the running wave

There's a little clue as to where I have been during the last fortnight.  That's pretty much all the Spanish I have picked up, apart from 'grassyarse' of course.  We have been away with our daughter and her four children and they totally clocked that one!  Our son-in-law joined us once The Open had closed.  It was held just up the road from home so that was a major event not to be missed.  Meantime, in Spain lots of flopping in and out out of the swimming pool and loads of sunshine which has been great.   There was no wifi in the villa hence no blogging and the only contact with the outside world has been via my daughter's iPhone.   I have a mass of photos to go through and I am looking forward to picking out my favourites to post here.  In the meantime let me share a little of the jungle we have come home to! Lovely hot Scottish sunshine and a certain amount of rain and watering on the part of friends has resulted in a veritable explosi...

The whoops of encouragement and delight coming from our household this afternoon must have mingled in the stratosphere with all the other positive vibes being generated by the entire UK as we willed Andy Murray on to such an epic win at Wimbledon today!   We had a feeling it might be a good day.  Here was the omen in the sky this morning! Well done Andy!!  We are very proud of you!

We have a much loved friend from Hampshire staying with the family this weekend.  Yesterday he came with me to the beach where we walked with my two younger grandsons. The boys made the mistake of taking their father's rather expensive British and Irish Lions 2013 commemorative rugby ball with them.  It was temporarily forgotten about while they larked around doing a spot of dune jumping.   When they remembered about the ball it had blown a long way back down the beach to the water's edge and was bobbing about in the running waves.  The labrador took it upon herself to try and retrieve it but each time she tried to grab hold of it in her mouth she was actually nudging it further and further away from the beach.  It was quickly a long way out to sea.  You can just about see the ball and the dog at four o'clock from the sea gull! Our heroic weekend guest was then required to take off his top layers and wade out until he was chest deep in the very cold N...