Day 441: Doune then dinner

09/10/2022

Saturday morning, the kids rushed downstairs, but the grandparents were still not there. Koala cuddles would have to do this morning.

They have finally replaced the weird lighting at Football Buzz, now that Eloise could see she was on fire. After nailing the warm up she decided it was time, “okay, Dad, me ready, big ball now”.

It was shaping up to be another wet day as summer fights a losing battle, Curious George was not having any of that and used his part Irish nationality, which has caused more problems than you can imagine, to conjure up an impressive Irish double rainbow and cleared the day up. The kids were impressed!

Now that the sky was clear, we dusted off our Historic Scotland passes and headed back to Doune Castle, made famous from Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Outlanders. We had done a number of lovely walks around the castle in April, but now the castle itself had reopened as Historic Scotland continues to clear their castle inspection backlog.

On our last visit we had deployed Darryl for a sneak peek, we were not expecting much from Doune Castle, we thought we better check out the inner walls and let the kids run about the courtyard. Boy were we in for a surprise.

Surprisingly there was a lot of Doune Castle to see, it was a great one, more expansive than we had imagined.

Eloise treats castle visits like house inspections, she dashes off to put first dibs on her room, making sure she gets an early bid in before Lachlan.

Exhausted we headed home to let poor Dad have a tactical nap and recharge. He was going to need it, Eloise’s partner in crime was coming over for dinner. After the kids viciously attacked poor Liam, the dads finally got to catch up which was lovely and well overdue.

Poor form by us, we did not know it was on and could have head down, but “Matildas get back to winning ways against South Africa in London despite conceding late goal”. There was also the concerning news that “Scotland is completely snow-free for the fourth time in the last six years. The Sphinx, in the Cairngorms, which is historically the longest-lasting patch of snow in the UK, has melted”.

It is good to see that on Saturday we had two new followers to FIK, ciao Bella. We wonder who they are.

In Rome, Grandpa was thinking hard while making friends with a statue in the Vatican Museum.

The Thinker (French: Le Penseur) is a bronze sculpture by Auguste Rodin, usually placed on a stone pedestal… The pose is one of deep thought and contemplation, and the statue is often used as an image to represent philosophy... There are also 27 other known full-sized castings, in which the figure is approximately 185 cm (73 inches) high, although not all were made during Rodin’s lifetime and under his supervision. There are various other versions, several in plaster, and studies and posthumous castings exist in a range of sizes.

This morning was another case where Lachlan was revving his engine, we had to get out the house.

Ever since our fun family trip through the Lake District and Manchester we have all been a bit flat. Probably because we have been missing our “spoooooky cats”, ghost cookies and buckets of coffee to jump start the days.

All of a sudden, guess who appeared? They must have heard Lachlan’s honking from the other end of the Fort.

It was then hometime so Lachlan could return to his happy place.

After lots of fun in Rome, the grandparents are still on Lachlan’s tailored tour making their way up through the Tuscan region to Firenze.

They arrived safely, we wonder how many Peppa Pig episodes they got through, Eloise preferred unit of time.

In the evening it was announced that “Scottish airline Loganair is being sold with the hope of new owners taking over the business by mid-2023. The company confirmed that advisers had been appointed to find a buyer for the Glasgow-based business. It is the UK’s largest regional airline, operating for more than 60 years, with over 900 staff and flying to more than 40 destinations”.