Two Lovely Ladies...

Backblip

Arria and Karen.

My lovely Blip Pal Karen from New Zealand is in the UK visiting a number of universities and I was delighted she was able to take some time our of her hectic schedule to spend with us.

She had expressed an interest in seeing The Kelpies and Arria so we picked  her up in Edinburgh at 11.00am and headed straight for Falkirk.  The plan was to photograph the Kelpies and have lunch there before heading to Cumbernauld to see Arria.  

Unfortunately the combination of being the weekend and a sunny day, the queue to get into the car park at the Kelpies was massive.  In the end Karen jumped out the car as we sat in the queue, ran and  photographed the Kelpies and returned to the car..  In the time it took her to do this we'd only moved about 4 car lengths.  Turned round and headed to Cumbernauld, stopping at Glenskirlie in Banknock for a lovely lunch.

No such queues to see Arria, which suits me fine :-))

If you are a regular follower of my journal you will know we used to live a stone's throw from Arria, and I adore her.  It's been a long time since I've been this close to her (most shots these days are taken from the car as we whizz by on the M80) and I was just so delighted the sun shone on her (especially after yesterday's horrible weather) and Karen got to see her in all her glory. 

Once we had our fill of Arria, (see extras)  we headed back home and Karen was finally able to enjoy a G&T in the Gin Palace (when she visited in 2015  there wasn't time for a relaxing seat in the Gin Palace.)  It was so lovely to finally relax and have a good old blether.

After a lovely catch up, it was time to come indoors for dinner and we'd just finished and were contemplating dessert, when Alan's Support Worker Christine came through in a slight panic to announce Alan had just pulled his feeding tube out (accidentally).   Honestly, never a dull moment in this house!  Poor Karen was momentarily abandoned as we went through to put a new tube in.  David did the deed whilst I distracted Alan and tried to keep him lying still.  Not easy when he's full of the joys and jumping about.  

New tube in, we returned to the kitchen for pancakes, strawberries, cream and ice cream.  A fitting end to a lovely day.