May Family Get Together in Scottish Meanderings

Our family get together in May went really well overall.

We met up at an hotel in Dundee and I went down with Nikki & the kids so didn't have to drive. It was a gorgeous day - beautiful sunshine all day so we were able to sit outside for the whole afternoon until our afternoon tea was ready at 6 p.m. There was a really nice area for the more mature of us to sit and chat with a lovely green area and mini maze for the kids to play in.

This is just some of us - more arrived later and some were in the hotel pool which is on the left of where we're sitting. I think we were around 30 altogether.


There was plenty of space for the kids to run around in the lovely sunshine which you can see here. (This is my sister Lorna - she's not long had her second hip replaced hence the stick). The buildings at the back of her were where we were sitting so it was a bit far to let them just roam on their own so various parents/grannies took it in turns to keep an eye on them.


The kids ran around this mini maze in circles ad nauseam.


This little cutie charmed us all - Lorna's youngest grandchild, Eva - more commonly known as Eva the Diva!


Then around 6 p.m. we moved to a function room we'd booked just for us for the tea which had plenty space - you can see part of it here.


Lorna & Marina had taken plenty of stuff for the kids to do so they were kept busy into the evening - simple stuff like several sheets of paper taped together and set out on the floor was a big hit - every now and then there would be a couple of little people adding their artwork to it. Plus the occasional slightly larger artist!!


We did eventually have to bring some screens out for the girls but not until late evening so they did well to last out till then!


Lorna had cobbled together a family tree for the kids to see where everyone fitted in and also a baby pic competition to see if we could 'guess the baby'.




And at the other end of the room was a fire escape with an enclosed grassy area which had loads of trees to climb and was perfect for the kids to play in, then later for the boys to have a game of football.


Dylan (seen at the front here) was so good with the little ones - he's autistic but he's brilliant with young kids so they all had a ball.


Caroline, Lorna's youngest, who has fallen out with her sisters and didn't come last year, came just for the day this year so that was nice and it was great to see Ian & Margaret make it as well - Ian got Covid last year the week before the get together and has been pretty unwell since - and his daughter, Catriona, got a really bad sickness bug so couldn't make it either so it was lovely to see them all together this year - especially as Ian & Margaret can't really travel so easily now so haven't been able to see their grandsons, Matt & Ollie, properly - just on a screen every week which, as we all know from lockdown, just isn't the same.

Here they all are together - left to right - Catriona's boys - Ollie & Matt, Catriona, Margaret, Craig (their son) and Ian.


Ian is still not really mobile and needs Margaret's help pretty much all the time but he's so lucky to have her. He can understandably get a bit grumpy at the lack of independence and what's happened to him but she's so patient and looks after him so well - never leaves his side which he finds a bit stifling but she knows full well he's just desperate to be on his feet again so if she disappears he'll attempt it - and there have been some dispiriting falls at the start of all this that she doesn't want a repeat of. She sat with him for ages here so that he was able to watch the boys playing football outside.


It was about 11 p.m. before we all retired for the night - none of the kids had fallen asleep and were all still running around so the mums were all hoping for a long lie on the Sunday morning - which, as all young mums know everywhere, NEVER happens when you want it to!😁 I'd managed a few hours' sleep so when Nikki & the kids went down to breakfast and said they were planning the pool afterwards, I got up and organised and joined them and various others members of the family came too. We spent about an hour in there then some folk went off home and the rest of us went into Dundee to the Victoria & Albert Design Museum and meandered around there.


It was really good - they had some excellent exhibitions - the kids all got to try out a loom and Lilah was an absolute natural.


There was a printing exhibition and I was musing at this letter from Valentine & Sons, a printing company who made picture postcards and eventually sold out to Hallmark in 1963. The letter itself was interesting in that it showed how men returning from the war were trying to integrate back into civilian society but it just took me back to my working life, how much more polite everyone was then but also how much more time everything took.


When you think of the process of applying for jobs nowadays and how in some organisations you sometimes don't even hear if you haven't been successful after being selected for an interview, there was a much more civilised procedure in operation in those days - and this wasn't even about a specific job - it was only asking if employment was available.

But it also made me think of the amount of letters like that which I would have typed in my working days (and in my first job it was on a manual typewriter!)


Maybe not as ancient as that one but I certainly had the shorthand notebook beside me with all these wonderful squiggles in it. When I think of it my first shorthand typist job was mainly made up of typing up and filing correspondence from about 16 people in the Pay Unit of a local hospital - what took me a good part of the day would be done by each individual person via e-mail nowadays and done in a fraction of the time. But everything just seemed much more civilised then and there was definitely much more attention paid to detail which appears to be sadly lacking nowadays.

I found my initial appointment letter when I was clearing out the shed. A whole £1,488 a year - wow - heady days lol!


After the V&A Museum, we would have loved to go to the RRS Discovery ship (the last traditional wooden three-masted ship to be built in the United Kingdom) which was right next door but we were really flagging by that time so decided we'll come back another day in the summer when we can do it more justice (Dundee is only an hour and a half's drive away) plus the Jute Museum (Dundee is famous for jam, jute and journalism) which is supposed to be really good.

So it was lovely to see everyone and I'm glad I had the energy to keep going for most of the two days. I felt like I'd been hit by a bus in the week following but I was expecting that. We're thinking of where to go next year but Dundee worked out pretty well so we're wondering if we'll just go back there - there were some issues with the afternoon tea they provided so we need to figure the food bit out some more - it's difficult making sure the kids all get a decent amount of food in an afternoon tea and that vegetarians etc are catered for but a proper meal is difficult in terms of logistics and being able to move around. Anyway we'll work it out.

And one thing we're definitely doing next year is taking a photo! I can't believe we didn't organise it - when a couple of folk were starting to go home on Saturday night I mentioned it but everyone was everywhere by that time and Lorna said it would be too difficult then of course afterwards there was regret it didn't happen so I'm going to make sure that's a priority next year!