Christmas - we should do it every year

Howdy folks,

I know we have fallen off the radar a bit, so I am trying to makes amends by covering the last few months in one go.

After having moved up here in September, we then had the excitement of going back to London on our own ( sans Lily ) as we had the wonderful celebration of Laura and Michael-Jon's wedding. To say the bride was gorgeous, and the groom a handsome devil would not even have done them justice, as they looked as if they should have been standing on top of the cake. Their reception in Wimbledon was incredible, and I do not think I have been at any other wedding where the champagne flowed so freely. As the setting was Wimbledon, it naturally progressed that the Wombles should be present, both musically and also in the quiz that was given to each table. Bizarrely enough our table won the prize, and each member was awarded their own copy of the Wombles CD. Three months later Lily still requests " remember Womble " whenever we ask her if she wants to dance. We owe you guys. No really, we do. The whole evening was spectacualr, from the amazing food, the eloquent speeches, the video made by Joe and then the dancing and filling up of even more champagne glasses.

The next morning the McKendry's felt so hungover we almost decided to cancel our flight, but managed to drag our sorry selves back to Gatwick. Restored by McDonald's we boarded our flight, and headed back to sobriety. Thank you MJ and Laura, it was a brilliant day from beginning to end.

Moira then started her new job for Deltex, and is really enjoying the challenge. She was mentored by her colleague Lorna for a few weeks, but has now been given autonomy to strike out on her own, and has been running her own show since then. As her territory covers all of Scotland, and down as far as Sunderland, she is spending a lot of time on the road, so is listening to a lot of music, and is talking to a lot of truckers.

Lily turned 2 a week before Christmas, so we threw her a party, and her Granny baked lots of cakes as well as the main birthday cake. We invited something like 12 kids and 20 adults - absolute chaos. The parents fortified themselves with mulled wine, and the kids topped themselves up with lots of sugar. At about 5 pm the first child burst into tears, and within 60 seconds they were all crying. By 5:05 pm everyone had gone.


Our first permanent Christmas in Scotland saw Alison and Finn-Harald come over from Sweden for a couple of weeks, and we also had a much looked forward to visit from Kate, Rob and Scarlett. Unfortunately for all in involved, the worst virus and cold arrived across the whole of the UK, and Lily and Moira caught the full brunt of it. Sadly, this also passed to Alison and FH, giving them high temperatures as experienced by Moira and Lily too. When Kate and Rob returned to London, it had tagged them also. Talk about the season of giving.



Christmas and New Year brought the influx of Neil, Lorna and Archie, Moira and Jackie, plus Malcolm, Kristen, Joshua and Georgia. Eventually most people caught one bug or the other except for Malcolm, who declared himself fit, and promptly performed the Boxing Day dip in Loch Lomond SOLO. Definate man-points scored all around, with Joshua earning boy-points for dipping his legs in too. I was too busy crocheting a new scarf for my delicate neck at the time.


New Years saw Doug, Fran, and Dorah, plus Clare and John coming over to see us. We in fact managed to get two New Years parties in, as another one is held in the Killearn Hall on January 1st evening complete with live band, and bring your own booze. The event raised £ 2000 for cancer research, and also gave us an excuse to mingle with our new found friends.

The past few weekends have seen us out and about, exploring places in the country. We visited Killin on the weekend, and had a wonderful pub lunch in front of a nice fire, with views to the ' falls ' outside. We then took a long walk in the rain, and then returned home to warm our bones in front of our fire.

The previous weekend saw us in Loch Fyne, sampling the local oysters, kippers and prawns, and then a walk on the beach in Inverary. We are doing as much research on the food and walking front before people come to visit us.

The cold snap has arrived, and all of the surrounding mountains are covered in snow - absolutely picture postcard stuff. Any excuse to stay indoors, eat chocolates and look out the window is fine with me.

It is Burns night this week, so our local butcher will be making plenty of haggis - takers anyone?.
We shall continue on our research before you all come to visit, so please come as soon as you like and for as long as you want.

lots of love

The McKs