Bad Influence

They say that a picture paints a thousand words. Well here are a couple of thousand for you...



We went to see Auntie Carol and Uncle Dave last weekend while we were up north. It was a great day so we spent it outside and Uncle Dave corrupted me with a bow and arrow (I was careful not to bow and arrow anyone) and a ride on his motorbike. I've requested a leather jacket for Christmas.

I also played for a wee bit on their hill. Yes, it's another Auntie with a hill in her garden (remember Auntie Vikki has one too) but Auntie Carol's is more of a mountain in comparison. It's wild and has a cliff and trees too (which a few arrows were almost lost in). The grass is long on the hill and it was a lot of fun to walk in it and have it tickle my face. I was playing in it, making a nest and I wanted Auntie Carol to come play with me. Strangely, she didn't, even with this invitation: "I'm making a nest for you. A big nest. For your big bottom."

Painting The Town Gold

On Saturday, after sending Mummy away with the bike so that I could walk back to Granny and Grandpa's we passed the Gynack Gardens. They are looking particularly good just now with a lot of flowers in bloom. There were also a few people painting the fence there. When we headed out earlier there had been a couple of guys from the council painting, now they were being helped by some locals too. We stopped to watch for a bit and the nice man offered to let me do some painting. So here is a picture of me painting the fence at the Gynack Gardens.



It's a black metal fence with a flower design throughout. The flowers were being painted gold and this is what I helped with. So now Granny can tell everyone that her grandson helped paint that lovely fence!

I would have done more but I really was tired from the long cycle. After this we headed back to Granny and Grandpa's but I was too tired to walk and Daddy had to carry me the long way up the hill to their house.

It was then lunch time and we were going out to the lovely Rowan Tree Hotel. Unsuprisingly I fell asleep on the way. Then I couldn't be woken again! I slept on the comfy sofa there while the others had a delicious lunch. Mummy managed to wake me just before they finished so I had some of Mummy's pasta and some of Daddy's fish and chips. And of course I did manage some ice cream!

Rose-tinted spectacles

Daddy always says I'm a true optimist! This is a picture of me playing Ludo with Gran a few weeks ago. I'm much funnier than watching Mummy lose anyway.

More Cycling

We went to see Granny and Grandpa at the end of last week. On Saturday morning I wanted to go visit my friends Charlie and Ellie but we couldn't so Granny suggested we take my Puky along the cycle path between Kingussie and Newtonmore. We drove down to the cycle path and ended up going almost all the way to Newtonmore before finding a place suitable to stop and get out.

I started cycling along the cycle path. It was a good path and I was able to build up a nice speed. Nice enough that Daddy had to really run to keep up with me! After about half a mile Mummy and Daddy decided it would be better if Mummy went back and got the car. They'd thought I'd just go a few hundred yards and come back but I was having too much fun and after all, we were heading back to Kingussie anyway, why would I turn and go back?


We met Mummy further up but I still wasn't finished. I kept going all the way to Kingussie! Then Daddy put the bike in the car and sent Mummy home because I wanted to walk back to Granny and Grandpa's. It was a good trip. Mummy reckons I cycled and walked about 3 miles. It sure did tire me out though - more on that next time.

Captain Heidcase

You'll never guess what I was doing on Saturday. Actually, if you guessed "pretending to be a knight" you'd be right and given the recent history of this blog that's probably what you guessed. But it wasn't the usual fighting Daddy with a toy wooden sword at an old ruined castle somewhere! This time it was beating up some grown-up baddies in real suits of armour with a toy foam sword. And I captained a large army of under-sixes. King Robert the Bruce made me captain and asked my name. I guess he misheard me because I spoke very loudly and clearly into the microphone but he still christened me Captain Heidcase.



We had gone to the Bruce Festival at Dunfermline Glen. I've been bothering Daddy about seeing real Knights for a few days now especially since he told me about a friend of his who dresses up in real armour and gets involved in real fights with real swords. Daddy didn't know about the Bruce Festival so when Gran told him about it he had to take me.

The first thing we saw was the jousting. It was Scotland versus England and in the morning the English Knight won by one point. That was a shame as the Scotland guy is so far unbeaten on Scottish soil. These were proper jousters, it wasn't a show and this did matter. You can find out a little more about these guys, their history and experience here. Toby Capwell is the Scottish guy and William West is the English guy. Hopefully Toby did better in the afternoon and retained his record - we had to leave as the heavy rain came on.

On the way home we stopped in at Auntie Vikki's for a cup of milk and some cheese and I watched Over the Hedge while the old people had a chat. Uncle Ian's telly's really cool because to get the DVD to pause and play again you just clap your hands twice. I spent a while doing that as well. I think Daddy should get a telly like that.

To straighten socks...

Mummy: "Sit on your b'hookey."
Edan: "Why did you say it in French?"

Fence painting

Mummy was in hospital last week for a wee operation. In order to give her peace, Daddy figured it would be a good idea to paint the fence. The fence badly needed painted and it would keep him and me busy for a few hours and out of Mummy's way while she got better. You can see us here about a third of the way in.



Except that photo is completely staged and I'm posing under duress. I had agreed with Daddy that painting the fence was a good idea and would be a lot of fun. But after one spar (and saturating two paint-brushes - that was fun!) it turned out that painting the fence was boring. So I went and bothered Mummy and left Daddy to finish it. He made quite a good job though.

Cycling update

Just a quick cycling update. Video from Daddy's phone again. Mummy recorded a better one with the video camera at the weekend but then it ate the tape so Daddy can't get it onto the computer. I'm enjoying the Puky so much that I've started taking it to nursery just like Daddy takes his bike to work. Thing is, my nursery is just across the road from the house so I make Mummy take me out the front door and around the block so that I get a good cycle!

Blackness Castle

We visited Blackness Castle last Sunday. It's an interesting castle with a lot of stairs! Stairs are great at the best of times, not only because it really scares Mummy when I'm climbing them, but they usually take you to an interesting room. And at Blackness Castle they even take you to the roof of the tower - where you can have a sword-fight in peace! Just check out me getting the better of Daddy. It's less embarrassing for him that the camera memory ran out before I delivered the final blow!

Blackness Castle is right on the coast of the Firth of Forth and you can walk out over the water on a jetty that I don't think they would have used when the castle was built. Daddy says it was added in the early 1800s when the castle was used as an armoury. The castle had the thickest walls I've ever seen and these mean that there's still a lot of the castle standing and loads of rooms to look in. There are even a lot of windows but they don't all have just glass in them - they have little doors that you can open and close, they are a lot of fun.

When we left the castle we played in the gardens for a wee while. There's a lot of grass and it just begs you to run around in it so I got Mummy and Daddy to chase me and made complete fools of them. At least that's what the old lady and gentleman laughing at them said!

By the way, that slideshow might be a little small on some of your screens. If you follow the link on the right to Photoshop Photos you should be able to see it bigger.

Ravenscraig Beach

Saturday was a brilliant day. Mummy had to work (which isn't brilliant) so Daddy and I went to Fife to see Gran and Grandad. We arrived three hours after we got up and found Gran and Grandad still in their jammies so we had to wait for them to get ready before we could go out in that fantastic weather.

We went to Ravenscraig which is on the edge of Kirkcaldy and played at the park there which is quite new and very good. It has a great climbing with a fireman's pole. I was playing on the fireman's pole and Daddy or Grandad would help me. But after a few shots I was getting pretty confident and had to tell Grandad to LEAVE ME ALONE. I CAN DO IT BY MYSELF. Luckily he didn't leave me alone too much though, because I saw a bigger boy than me, who's Daddy wasn't as helpful as mine, go on the fireman's pole and he wasn't very good and hit the ground pretty hard. It looked sore.

After the park we went down to the beach which is very close. We looked through some of the rock pools at the little tiny crabs and the fish then Daddy wanted to go further along the beach so that we could get to the sea. Daddy didn't want to go to the sea where we were because there was a lot of wet sand to walk through to get there. That didn't bother me though! I took a rather large rock and headed for the water. Grandad was good enough to come with me and half-way there I convinced him to carry the rock for me. Thanks Grandad! Down at the water I got my socks and shoes off and waded in. It turned out my shorts weren't short enough. Oops. And my T-shirt arms weren't short enough either since it was important that I dig up the sand under the water so that I could throw it further into the sea. But the best bit was when Daddy and Gran finally came down to see us. I waited until they were all there and turned around and kicked lots of sea-water at them. Woohoo! And, do you know? Only I had a change of clothes!



After the beach we went to KFC and I got popcorn chicken, my favourite. We went home to Gran and Grandad's and ate it in the garden. Then after a nice Magnum ice-cream (it's easy to get Grandad to spoil me. I have him convinced that Mummy and Daddy only feed me vegetables!), we went to Auntie Vikki's and played in her garden for the rest of the afternoon. Daddy showed me how to roll down the hill in her back garden but I need a little more practice to be as good as him.

Edinburgh Castle

We went to Edinburgh Castle yesterday. Daddy had the day off because he had to work at the weekend and since it was such a lovely day, the one o'clock gun was calling. The one o'clock gun was what I was most excited about. We saw some of the older cannons when we went into the castle and Daddy showed me the nice new cannon that they'd use at one o'clock. We then went to see Mon's Meg and from its high vantage point we had a good view of the new cannon. I wanted to stay and watch the one o'clock gun but Mummy and Daddy said it was going to be a long wait so we had a look around some other bits of the castle first. But I was really just interested in making sure we saw the cannon being fired so soon we made it back to Mon's Meg and waited for the firing of the new cannon. And waited. Excitedly. And the man came out with his big bullet and set it up. He pointed it up in the air. And waited. Daddy warned me that it would be loud and I'd get a fright but I just kept asking when it was going to happen? What is the man waiting for? Will he fire is soo BANG! It was lucky Mummy was holding on to me...

SpeedBoy has his invunisations

Hiya,

I went swimming on Sunday to Whitburn pool with Mummy because Daddy had to work. It was the first time we'd been to Whitburn pool and it was very good. It has a very large pool for grown ups and a great pool for kids too. Except the kids pool was being used for a class so we weren't allowed to play in there. We had to go in the adult pool. It was a fuge pool and was far too deep for me to touch the bottom anywhere. But that didn't trouble me. I just used my woggle and swum around. I even did two lengths! Mummy was very impressed and called me a speedboat, but I corrected her and told her that I'm a speedboy!

Today I had to go to the doctor's and get my latest invunisations. They tried to distract me and get me to look out the window while two of them came at me from either side and stuck a needle in each arm! I didn't appreciate that much but Mummy says I was very brave and I got a nice sticker for my jumper. I went back to nursery and didn't think much of it but it was a wee bit sore in the evening so no bath tonight. We'll take the plasters off tomorrow and it'll be all better. At least now I can't catch any nasty bugs.