The weekend

Douglas and I decided quite a while ago that we would go up to Scotland this weekend to make up for not being at his Dads 70th Birthday party a while ago (douglas was in hospital) The reason I didnt disclose this earlier will become apparent when you get to Saturdays bit! We came up on Friday, left very early in the morning and drove the long, long way up to near Dundee where D's brother lives. We arranged en route to meet him and his two kids, Aileen 10 and Andrew (14 I think) at a Boarders book shop ) Even better than Waterstones!!) Of course, being book lovers, this was a very bad idea.. well.. for our bank balance anyway :-) We came away with 3 books, and having got early Xmas presents for both kids. We got to Bro in laws, and said hello to his wife and very enthusastic dog. Everyone, minus dog had to rush out to see the Xmas lights being lit (I think Nephew (alias Pengper) was playing his ? tuba ? there?) so we sat on neice, and made tea. It was lovely to sit down with this part of Ds family over a meal and chat, but then Pengper had to rush out to Boys Brigade, his mum and dad went off to a fund raising Ceilidh they had to attend. We were very tired after the long drive, so headed up to bed long before they returned. Saurday After a slow start, we chatted a bit more, ;exchanged hugs and kisses, then headed off down a little further South to meet up with David and Sandy for lunch (Ds dad and step mum) We met at an outlet for Blackwells, who produce various quality tinned and jarred food, and had a lovely lunch with them, catching up on what they are doing etc. We then headed on to see Ds sister, her partner and her two boys, they live near Stirling, so we didnt have much further to travel, thank goodness. Its great to catch up with so much of Ds family in a weekend, although the driving has been very tiring. Nice to see the new house they into less than 2 weeks ago!! We sat in the dining area of the kitchen and waited to spring the surprise we had been planning for a while.. Ds and DSILs mum, Elaine (Known also to me as DMIL, Dreaded Mother In Law) had been invited over for tea, but had no idea we were there too!! It was such a pleasure to see the look of stunned delight on her face when she saw that her "Wee boy" and his wife were there sitting in the kitchen, larger than life!!! As you can imagine, we had a lovely evening, then watched Mission Impossible 3 (quite a good film!) before zonking out on the air bed in the lounge, as Elaine stayed over. Sadly, as we are not the thinnest couple, the air bed protested slowly during the night, and slowly lost its pressure a few times, so we had to get off and pump it back up again :-) We think it got down to about -6 'C or less last night because everything has turned into a winter wonderland, and the cars are all throughly Jack Frosted!! Even now, at 3pm the temperature has not gone up past about -2'C. Brrrr Elaine went back home after a late breakfast, and DSIL and I went shopping in Stirling and came home to defrost and have lunch. Everyone has gone to the local Leisure centre for a swim and sauna whilst I type this up. Im going to have an afternoon nap, as D wants to drive back home during the night. The traffic will be much less bother, and it means we have the whole of Monday off work to recover. I'm sure they will come back having had a lovely time!!