1st how to transport all 3 nieces (the twins and their 2 month old sister) to Luncarty, with only one car and one car seat, for the baby. As in London having a car is pretty much a lot more hassel than it’s worth they never bothered to get one. Mum’s car isn’t big enough to take 3 car seats, so Ian had to make 2 trips with his one toddler child seat in order to get everyone there. Once there the hall was freezing (not surprising for December in Scotland) and not set up and another load of children of varying ages were due very soon.

Thankfully we managed to get everything ready on time and we could sit back and enjoy the running, screaming, shouting, crying, jumping and general madness of the party! I took the camera with me, but the light was shockingly bad and is hard to get a shot with so many fast moving little people getting in the way or moving before I can focus. But I managed to get some. 2 hours or so later the guests left, the wee ones were over tired and grumpy and the hall was a little trashed. But the birthday girls seemed to have had a good day, and I guess that’s what counts!

Birthday Twins with Their Dad

Katie with Ian eyeing up the cakes

After several blood tests, until my blood became reluctant to come out, we were no closer to an answer, but the Doctor had put an idea in my head after suggesting it could be Celiac (a reaction to gluten). I decided to avoid wheat and gluten until the results came back and low and behold I felt better after a few weeks. The test came back negitive for Celiac, but made me think about food intolerances. However the NHS do not test for food intolerance so I had to go elsewhere and after much searching I found that the HiIghland Health Store in Perth did food testing every 2 months so I put my name down.

A few weeks on I was sitting at a table and being scanned by a very Star trek piece of equipment that involved me holding metal probes while a couple of hundred tiny samples of various foods were run through my body and the recations monitored and recorded on the computer. After some colour co-ordinated results were spewed out of the more 21st Century printer, I found my answers.

I was intolerant to quite a few foods, some more than other. Some didn’t matter like beef and pheasant and seafoods as I’m vergetarian, but others were a bit more life changing!

For extra cruelty, I've added a picture of some of my home made banana chocolate muffins Sarah! - Ian

Not only was there a medium intolerance to wheat, eggs and vinegar, but a strong intolerance to yeast. At first I thought “ok that’s doable” but soon I realised my mistake! No pizza, bread, bagels, toast (how I miss toast!), muffins, doughnuts, cupcakes, scones (how can i be a sconie if I can’t eat scones?), pasta (and suddenly I want to eat mac cheese),  even some soup has yeast in it!

So it’s all fruit and veg and home cooking and probiotics and Digestive enzymes (to help break down any foods I do end up eating that I’m intolerant to) or a couple of days down the line I’m absolutely floored. So if you are in Perth and see someone pressed up against the bakery window with a pitiful look on their face and not exactly happy, just remeber that I’m not odd or grumpy – just intolerant!

The book cover

Throughout my life me and my sister Amy have revelled in telling each other how smelly the other is and in a spurt of sheer genius I decided to win the smell game once and for all. I have topped the dubious limericks and even more dubious shakespeare quotes (hubble bubble toil and trouble, fire burn and Amys bum bubble, that’s why she smells so bad) and have gone for the big guns, I wrote a book, dad illustrated it and we got 50 copies printed! Written as a kids book for her girls and also appealing to adults with our slightly odd sense of houmour, I called it lovingly “How Mummy Smells“. It tells the story of 2 girls trying to best the other in saying how foul their mother smells, from comparing her to manure and sewers to comparing each others smell to the infinte minging aromas of their mother. Of course it has a good moral ending!

Mummy smells pretty bad!

So Amy, thank you for the inspriation and for getting me started on the literary path! After all I do still love you even if you do smell so bad that there is an environmental warning tatooed on your ass!

Tabby playing with new toys

My lovely little nieces were turning one so the family decided to go down to London for their party. Of course the weather wasn’t going to make that easy. What is usually a 6.5 hour journey from my flat to my sisters turned into a 3 train, 2 tubes, very snowy, rather cold and very busy 11 hour one. We traveled on a a very busy train through feet of snow which stretched all down the country, even into London. Though London only had a shallow covering. By the time we got there the little ones were asleep in bed and I was ready for a drink and an early night.

The next day I started early at about 5:30 as I was sleeping on my sisters sofa and apparently 5:30 is a good time to get up when you are one! After bottles and breakfast and once father got over from his hotel it was on to present opening. So out came the camera. The lighting was hard to deal with as 2 walls are all windows and the other walls are white, leaving the middle where babies were quite dark and the babies back lit. The flash bounced everywhere. But I got the hang of it and kept the iso high at around 800-1600 and only used the flash as a fill from a distance as had the remote on, I kept the F number low to keep the shutter speed up as the wee ones are not so good at staying still anymore so needed high shutters so they wouldn’t blur with movement. But as they are so beautiful it is hard to get a bad shot ( yes I may be a bit biased).

Georgie at her Party

The day after we had a little party for them and invited some of their wee friends. So it was off with the zoom and on with the wide as space was getting a bit short. Fortunately they have very photogenic friends too and I got some lovely shots of babies and parents, again using the remote flash from a distance. It was all good fun with balloons, chocolate cakes and lots of toys, and I’m glad to say the favourites were book, MegaBloks and musical instruments, all very educational. Only 1 and already Geniuses!

Too soon it was time to go home and I had to leave my beloved nieces and sister behind and have another 11 hour journey, including 2 long cold hours in Edinburgh station, home. But as much as I miss them, I do love this country and was very glad to get home again. And even though they live in smelly old London, the 22 hours of cold and busy travel were well worth it to see them all.

Georgie showing Tabby how to play with the new toys!

I tried to time-lapse this event last year but wasn’t entirely happy with the result so this was attempt two. I believe it is acceptable…
p.s. sorry iphone users, it’s flash!

The Sun Slidding Down Behind The Olympic Site

The time had come to visit my sister and her family in London again. So it was on to the 6 hour train journey on a busy train where I had a sandwich and plum drama, leaving myself little to eat, my walkman phone (cheap in the meantime one after the last took a leap down a drain) decided it only wanted to play music for 20 mins before going all weird and when I got on some woman was asleep in my booked seat! All in all not the best journey. However my sister meet me at kings cross with her beautiful girls and guided me back through the underground maze to her flat in east London. Where we played with pearl, stitch, McMickey and McMinne until the girls dad traumatised them with a surprise McMickey attack. After the girls had eaten, well thrown around, their dinner and they’d had their baths,  the sun set over the Olympic site with a flash of colour and bringing beauty to the overly huamised area. I may detest London but it does have its moments. Natural beauty sliding down behind industrial construction. Leaning out the window on my tiptoes and balancing the camera on the frame I squeezed off a few shots with a a low ISO and not too low a shutter speed so I wouldn’t flood sensor with light and lose the colour in the sky, there’s always more light at twilight than the naked eye sees.

The next day we had a trip to Valentines park after Georgie had tried to sneak out the door in her dads work bag. We had a lovely and not too expensive lunch there and enjoyed the sunshine in the haven of the lovely old mansion grounds. We all played in the shade of a tree and I let my sister take control of the camera and although she was terrified of dropping it, she didn’t do too bad at all. In order to let the girls sleep a while we wandered around the park, which is small but enjoyable and had a wee look in the mansion and wondered at how there were different rooms for different times of day, to go with the different outfits I assume. If I had that there would be a large part of the day I would have to stay in the bathroom, wonder if it is better to make that the morning room as the afternoon one? Then it was back on the dirty tubes with all the rude people and through the busy stations with lifts not working so had to lift the double buggy up the stairs. God knows what you’re meant to do if you’re in a wheelchair! Then more photo fun at home with the girls, more throwing food around and smiling and laughing at each other and climbing and crawling or belly dragging and standing and bouncing. All in all a good day. By the end of it we were all shattered even McMickey who Tabby was tentatively touching again. So just after 10 I settled down to the lights of the city spreading out to forever over the horizon and worried about how Errols paw was to be fixed and if he could stay together until we got home.

On my last day after Tabby tried to sneak out in daddys bag (well anything her sister can do she can do too), we whiled away the morning with play in the cage, sorry the fabulous fun arena or play palace until nap time. Once naps were over we did a quick football photo shoot for a special photo for our grandad. My sister had both an England and a Scotland top, though she claims she only bought the England one to impress her now husband and only wore it once exclusively for him. So we dressed the girls in them and Georgie was not happy, but not surprising as she was in the England one. They say in the photo business, never work with children and animals and I can see why, we didn’t have much time and Georgie wouldn’t smile and they kept looking away for the camera, but we did get some very cute shots.

Tabby and Georgie on their football shoot

After this it was back to kings cross with me where I said goodbye to my wonderful nieces and fabulous sister who must be shattered all the time as I found twins are very hard work and that was with 2 of us there! She is pretty amazing and manages to stay happy and positive throughout the dramas of parenthood. Of course her husband and his wit help with that as does the fact that he dotes on his girls. After kisses all round I board the not so busy train back North with only a few tears in my eyes. Although I always wish I could stay with my sister and her family, I’m always more than glad to travel back up north, away from the flat plains where you can see for too far and back in to the hills and the chill of my beautiful Scotland.