Cruden Bay

It's July! Let's go to the beach!

Ha!

Another fine example of Scotland having fantastic award winning beaches, backed by godawful, no chance of an award, shitty summer weather. I'm pretty sure that was a tornado making landfall over the bay there. Was still busy mind you and the kids enjoyed a bit of dune jumping and poking jellyfish with sticks.

Day two of our annual cottaging trip. Sorry, I'll start that again. Day two of our annual trip to a nice cottage in the Scottish countryside. Four small and smallish kids and six big kids in a huge converted cow shed next to an old ruined castle and an art gallery on top of a rolling hill in Aberdeenshire. Drove up on Saturday morning in a convoy of three cars, only one of which noticed a lunatic driver firing down the wrong side of the carriageway past us with the traffic cops in pursuit. A close call that could've had horrendous consequences.

Was fascinated at how light the skies are through the night here and sat watching a hedgehog snuffle around the back garden and listened to the absolute silence until Euan and his pal joined us at the back of two in the morning. Sat drinking hot chocolate and talking about manly things until we decided to walk the old drover's road to the nearby village 2 miles away over the fields. That was at 4am.

Three hours sleep and some square sausage later we were all good to go again. And all that bracing sea air did it's best to keep us awake.

It's now about time to settle down with a cold beer and try and stay awake to watch the football. Any excuse really.

A big thanks to all for stopping by yesterday, you're not a bad lot at all really. Due to interconnectivity issues out here amongst the cows and sheep (my dongle's being arsey) I'm a bit restricted on the whole catching up with you all business, so I'll just send you all £2 postal orders instead.