I phoned Bryan and we both raced to nursery, him in the car and me by foot.  I got there first and went in to find Owen calmly sitting with the manageress pinching the wound to help it set in place.  I was told he had screamed and cried for a bit when it happened - a good thing apparently as it means he was not unconcious at all.  I was told the doctor’s surgery may be able to handle it but when I phoned they told me to go to A&E.  By this time the car was outside so we went out to meet Daddy.  First the staff apologetically got me to sign a letter about head injuries to say they had indeed given me a letter about head injuries.  They kept the Accident Report Form for the next morning when I was rather more composed!  It’s sad that there is so much paperwork in the way of child care these days, the staff would much rather spend more time with the kids - or let you out the door to the hospital faster!  However it is all deemed necessary by the powers that be so it must be done!

Aberdeen has a seperate A&E for children so we took Owen in there (same reception as when he had his hip problems so it wasn’t too new and scary).  Owen declared “I got sore bit” to help the receptionist and pointed to his head.  A short wait later a nice male doctor came and took us through to one of the wee rooms and had a look at him.  He cleaned the wound, gave us a second handout about head injuries, and said a nurse would be through to glue Owen together.  Another wee wait (”where’s the man?” “I get glue?”) and the nurse came in, talking about Humpty Dumpty much to Owen’s pleasure!  We were asked to lay him on the bed and they squirted some glue and sent us home - with a handout of course!  This one was on the gluing procedure and its aftercare.

Owen was most excited to get a sticker - and some chocolate from Daddy, and off we went home.  We have to keep it dry for 5 days to allow it time to work and then it should fall off and that will be that.  Not as scary as first trip to A&E could have been but unfortunately it is unlikely to be the last trip!  Still if he’s as brave as he was with this it won’t be too traumatic for Mummy!!  The doctor did say it will probably scar but should fade in time, so here’s hoping that’s right.  Still, who hasn’t got a scar from some incident or other when they were wee?!

Owen was getting excited about our “holidays” and “big adventure”, bless him!  “Mummy and Owen, no Daddy” he also seemed to totally understand which was all promising.

We set off on the Saturday morning and drove south.  First stop, just over the Forth Road Bridge, was my friend Tony’s new house where we were going to meet his new twins and see his horses.  I couldn’t believe the twins were 20 months old already, ridiculous it took me that long to get down there and meet them, but then he hadn’t come up and met my wee one either and he’s 2.5 years!  Anyway we had the grand tour of the house and Owen was introduced to Mac the Shetland Pony, who he thought was rather lovely.

Mac liked Owen so much he asked his Mummy Lesley to give Owen one of his rosettes, which made my wee guy very pleased!!  Playing with the twins, having lunch with the whole family, and meeting the animals was obviously all quite tiring as within 5 minutes of leaving there he looked like this…

Next we went to see Lyndsay and Kieron in Balerno, this was the first time Owen had met a lady with “baby in belly” and he thought it was quite exciting, enjoyed seeing the nursery room all ready as well.  He even agreed to giving the baby his buggy which he had been very against when we were at home, even though he never uses it!  “Luckily” I happened to have it in the boot of the car, and he was very happy to hand it over to them before we left.  Unfortunately he wasn’t so happy that we weren’t staying there as he remembered staying there before and went into “Owen’s room” and looked disappointed when I said that it wasn’t!  And so we moved onto our last stop of the day in Musselburgh.

Angela had very kindly cooked some macaroni cheese for Owen’s dinner so he ate that all up and then got ready for bed.  Our friend Louise arrived and I started to worry about whether he would go to bed as it was his first time sleeping in a sleeping bag on the floor.  Now I don’t know if it was due to the practice run of him sleeping in it on his bed the previous weekend, or if it was just that the day had been soooo exciting, or if it was the promise we’d go to the zoo if he slept properly….but there he went.  Off to bed and there wasn’t a squeak out of the baby monitor all night!

That left us girlies free to do what we always used to do regularly when we all worked together, outwith work hours of course, we opened the vino, ordered a Chinese meal delivery and got chatting!  We had a really nice night (and yummy dinner!) and then headed off to our beds at a reasonable time as we were all needing energy for the zoo the next day!

Sunday morning we set off to the zoo, meeting another ex colleague Iain and his family Laura, wee Rose and baby Charlotte.  I’d been quite disappointed as earlier in the week I’d heard you needed tickets to see the pandas so had gone onto the website and seen that it was booked up until later in the week.  However when we got there we were offered tickets!  I was told they always keep some for on the day, although apparently we were lucky there were still some left by 10.30 when we arrived!

First we got the zoo bus up to the top of the hill and worked our way round the animals.  Highlights were the baby baboon, baby pigmo hippo, and a spider monkey trying to get Owen’s raisins through the glass!

Owen’s highlight seemed to be playing with Rose (I was assured “I love Rose”), even though just after this photo was taken came the worst bit of the day - he fell face first off the rock and got covered in mud!  Luckily it washed off though and he didn’t notice the bit of blood that appeared on his palm so the tears didn’t last too long.

Iain and Laura’s time spot to see the pandas was earlier than ours so we got a report from them before we went, you only get in for 10 minutes and the time is split between the internal and external or his and her accommodation.  So its sheer luck if you see them at all and if they do much whilst you are there.  I am glad to say that we got to see both of them, and we were lucky enough to see them both moving as well.  We started off inside and Tian Tian was there and eating.  I got in before the crowd and Owen and I got a clear view of her and saw her walking outside before we had to move back and let others see the view of her backside!  Then we went outside and saw her walk round a bit before heading back inside to various cries of “oh no” and the like.

Next we went round to see Yang Guang who was busy gnawing bamboo.  He didn’t seem to want to do much (didn’t even turn round and wave at his very excited fans!).  After a while he did stand up (cue lots of shrieks) and stretch up to the roof..and then he lay back down and went back to his bamboo!  Just as we were told we had to leave though he stood up and moved down to the ground and walked around.  Suffice to say we had to get yelled at before we moved on!!

We were so lucky with the weather as it was a glorious day, and the 3 kids were all really well behaved all day.  I think we were there 10.30am - 4.15pm and Owen walked most of the day.  When we got home he wanted pasta again so got the leftover mac cheese and then it was such a lovely evening that I took him out to the beach to play in the sand.  We didn’t even wear jackets it was so nice.

Again he went straight to bed and straight to sleep, although this time I am pretty sure he was totally exhausted!  Angela and I had a nice quiet night just the 2 of us until it was time for bed - poor Angela had to work the next morning.

Monday the plan was to go to the Advocates Library where I used to work, and pop into the Signet Library to collect some books a nice solicitor had offered me for my library.  However that wasn’t until lunchtime so I decided to continue the weekend’s theme of “animals” and take Owen to Butterfly World.  This also tied in nicely with the fact that he’d come home with green painted highlights in his hair from nursery one night as they had been painting a caterpillar. 

He wasn’t sure about the snakes, and was worried about a couple of “butterfly not happy”s (i.e. dead) but we had a nice time wandering around.  I think he liked the spiders most but he was quite taken by the cocoons as well and I was explaining that was like his Very Hungry Caterpillar book and how a caterpillar becomes a butterfly.

Afterwards we went to the Dobbies next door and wandered around the pet shop.  Himself may have enjoyed this bit more than the bit I paid for to be honest!!  He named the rabbits and examined the gerbils, hamsters etc.  We even found Nemo in the fish section.  Then we bought some yogurt raisins and went and had a picnic snack next to the playground, after going on the swings and slide of course!

The Signet Library had given me permission to park in front of the building to collect my box of books so we parked up and went into the first library of the day.  Owen made me a proud librarian/Mummy by “shhh”ing noticeably!  Then we went through to the Advocates Library and saw some of the folk I used to work with.  A few of us went out for lunch, and we nipped out through the National Library of Scotland, so giving us a hat trick of library visits for the day!  Owen seemed to enjoy Vittorias with a massive ham and cheese panini - and a balloon to take home!  It was nice to catch up with Andrea, my ex boss, and let her see how my wee boy was progressing.  Of course we couldn’t leave for the journey home before Owen took the chance to pace Parliament Hall like the Advocates do!

Heading out of the city I realised we could probably fit in a wee visit to see some relatives too, and luckily my Aunty Kathleen was in.  Owen was excited to meet my cousin Claire’s Dalmation, although not so impressed with his full facial “kisses” and general bounciness!  Hope he never really meets 101 Dalmations at the same time!! 

It was lovely to get home and see Daddy again, and show him the shells and postcard we got for him, but I think we were both ready for bed and then back to our usual routine the next morning!!  Although saying that when I collected Owen from nursery this Friday he told me “I no want go home, I want see Mac horsey”.  If only every weekend could be a fun adventure!!

They had decorated eggs earlier in the week and were supposed to go out and roll them but unfortunately the weather hadn’t been nice enough so we got the egg to take home instead.

On the Saturday the boys got haircuts in the morning then we went down to Owen’s Grandda’s house as Lee had collected his 4 kids the day before and brought them up for a visit.  It was lovely to see them all and Owen was very excited to see “cousins - Maz, Blue, Berrie and…ummmm….”.  Not sure why he can’t remember Frankie’s name but we’ll work on that for next time!

Saturday night I was working…well I’d been asked to write a review for a Steps concert anyway!  I took my pal Jen, or rather she took me, so I got free taxi as well as concert tickets!  Nice!

Sunday morning the 3 of us hit the pool and had a good splash, so that was fun.  Then it was back to the house for lunch, and pudding of Owen’s Easter Egg, a present from my boss. 

I also gave him his special Easter present from us - a film cell from Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (he’s really quite obcessed with “heigh-hos”).  This was taken upstairs immediately and put on his wall. 

In the afternoon he watched some of the football with his Dad then he and I went to roll his egg.  We were going to go to a wee hill near the high school but it started raining so I pointed out the slope behind the church.  For some reason as we passed the church he pointed to the cross on the top of it so I took the chance to tell him the story of Easter, reminding him about baby Jesus from Christmas and then telling him about the cross and rolling the stone away.  He seemed to take it all in and I felt quite virtuous as we went and rolled our egg, and then again, and again.  Seemingly they were very hard boiled!!  We did manage to get it to crack eventually!

It was only when we got back to work yesterday it occured to me I hadn’t got any chocolate eggs myself, the down side to becoming a grown up/Mummy.  Although to be fair my Mum sent us money to get an egg each but we decided to put that money towards lunch with the family on Saturday - much more important!

Hope you had a good Easter too!

Katy Perry played the AECC the Saturday before Halloween. It would be interesting to see if the audience would have been as eye catching any other time of the year.  Obviously there would have still been the blue wigs and high heels, but maybe not the zombies (although they were very effective costumes!). Audience apart, it was an amazing spectacle of an evening. The support act One Land seemed to be a lady in a floaty nightie, a quick Google search found she’s Danish and popular back home. To be fair the songs were enjoyable.The main act was very well constructed, an Alice in Wonderland inspired fairy tale ran between the songs, with the lyrics and costumes tying into what was happening on the big screen. Cupcakes and sweeties featured highly, and Katy Perry often looked sweet enough to eat!Outfits ranged from a white 50s prom style dress with twirling red and white discs, to a black slashed looking catsuit, to a long red and silver evening dress. Im sure I’m not the only girl in the room desperate to be let loose on her wardrobe!

I did take a few photos and videos and they are available online at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stupidgirl_no1/sets/72157627886537147

All my photos are available at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stupidgirl_no1/sets/72157629306012154/ but here’s some of my favourites!

And the lesson I learned this weekend? That lying face down across a hot hub is an awesome sensation!

Anyway 18 years on and I still miss him tons and think of him often.  Funny how little things trigger it - like an actor having the same eyes, or Owen suddenly looking like him.  Also funny that its come to my attention when I’ve been thinking of him lots recently as my work is taking me to Perth Races this summer.  Grandad loved horse racing, indeed he was watching it and checking the results in the paper when he “fell asleep”.

The other wee co-incidence is that I found a picture of him last time I was at my parent’s home, and I was unpacking it this weekend so I’d like to share it with you, its from his 80th birthday - all those years ago!

RIP Archie Holder, love you always xx

So he was off nursery, and Bryan and I had to juggle who stayed with him between our work commitments.  Not easy as I had functions on Monday evening, Tuesday lunchtime, Wednesday evening and Thursday lunchtime.  By Friday I was glad to stay home the entire day!

Poor wee Owen really wasn’t himself - huge temperature, runny bum and nose, off his food.  Then on Wednesday Bryan came down with it too!  Yikes!  This was my Wednesday afternoon…

On Saturday Owen was a bit perkier so I took him off to Doonies Farm so that Bryan could have some time alone - and I was hopeful we’d see some lambs (we didn’t *sigh*).

However we did manage to have a nice Mother’s Day as a family.  It was a glorious day up here so we went down to the beach and had a picnic lunch and Owen collected shells and we made a pattern with them in the sunshine.

My special treat was that Bryan cooked us a roast beef and Yorkshire pud dinner, with chocolate cake for dinner.  Yum.  Then when dropping Owen at nursery this morning I found a wonderful piece of artwork in the form of a Mother’s Day card.  I presume he made it before being off sick, but I’ll need to check that when I pick him up…!

Mother’s Day got me thinking though, about how ace it is to be a Mum.  I had a sad wee think about Bryan’s Mum who is sadly missed, and about my 2 wee babies that were not to be and didn’t make it past being embryos. 

Just one look at wee Owen when he smiles his gorgeous smile and nothing else in the world really matters (sorry everyone else!).  Amazing the bond between mother and child - alarming and fantastic.  Lots of my friends were posting photos of the presents and cards they got but I have to admit I got the best present I could ever get when Bryan handed me our little gooey newborn baby.  Love you always and forever my family.

Well, I’ve just spent…forever…looking through my photos and trying to pick the right 10.  It’s not easy.  I have managed to pick 10 with which I can demonstrate, explain and summarise my 2011.  However Owen is in 4 of them, I am justifying this by the fact that only 1 of the 4 is a photo of Owen, the other 3 he is just a small part of a photo.  So there.  They are my rules, so I’ll bend them if I want to.

Without further ado, please scroll down for My 2011 in 10 Photos.  This year I present them in chronological order.

Photo 1: my beloved Jaffne and a gorgeous rainbow (and that bloke Ahlun who she was hanging around with).  I had various trips south to see Jaffne and we had much fun together as usual.  This lovely day we went for a walk over to Crammond Island and we were just so lucky with the weather - a common theme this year, often had very good luck with lovely weather it must be said.  We went beach combing, ate ice cream and saw many pretty sights.

Photo 2: the Robertsons and trains.  Unfortunately baby Maya isn’t in this photo, although she was in Nicole’s belly at the time!  Anyway at Easter we took Lucas and Owen to ride on Thomas the Steam Engine at Brechin.  Owen is quite train obsessed and I hope in the future he will appreciate the awesomeness of his first ever train journey being in a steam train.  It was a hard call as to who enjoyed themselves most that day it must be said - the train was pretty cool!  We spent many happy days playing with Ray, Nicole, Lucas and, since October, Maya. 

Photo 3: Royal Wedding in my work’s library.  I love my library, so much so I talked myself into working on the extra public holiday this year.  Well, I say “work” but our social events are often enjoyable and this was just one of the ones I really enjoyed.  It would be rude to complain about drinking champagne and eating cupcakes at 10am wearing a pretty dress and tiara and watching a wedding with most of the rest of the country (or was that world?!).  It was lovely to share the day with other people who were excited about the wedding, reminded me of when Charles and Diane got married and I watched it with the ladies who worked at the hotel my parents were employed by at the time.

My job was great in 2011, got lots done, got to know some of members much better, had some great events (chocolate tasting, cheese tasting, trip to Pitlochry to see My Fair Lady, farm trip when I got to sit in a John Deere tractor, a BBQ, walking tours of Aberdeen, a quiz, Stuart MacBride author event and, many lunches and dinners.)  Then in November the Society gained its first ever Lady President, this means I have a lady boss - a very keen, enthusiastic lady who is doing great things - and gave me an excuse to wear an Ann Summers outfit to work!  Click the events link above and scroll down to the bottom to see photos!! 

Oh yes, 2011 - the year the doctor told me I had to watch my weight didn’t go any lower - my dream!  I am now a size 10 and most of my clothes hang off me.  Totally awesome.  Obviously I haven’t taken photos of myself really so am cheating mentioning this as its on a link rather than in one of my 10 photos!  But it is important enough to be mentioned, goodness I’ve hated my body most of my life, never realised that the result of childbirth would be that I finally get the figure I’ve always dreamed of!  Anyway, back to the 10 photos.

Photo 4: my folks, their chickens, eggs and Creagan.  My parents got chickens at their restaurant this year, Owen is now really quite obsessed with chickens and eggs.  Ask him what he wants for dinner and the answer is usually “egg”.  He loves going to visit my parents, or just their house and chickens as we did when they were on holiday and we were in charge of the chickens!

One of our visits was for my Dad turning 60, I now have OAP parents - crickey!  For his special occasion we all went to Blair Drummond Safari Park-and we all had an ace time!  I couldn’t believe both my parents thought it was the first time they had seen live meerkats, poor deprived folk.

The scary thing is that at the end of the year my parents sent out a letter to their regulars and family to say that they would be putting Creagan on the market in 2012.  I had, of course, known for a while this was on the cards.  Indeed I have been told I need to move all my stuff out.  This is quite a mission as I still have loads of stuff there.  Obviously I’ve lived without it for a while though but things like my Wade pottery collection, postcard collection and rocking horse are essential - I just don’t know where to put them!  Luckily the property market is an unknown quantity in that it could take 2 weeks or 2 years for Creagan to sell, so I’m not panicking yet.  For those that know my parents, they hope to buy a B&B or place with self catering in Scotland.  They won’t fully retire but need to tone it down a bit as…well, they aren’t getting any younger bless them.  Big news but could take a while before anything happens.

Photo 5: Summer holiday in Carnoustie.  Yes, this is Scotland in the sunny picture.  Bryan and I hadn’t been on holiday together since our honeymoon in 2003 so decided it was about time we did!  I was given the choice of the whole world and told to “just book something” and we ended up self catering in the every exotic Carnoustie.  We had a fabulous time though and traveling with a wee lad it was the best way, just a wee car journey and we could take as much paraphernalia as we needed.  I love my 2 lads and it was amazing to have a week just the 3 of us with no other complications or distractions.  Plus there was a swimming pool at our accommodation so Owen and I went swimming each morning whilst Bryan had a lie in and then during Owen’s afternoon nap, or once he was in bed, I went back for a “proper” swim and Bryan had some alone time.  This arrangement suited all of us very nicely.  We had lots of trips out - St Andrews Aquarium, Camperdown Wildlife Park in Dundee, Arbroath beach and mini railway, Brechin castle centre with its big bouncy cushion type things.  All great fun!

Photo 6 - TRACTOR!!  This photo was taken at The Store in Foveran, where we went to a Farm Open Day and Owen and I were ecstatic to have a go in a John Deere tractor and sit in that huge yellow combine harvester.  It was brilliant!  Owen absolutely adores tractors - and as folk who know me have probably found out I love John Deere in particular.  We both had huge smiles all day, and Bryan seemed to enjoy it too, especially the yummy burger.

Photo 7 - squirrel in London.  Okay so I just love this photo, the colours of the squirrel and the gravestone.  But also I had a brilliant time that day, several squirrels came over to speak to me and a lovely Australian lady gave me some monkey nuts to feed them in a lovely random act of kindness.  I ended up looking like the mad woman in the park with about 6 of them jumping on and off me and fighting over the nuts - amazing experience.

This photo also signifies my recent move to get more involved professionally.  I joined a committee which has given me the opportunity to go to meetings in London and Birmingham.  I also wrote a blog post for them - and an article for the Scottish Law Librarian’s Group newsletter (but its members only so I can’t share that!).  Feeling quite proud of myself but goodness knows what I can find to keep up with myself this year.

Photo 8 - Disney and our wee man turns 2!  For Owen’s birthday we took him to The Disney Store for his first time.  Strange to think our son managed 2 years of life before making it into the wonderful world of a Disney store, especially as Daddy used to work in them and we are determined to take him to Disneyworld when he’s 5.  Owen was given the choice of the entire store and chose a little Simba teddy, bless him.  We forced him to add a cup to the purchase.

Unfortunately our savings account isn’t growing as well as we’d planned it to ready for our holiday once Owen is 5, but we have time to catch up, hopefully!  I am most determined that it will happen one way or another.  I’ve wanted to go to Florida Disney since I was tiny and now I have a child I have the perfect excuse - plus I don’t want him to grow up without the things I wanted.  Of course he will want different things than the things I wanted but you have to start somewhere and I won’t give up on the concept of us all going to Disneyworld.

Photo 9 - my lovely gals in Crail.  Isabel, Lorna and Jennie are my special law librarian chums, we have an email based support system and in 2011 we went for 2 brilliant weekends away together.  Relaxing, chatting, eating and a wee bit of drinking and sight seeing.  Just what we all needed.  First weekend was at Loch Tay and ended up with my face painted as a dalmatian, second weekend was near St Andrews and included a dinner of chocolate eggs.  I love these ladies.  Lots.

Photo 10 - Bryan’s Dad and brother.  Obviously this photo was Christmas Day - I couldn’t get these macho men to wear silly crowns any other day of the year!  Lee lived with us throughout 2011 which was lovely, Owen totally adores his Uncle Lee - and is quite confused now he’s moving out - but that’s another story.  We invited “the Robertsons” round for Christmas Day and had a lovely time opening presents and eating too much - just as one should on Christmas Day!  We had a few days with them through the year and it was great to be together.  Watching Owen with his grandparents and the reactions they induce in each other is just amazing.

And that was my 2011, hope you enjoyed it too!