Day 249 brought with it a moderately early start, followed by a hectic couple of hour of packing, followed by a little over 3 hours of driving.
We were going on a little holiday! Me, Melissa, Penny and Melissa's mum and dad were booked in to stay at a cabin in Scotland, just outside Hawick. The cabin was on a golf course, and we were allowed to play golf, for free, whenever we wanted. Melissa and myself didn't bother though.
We arrived at the club house to check in just after 3pm and were told the cabin wouldn't be available until about 4pm, so we decided to have a drink.
We booked in for dinner at the restaurant and went up to the cabin (it's more of a cottage, but I'm calling it a cabin. Sue me).
This is the view from the cabin. I didn't take any photos of the cabin its self, mainly because I forgot, and mainly because the views were so lovely.
As the above picture demonstrates, it was pretty damn nippy. We unpacked the cars and had a cup of tea, then headed down to the club house for tea. The food was excellent. I had portobello mushrooms stuffed with haggis to start, and a lovely pasta dish for my main, which left no room for pudding. We went back to the cabin and all got an early night. Except for Penny, who refused to sleep all night. She wasn't crying, or making a fuss, she was just lying in her crib making funny noises and preventing Melissa and myself from sleeping. Fun.
Day 250 was Saturday. There wasn't really any way to take Penny out for a walk with her pram so we made the decision to head to the nearest Argos to acquire a harness for her. The nearest Argos happened to be in Galashiels.
Whilst the drive was pleasant and the autumnal scenery stunning, Galashiels its self was mostly a bit crappy. There wasn't much there except your run of the mill shops, a sodding great (the) ASDA and a Tesco of similar size. A smackhead, drinking a big bottle of blue WKD at about 12:30, lit a cigarette and slurred at Melissa "Weer'd'ya geeet yar pram? Ets ameezan." Melissa politely replied "somewhere down south; we're not from round here" and then the tramp disappeared down an ally, presumably to inject more heroin into herself. Or have a piss.
Before we went to (the) ASDA and Tesco we stopped for lunch. Where we discovered this.
That, ladies and gentlemen is a macaroni cheese pie. I burned the roof of my mouth on it, and I'd do it again in a heart beat. Anyway, harness bought we headed back to the cabin. The inlaws were out playing golf, and Melissa and myself were on tea duty, so I whipped up a lovely corned beef hash just in times for their return, and then it was time for fireworks.
They were mostly crappy, and definitely not worth the money, but I enjoyed playing with small scale explosives whilst drinking alcohol and smoking a fine Cuban cigar. It was like I was a one-man A-Team.
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| Sparklers! |
Day 251 was a Sunday. As usual my father in law prepared us all a hearty breakfast and we headed into Berwick Upon Tweed for a bit of a mooch. It was a lovely drive along country roads (thanks to Google satnav) and it was a lovely place. Very quaint and historical.
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| Ramparts |
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| Harbour... Quay? I don't know. |
This was my mother in law, Melissa, and father in law walking to the harbour/quay/whatever for a picnic.
Below are the seagulls that appeared from nowhere the second the tinfoil was rustled.
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| Crisps. |
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| Melissa and her dad and Penny |
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| Café Nero. |
We headed home then, the sun just low enough on the horizon to permanently damage my sight and, whilst driving, we decided to get Chinese in for tea. It wasn't bad at all really. It certainly set me and my father in law in good stead for our hunting expedition, anyway.
Yes, that's right, hunting expedition. We suited up and headed out, rifle in hand, to sort out some pesky vermin.
We were lamping at first, which means shining a bastard powerful lamp in front of you hoping to pick out the eyes of a poor, innocent and defenceless animal. For a while we saw nothing, then my father in law, we'll call him Tommy, coz that's his name, passed me the rifle and told me to get down on my stomach; he'd seen some eyes, and reckoned they might belong to a fox. I set myself up, positioned the butt of the rifle into my shoulder and put my eye to the scope. I gave Tommy the OK and he turned the lamp on again. I was poised, ready to fire. I clocked the target. It was a couple of sheep. Not good for shooting. So I stood up and off we went again. Traipsing quietly round the golf course, lamping every so often but to no avail. Then, on the tee for I think the 11th hole, Tommy started to do a weird sort of animal call that mimics an animal in distress. He said that as it was a still night (it was) the noise would travel a good distance and anything nearby should be interested enough to come and investigate.
Sure enough, after about 5 minutes of calling and lamping, Tommy spotted a pair of eyes about 170 yards away on the nearside of the 9th fairway.
I dived into a prone position, readied the rifle, found the approximate position of the animal and Tommy turned the lamp on again. After a few seconds I identified the animal as a hare, which we were definitely ok to shoot. Tommy took the safety off the gun, told me to wait till the animal was side on, aim for the abdomen and slowly pull the trigger. I did just that. The first shot missed and I was convinced that my chance was over, that the hare would have bolted. I went to stand up and Tommy said "What happened?" I said "I think it moved, I took too long". "Try again" he said, and sure enough the hare was still there, in more or less the same position. I went through the process again. Readied the gun, found the animal in the cross hairs, and squeezed the trigger. Again I missed. I knew not to get frustrated, and stayed where I was, took aim again, this time getting a much better position on the hare, square into the side of it. I steadied my breathing, squeezed the trigger and the deed was done. The muscle reflexes meant it squealed and kicked around for a second but it was pretty much dead on impact.
Chuffed to bits, I was. We walked down to the murder site, Tommy paced it out at about 170 yards, downhill. I posed for the above morbid photo and we threw the hare over a small dry stone wall, a rather undignified end to a once noble animal.
On the walk back we spotted another hare, but let that one go. Karma, and all that. Just as we were nearing the last leg of the walk home Tommy spotted a fox and decided he was going to take a shot at that. He took 3. And missed each one. It was an incredible distance, up hill, through shrubs, but he was pissed off. Naturally.
Melissa wouldn't talk to me when we got back. She's forgiven me a bit now though. So that's nice.
Day 252 was yesterday, Monday. We had a bit of a lie in, then breakfasted, wrapped Penny up and went for a walk.
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| From here to the tree just off centre... That's where the hare was. |
We had a lovely walk. Very refreshing. The weather was clean and crisp yet again. Then we went back to the cabin, Melissa's mum and dad went for a round of golf and me, Melissa and Penny had a lovely relaxing afternoon on the couch. I read books on my Kindle and the girls had a snuggly sleep.
Then, when her mum and dad came home Melissa had a shower, put on her best frock and make up, as did I. Minus the frock and make up, and we went to the club house for an intimate, romantic meal. We were the only people in there and so the service was second to none, in the truest sense of the expression. I had the mushrooms and haggis again, followed by venison and an apple strudel, while Melissa had duck spring rolls, then a steak and then an ice cream sundae. Noms.
Tommy had given us a lift down, but we'd agreed to walk home. Across the golf course. In the pitch black. Slightly drunk. Full of food. Fun times.
We got back, had a few more drinks, watched some TV and went to bed.
Day 253 was today. Tuesday. I was up first, watching Fraiser on the TV, followed by everyone else. We had a hearty breakfast, and then, when Penny was fed and watered the three of us left Mel's mum and dad behind and drove home. It was an uneventful 3 hour drive.
Came home, unloaded the car, Melissa washed some clothes, Penny was fed, we caught up on some TV shows, had pizza for tea.
This evening I'm going to play some Batman, I think, in anticipation of Modern Warfare 3 having come out today. I may buy it on Thursday (payday).
As an update on Penny's milk/formula, we've been quite pleased with the results. She's not spewing as much as "normal" by any stretch, and she's shitting much more regularly. While she used to do a massive shit once every two days she's now doing a series of small (but none the less smelly) poos throughout each day.
Almost back to normality tomorrow (I'm still off work for one more day).
See you then. By the way, there's a full gallery of our trip photos on Facebook.
