The nights are creeping in........

 Sunday, October 16, 2011

The photos were taken today - two in glorious sunshine and a little disgruntled Ruah, bathed and clipped!

Bob and Cathy Shields, from Mildura, Victoria, Australia, will be dropping in this weekend and staying a couple of days.  These are my last booked guests of 2011 and so next week, weather permitting, I’ll begin the annual house clean – good to get that out of the way long before Christmas.

Long before Christmas this year anyway, Catriona and I will not be here!  We leave Edinburgh on December 6 and return on January 10, having visited relatives in Australia and stopped over in Singapore on the way home.  I’ll tell you about it all in a later letter.  We are vexed not to have enough time to visit the New Zealand relatives.  Next time, I hope……

If you ask anyone what sort of weather we have had this summer, you’ll likely be told “shocking”.  But I disagree as, when the family was here, off and on for weeks during July and the beginning of August, we did not have a jumper or raincoat on and the little boys wore long sleeved shirts, long trousers and hats – after being covered in suntan cream!  They often went swimming – yes, in wetsuits! – in the evenings, just very near the house, though the coral beach was warm enough for the children to discard the wetsuits.

Before and after the summer months there was and has been really bad weather……  My double red hawthorn tree, nearly nineteen years old, was flattened in May.  Stalwarts Ruari, Calum and Don winched it up and into a deep trench and, so far, it looks good – still erect, thanks to pulleys, ropes and stakes!  Time will tell.

It is our October holiday for the schools.  They have two weeks.  A lot of the local people with children have taken the chance to get away for a few days. 

Moira, Colin and the three younger children (Sam’s back at Uni.) are off to Alton Towers for a couple of days.  As the Edinburgh schools have another week of holiday, perhaps the children may come here too.  I hope so!

It’s very windy but sunny too.  I hope the photos show that. That's Calum leaving the pontoon, on a seal trip.

Till next month

Ann