Books and Clay

Well, this is blanket number one and I finished it on the day he was due. It's hard to see but the colour scheme is blue, green, yellow and white. It looks better on the camera though. The body of it only took a couple of weeks to do but Mum thought I should do the edging the way it said in the book. The problem was (and still is) I can't make head or tail of it, so I spent five hours down at my aunt's madly crocheting away. I've only done five out of ten rows as I think that's enough otherwise it'd be overkill. Anyway, Rory made his entrance on 27th August 2009 and is gorgeous!! He was due the day before and Kathleen went into labour bang on time though she ended up getting a caesarean. Both are doing well. So now it's on to blanket number two and I've decided to do the same pattern mainly as the baby is due on October 5th. By the time I get to the edging, I'll be back down at my aunt's again as I still don't understand the pattern!!

Just a wee note to say that I've collected £288.20 in sponsor money so a big thank you to everyone who sponsored me. Kate handed the money in today for me as I couldn't get off work in time to do it and was told they'd raised £23,000 which is fantastic.

I've finally got Michael Morpurgo's signature in my authograph book! I already have a couple of books signed by him but he's now with the rest of the signatures so I'm happy. I went to see him speak yesterday with the Montrose and Forfar children's bookgroup and he was fantastic as usual. I could listen to him talk all day mainly because he's so passionate about reading and storytelling. In case you don't know, Michael Morpurgo was Britain's children's laureate a few year's ago, is a top children's author and because he's so popular, it's next to impossible to get him to come to a small, local event so we were extrememly lucky to be able to get tickets for his talk this year. Mind you, I did spend over an hour on the phone only to be told that I'd to phone a different number as they dealt with groups! Anyway, the children did the treasure hunt and got their prize though strangely enough the answers were at the bottom which sor

We get some fantastic sunsets here and possibly sunrises except I'm not up that early! I took this one a couple of nights ago though the sky was pinkier. I couldn't get the camera on the right setting in time. You can see the outline of the Glens in the background. The harbour's been busy recently, in fact, one ship has just arrived and another has left. Someone asked why I use the name Spud Murphy. Well, if you read The Legend of Spud Murphy by Eoin Colfer you'll find out why and please, please, please ask for it at your local library first as not only are they free, it's also a children's book and will take you about 20 mins to read. Believe it or not, my street cred actually rose when the kids in the library read it as well - hence the reason I use it!!

I just wanted to say a big thank you to everyone who sponsored me for the walk round Montrose Basin. My brother-in-law Dave walked it with me as Kate is pregnant just now. We arrived a little late so missed the registration but caught the last group up at the House of Dun. We even passed some of them and finished the walk in 2hrs 55 mins which was a fantastic time. It's supposed to be 10 miles and is all on the road or pavements as there isn't a actual path round the basin itself. However, I'm positive that there was at least an extra mile at the end plus we had to walk back to the car! It's was a lovely evening though I did get a couple of blisters as I wasn't wearing my hiking boots but I'm really pleased that my knee was fine. I think the cycling has definetly helped with that. Oh, and I really recommend Irn-bru at the finish line!! I'm still waiting for the last of the money to come in but I've got around £270 I think and I will post the fina

I'm currently on holiday at the moment and go back to work on Monday so have finally got some time to update the blog. It's raining at the moment (it's true, the British love talking about the weather!) so it's a fine time to work on it. Thanks to the fridge/freezer that decided to die on me just after it's guarantee had run out (naturally), I'm holidaying at home which has turned out really well. The corn lice, of course, came out on the first day and we now have a bird scarer going off literally every two minutes and sounds like a gun. The Council are also proposing to put double yellow lines starting from my house up to the last house leading to the lighthouse, meaning all and sundry will be parking in front of my house and there will nowhere for the 15 or so cars to go. The car park is full, can't park there and rest of the streets certainly can't take the cars. Needless to say, the majority if not all of the street are objecting and you have t