87

Dad, at 87

Its been a lovely day celebrating Dad's 87th.  He suffers from Parkinson's nowadays so is not as on the ball as he used to be just a few years ago, but every now and again you see the real Dad peaking out at you from behind those eyes - and this cheeky grin says it all :-)

Janet and Mark joined us for lunch, and my brother was able to video conference from the States :-). Janet brought a really delicious apricot flan, loosely based on a Bakewell recipe - it was fab, I hope she remembers how to do it again on some occasion in the future...  Mark and I managed to squeeze in a a wee dram after dinner with our coffee, in preparation for our motorcycle trip to Islay/Jura/Oban/Mull in a few weeks time .... I think we will be in Oban on the afternoon of Thursday 28th June.  We're intending to explore Mull on the motorbikes Friday 29th June and then have a day based from Oban on Saturday 30th. If there are any blippers that fancy meeting up at some stage for a coffee/whatever we would love to see you.

Talking of that trip, after lunch Mark and I tried to get our helmet intercoms to communicate with each other after lunch.  Sadly neither of us thought to take a photo at the time but it would have made a brilliant blip - 2 blokes sitting there in shirt sleeves wearing motorcycle helmets, looking more and more frustrated as the technology proceeded to prove obstinate ;-)

Later on we were visited by a baby blackbird fledgling that has clearly only just left the nest. It doesn't seem to know what to do with itself and Mum and Dad have been hovering nearby demonstrating short flights here and there.  The neighbours black cat made an appearance at one stage and I ended up scaring it off, rather than watch what might have been a very stressful time for the parents.  As I type this the fledgling is perched on one of our fences still looking a little dumbstruck by the big wide world outside the nest and probably wondering where its next meal is coming from ....