Boys...

A rest day from Es’s 18th birthday weekend...phew, the breather is welcome!

A slow start to the day after last evening’s meal. A wee hour in a sunny and very mild Kings Park listening to a wee lad cackling as he played with his big cousin the Rooster. Shouting faster, faster as Ruairidh propelled him round on the wee roundabout.

Then after lunch a jaunt down to Troon, a coffee in the Old Loans Inn and a walk along the promenade.

Troon and Old Loans...Gill, Paul, Conor and Paddy’s old stomping ground. Places full of so many memories. Many happy ones and some desperately sad.

Gill & Paul were married at Portland Parish Church just up from the beach and then only eight short years later the same Church was packed for my wee sister’s funeral. Taken far too early from us all but particularly from that wee lad.

Aunty Gill has been a big miss from these birthday celebrations. She thought the world of oor Es...and they shared the same passion for shopping. Aunty Gill’s Birthday treat was quite often a wee shopping trip and lunch out...which I got to tag along on.

The day Es was born Gill was at a work meeting in Oxfordshire. Es had a slightly traumatic entry into this world and as soon as Gill’s meeting was done she was in the car heading up to Scotland, driving by pyres of burning cattle (particularly traumatic for a person who had a love of cows) because there was a foot and mouth outbreak. She arrived in Stirling just after 10pm and MrR managed to get her into neo-natal to see her niece and then up to me where I got to tell Gill Es’s middle names, Gillian Campbell, for her Aunty and Godmother. I’ll never forget her face.

Es is very proud of those names. More often than not will always use them and is irritated if modern systems don’t allow them. They had a special bond that pair and it makes me sad on a regular basis that it was taken from them.

Uncle Paul, Conor and indeed Aunty Gill’s gift, as Gill left a wee note with this instruction, to Es on Thursday was Gill’s engagement ring from Paul. Es cherishes it already and recognises the magnitude of the gift from Uncle Paul too. She is very grateful and she wore the ring last night at her meal.

So a post entitled boys but the writing has mainly been about girls...two very special ones for whom I am very grateful.

The walk along the beach at Troon today was a happy one...with boys running and shouting, some chatting, and lots of memories on a breezy sunny day that blew the cobwebs away.

And coincidentally, if I’ve got my sums correct, a blipday from the same place that it all began 8 years of entries ago. Eight years of memories, happy & sad, shared in this community and there to look back on and more often than not smile...even a wee one sometimes at the sad ones.