We finally managed to persuade Kiloh to get on her bike for the first time in ages yesterday. We caught the train and then had a lovely cycle to a really lovely party at Sylvia's. We were just arriving at the station for the train back when she did a sudden stop, flew over the handlebars, and broke her wrist. B-(
Hope we can get her back in the saddle soon,
B-)
Went to see Happy-Go-Lucky last night, which was great fun. The kids particularly enjoyed the important supporting role played by our house as Poppy and Scott toured the neighbourhood during her driving lessons. Holly's car also did a bit of upstaging.
I also enjoyed for once being in a cinema that fell into complete silence as the film began. And the hearty laugh of the guy in the front row. he made me think of that line in Woody Allen's philosophy:
'What if nothing exists and we're all in somebody's dream? Or what's worse, what if only that fat guy in the third row exists?'
B-)
We've been taking in a lot of culture recently, since I went through a phase of grabbing those cheap or 10 squid special offers, but Apoa and I think this might be the most exciting cultural event we've come across recently.
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With our usual tardiness, we finally took Kiloh to the optician's on Saturday and confirmed her need for specs. It's not a strong prescription. It was explained to her on a different system from the one I understand, but 'a wee bittie' is probably as accurate as I need. Apparently, she only needs to wear them in class and when she thinks she needs them. Naturally, my genes are the culprit.
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So struggling to blog these days. In case you're interested, our family is currently totally grooving to '505' from the new arctic monkeys album. Puts life in all our slideshows.
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Over a month with no blogging. What a disgrace. Thought I'd get going with this clip which will interest a single-figured number of my readers. This is the one and only result for 'falby' on youtube at the moment, guys. A commercial advertising the town of Sarnia in Canada paid for by local landlord Andrew Falby. I enjoyed the comments. 'Why no reference to the Chemical Valley?' 'I assumed everyone already knew...'
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It was nice to see everyone in Scotland even if not the reason you'd choose to get together. Lewis and the 'gerrils' enjoyed each others' company very much and we had a nice trip to Auntie Lorna's and some family resting places. We visited the towns where I lived and went to school until I was around Apoa and Kiloh's ages, which of course was more interesting to them than me, and the Bass at Inverurie where Mary ('born twice, died twice') Elphinstone is buried (supposedly - we didn't have time to look for her grave).**
Apoa and Kiloh kept laughing at my rapidly reaccommodating language, objecting to my use of words like 'baith' and 'mair' which they insist I don't say. I tried to coach their acccents a bit. The vowel in words like 'Billy' is a bit tough for them and Lewis's pronunciation of the Billy who's his best friend at nursery had the girls thinking his friend was 'Bowie'. We also mused on the different vowels in the 'fit' that means 'pardon' or 'what' and the 'fit' at the end of your leg (same vowel as 'Billy').
It was also good to catch up on some other phrases like 'makkin on' (pretending), and 'getting into trouble'. I don't know whether it's just my rellies but I also noticed some words that would seem too formal for everyday speech (e.g. 'incorporate', 'discretion') in informal conversation.
B-)
**The story is that she had been accidentally buried alive and came back to consciousness when grave robbers removed her ring. A quick google suggests that the story has been transplanted to Inverurie from elsewhere but we won't let that get in the way of a good story, will we?
