Monthly Babble And A Survey in Scottish Meanderings

Who'd have thought we'd have reason to use these posters once again?? (and notice the price tag on it!)


I'd heard rumours there was maybe going to be an easing of restrictions in the next week or two but they seem unfounded if my research this morning is anything to go by. There doesn't seem to be anything definite apart from the fact that if things did ease up they would do so very gradually which is fair enough. And that Scotland might follow a different model from England so I'm not sure if that means stricter or less strict.

There seems to be a lot of struggling going on this week though - myself included. Folk are getting fed up now and finding it harder to keep things together - eating patterns are skewiff, sleeping patterns are skewiff, hair is out of control, everyone's tetchy. I honestly can't see us hanging on in this situation until September - we're all going to go doolally! A couple of folk have expressed surprise that Nikki & I and the kids haven't got together before now - they think because we've all been self-isolating pretty well that we should be safe enough but we didn't feel it was right. However if this goes on much longer I can see us cracking.

We've been pretty lucky in that we've seen each other roughly once a week since lockdown albeit briefly. That's not been planned but it's just worked out that way. I've done the whole sitting in the car alongside the girls in their car playing games through the phones a couple of times while Nikki takes Ruari into the shop to do her shopping (the second time went off without a hitch and was just before Easter weekend so I was also able to pass over Easter goodies for all of them). The only problem was that ASDA had chained all the trolleys which take the baby car seats (presumably to stop families going in?) so we had to find someone to unlock one for her. But they did it willingly once they realised the situation.

Then on Easter Sunday I got a lovely surprise when they turned up out of the blue to wish me Happy Easter (from the bottom of the path) with Easter cards and drawings, a Crème egg brownie and cookie and some mini Easter eggs (left on the doorstep)! It was the one day I had inexplicably not gone for a walk and decided to tackle the overflowing ironing basket instead otherwise I'd have had a good chance of missing them!

Then last week I had to get a couple of extra items Nikki wasn't able to get with her online shop and she picked them up from the doorstep which gave us a chance to chat with me sitting at the bottom of the stairs and her half way up the path. This week I had to go to Argos to pick something up for her which couldn't be delivered so she again popped round this morning to pick it up from the doorstep after she picked up her shopping and we had another brief chat. The girls made a little house underneath my little tree at the bottom of the path and decided that the dropped petals from the bush in the garden were actually fairy teeth so gathered a little pile to put in the 'house'.

I love that kids nowadays can still do that whole make believe stuff - that the amount of screen time they're having doesn't seem to have knocked that out of them. Good to see.

I got the garden all tidied, weeded, grass cut, edges done last week all ready for the good weather we were supposed to get -


- then couldn't sit out in it because of humungous bees which were doing their thang in all the flowers! What a size they seemed to be this year - I'm sure they're not normally that huge.


Although this one made me laugh I have to admit!


I did brave lying on the grass on the rug for a while but it was just too precarious - they were darting about all over the shop and I also sadly realised my 61 year old bones are just not conducive any more to lying on grass :( So I came inside and changed the sitting room round instead. Four times.

What I need is one of these - not the furry thing - the pink thing :)


We've used House Party to video chat once a week as well but have had varying problems with different devices. I only seem to be able to access the games on my phone but find it awkward to hold it while playing plus the small screen is annoying - part of the game is not visible on the iPad for some reason - and I went and bought a webcam for the Mac to see if that was any better but don't seem able to access the games on that either. So that was disappointing.

However I'm hoping it'll be better for our Zoom Italian lessons because I can only see 9 folk on the iPad screen so have to keep scrolling back and forth. The classes have been a bit of a trial all round I have to admit - about half an hour at the start of the two hours is spent trying to get everyone connected - there are still one or two having problems joining the meeting every week. Then we just miss so much in the communication in general - folk forget to unmute their microphones then forget to mute them when other family members pass through.

Actually last week was quite funny in that respect - one of our class members, Rosemary, her sister Alison lives in Italy and Enrica, our teacher, does Italian teaching holidays every year in the autumn. She organises the whole thing to within an inch of its life - accommodation, food, classes in the mornings, events/experiences/activities in the afternoons and social events in the evenings. One of the activities she wanted to do this year involved Rosemary's sister so she had the bright idea of asking her to join our Zoom class to introduce her (as most of the class are supposed to be going on one of those holidays in September - although maybe not now😕).

That done, Alison buggered off to see to the rest of her afternoon but inadvertently left her microphone on! And we were treated to a stream of Italian apparently praising Enrica and our class to the skies in the background for a good 15 minutes so that Rosemary had to eventually phone her to tell her to shut up! But how lucky that she liked us all and Enrica - that could have gone so badly wrong! Not that us plebs had any idea of what she was actually saying of course - she could have been calling us all horrendous riffraff for all we knew - we had to rely on Enrica to tell us :)

On Sunday's chat with Nikki and the girls, I tried reading them a story but that didn't work too well as it was difficult for them to see the pictures in the book - Lilah read me her new Cinderella one though and that worked fine. And they played their version of Charades while I guessed what they were trying to be. But it's not the same as seeing them or hugging them and I never see Ruari when they come to the house to do our social distanced chat - he's always sleeping in the car.

And I've missed him taking his first steps :( When we were doing the Charades on Sunday, he was keeping us entertained with his best Charlie Chaplin impression. He's finally found his feet but he's doing that drunk walking kids do before they become steady enough to toddle around and it was just hilarious. He'd been doing it for a while before I thought to video it so I just caught the tail end of it - that's why we're laughing so much! And although it looks like Lily is making fun of him at the end, she's not - she was pretending to be him for Charades so was copying what he was doing.

I did have great success one day with a virtual teddy bear hunt - the girls hid themselves behind bushes and trees when on their walk one afternoon and Nikki took photos then I had to see if I could spot them and tell them where they were. That spurred me to take a bright yellow teddy to TESCO with me on a shopping trip when it was quiet one evening (he was newly washed) and hide him in various spots round the shop -


then I went on a walk of my own and hid him in various places, taking photos along the way and looking like a right numpty I'm sure. I was worried it would be too obvious with him being bright yellow so I crossed the road to take some of the photos - a bad move in hindsight which I realised when I got back replies like this -


I mean she does have a point! Not even I can see where he is in that one! Thankfully in most of the rest of them he was much more visible :)

Nikki and I have been playing ScrabbleGo online with each other every day as well so that's been a good way to stay in touch and lots of fun - keeps the old brain cells alive. I have also redeemed all of the 500 points she was ahead when we had our Saturday night Scrabble games with the Trickster Scrabble so I'm chuffed at that. We're a good match :)


SURVEY

Been bullied into doing this :)

1. What was the last thing you drank?
Lovely cup of Tetley’s best :)

2. Where was your profile picture taken?
In Mam’s flat 5 years ago - we were up visiting for the day. One of the last group photos we had taken with her.


3. Worst pain ever?
Childbirth. Although that ear pain I had last summer came a pretty close second😑

4. Favourite place you’ve ever travelled?
It’s between Shetland and Barcelona - can’t decide!

5. How late did you stay up last night?
I think I went up to bed around 11 but then realised I’d completely forgotten to take the herbal pills I normally take to help me sleep so the light didn’t go off until around half 1. Then Bailey got me up at 6 :(


He lets me know he loves me in other ways though.


6. If you could move, where would you move?
I'd be happy to stay in Aberdeen but would like to move to a bungalow on a hill with some sort of view of the sea from the sitting room/bedroom window in case I end up being confined to the house for some reason.

7. What do you collect?
Grandchildren :)


8. Favourite day of the week?
Don’t have one.

9. Amusement park or Concert?
Amusement park.


10. When was the last time you cried?
Watching Unorthodox last night.

11. Who took your profile photo?
My sister Lorna.


Us as kids.


12. Who’s the last person you took a picture of?
Lilah gathering up the 'fairy teeth' this morning :)


13. What’s your favorite season?
Spring I think. Birdsong, flowers opening, swathes of daffodils, the air - and that lovely promise of summer to come :)

14. If you could have any other career what would it be?
If the talent, wherewithal and motivation came with it, and I could somehow forego the PR part of it, a writer.

15. Do you prefer sunshine or moonlight?
Sunshine.

16. Are you a good influence?
I think I have been to some people in the past and Nikki still asks me for advice (and occasionally follows it!!) on a regular basis so I’ll take that as a win :)

17. Does pineapple belong on your pizza?
I mean - why would it not??

18. You have the remote, what are you watching?
Depends on the mood - sometimes a documentary, sometimes a film, sometimes stand up. Last week it was Last Tango in Halifax - last night Unorthodox.

19. Who do you think will play?
That would involve checking to see who’s done it already and that comes under the category of Too Much Work I’m afraid.


P.S. Matt is doing fine by the way - he's now home as of teatime yesterday after 6 weeks of radiotherapy in Manchester - been a little bit sick but it didn't start until week 5 which they said was really good - normally they'd expect it much earlier than that. He's got anti-emetics to cope with it which seem to be working well. He's absolutely delighted to be back in his house with - A BIG GARDEN TO RUN ABOUT AND PLAY IN!! - and once they get the dogs back (being looked after by the in-laws) the family will be complete once more.

His little brother is doing really well too - I know this firsthand because I was busy doing my shopping in TESCO this afternoon when I bumped into -


- his mum!

So so hard not to give her a big hug - I haven't seen her since about November last year when all their particular madness started :( We stuck our two trolleys between us and yapped for a solid half hour instead though :)