Been a while ... but worth the wait!

Well, here we are again. The weather this last week has been amazing, but true to form, I had on my heavy jacket for walking the dogs this morning.  

We've enjoyed the last week being able to sit and relax in the summerhouse. Morning coffee, lunch, afternoon tea and late night cuppa ... it's been a nice relaxing time. This is why I retired ... this is what retirement is all about. Relaxing and walking the dogs....................

So, early morning coffee relaxing in the summerhouse: 

 Aah ... no better way to start the day.

Of course, this warm weather was all a bit to much for Mickey and Lucy.

Here's Lucy being ever alert, as usual ..... 

And here's poor old Mickey ......

We had a bit of an impromptu BBQ on Saturday (cooked by chef extraordinaire Gary whilst Mike supervised from a distance). Now it's most unfortunate that we forgot that I had gone out on Saturday morning to buy fresh beefburgers (12 quids worth!) and cooked all the square sliced sausages, all the link sausages, all the chicken. We munched all the other bits and pieces, but no beefburgers ... so Mike will be eating beefburgers for dinner for the next week.  That said, it was a nice day and little Matthew had a ball running around all over the garden.  We did try playing a few garden games, but Mickey insited in joining in all the games and running off with all the equipment.  Ah well ... such is life when you have an 8 year old puppy!

The exciting news within the family (apart from Sarah being engaged and getting married on Star Wars Day in 2014) is that I now have a furry great niece (courtesy of Sarah) called Florence ..... here she is looking furry and sweet and posing nicely for the camera:

Isn't she just cute and cuddly and looks like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth! Looks like she's settling well into her new home and no doubt will soon have her new mummy (Sarah) wrapped round her furry little paw.

The Race for Life on the 20th at Falkirk went very well.  We were very lucky that we had fairly good weather. Nice and sunny but not too warm. We've raised well over our target of £250 and hopefully by the time we close our JustGiving page we'll have raised a nice wee sum for Cancer Research UK.  Due to logistics, Lucy and Mickey didn't join us but Conway donned his sparkly pink bow and walked proudly round, and from the donations on the JustGiving page I think he had quite a few female fans who were sponsoring him. Well done Conway, he walked very well round the course and was a credit to The Goldie Girls.

My little Treasures by Isobel business is still working hard at getting off the ground, and I have boldly booked a table at a Christmas Craft Fair in Edinburgh in October.  I need to work hard at getting some more handbag charms and keyrings and suchlike ready for it.  So, just watch this space ......

I'm fair enjoying this retirement lark, now that I'm starting to get organised with various wee project and stuff. It's nice to have the time to pursue some interests and it's been good having the time to give the dogs long walks each day. Going out for lunch is also a pretty cool pastime. We were out for lunch today and then stopped and have an afternoon cuppa .... and a cake. Tomorrow we're off out for lunch again, but this time it's a birthday lunch for a friend. We'll be picking them up at noon and then heading off to Frankie and Benny's for a nice lunch washed down by a nice bottle of wine. Then after spending the after noon chatting and drinking wine, we'll run home to see to Lucy and Mickey for an hour or so before we go over to see Matthew, who'll be celebrating his second birthday. Grandad has chosen his gift and I think the young man will like it ... if he doesn't, well then, Grandad will just have to play with it. Arlene will be particularly pleased with the card I chose for Matthew, and I just know that Matthew will think it's the coolest and bestest birthday card a young lad could ever get!

I'm hoping to start updating my blog a bit more regularly now that I've remembered about it. So you can all look forward to me sharing words of wisdom with you and maybe some amusing stories and nice words. And, I'll also share with you some of the books I've been reading, and plan on reading over the next wee while. 

So, I guess I'd better go cos I hear there's a little glass of vino with my name on it so I better go get it.

As my hero Forrest Gump says ... that's all I've got to say about it .......

Be back soon, bye for now.

Isobel