Twitching with life...

Goldfinch glory

I like watching the birds in the garden, particularly at this time of year. It’s somehow life affirming watching these pretty creatures busying themselves around our bird feeders. The girls love it too and are pretty good at identifying who’s who. Niomi particularly loves my book of all the different bird songs. Last weekend she sat opposite me, asking me to name the birds from their songs. I did impressively well – scoring 100%. She thinks I’m an ornithological genius. I haven’t the heart to tell her that actually I’m just good at reading upside down and can see the names of the breeds in the book as she holds it in front of her. Tanya and Emily clocked on to what I was doing and just thought it hilarious. Tweety tweet tweet – errrrmmmm….ringed plover. Tweet twit tweet – ah yes, that’ll be the red throated diver. I am the god of birdsong. Niomi did actually consider the prospect of me reading upside down but, I assume because she can’t do it, immediately discounted that as a possibility, so carried on amazed at her dad’s prowess. She also has some very interesting ideas about the birds. "There's a boy and girl robin" she said. "They're married. You can tell which one's a girl by her eyes." I must confess I've no idea if she's right.

A little later her less over-trusting older sibling joined me for the annual big garden birdwatch run by the RSPB. It basically involves sitting patiently for an hour counting the maximum number of birds of different species that you see in your garden. It always amazes me just how many, differing species and how many birds we see each year. Sadly the woodpecker and nuthatch that we’ve seen recently didn’t make a reappearance, neither (unsurprisingly) did the tawny owl that we regularly hear roundabout. But we did get plenty of goldfinches, greenfinches, chaffinches, bullfinches, great tits, blue tits and a host of others. Watching the birds reminds me of the vitality of life in the midst of winter. And as January 
wanes, the light takes on a slightly brighter hue, the air feels slightly warmer and the first signs of life reappear on the ground. A bit to go, but the end of winter is now not so far away…

Keep your beak to yourself Mr Woodpecker

Ups and downs...

Quick round up of the last few weeks… Hogmanay was a blast. After saying good bye to the Gediks and Gurneys at Christmas, we quickly washed the linens and welcomed in the Rookes for a few days surrounding Hogmanay. There were some lovely walks, a trip out to see Wonka, plenty of games on the Wii, jigsaw-mania, food and laughter aplenty, a ceilidh in Bearsden for the bells AND the boys won the annual cranium contest. We smiled, laughed and enjoyed. It was most definitely another few days of festive joy. Thank you Rookes - you rocked our Hogmanay.

Then as the Rookes departed and to finish festivities off – I popped over to Edinburgh to see one of my best mates Colin before meeting the girls the next day to catch Wicked at the Playhouse. It was great catching up with Colin properly and we all loved the show.

All in all in was an epic and lovely festive season, full of everything it should be – wonderful, happy memories!

But since then the weather has turned cold, the days have seemed extra dark and I’ve been battling my mind to find some joy and motivation. Most definitely early January blues. Internally focussed, I’ve listened to lots of podcasts and meditated/yoga’d my way into 2024. I’ve tried to get out running, on the bike and for walks. We’ve met up with friends to enjoy the crisp fresh air, including a trip to Stirling Castle. Little by little I’ve crawled my way back to work and into life. And as the nights start to get shorter, I’ve begun to find my place in the world again. I can’t say it’s been an easy few weeks but I have much to be grateful for. And whilst I’m glad that the rollercoaster of 2023 is behind me, looking forward I also see plenty of change coming down the tracks this year as well. So I should buckle up and ride the waves, not try to swim against the flow. Deep breath….here we go 2024!

Happy New Year all - let's hope we catch up with lots of you this year!

The Hogmanay Posse

Cranium Champs

The Hogmanay Lasses

Ceilidh fun

The Hogmanay Pies

Enjoying the winter sun

New Year, New Moon

A Kirkymas Klassic...

Quick post on our Christmas here in Kirky. We had an awesome time with the Gurneys and Senior Gediks 😁💖. Lots and lots of Kirkymas magic and beautiful memories made. There was plenty of presents, loads of food, laughter all around and the occasional tear of joy. We sang, danced and made tiktok films to our hearts content. But importantly it was all that is good and important at Christmas - just spending lovely time together with those that you love. Kirkymas we loved you! Thanks to all the Gurneys and Senior Gediks for indulging my inner Santa joy, and making it such a special few days.

Vietnamese banquet courtesy of Ly

The Santa party

Yaas! He's been 😁

Santa brought a new friend

And a Taylor Swift poster (proper old school presents here)

The Kirkymas gathering

Videoclip: Xmas Tiktok fun

Or you can watch the video here

Merry Christmas everyone....

 

To all our family and friends near and far, we wish you a very merry festive season

and love, peace and joy in 2024.

STOP PRESS: And in a Christmas comes early kind of way, we've just heard that Ly has been given 'Leave to Remain' in the UK. The best Christmas present she could hope for 😍.

There’s something in the air…

Some folk may know that I’m a bit of a fan of Christmas. All that feel good, things aglow, tinsel-tastic build up just warms me'cockles in the middle of winter. Some years though definitely have me feeling more festive than others, and this year feels to be edging me more towards a Santa-sparkling festive crescendo. 

It’s a bit all change this year as normally its my family for Xmas and then we try and see Tanya’s family after if possible, but this year its Tanyas sister’s family and her parents for Xmas and then my brothers family for Hogmanay. It’s going to be quite the thing – 11 folk for the first few days and then 10 folk for the second part – somewhat the houseful which I luckily always enjoy provided we're well planned. And that's what it should be about. Quality time with those nearest and dearest. 

So whether its the festivities 'plus plus' and all the accompanying preparations, or whether it’s the recent early December snowfall and snowfun, or whether its Ly sharing our Xmas for the first time and us having lots of things to go to, I’m not sure. But whatever, I’m definitely excited. The puddings been stirred, cookings commenced, the tree’s up, the Xmas tunes are on, we’ve built snowmen and gone sledging…and there’s still party season, an Xmas ballet, Xmas films, Edinburgh and outdoor ice skating, and a whole host of other Xmas-tastic things to come. And its cold outside. 

So yes, there’s definitely something in the air….and I can’t wait.

Snowgirls

No. 3 - A Toy Poop 😂

Snow Angel

First Christmas here, first decoration

Decorating

Sending the child up the ladder 😇

Novemtures...

November has seen us full of the spirit of adventure. Emily turned 11 at the start of the month which was celebrated with her looking very grown up in her new dress and Vietnamese food cooked by Ly. Her tastes are definitely broadening out. It also saw her having a secret agent Escape Room party with friends. Looking at the photos my little girl is definitely not so little anymore – next year sees high school, where we’ve recently had an open evening which blew her and my mind completely (for different reasons). For Emily it was all so big and new, for me it was the fact that the teachers were so approachable and friendly – whatever happened to casual teacher/pupil violence in schools? Rapidly on the heels of her 11th and she was whisked off to Ardentinny on her P7 trip of abseiling, rock hopping, mountain biking, orienteering and other exciting stuff. She had a ball. We however were just left with radio silence and parental worry that she was hating it.

And whilst Emily stretches her wings, Niomi has been off adventuring with us enjoying some fine autumn weather. We’ve created our own magic with her and as ever it had a touch of Niomi’s uniqueness about it.

What of us older folk? Well we’ve also been enjoying the autumn air. I’ve been out and about on my bike and Tanya has remained committed to the outdoor swimming – crazy lady. Nice it may have been but cold it also was. Anyway, that’s Novemturing for you.

No longer a little girl

The Present Posse

The Party Posse

Videoclip: Two Cakes

Or you can watch the video here

Porters are needed on an adventure

And good direction skills

And an ability to keep look out

Off on a great adventure

Autumn by bike

Fright Night....

Halloween is not normally a huge part of our annual agenda but this year all the girls wanted the fully bhoona, with Ly being particularly keen to try her hand at ‘trick or treating’ (possibly incentivised by getting her hands on lots of sweets). So with Tanya away in Banchory and unlikely to make it back in time, it was left to me to sort out costumes, including my own. Now not being too particular I decided that this year I would identify with a non-specific scary thing. You know, just look generally a bit scary and I honestly thought that this would pass muster with the locals as we trekked around. Clearly Niomi, Emily and Ly thought it would work, commenting on how scary I looked, and so we all set off round the neighbourhood.

All was going well - confectionary supplies were increasing very well, Ly had mastered the pronunciation and intonation of her joke successfully, Niomi had pretty much overcome her initial shyness and Emily was taking being an Elf well and truly in her stride. Then I was blindsided by a 6 year old. “Who are you supposed to be?” came the question. Well I just thought a general scary thing would have cut it but clearly you actually had to be ‘something.’ After a slightly pregnant pause I had a flash of inspiration and came up with ‘a ghoul’ on the basis that this 6 year old would likely have heard of a ghoul but not know what one looked like (although neither did I). Honestly, I thought I’d done really well with my last minute impromptu costume – but there’s no satisfying some folk.

The kids were all however more than satisfied, returning home with bags of sugary bounty galore, probably to find it will be rationed out over a very long period of time…..mwah, ha, ha, ha….

Scary Kit and Angry Face

General Scary Thing

Elf (having now read LOTR)

Non-scary Princess Fairy

The Living Dead

The Motley Crew