Dried hydrangeas

First of all, happy birthday to my nephew C! He is 26. It was a wild and stormy night when his mother, father and mother in law set off to drive to Oban, from where they were directed to the big hospital near Balloch, some hours away. Just as they got over the hill pass named Rest and he Thankful, the blizzard closed in on them. It's a miracle they got there.

The rest of us, including my sister TMLHereandThere, stayed up all night while the loch lapped and the wind raged, playing spin-the bottle to see which of our cousins and siblings would be next give birth. (The bottle's predictions turned out to be wildly inaccurate. Mind you, if that bottle had told us that one who was predicted to be next in the childbirth line would die, childless, aged 42, we'd have been horrified.) We fell into our beds at 5 or 6 am, accidentally leaving the phone off the hook. I was wakened by the bird-like neighbour, rapping on the porch door with her beak and tweeting, "you have a nephew!"

Later, we visited them in the maternity hospital in Oban, when they were transferred. The three hospitals in Oban have been closed and a new one built, but I think it's still standard practice to be sent to the Vale of Leven to be delivered, even in winter.

Friend J and I met for a shared breakfast today at our favourite cafe, 15. Then shopping. The post-Christmas tat was awful. It was like finding Santa fallen off his sleigh and lying in a pool.of vomit (but that's another story). I bought some Baxter's soup, and cat chews, and stumbled home. I don't know what I'd do without Baxter's soup. You can take the girl out of Fochabers...

It strikes me that we are lucky to have so much:
soup, a warmish house, a gigantic cardigan bought at a festival, many, many presents, a few friends, and of course memories. I must bear this in mind when times get tough, and think of the homeless, the soupless, and those who are trapped in the eternal present.