Unbelievably it is already two weeks since we arrived in Aberdeen after a marginally horrendous drive from York where we had arrived the night before; Bluet and I joined Steve and Caroline for the trip into Scotland whilst Emily and Dorthea travelled together in our smaller car. Everything went more or less fine until 10 miles outside Aberdeen, when we found the only road into the city closed because of an accident at a roundabout, blocking both lanes of traffic. We left the main road, and after a failed attempt to rejoin the motorway, travelled cross country on single lane roads and eventually arrived in Newmachar. The whole time Bluet and Caroline were sitting in the back of the car saying 'bang down' and laughing hysterically, so at least they enjoyed this hour long detour.
When I was growing up there was about 1 week of sunshine every year in Aberdeen, and the only suntan I ever got was from when I went sailing down the West Coast of Scotland on a school trip. Either the weather has improved dramatically (thanks, global warming), or we hit that week spot on, as our whole week (aside from a little rain) was perfect - the skies in all the subsequent photos you will see have not been doctored in any way.
The greatest part of our trip was Bluet getting to spend so much time with her cousin Della and the aforementioned Caroline. We don't often get to see her interacting with other kids her age, and in fact, she enjoyed it so much we didn't get to spend much time with Bluet ourselves. Of course, having large amounts of outdoors to play in helped.
So for today here are the first batch of Aberdeen photos.
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No cows
Not the only wheel barrow ride of the week
Bluet was happy as soon as she arrived
Every good house needs a swing
Aberdeen in the sun
There was even time for me to look through my boxes of old stuff and find some treasures
And to take Emily's family to look at a nearby ancient standing stone, in a field
Here is a representative sample of the different tickets required by Bluet and ourselves to travel over the last few weeks. You will observe plane tickets (required to get to and from theUK), bus tickets (required to get to and from Newmachar, and from Cambridge station to Bluet's Gran's house) and train tickets (lots, required to get everywhere else).
But I guess that is what you need if you want to embark on a world tour such as Bluet's. Along the way, the tour took her to places such as Aberdeen. Here she met some of her fans, including Martin and Gina, pictured below with Uncle Nick and Bluet. Martin and Gina are old family friends, as well as heroes in the noble fight against the ignoble Donald Trump and his plans to destroy the coast of North East Scotland by building a golf course, just because his mother was Scotch.
They had a car (no ticket required) and took us on a brief drive from Newmachar to visit Fyvie Castle. It was a gloriously beautiful sunny snowy day. Whilst you cannot tell from the pictures, Bluet was thoroughly nonplussed by the castle. In fact it was probably her least favourite place we have ever taken her*. So sadly we shall not be moving into a Castle in the immediate future.
*either she hates castles or got hungry because we forgot to pack food for her. Difficult to tell.
Emily checks out the feel of entering your own Castle
Then it was back on the bus. Here is Bluet waiting at Newmachar Bus Stop in advance of a long train journey to York. In general, I think a good time was had by all in Aberdeen.
In more recent Bluet news, she has perfected rolling from back to front, and front to back. She rolls with ease, then rolls right back again. In this fashion she can slowly transverse the floor.
When not trying to walk or move in some way, Bluet also likes to practice talking. To my great delight she can say 'Da-Da' and 'Ba-Ba' so her first words (either Dad or Ben) can be only weeks away. She is also perfecting her debating skills - here Emily and Bluet discuss the finer points of Wittgenstein's philosophy of language:
