Cheerio The Nou, Scotland!

 

So at the end of July our 12 months in Scotland had come to an end! Whoever thought I would be so sad to leave? Thinking back to that day in Vancouver, when we found out that out of all the places By could be working for a year it was going to be Scotland, I was less than impressed! I didn't have the happiest memories from living in Scotland the first time around! but after some googling and finding out that Glasgow had some cupcake places I was keen to try things were looking up!

Now looking back on our time in Scotland it's just been an amazing year, how could it not have the happiest memories when it was where Ella was born? I'm so sad that I won't get to drive past Wishaw General Hospital anymore, I used to always point out the window and tell Ella that's where she was born! We made so many lovely friends, and were overwhelmed by the friendliness of all the Scots we met! Especially my mummy friends I made once Ella arrived.  We went along to a local breastfeeding support group when Ella was 8 weeks old, I wasn't really sure what to expect from it and thought it seemed a bit random - my health visitor was urging me to go because you got a 'free cup of tea'! Obviously that wasn't of much interest to me, but I figured it was something to do to get out of the house! and then I met the loveliest ladies and babies who became the loveliest friends.  Our days in Scotland would have been filled with far less fun...and cake, if I had never turned up to that group!

We had many pram walks to Clyde Valley and Chatelherault...



Here's our gang!



Nicola with Oliver, who weren't able to make the afternoon tea...



and Sam with Campbell, who I didn't manage to get a picture of together at the afternoon tea because it's hard to keep up with him!!

We also always went on mass to Bookbug sessions at the library - if we went to the one on Monday's in Bothwell and it was sunny, we would indulge in ice cream sundae's across the road after, if we went to the Blantyre one on Thursday's we would go for cream tea's after! We would always meet on Tuesday afternoon's after the support group for drinks and chat, and lots of us attended the sing and swim sessions together on a Friday morning too! and with the random meet ups in between, some weeks we would see each other every day!



So, at the beginning of July we had a farewell afternoon tea, because it seemed fitting that since our friendship had involved so much cake that one of our last group meet ups should involve lots of it!

It was a delicious day! filled with lots of baby fun!



It was so cute to have nearly all the babies together at once! and seeing them interact with each other!



I managed to snap nearly all the mums with their bubbas...



Lynsey and Georgia! I love how Georgia is giving a little wave to the camera!



Lindsey and Isla...



Lauretta and Millie...

 

Karen and Anya...



Nicola and Lauren...

Jude and Evan...

Katie and Jack...



Heather and Hamish...



and Christopher...with Charleen diving out the way of the camera ;)



and Campbell, digging in!

It was a lovely farewell! and I will miss these ladies and babies a lot, but I know we will always keep in touch and now with facebook it's easier than ever to stay in touch and see how the babies are getting bigger and what they're upto!

We also loved going to Lazy Daisy baby massage classes...and meeting all the lovely babies and mums at those too! This was our group at the finish of classes:

Eilidh and Isaac (to the left of Ella and I) took me for a lovely tablet ice cream sundae at Equi's (so Scottish!) before I left but I couldn't find my phone to snap pictures! We only discovered that they were our round the corner neighbours shortly before we left but we had some nice walks in the sunshine together! I also went to the Lazy Daisy birthing classes with a lot of those same ladies so it was really fun to have known the babies as bumps and then get to meet them and see them grow up...just for a little while!

I also went to say goodbye to everyone at my work.  Ella was especially fascinated with Tony...and more specifically his beard!

It was lots of fun to grab!

I always thought Men weren't really that into babies! I worked in an office with 2 ladies and about 40 men, and I was surprised at how many would want to come and see Ella or have a hold of her on the two occasions I brought her in - it was really cute! even my boss always wanted a cuddle with her!

I didn't take a picture on the day, but here are Donna and Sue (the 2 ladies!) when they came to visit me after Ella was born, I will miss these lovely ladies a lot! They made my time at work so much fun and they spoilt Ella and I loads!

We also popped to Calederglen on one of the sunniest days we had experienced in Scotland! with our friend Joanne from church and her 3 boys.



She is one of Ella's biggest admirers! and she was so good to us when Ella was first born, always driving up to spend time with us and bring me lunch and keep me company in those early days!

Did I mention how much her boys love Ella too?



It's adorable to see, they all wanted to be the first to hold her! and they all wanted to be photographed doing it too! I love how Ella looks like she's sharing in the joke here!



They will be having a little sister joining their family one of these days and seeing them with Ella shows that they are going to be the best and most adoring big brothers!



We are going to miss this lovely family so much!

The week that we moved, Mara came to visit.  The Commonwealth Games was being held in Glasgow and she had a lot of tickets, so in between packing up we had some sporting and sightseeing fun!

It involved some women's hockey - where India smashed Trinidad and Tobago 14-0!



but we were mostly there to support South Africa playing NZ...



Apparently some of the members of our family found it boring...



Ella perked up when the hot chocolate came out! It had gotten a bit chilly as the evening went on, so I think she liked warming up her hands on it!



 and we were all smiles despite NZ winning! Ella did really well for being out so late!

 

Mara had never been to Loch Lomond before so we rectified that...sadly on a pretty cloudy day!

 with a little bit of blue sky trying to peek through!

 
but not for long...welcome to a Scottish summer!
We sought shelter from the rain in The Balloch House Hotel...



 and stuffed ourselves sufficiently with this ridunculously oversized churro sundae!



That evening we headed to more commonwealth fun...this time for the gymnastics:



Ella was loving that there was so much to look at!

 

She even managed a nap despite all the loud announcements and cheering...although when the Scottish gymnasts would perform the roar was so loud she would stir a little, but then drift back off again!



I think she thought all the cheering was for her!

We were able to see the English team take Gold which was pretty cool! I was a bit sad about the fact that the crowd wasn't singing along to the national anthem of Jerusalem though! I sang a solo...taking me back to my St. George's chapel days!!

and of course what better way to end our time in Scotland than being played out by a bagpiper!

We headed to a new Mexican, Topolabamba, in Glasgow that I'd been keen to try for our final meal...

Ella just loves being out when she should be in bed!

I was loving the Jarritos, just like we used to get in Vancouver! I love all their unusual flavours...

and the food was amazing, it was street food style so we ordered tons of small dishes like cactus tacos, pork tostadas and fish tacos Turks and Caicos style!

Of course no Mexican is complete without delicious churros for dessert...and some horchata ice cream! (not pictured because Mara was busy scoffing it!)

and as we were parked right in George Square we snapped a quick Commonwealth pic! Some Italian tourists nearby made faces at Ella to make her smile...the little flirt ;)



and just like that we were done and ready to head back down South for a while!

A 24 hr snapshot of London: Afternoon Tea's, Southbank Sightseeing and Nightime Cycling!

So last weekend my American friend Charity came to town! She was only going to be in London for less than 24 hours so I knew we had to pack in as much fun stuff as possible! Charity is the most fun and adventurous and enthusiastic person I know! If you don't believe me go check out her blog, her love of life is contagious! and so I knew we were going to have to make our time together count! and man alive (to steal an Eyre family phrase) did we have fun!

First stop was Portobello Rd, and I'm not too sure we paid that much attention to all the cute little stalls because we were SO busy being chatterboxes and catching up on what's been going on in our lives since we last saw each other 2 years ago! but we did have time to snap this pic in front of those lovely coloured buildings!

Next up we headed to Bea's of Bloomsbury at One New Change, St.Pauls.  Here is Charity being ever so English with her pot of blackcurrant tea! Can you believe she had never experienced an Afternoon Tea before so I wanted to introduce her to this British tradition!

There is nowhere else in England I'd rather have afternoon Tea than at Bea's...because the amount of goodies they bring you on your platter is ridunculous!! Typically an afternoon tea consists of sandwiches, scones with jam and clotted cream and cake.  Here is what we got with ours:

Mini baguettes with goats cheese and ham, and sundried tomatoes

Homemade Scones with lashings of jam and clotted cream

Treats: Carrot cake cupcake, valrhona brownie, belgian blondie, passionfruit meringue, mango marshmallow and my fave of the lot were some giant lime and coconut marshmallows (all homemade to perfection!)

After we were more than sufficiently stuffed, we headed down to the Southbank where we took in this lovely view from the viewing deck at the top of the Oxo tower.

We passed some cute little decorated beach huts along the fake beach front which we thought were rather cool...

and then we found this awesome ride which had to be one of the highlights! I have seen swing rides at fun fairs plenty of times before, but never one that lifts you high into the air and THEN swings you round!! It was really quite an experience!

Especially because of where it was situated!! We were swinging high above the Thames just loving all those sights we were taking in...like the London Eye, and Big Ben that you can see behind Charity in this pic! It even started to go backwards half way round, and let me tell you that was a whole experience in itself!!

We had to take the obligatory shots in front of all the tourist spots!

Luckily for us, the weather actually turned out pretty good and once some of the clouds cleared there was actually some blue sky under there! so that made a nice change from the Irish weather Charity had experienced in the days preceding London!

I loved this shot of all the signs to help the tourists find their way, with the London Eye just peeking into view!

As the sun was setting we wondered over to Buckingham Palace and snapped this pretty pink sky behind this statue just in front of the Palace.

Charity wanted to go check out Hyde Park..so what better way to do it then to hire some of Boris' (our mayor of London) Barclays bikes! It costs £1 to get one out and as long as you just use short journeys and return the bikes to other docks within 30 minute periods it's totally free!

So after cycling around the park for a while we decided to be brave and head down Oxford St!

It was surprisingly less scary than we expected it to be! The buses behaved, and it actually turned out to be alot of fun! Even at gone 9pm London was buzzing and it was so fun to be in the middle of all the hustle and bustle! The pic above is Charity at Oxford Circus.

We finished our bike ride at Picadilly Circus where a nice fellow tourist snapped this pic for us.

We headed to the M&M store to take a few more touristy pics!

Gotta love the M&M guy in his busby!

We returned to the Southbank to take some more shots of Big Ben...this time illuminated!

and here we are with the London Eye in the background, excuse the dodgy pic - I forgot to turn the flash on! Picture taking never runs as smoothly without Byron around!

For our final pic of the night before resting our weary feet, we found a phonebox!

The next morning Byron came and picked us up and we headed south of the river to Borough Market.

It was alot of fun checking out sooo many different food stalls! Charity had never seen such massive meringues before! I took tons more pics but I'm sure you're wondering when this post is going to end so I'll spare you!

We opted for the giant bratwurst, it was seriously delish!

So we bid farewell to Borough Market and to Charity as we dropped her at the station Basingstoke Bound ready for the rest of her U.K tour!

Hopefully next time we see each other it will be on her side of the Atlantic for some California fun!