Last hurrah of the holidays

"I was going so fast I banged into the yellow bits at the bottom." "How did that feel, Finn!" "Great!"

Finn and Sean went up to Hillend this morning with Miriam and Margaret Flaherty for a "play ski". (Denoting something as "play" differentiates it from "lessons", hence "play ski" and "play swim". I took Rowan on a play swim the other evening to Loanhead. The emphasis was very much on play. To his credit he can doggy paddle a bit and is willing to try in the big pool but he's not that keen on persevering after a couple of tries. He can now touch the bottom in the big pool and just keep his mouth above the water.) Finn went up to the blue run on his own, couldn't see Miriam so just decided to come down himself. And he did it very well! As with his golf he seems to have a very good natural technique. Hopefully he'll keep at the skiing and the golf but Finn can be mercurial when it comes to deciding what he wants to do.

I was dropping Sharon off at the Gyle so that she could meet someone and maker her own way home by bus. Over-use of the crutches led to blisters on her hands however. I spent the afternoon setting up a print server which seems to do the job with regards to being able to sharing the printer between the desktop and the laptop but isn't going to cut it as a storage server. I was hoping to network a recently purchased external hard drive but it looks like I'll have to splash out more on a proper Network Attached Storage device and just use the external hard drive for back-up, which was the original plan for the home (and Sharon's business) network. I was just hoping to do something on the cheap.

This evening we headed up to Nonna's at the top of Morningside for an early dinner. The boys were well behaved although Rowan let the side down a bit. He has been very hyper recently, like a dog chasing his tail, yelling and wailing a lot and getting up in the night all too often with his mantras of "I've had a bad dream" or "It's too dark". I moved him into the bunk bed last night and gave him a night light which seemed to improve things. At least he lasted till after 7 this morning.

Sean has been re-reading some of the Harry Potter books again. Ask him to name a spell and he'll come up trumps. He's spent a good few hours reading this week, which, given the inclement weather we've had of late has been no bad thing as there have been few opportunities for the boys to get out. Alex and Louis St.John were over yesterday which the boys seemed to have enjoyed, getting a good laugh. Alex is in P5 at Bonaly so, assuming no moves, him and Sean will start Firhill together. It will be interesting to see if they develop a friendship.

Angus is being delightful and demonic in equal measures at the moment. He is full of "I love you's" and cuddles and kisses and keeps talking and talking. He drew blood from Rowan today and drew tears from all his "bruddas" at some point as well as demanding telly and "a movie" endlessly. He had a great time with Barry here, introducing him to soft play at Leadburn and generally looking out for him. A rare chance for Angus to be the big cousin.