aberfeldy, august 2013

 It's now a month since Graham, Dulcie and I went on holiday.  I couldn't sleep tonight and 4am one month after the fact seemed like as good a time as any to upload the photos from my camera at last.  There are so many that I am not going to attempt to group them or reorder them in any way, but this random selection probably gives you a pretty good overview of the week we had.

 We were all very happy to be staying in a simple house with only the bare essentials.  No clutter meant plenty of space to play, although (clutter or not) you should never blow bubbles inside!  A-hem...

 On our last day, we went to a farmers market in a small town called Logierait.  It was great!  Dulcie loved wandering around all the stalls and dancing to the amateur fiddle group (you can just see them in the background there).  I made a few lovely handmade and vintage type purchases, but they'll have to wait until 2014 as I haven't photographed them yet.  One of them was a hat for Dulcie so you can be sure that you'll see photos of that in use as soon as the cold weather really kicks in!

 The house we were staying in had a duck pond nearby so we took a couple of slices of bread with us on our way out each morning, much to Dulcie's delight.  She is still saying, "Duck! Bread! Pomd!" on an almost daily basis.

 Mum and Dulcie taking a breather at the park on a day when Dulcie had some crazy bed-head going on!  (Not sure why I have started referring to myself in the third person...)

 The happy duck face.  I've got this picture as the screensaver on my phone at the moment and it makes me smile every time I see it.  This jumper (a gift from Graham's mum) is so classic.

 And another one of Dulcie and I.

 Puddles are very popular lately.  Thank goodness for the trusty wellies and puddle suit.

 It was so nice to have a garden for a week.  When the weather/wasps allowed, we would eat outside and Graham and I played plenty of frisbee while Dulcie pottered around.

 Lunch with a very friendly dog was a definite highlight for Dulcie, who made lots of doggie pals everywhere she went.

Getting to know each other, they discovered a shared love of sticks.  What are the chances?

 The park, where we went pretty much every day, I think, was surrounded by lovely hills.  There was also a bowling green here, where Graham and I managed to get in a game (my first every game of bowls) when my mum and dad came to join us for the last couple of days.  For the record, I won, but only because Graham gambled his 21-2 lead for the thrill of one final winner-takes-all round.  Sucker!

 Dulcie got all cuddly on this big swing every time we went on it.  It was so relaxing.

 Plenty for the "grown-ups" to do in this park as well as the children.

 The little house at the top of the slide was JUST big enough for two...

 ..and was spacious for one.

 While we sheltered from a dramatic rain storm, Dulcie took the opportunity to stand under the drips coming off the end of the shelter.  I repeat, thank goodness for the puddle suit and wellies.  We went for restorative coffee and cake after this while we dried off.

 The big slide was great fun, if a little scary.

 My trousers were dangerously fast (odd statement!) and I flew off the end and skint my arm - quite a nostalgic sort of injury.

 We walked around a lot and picked some delicious wild raspberries.  Dulcie gobbled them up by the handful and left only a few for her bush-prickled parents.

The sun came out often enough to indulge Dulcie's interest in shadows.

So that was our holiday.  What else did we do?  Well, we went to the swimming pool pretty much every day.  Dulcie got a sweet crush on a random older man and is still talking about how he gave her her ball back and she said, "Ta."  Graham and I went for dinner and a movie at the new cinema, which is well worth a visit.  Over the years, we've bought various raffle tickets and souvenirs to help with their fundraising, so it was really nice to see it open at last.  We fantasised about winning the lottery (but it didn't happen) and found a house we wanted to buy just for the lovely garden.  We ate bags of chips in the town square and visited the charity shop where we got a pretty mammoth haul for pennies.  We ate lots of cheese and drank plenty of wine and had a charcoal-tasting barbecue courtesy of Graham, whose burgers shrivelled up so much that Dulcie mistook them for biscuits.  All in all, a pretty classic holiday :)