christmas cake

here is the picture of our christmas cake for this year

so what do you think of that - amazing or what !!!!

it was made by a friend of ours called ruth - she makes a few of them each year and this year we were lucky enough to get one .

underneath it is a christmas fruit cake and the rest is done with various types of icing....................

incredible does'nt quite cover it..............

my wishes for the wedding

My niece and partner are getting married and i wanted to pass on some top wisdom – but i am not very good at wisdom so thought of this instead.

Marriage is a journey through life , taking the motorway is allways the quickest route but it is more prone to accidents and holdups, you rarely get chance to enjoy the scenery .

The back roads are slower and the scenery is much better but sometimes the scenery is better than the journey and can distract you.

Marriage does not come with a sat-nav so at each junction you will have to make a decision – there are two of you in the car – so choose a destination you both want to go to.

Maybe not the best advice in the world – but i do wish them the best journey through life together.

May your road be smooth and not too many roadworks and may the scenery be nice but not too nice to stop you enjoying each others company .

nick

still on hols - yet more photo's

more photo's of happy hols again............

 we took the kids out for the day




one went horse riding ........

 the other went on an off road segway (sorry about picture quality they go too fast for me to keep up with)

 this one is about half way up loch lomond looking north.........

 loch lomond again but looking south - pic mainly of interesting tree.................

double click this one and blow it up it shows the local area.........

we went back to my ancestral home and took this picture remmembering one of my very distant relatives
my family tree goes back to the colquhoun clan who are from the loch lomond area from year dot - its one of those places in life you have to go and see ..................

more out and about (photo heavy)

been out and about a lot today so lots of photo's

 this waterfall is in the grounds of the place we are staying

 we are in the middle floor - the one with the doors open

we walked down the road a bit and went for coffee - this is how far from everywhere we were.

you just need to read these -

same again......

and again...

 this was a nice bit of carving....

this was the shed next to it - lots of random signs - i couldnt resist a photo ....

later on we went down into aberfoyle and had good look round and them some lunch

after this it was back into the car again and we spent the afternoon wandering around callandar - but i will leave that for another day..........

still on holiday - out and about

been out and about today

we went accross to stirling and had a wander about the thistle shopping centre - not my cup of tea - but the much beloved enjoyed it (come on blokes who enjoys shopping appart from the girls)

on the way back we called in at the dobbies garden centre and we found these - dancing penguins playing different xmas tunes - hilarious!!!!!!!!!!

i did actualy buy something for me for a change - i bought a seedling bonsai tree - lets see how that turns out............................ 

on family holiday in scotland (picture heavy)

on hols at aberfoyle - forest hills trossachs club
here is a taster - lots of pictures...


here is one of the bedrooms

twin single beds with en-suite

the next two are the view from the balcony...........nice.....

just up the road a bit - just look at that reflection

same loch different view

a bit further up the hills and looking down towards the next loch

well you would have to take a picture now wouldnt you !!!

the sign tells it all - this is where we were and this is what was there

if you double click any of the pictures they will go full size - much better view then - also feel free to use them as backgrounds for your desktop - i never bother to lock them you may share them freely

its tattie picking week ...

the potatoes are about ready around our bit so its tattie picking time.
we used to have 'tattie picking week' when we were kids and used to go down to the local farm and work(damn hard) picking and sorting that years crop of potatoes
the health and safety gestapo and various child cruelty groups would probably have a heart attack nowadays but we loved it - and besides we got paid for it , not much by todays standards but it was good pocket money in those days
back to the present.........

there was a large potatoe picking machine whizzing up and down the field digging out the potatoes and feeding them out in to boxes carried on the back of a tractor and trailer and then taken off that by a telehandler and then loaded on to my wagon

it didnt take long to empty that field i can tell you as there was a few wagons there waiting to load and go - got to get a shift on as they have to go to the supplier the same day as they have to be fresh.

the views were good while we waited though
(good picture for my dad this - he should know where this is)