Family ...

Writing this on the rainy morning after (again!) I find I'm once more rushing to catch up with my scheduled life in Dunoon - painting class is in 45 minutes and I'm not dressed yet... We left our family less than 24 hours after arriving, as the men arrived to install double glazing (of the tailor-made-to-comply-with-the-area variety) in, among others, the room we sleep in while we're there and our son was only able to appear intermittently and briefly from his office as life in the world of newspapers goes on.  

We left in a downpour which reached its triumphant pinnacle of awfulness as we arrived at the tangle of roads which bypass Glasgow via the M73/74 - we've done that before in similar weather, when we could barely see anything through the whirling windscreen wipers and the water buffeted the wheels as we crawled round sweeping curves of motorway. The rain stopped in Glasgow and it was dry thereafter - even sunny, would you believe, in Dunoon?

We sat down to a late and absurd lunch of tea and birthday cake, went out for a short, languid stroll along the shore road at Ardyne, came home to unpack and fall gratefully on another of my daughter-in-law's rescue food parcels as we ate pulled pork from yesterday's feast and spicy chips, and made it slightly less sinful by adding some of the rhubarb I'd stewed before we went off. I slept over the telly (natch), felt too tired and out of sorts to blip, and was in bed on the stroke of midnight. 

I look forward so much to these family times; I loved seeing them all together like that - eight people with our name, half of whom are growing up at an unbelievable rate. I hate leaving them. 

Collage is of the rest of the family - one cat daring another to explore the cupboard under the kitchen sink, while Po the collie sits, looking slightly alarmed because of balloons (still wafting in the hall) and window fitters.