Family friend #distantcousins

We had to scribble it out quickly, but apparently we are third cousins twice removed. Whatever, it was lovely to meet Cara over from the US.

Flying high @ourpotofgold

Feels like only yesterday that this little one...er...flew out. What a birth! What an amazing 2 years!

Trust good ol' facebook to remind me

Throwback Thursday #Granny&Me

(circa 1980, Cyprus)

Got style #swimwear,boots&stillhelpful

Did it! #Christmaspresent

Stirling from the air. Had to use 20 years of local knowledge and a helping hand to get that all done with no model to follow.

2 days in Paris #socialcatchup

Yes, not a bad start to the new year.

Not a bad start at all.

Mind The Gap #theG-Kfiller

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

Welcome to a new year, and a new decade!

We've said goodbye to the 2010s, and to my 30s. And was that not the best decade ever??

OK, not for the world in general...

10 years ago I saw the new decade in with El Puma on the streets of Edinburgh in a bit of a disastrous New Year. Glad the years after that picked up, even if the company stayed marvellously the same :) I went on to finish my PhD, get married, have 3 children, visit one or two new countries, buy a house or two, move to France, move away from France, hit my 40s, and wonderfully, happily, maintain precious long friendships and add new friends (and family, much family) to my 'squad'.

Like I said, best decade ever.

For Christmas celebrations en famille and the big Hogmany night itself, Mama B has done an amazing job of writing it up (and faster than I did), so below is just the 'filler'....the stuff we did that we didn't do with them...which seems to involve a lot of pictures of the sea. Scotland really does do sea well...

Anyway, first up, some family Christmas pictures. We were all in Dunkeld again (as 2 years ago), although unlike 2 years ago, I was responsible for both the rota and the turkey. All I'm saying is, 'all' is not a useful solution for rota responsibilities, and it's useful to make sure you are changing the oven temperature and not the grill when cooking a turkey. The turkey was done in 2 hours flat. Thankfully not singed, but a little earlier than expected.

The advantage of a turbo turkey? More time for drinking and posing.

El Puma: Man of the House :)

Christmas time is Cousin time.

We did manage to leave the house for a couple of walks. No snow like 2 years ago, but plenty of family shots and a bit of history on Mama B's site. And then this one when visiting the Hermitage. 

Considering that most of our successful memory-making in Scotland involves family, we decided to a) do more and b) bring in more (family). So the inlaws joined us from France and we booked a converted mill on the Banff Coast.

The cottage

The coast (this bit is important)

And then we spent multiple days exploring the coast, and one day in A&E in Elgin checking that this little ray of sunshine's arm was not broken after a rather nasty fall from a bunk bed in Dunkeld.

Can't beat a Chicken glove

 Lossiemouth:

How many of these do you see around now?
Small Fry didn't even know what it was for.

The in-laws exchange one frigid coast for another

 Ah, the beautiful sea.

This is at the Dolphin Watching Centre that we trekked to, only to find it was closed. I made everyone walk along the beach anyway, braving the enormous gusts of freezing wind, but worth it for the shots.

 And Portsoy with it's 12th century harbour...

 And an artistic dolphin.

 And then finally we came to the last light of the year:

And the first, beautiful, pure, radiant light of the new decade.

Which I fully did not appreciate as I spent it's 12th and 13th hours ABSOLUTELY FROZEN!

This was the beach: Sandend: Site of our New Year festivities in 2007. A wonderful, gorgeous, flat beach, with wonderful, gorgeous, baltic waves.

 Blissful, right?

And then we tore down that beach like screaming hordes and ran INTO that water.

The before shots:

 The during:

c-c-c-c-cold

Actually, as you can see, I was the sensible one and borrowed a wetsuit. And it helped. A lot. The coldest part of me was my feet, and they were like blocks of ice. It actually hurt to walk back out the water. I got straightaway how people can only survive a few minutes in water like that. But I was pretty proud of myself to have gone in, even if it was straight back out again. I was even prouder of Small Fry who went in like a champ, came out suffering from mild hypothermia and within a few minutes of warming up was contemplating the philosophical side of the new decade with his cousins, on the edge of the sea. 

 And just cos she's so darned cute:

And just like that, epiphany passed us by, school started, we are back in our routines, thankful for all we've lived through, grateful for the love, hope, joy and peace we are surrounded by, and determined to keep making a difference in the best ways we can in the coming decade. And if we never quite achieve such lofty aims, then it doesn't matter. We'll have a lot of fun trying :)

 HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!