Blazing end to May

Exactly one year ago the weather was scorching as I went sailing and took the boys through to Largs. So we come full cycle, with a blistering weekend's weather providing some much-needed Vitamin D. I got home smartly on Friday night to cook up a barbecue although the boys seem to have an aversion to sausages these days and were not keen on any meat that had the merest speck of carbon on its surface. It was good just to be able to sit out and eat in the evening sunshine, even if the boys seem incapable of sitting and eating. Maybe we just need to relax and let them do their thing but it always seems to wind us up!

We made a relatively early start on Saturday, packing up the car with picnic food and chairs and buckets and spades in an attempt to get to North Berwick early enough to beat the crowd. We arrived around 1015 and got a space by the beach which was just as well as Sharon can't really cover any distance, especially on sand. She compared walking to shifting shaky scaffolding on sandy foundations. And was evidently in a lot of pain as she tried to sit and read.

The boys dug holes, got covered in sand, climbed on the rocks, kept saying their were hungry and could they do this, that and the other, had their hands cleaned for lunch and then promptly covered them in sand once more, and so on. There was also a rather chilly breeze blowing. The Patersons arrived and this prompted Finn, Sean and Ross to get stripped down to their trunks and head for the far distant sea (it was low tide). Impressively, they managed to run in and even lie down in the icy water before retreating to the relative warmth of the pools further up the beach.

Rowan, having been refreshed by a much-needed nap, only wanted to climb rocks and boy, did he climb. All over the outcrop he scrambled, with me in close attendance as he still has a belief in his own invincibility that leads him to take steps into thin air. We left around 1530, the boys exhausted, as Sharon had to cook food to take to the PC Chicago dinner at Lesley D's. No Chicago trip for us this year despite Sharon having easily qualified. Wee Wallace 4 put a spanner in those works!

Sunday was equally hectic. I took the boys to Ironmills Park in Dalkeith for a morning play then met up with Sharon and the O'Sullivans at Swanston Golf Club for lunch. The sun was beating down once more and I sat out by the first tee with the boys and Dermot and Paul playing "I Spy". After a brief rest at home we headed over to see Philip, Margaret and Miriam for a barbecue dinner in the late afternoon sunshine. The boys bounced themselves ragged on the trampoline and, again, generally mucked about rather than sit down and eat although Finn seemed to be on a mission to burst his stomach between his big lunch and dinner. Sean was rather surly, a trait rather evident these days since he lost his third tooth. Not surprisingly, despite the heat in their rooms, all three fell asleep quickly after a busy weekend in the sunshine.