How Early???

4.30am puffy faced and sleep deprived photo shoot before heading for a 5am drop off at Meldrum Academy for Sam's school trip. I may have hugged and kissed him so much I wore him away but I was in mega worry mum mode. We miraculously made the drop off in time, saw him step onto the coach, gave due respect to the eminently sensible parent who turned up in PJ's for the drop off....top tip for us for next time...and off the coach went. All the way to Englandshire to catch a ferry to the continent. We texted a few times then it was radio silence from Sam.....so naturally I went into MEGA PARENTAL WORRY CATASTROPHE ALERT while Dave countered with a "don't be daft, he's fine, he's just busy" mantra.

Distractions were required. Planned distractions included Beach visit, unplanned distractions included being chased by a herd of stampeding cows. Yes, having been joined again by Mo and Graham in the evening, we headed off up the hill in glorious sunshine and got a bit showy off about our wee bit of hilly goodness by attempting to go up to the trig point. Having said I was sure there were no cows in the field we set off, only to suddenly see a cow's head appear over the horizon. Simultaneously stripping off my red jumper, panic buckling Beth on to her lead and running madly over cowpat and divot to head down and over the old dry stane dyke the rest of them were giggling at my panic...only for them to turn round and see the single cow had turned into a whole heard that were now all running towards us. We no sooner jumped over the dyke than the Bulls...and they were all Bulls....were snorting right behind us as we collapsed in laughter and relief (only later did I find out they often jump the dykes, which might have stopped me leaning over to talk to them...once I'd got my breath back and made sure we were all alive and accounted for). Luckily, Dave had made us all some homemade lasagne which went some way to say sorry for almost killing our guests. Glasses of wine needed all round.