Here's another view of our North Wales house. Actually, it's been divided into two: the owners, reasonably enough, live in the left hand bit, which has a lovely view over the bay, and the right hand bit is let out to holidayers. No view, alas.

We’ve been away for a week with the family in Wales , so that Mr Life could drive a narrow gauge railway train for a day. Here he is in his boiler suit.

Do you know the song "Tell Laura I love her"?

Daughter 2's name is Laura and she works as an architect with a medium sized firm and therefore sometimes spends time on building sites with lots of joiners and plumbers. Her current project is the conversion of an old building into a hotel. She's a sweetheart. Yes, I know I'm her mother; but she is.

The other week she was on site, and saw that someone had chalked up on a wall, "Tell Laura I love her".

Yesterday she went past the wall again, and there, in two different handwritings, was: "Me too" "Me too".

Your father and me too. We love you, Laura. (More!)

I thought Fifi's comment on my previous post deserved more prominence (hope this is all right, Fifi):

fifi said... On "Rockcliffe" this week, young Dr D finds that making soup is almost as hard as convincing wee auld Mrs McLatchey to take her heart medication. In his usual endearing manner he ineptly stirs pieces of vegetable forlornly around in his broth.Luckily for him, it's Isabelle to the rescue: turning up just in the nick of time with a big bunch of dahlias, a cauldron of hot soup and a package of....Gorgonzola!As usual the beautiful landscape is the real star of the show, though,luckily for Mrs Mclatchey, Dr D is a far better physician than chef.

Hello my boy,

I wrote a blog post about our visit to Rockcliffe and this was Fifi's comment:

Rockcliffe.
It's almost like a TV series, you know, handsome young doctor arrives in wee village, gets up to all manner of capers. His mother moves there to become a writer and keep a vast garden of flowers, writes a vast novel. It'll be epic!


Well, it's an idea...

Lots of love,

Mum

PS Less of the capers.




Dear Mum,

Hmmm, certainly an idea.

Unfortunately I don't really get up to much in the way of capers (except for crashing my car, but I'm not sure that this counts).

It's kind of hard to imagine Rockcliffe as 'epic'.

I'm not up to a huge amount today. [Girlfriend] is at work, and I'm sitting in the kitchen. Yesterday was just the most horrible weather - driving rain non-stop all day. However, today is beautiful sunshine and very still, so I'll probably go outside in a bit.

I made some soup yesterday, it being soupy kind of weather. The day before, I looked at a food processor in Tesco and wondered about buying it (that's the exciting sort of caper I get up to), but decided I probably wouldn't use it all that much (it was the blending kind, rather than a proper Kenwood-style thing).

My soup was nice, but really more like soggy vegetables in water than Mum-soup, despite my best attempts at mashing. Ah well, it still has much-needed vitamin C.

Hope all is well at home. I'll probably phone in a bit, so this email may be a bit superfluous, but there we go.

Missing you all and the lovely cats.

[Son]

When I was 17, our A level French teacher, Mrs Walsh, was speaking to us about current affairs. She mentioned Twiggy, the famous model of about our age who was being mobbed by adoring fans, much like the Beatles were at that time. "Girls," said Mrs Walsh, "in a few years, Twiggy will be forgotten, but YOU, girls, YOU will have careers!"

Well, yes, we do have careers.

Twiggy, on the other hand is still beautiful, rich and famous (at least in Britain); one of those "national treasure" people. I wonder if she sits up late at night marking papers and preparing classes.

Never believe what a teacher says.



I know it's a ridiculous cliché and I despise myself for my lack of originality, but at this time of year I can't help thinking of the garden as being like a lovely woman whose beauty is fading. It’s still got some colour but you can see it used to be much prettier.


I must try to think up a better simile before next year.


How about this for an action photo? Unimpressed by the flowers, Cassie was trying to catch an insect.

We got the bus down to Dumfries on Saturday to collect our other car from our son – he needed it till he bought a new one to replace the one in which he skidded into the wall.

There were two women of a certain age sitting beside us in the waiting area at the bus station in Edinburgh, chatting as they read a less upmarket type of woman’s magazine, complete with lots of photos of lissom or hunky celebs.

I started listening to them without actually looking. (I’m subtle like that.) One of them said to the other, “I like them bearded.”

Her friend replied, “Oh yes, and especially if they’re blue.”

I thought, “?” and glanced covertly at the magazine. It was open at an article about irises.

My mind wandered. Later, I started listening again. They were looking at a feature on kitchen gadgets.

One said, “Do you have difficulty opening jar lids now?”

“Yes,” said the other. “My hands are getting quite stiff.”

“Well,” the first one said, “my mother gave me a good tip. She said it really works. It’s made all the difference.”

“What does she do, then?”

“I can’t remember, but she said it helps a lot.”

Unfortunately they didn’t sit near us on the bus.