out of jail free card...should all my other stuff collapse, was a video about toilet tig. It's apopular game where you are tigged and can only be freed by being flushed by a pal. Toilet Tig Terror was about the school being infested by zombies going over board playing toilet tig and everyone...including the head, janitor, receptionists and dinner ladies got roped in. My mentor for videoing is DaveTew who always makes it fun and gets everyone he can involved. Look at his camp videos if you've not already. The video went really well and through it a I got speaking to several parents who asked more about what I do. Friday night I was in need of a drink...but I am on a course of antibiotics because i have got a smelly sore infected finger. That drink will have to wait. As for the finger...yellow puss has been oozing out of it for 3 weeks now, so I finally gave in and got some pills to sort it out.

What the papers say

Somehow I managed to get myself into the local rag the other day. I had presented a report of my work to the Dunbar Community Council and I didn't ask for it but they gave me £1200. Whilst that money is not to be sniffed at, I am more impressed with the level of trust they are prepared to give to a Christian organisation. This job has been all about bridging the gap between the community and the church, and this is proof of it begining to bear some fruit at last. Surprisingly the press were not too cynical in their report, where others might have been. However, this is Dunbar and I kid you not, the headline news was how many parking tickets had been issued last year.

Wooler XC

Another Sunday where Eric Lidle would have turned in his grave. Me, Isabelle & Andrew did the Wooler cross country race on sunday around some morland, a quarry and a golf course. The juniors set off first and they both did ok. Isabelle knocked 7 minutes off last years time. Here she is going so fast her hat fell off!



I am still getting over the flu but what really held me back was the need for a dump on the last 2 miles. Not quite touching the void, but tmore ouching the cloth! At the end Andrew and his mate Martin got into a row with rivals from Gala. Lots of finger gestures were exchanged but no harm done. Wooler has the best views of the Cheviot Hills and I may well be doing a race up the one that's in cloud soon.



Only one more in the series to go and it's a really muddy one. Hopefully I'll get some pictures for you.