Day 301: The Great British Pipe Off

22/05/2022

Messy Monday, after the kids had successfully completed their flipping of the house morning ritual Super Mum had to take them outside to slow the damage. Eloise channelled her inner Peppa Pig.

On Monday, there was a mass exodus from Glasgow as “thousands of Rangers fans are on their way to Seville as the Ibrox side prepares to face Eintracht Frankfurt in the Europa League final on Wednesday… One fan, Derek MacDougall, told BBC Scotland he had travelled from Sydney, Australia, via Dubai to Glasgow before flying to Lisbon on Monday”. “Police expected up to 100,000 supporters of the Glasgow team to travel to the Spanish city for the Europa League final. They were joined by 50,000 fans of German side Eintracht Frankfurt. The vast majority of those who have travelled did not have tickets for the game in the 42,700-capacity Estadio Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan”.

The weather has been much nicer this week compared to last. There have been plenty of laps of the local loch, we think it is getting close to duckling season. Eloise is always excited to check, sometimes multiple times a day. Lachlan is happy rolling along singing his songs.

Eloise’s highlight of the week was that she got her own small milk bottle that she insists must stay topped up at all times.

Wednesday continued with more duckling spotting, milk drinking and sun absorption.

After missing Lachlan’s first birthday party due to a big night at the darts, Curious-I-don’t-do-calls-with-Australia-George appeared on a weeknight for a Wednesday roast.

CG had cycled over on his new bike. Eloise was quick to show off her new Peppa Pig helmet and bike tricks.

Wednesday night was the match that stopped a city. “Rangers fans have been left devastated after their team lost the Europa League final to Eintracht Frankfurt on penalties. The match ended 1-1 after extra time, before the German side beat Rangers 5-4 in a shootout in Seville”. Celtic fans were celebrating as if they had won the trophy themselves. I was secretly hoping Rangers did win, as it would have meant two Scottish teams in the Champions League next season and more exciting games in Glasgow. We are now hoping, Celtic draw Liverpool.

In other global sporting news, ScoMo did a BoJo.

Thursday morning, Eloise channelled her inner Steve Irwin wrestling Nessie at Gymboree.

On the way home the girls noticed that Connie had made a new friend, perhaps Colin is on holidays?

Sunny Friday, Eloise made her way along the Antonine Wall before the kids worked on their green thumbs.

Once Dad was finished with work, Eloise had to show him what her daily reconnaissance missions had found.

Friday morning, the kids were excited as they made their way to Edenmill Farm Shop, Cafe and Soft Play with Super Mum, it is becoming a regular catchup that the kids love. Lachlan was straight out of the gates and on the hunt for his special purple ball, good memory Lachlan.

The kids had so much fun. Not far into the afternoon walk, they were both out for the count. A couple of hours later, the kids felt ripped off, so we had to go around the block again. The weather was not so favourable, but Eloise was prepared.

For dinner, Aussie burgers were on the menu. It was finally time to crack into Linda M’s Burger Relish. Thanks again, Linda!

The days are long at the moment, the kids do not see the sunset. Luckily, Jane had given us two sets of blackout blinds, thank you Jane. Lachlan has no excuses now, we can only hope.

On Friday it was announced, “Scotland’s first minister Nicola Sturgeon [had] tested positive for Covid… She will follow her own guidance of working from home as she has dropped all COVID-19 rules because the UK are fast and loose”. We might have paraphrased that last bit.

Believe it or not, Saturday marked day 300. By this stage, we feel like we generally have the whole ‘living in the UK thing’ down pat. In true Lachnado fashion, it has been a whirlwind of an adventure. We still feel like we have only skimmed the surface, how can such a small island have so much to see? Third-person Liam asked Sophie what she is missing, her response “I could do with a Tim Tam”.

Saturday morning, Grandma and Grandpa Nicholls booked flights to be reunited with their grandchildren, they are about 18 weeks away. Eloise is already pulling an itinerary together and is looking forward to showing Grandma her ducks and the ice cream shop.

After sunny weather all week, word on the street was that a cool change was coming through this weekend. It was a beautiful morning so we made a dash to seek refuge at Neward Castle, it was a race against the clouds. A series of new castles are opening up as the country continues to ignore COVID-19 and summer is coming. Historic Scotland have started to clear their backlog of castle safety inspections. We were well overdue to use our Historic Scotland membership as we had not been to a Historic Scotland Castle since Edinburgh Castle on Super Mothers Day.

Newark Castle had an unorthodox floorplan, with many half levels and tricky staircases throughout. It was a labyrinth with multiple routes that all seemed to end up in surprising places.

Newark Castle is a well-preserved castle sited on the south shore of the estuary of the River Clyde in Port Glasgow, Inverclyde, Scotland, where the firth gradually narrows from the Firth of Clyde and navigation upriver is made difficult by shifting sandbank… The castle was built in 1478 by George Maxwell when he inherited the Barony of Finlanstone (Finlaystone) in the parish of Kilmacolm. The original castle had a tower house within a walled enclosure or barmkin entered through a large gatehouse. All that remains of the outer defensive wall is from one of the original corner towers. It is thought that there would have been a hall and ancillary buildings such as a bakehouse and brew house inside the walled enclosure.

As we left the weather was just holding out. We headed further West following the coast to the top of Lyle Hill. We could hear bagpipes, lots and lots of bagpipes so we followed our ears to Battery Park. The British Pipe Band Championship less commonly referred to as The Great British Pipe Off (by Sophie) was on. Suitably there was the British drizzle, everything all of a sudden felt very Scottish. We would have seen a hundred-odd different tartans. Lachlan was not sure what he thought of the whole experience.

The camera did a good job at cutting through the rain, but it was seriously coming down. and our bellies were grumbling. It was time for lunch with a side of shopping.

As we were leaving Lachlan could not believe it, he spotted his favourite thing ever, a big red bus, this one was Lachlan scaled size. He was kicking and flapping with excitement.

Ever since Lachlan had the time of his life cruising through the tulip farms in Amsterdam we have been on the lookout for a bike. Lachlan was in heaven and Eloise was struggling to keep him under control.

Saturday afternoon The blue side of Glasgow had something to celebrate as “two goals in three extra-time minutes by substitutes Ryan Jack and Scott Wright won Rangers the Scottish Cup against Hearts and eased the pain of their Europa League final defeat”.

Back in Roo Land, there was a changing of the guard, “Anthony Albanese delivers victory speech, Scott Morrison concedes defeat as Labor wins government”.

This morning the skies were still threatening but we made out way to the playground to hunt for some ladybirds.

Whenever it rains we tend to end up at the shops. Lachlan picked up his first pair of shoes/ sandals. Of course, Eloise stole the show and picked up her 1238972139812 pair of shoes/ sandals.

We had to rush home because it was the final day of the Prem. First-person Liam was hoping for two results to go our way. Sadly Stevie G’s Aston villa could not quite get the job done with the English Premier League Race coming down to the final 20 minutes of the season.