Ella's Nursery Christmas Fayre

Ella's nursery had their Christmas fayre today.  Lots of home baking, bouncy castles and face painting.  Ella met Santa for the first time this year and asked for her Hoover.  Hopefully the nursery made lots of money.

Read more...

Wizard of Oz & Mo's Birthday

Just back from the Wizard Of Oz at the Citizens Theatre with Dad, Fiona, Gerry and Gerry's sister Laura.  Mum is in Spain to see Anne McDonaugh and Mikie was working in Aberdeen.  It was a preview performance in aid of The Prince and Princess of Wales Hospice where Granny spent her last few days.  I went expecting a Panto, but it was a Musical.  It was brilliant - we all loved it, plus all the money went to a good cause.  It was a Win Win night!!

There was a problem with the piano music post - I have sorted it now (I think) but let me know if there is a problem.

 

Read more...

Ella Skiing (Again)

Just back from skiing to see Ella.

Read more...

Investment Advice

If you had purchased £1000 of Northern Rock shares one year ago it would now be worth £4.95.  With HBOS, earlier this week your £1000 would have been worth £16.50, £1000 invested in XL Leisure would now be worth less than £5, but if you bought £1000 worth of Tennents Lager one year ago, drank it all, then took the empty cans to an aluminum re-cycling plant, you would get £21.40

Magic.

Read more...

Big Band Winners

The Michael Brawley Big Band entered a competition a few weeks ago and were awarded a "Gold Award" in the community section. The get invited to the National Finals in Cardiff.  Michael brought over a recording from the day. You hear the judge making comments a few times.  I will get the titles of the tunes from Michael or Fiona.

Read more...

Mikie's Piano Music

Mikie brought over a CD he made of his piano playing.  He hasn't given me the titles yet and I am just experimenting with getting the files onto the blog. I will update them when I have it sussed! Sounds great.

Read more...

Jim Honey in George Square

Michael stayed over last night after the hillwalk.  He was playing in George Square with the Jim Honey Band.  We all went into see him.  Every year at Christmas George Square gets an ice rink, Merry-Go-Round, Helterskelters as well as a stage that gets used for lots of different acts in the lead up to Christmas.

We all enjoyed listening to the music with a hot coffee and the kids had a go on the rides.

We all went for lunch at Princess Square before heading home.  Busy weekend - but great.

Read more...

Bein Dubh

Had another "Lads & Dads" hillwalk today.  Left the house at 9am this morning, cold and dry.  The hill was just at Luss, so it was just a 40 minute drive.

We arrived and headed straight up.  Patrick and his pal Jack ran on ahead.  I struggled all the way up - I am the first to admit I am not the fittest, but I was completely out of it.  If it had been me and Patrick I would have turned back.  Finally got to the top and had lunch - I felt a lot better after having something to eat, but we couldn't hang about because it was absolutely freezing.  No one had a thermometer but it must have been -10oC.  Gordon had brought a flask of coffee with him.  He had poured a cup, drank it and put the cup down.  Less than 5 minutes later the dreggs in the bottom of the cup had started freezing.

We walked round the wide horseshoe ridge and down the steep descent to a single track road.  We had a mile or so walk along this road until we reached the car.  Satisfied and absolutely gubbed! 

Michael came back to our place and we had a nice big healthy curry and I had a few glasses of wine!!

Read more...

Ella Skiing

Ella started back at her skiing lessons last week.  The slope is only 3 minutes from my work so I pop up to watch.  She is doing great - I took this on my phone

Read more...

Were you born in the 40's, 50's, 60's or 70's?

I got this sent to me by email and I thought it was quite good.

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us and lived in houses made of asbestos.  They took aspirin, ate blue cheese, raw egg products, loads of bacon and processed meat, tuna from a can.  Then after that trauma, our baby cots were covered with bright coloured lead-based paints.  We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets or shoes. 

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.  We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.  Take away food was limited to fish and chips, no pizza shops, McDonalds, KFC, Subway or Nandos.   Even though all the shops closed at 6.00pm and didn't open on the weekends, somehow we didn't starve to death!We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.

We could collect old drink bottles and cash them in at the corner store and buy toffees, gobstoppers, bubble gum and some bangers to blow up frogs with. We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank soft drinks with sugar in it, but we weren't overweight because......WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!! 

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.  No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.??  We would spend hours building our go-carts out of old prams and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. We built tree houses and dens and played in river beds with matchbox cars.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo Wii, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 999 channels on SKY, No video/DVD  films,  No mobile phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms..........WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no Lawsuits from these accidents.

Only girls had pierced ears!

We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

You could only buy Easter Eggs and Hot Cross Buns at Easter time.  We were given air guns and catapults for our 10th birthdays.  We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them!

Mum didn't have to go to work to help dad make ends meet!

Rugby and Football had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment.

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of.  They actually sided with the law!

Our parents didn't invent stupid names for their kids like 'Kiora' and 'Blade' and 'Ridge' and 'Vanilla'.  We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!  And YOU are one of them!

CONGRATULATIONS!! You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives for our own good.  And while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave their parents were.

Read more...

Schools Camera Club Competition

Every year the Camera Club have a competition for 4 of the local schools.  Megan won for St Fillan's.  She was presented with her prizes in front of the whole school.  She won a digital camera, a certificate and got her photo presented to her in a frame.  She is over the moon.  Her winning image was taken on the "Maid Of The Mist" at Niagara Falls, Canada in the Summer. Gone yourself Meg!!

Read more...

Aviemore '08

This was the annual Monks Family trip to Aviemore.  There were 17 1/2 of us there, spread over 4 villas.  Great weekend.  Saturday was as nice a day as you could expect.  Had a walk round Loch an Eilean in the afternoon, swimming before dinner and then a curry and wine in the evening.

Read more...

November Camera Club Results

The external judge was at the camera club tonight with the results.  All my entries can be seen here - I did great!!  I was 1st in the mono (Black & White), 1st in the Digital and 3rd in the Colour.  I didn't expect to do so well!  There were over 90 entries - not sure of the breakdown in each section - I would guess 40 Digital, 30 Colour and 20 Mono.  Here are the winners.

Colour Section - 3rd Dornoch Sands

Mono Section - 1st Can you feel the flow... of Glencoe

Digital Section - 1st Buachaille Etive Mor

Read more...

Tubing at Bellahouston

Today was Patrick's Birthday party with his friends.  We had booked Tubing at the dry ski slope at Bellahouston.  Tubing is like sledging - except you sit in a kind of rubber ring.  There is an instructor at the top of the hill who throws, spins and bounces them down the slope as fast as he can.  They had a great time.  After the tubing it was McDonalds for lunch and then back to the house for a WII tournament.

Read more...