December 2025 Christmas Letter

 As 2025 draws to a close, it’s fair to say that along with the highs, the year has thrown more challenges in our path than we’ve had the good fortune of experiencing in the past.

The year began in a similar manner to how it normally does - a dark, cold and windy January. Some early year snow gave Iona the opportunity to enjoy some fun sledging with her friends (and sometimes with her mum and dad!). However, an exceptionally studious Eilidh turned down some sledging opportunities in favour of studying for her prelims. She’d been working exceptionally hard towards her Nat 5 exams, and was determined that the distraction of fun in the cold snow wasn’t going to dampen her work ethic. She did have the good fortune though that her prelims finished in the week running up to her birthday, meaning that she could celebrate a chilled-out games afternoon with her friends with a clear conscience!

A storm in January led to the cancellation of Craig’s Brass Monkey camp (and ended up shutting the campsite for weeks for an extensive clean-up operation), while a February trip away coinciding with the SubZero camp meant no cold-weather camping for Craig this year (although it could be argued that most camping in Scotland could be classified as cold weather!).

On Valentine’s day, Craig and Gwen flew out to Paris for the weekend. In truth, this was less a romantic gesture, and more that it’s when the school holidays were and Gwen’s annual leave allowed us to go, as Eilidh and Iona came too! We had a fabulous weekend, combining shopping, the Paris opera house, the Eiffel Tower, and some delicious food!

March started with some excitement as Eilidh entered her first synchronised swimming novice competition, and she and her partner came away with gold medals after putting together a routine to Taylor Swift’s song Style. The following weekend saw a lovely weekend away with the Andrews and Jenkins, staying in a house in Dumfriesshire.

The most excitement at the end of the month and into April, however, belonged to Iona. After celebrating her (twelfth!) birthday with roller skating and a sleepover with friends, she was off for a week to school camp for the last week of term at PGL Ford Castle in Berwick-upon-Tweed. She had a great time there with her classmates, taking part in adventurous activities and socialising with her friends in the evenings. No sooner was she back, than we whisked her away to Sallachy for a week which saw some incredibly warm weather for that part of the world for April!

Our world was turned upside-down on return from that trip though with the sudden and unexpected news that Craig had lost his job. Although reeling from the shock, it meant that he was suddenly able to spend some intense time with Eilidh helping her prepare for her exams, in particular Applications of Maths, and this did indeed prove to be time well spent. It seems that some clouds at least do have silver linings.

No more May bank-holiday weekend escapes for us for the foreseeable future - May is now crunch-time!. All Eilidh’s hard work and preparation came down to a handful of days putting her to the test. It’s probably fair to say that, in common with most other teenagers, spending spring days sitting in school doing exams isn’t her favourite activity. The exams began a hectic period for Eilidh: straight after her final exam, she was off on a training camp in preparation for her forthcoming summer Scouting adventure, while the two weekends following that saw six dance shows over the two weekends. June also took Eilidh in a new direction for a week, literally, as she took a week off school in order to go to school. She was given the opportunity to do work experience, and managed to find a placement in a local-ish primary school. She really enjoyed her time, and it’s safe to say that the experience hasn’t changed her career aspirations.

Speaking of primary schools, our days of having a child in one have come to an end. Iona rounded off her primary school years with a part in the P7 show, and a messy paint run party! It’s hard to believe that we’ve got two high-school-aged daughters, but that’s what the passage of time will do! Iona also had a Scout camp thrown into the mix in June, just to keep her on her toes!

With school done, we wasted no time in escaping for a break - a sleeper train was booked to take us down to London, a visit to the Peplers was arranged, tickets to the Harry Potter studio tour were arranged, and another sleeper train booked to take us back up the road / track in time for Gwen to start her session on Monday morning. However, as a poet who shares Eilidh’s birthday once said, the best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men / Gang aft agley. At some point on the Friday night into the Saturday, the sleeper train decided that it itself needed a sleep, and decided to stop at a place that wasn’t London and not go any further. We were therefore turfed off the train in Rugby with little ceremony and left to catch a local train into town. Our problems were compounded when news came that our reservations on the train home had to be cancelled due to broken air conditioning in our carriage, leaving us scrambling to find a way to get Gwen at least back to Scotland in time to make the people of north Livingston better. In the end, we managed to get a late booking back up on the Sunday afternoon, cutting short the weekend and meaning the postponement of the Harry Potter tour. 

July is where our year got really interesting! Having a love of Scandinavia, Eilidh had stepped out of her comfort zone and signed up with another Scout Group to attend the Norwegian Jamboree, about an hour north of Oslo. She flew out on the Saturday morning, and spent a fabulous week doing a great range of activities. They finished up on the Friday, and then spent a few days exploring Oslo in small groups. Rather than having Eilidh flying home with the others on the Tuesday though, we had other plans. On the second Saturday that Eilidh was in Norway, the rest of the family flew out to Oslo too. Craig, Gwen and Iona also spent a few days in the city, in the course of which we met just about every subgroup from West Lothian (and several other countries in Europe) except Eilidh’s! Gwen intercepted Eilidh as the other Scouts and Explorers were catching the bus to the airport, and our family holiday could begin as a full unit.

Following a trip to the Oslo Opera House to see a ballet about football (everybody’s interests catered for in one activity!), Gwen took the girls to the botanic gardens for an ice cream, Craig went to pick up the campervan which would serve as the family’s accommodation for the next week-and-a-half. The rest of the holiday followed a rough plan, where we didn’t know where we would be sleeping from night-to-night, nor whether we’d have access to toilets, electricity and wifi (the campervan did have two of those three facilities to a limited extent!). The girls embraced this way of life so much that they soon positively requested to avoid parking in a campsite wherever possible, preferring to park up somewhere remote, preferably with a wild swim nearby. 

Another sure-fire way to escape over-bearing heat was to go into the mountains. After a scenic drive up a very winding road, we reached a summer ski resort (not open in the winter as the whole building gets buried in snow!), put on warmer clothes, gloves, heavy duty walking boots and crampons and tied ourselves together to a guide and another family with a long rope before embarking on a glacier walk.

We meandered our way to Bergen on the west coast. Norway experienced a heatwave during the time that we were there, with temperatures topping 30° in Oslo - a pleasant change from our weather expectations when we were booking the holiday! We had some truly memorable experiences. One of the stand-outs was an afternoon spent white-water rafting. It was an exhilarating experience and thoroughly enjoyable, while the sprays of water gave pleasant relief to the beating sun.

Spending the time in such a relaxed (but still keeping ourselves busy!) fashion was just what the doctor ordered, and we returned from holiday ready to tackle the second half of the year.

The weekend after getting back from Norway, we were off on the road again - this time to Cambridge for the wedding of Gwen’s cousin, Liz. Being in that part of the world allowed us the opportunity to catch up with one of Craig’s oldest (long-standing - we still consider ourselves young!) university friends too. A short while exploring the city before our return north of the border capped off a lovely but tiring weekend.

There may have only been one week left of the school holidays, but that still left time for one more big event: the start of the football season exam results day. Eilidh got an excellent set of results, and we’re all so proud that the effort that she put in resulted in the good grades that she deserved. 

The following week was Iona's turn to take centre-stage, as she took the first steps on her secondary school journey. She’s settled into the new environment really well, and gallops out the door each morning to meet her friends and walk down. Long may the enthusiasm continue!

The remainder of August sadly didn’t continue on that happy note. Subsequent to his cancer diagnosis last July, Roger’s health had been steadily deteriorating over the course of the year. The family had enjoyed some nice walks with him in the spring and the early summer, and in the later and hotter summer days, he enjoyed sitting out in our garden, either chatting with whoever was around, keeping a keen eye on what was going on, or simply having a nice snooze in the warm temperatures. The doctors and nurses and Marie Curie team did a fabulous job of helping him to carry on with as much normality as possible, until he was admitted into the Marie Curie Hospice on 24 August, where he spent the next few days asleep before passing away peacefully on 29 August.

A funeral date was set for 26 September, and a lot of that month was spent making sure that Roger got the send off that he deserved, and assisting Brenda with the administrative tasks which inevitably follow the death of a loved one. 

Life had to carry on though, and during the course of September, Eilidh was assessed for and passed her Artistic Swimming Figure Grade 2 exam, successfully demonstrating all the skills that she’d been learning in her classes. At the end of the month, we went as a family for a surfing lesson at the new(ish) artificial surf resort between here and Edinburgh. Picking our dates carefully and in conjunction with the weather forecast, we all had a great time, with varying degrees of success at actually surfing!

We enjoyed a family theatre trip in October to see War Horse. It was lovely to spend a relaxed and cultured afternoon as a family, and more relaxation was to follow as we went up to Sallachy for the October holiday. We managed to catch a sunny day to kayak on the loch, and then successfully managed to find the equivalent of a needle in a haystack when a pair of Eilidh’s socks were caught unawares by the rising tide and ended up discreetly bobbing in the water! We managed to find some new walking routes, cycle some old favourite routes, watch some films, and play board games in front of the fire. On top of that, Eilidh managed to keep her studying habits bubbling away!

On the way back from Sallachy, we played things a bit differently from usual. We arranged that Brenda would get the train to Perth, whereupon Gwen and Eilidh would whisk her away to a nice Perthshire hotel and treat her to a day of shopping at House of Bruar. Of course, six of us wouldn’t fit in a five-seater car, so Iona and Craig took the train back to Livingston, conveniently allowing them to attend a birthday party and football match respectively on the Sunday!

October wasn’t over yet though - there was still time for Gwen to relocate from Livingston to Lindisfarne for a lovely, spiritual weekend with university friends. And there was still time later in November for more culture, as Gwen, Eilidh and Brenda went to see Scottish Ballet’s production of The Snow Queen.

Coming into December, we were super-excited to welcome the Rouses over from Australia; they’ll be here over Christmas and New Year, and we can’t wait to spend more time with them over the festive period.

As well as thriving in High School, socially and academically, Iona has followed Eilidh’s swimming pathway. She completed the Learn to Swim programme, and then had a successful trial with Forth Valley Tridents’ artistic swimming section. She’s still playing her flute, and has recently embarked on piano lessons too. She’s still very keen on spending time in her bedroom, particularly playing online games with her friends, and sleeping!

Eilidh is still filling her week to the brim. She’s kept up the valuable experience of being a Young Leader with the Beavers, and helps out there each week. She dances for long stretches on Wednesdays and Fridays, and is continuing to enjoy syncro. She gave up playing the oboe at the end of 4th Year in order to concentrate on her Highers. This year at school, she’s taking Higher English, History, RMPS and Applications of Maths. She’s also participating in an initiative called West Lothian Academy, where certain subjects are taught online. It’s designed for cases where schools wouldn’t be able to offer particular classes due to low pupil numbers, or where pupils themselves may have timetable clashes. In Eilidh’s case, she’s doing Higher Philosophy. The subject itself has one hour of online teaching per week, and one face-to-face get-together per term; the rest is self-driven. It should prove to be a good introduction to university learning for her.

Gwen never has an idle moment! Her work at the practice and her additional GP teaching role keep her out of trouble, and along with maximising time with her dad in the first part of the year, and with just her mum more recently, she’s been able to keep fit, and is still regularly playing her violin with Meadows Chamber Orchestra.

Having assisted Eilidh to success in her Applications of Maths exam, Craig has expanded his services, and is now providing tutoring services to nine other teenagers.  He’s also been very much enjoying going to the Hearts games this season (have a look at the top of the Scottish Premiership table if you’re unsure why!)

As ever, if you’re anywhere close by, please do let us know – we’d love to see you!  The Family Browning would like to wish all our friends and relations a very Merry Christmas, and all best wishes for a safe, healthy, happy and prosperous New Year!

December 2024 Christmas letter

Christmas already - how did that happen? Another year has absolutely flown by. This year, investigating the functionality that AI has to offer, we asked Google's Gemini software to access our family calendar, read our previous blogs, and then write this year’s newsletter in a similar style. I'm pleased to say that it did almost exactly as requested, except the mother of the family was named Sarah and the events it spoke about bore no resemblance to what we got up to! So what you are about to read has been composed entirely by the hand of a human. Or has it? That’s what AI would want you to think.

Every January, Eilidh just seems to get older. It’s probably because that’s when her birthday is. This year, we took Eilidh and her friends ice-skating. It was interesting to see the wide range of ability on show amongst the group ranging from beginner competency all the way to never-skated-before. Still everybody seemed to enjoy the ice disco, and as far as we know, there were no broken bones, so that counts as a small win.

The February school holidays were very notable. Firstly, we escaped Scotland to get some winter sun, spending a couple of days in Madrid before getting an evening train down to Granada to allow us to spend the next day exploring the Alhambra. From there, we hired a car and drove to sunny Malaga for a day, before flying back home in time for Craig to start a new job. After 22 years in pensions with Mercer, Craig moved into a different sphere. Following on from his Masters degree in Climate Change Finance and Investment, he now calculates companies’ carbon footprints and helps them set plans to get to Net Zero at his new company, Inspired ESG. He still had time whilst embarking on a new career to attend the Brass Monkey camp with his Explorers, which was slightly cooler than Malaga had been!

By the time March came around, Iona had been planning her birthday party for months! Having developed into a Swiftie, the release of the Eras Tour on Disney Plus the week before her birthday meant that a Tyalor Swift-themed party was the order of the day. A screening of the show, pizzas, friendship bracelets, and other assorted TS-style things were all on the agenda. Everybody came in with bags of energy, but were able to Shake It Off by the end.

April saw our second mini-break of the year, going out to Poland to spend some time with Iona’s bestie Hania and her family near Krakow. With no direct flights to Poland on a Friday or Saturday from Scotland available, we concocted a plan that would get us to Krakow quicker than the available flight. So it was that we found ourselves on the Friday night sitting on the plane on the runway to fly to Berlin. Then we sat some more. And then a bit more. Then we were told that a passenger assistance lift was broken and stuck beside our plane, meaning that it could manoeuvre out onto the runway, so we’d all have to come back at the crack of dawn the next day. We eventually arrived in Berlin around lunchtime Saturday, meaning that we only had a couple of hours of sightseeing there before the next leg of our trip, a beautiful train ride from the German capital to Prague. There was no time to stop in Czechia, though - we were booked onto a sleeper train, which arrived in Krakow very early on the Sunday morning. The European trains all ran like clockwork, meaning the remaining travels were stress-free. We had an amazing and relaxing time in Poland including a hike in the beautiful Zakopane mountains. Craig flew back from Poland on Tuesday evening due to having to get back to work, while Gwen and the girls stayed out for the rest of the week.

There was still time in April for Iona to go on a Scout hike and camp, before the early May bank holiday weekend saw us take off to Dumfriesshire for a weekend with the Andrews and the Jenkins. Alas, a timing issue meant that the April showers continued into May, leading to a rather wet weekend and the postponement of a helicopter flight that we’d been due to take on the Monday afternoon.

As spring finally sprung and then broke into something vaguely resembling summer, but with more rain, Gwen and the girls went to Shropshire with Brenda and Roger to celebrate Uncle Harvey’s (Roger’s brother) 90th birthday. At the same time that was going on, Craig was putting his Explorers through their paces with a challenging expedition. That same weekend (if you thought it couldn’t get any busier) was notable for another reason - Taylor came to Town! With tickets being like gold dust, and despite everyone being very tired, we took a picnic rug and a hastily arranged packed tea, and made our way to Roseburn Park beside Murrayfield to hear the songstress roll out the hits; we even caught glimpses of her on the big screen that we could see a slither of through the stairwell!

As we neared the end of the school term, Craig and Iona went on their first Scout camp together, with Craig having been called in to run a kayaking session on the camp. Scouting for those two was coming to an end for the summer break, but there was a long way still to go for Eilidh, whose summer was about to get exceedingly busy! Readers with long memories may recall that Eilidh was selected to attend the Blair Atholl jamborette as part of the West Lothian contingent. Throughout the year, she’d been attending training weekends, team building evenings and fundraising events to ensure that the Explorers were capable of being relatively self-sufficient for the 12-days that they’d be away. But Blair was a tiny dot on the horizon at the end of June.

Six dance shows over a five-day Friday-Tuesday produced some fab-u-lous dancing, and ended with Eilidh presented with a trophy from one of her coaches for her kindness, conscientious attitude and progress over the year. No rest for the wicked though, and nor for Eilidh. She had to be at school at the crack of dawn on the Wednesday morning for a school dance trip to London, which included lessons at two different dance schools, various sight-seeing trips, and seeing Mamma Mia at the theatre. Back home in the early Friday evening, and the next again day, we jetted off for our summer holiday.

The summer holiday was a genuine celebration - of Judy and Russell’s golden wedding anniversary. By plane, train and automobile, Grandma and Grandpa, Auntie Kathryn, Kieran, Gemma, Logan, Auntie Jenny and Matthew converged to a villa in a little village in the Dordogne region of France for almost two-weeks of family fun. Not everybody did everything, but combinations of chateaux, kayaking, cycling, heart-pounding activities, restaurants, swimming and mainly sunshine ensured that everybody had a great time!

Following our return from France, Eilidh had a whole four days to appreciate the summer holidays at home before starting her adventure with the other Explorers. To say that we packed her off on a train and didn’t see her again for the best part of two weeks wouldn’t be entirely true though: the middle Saturday was visitor day, so we went up, sampled the “countries fayre”, took Eilidh for a shower and nice dinner at our hotel in Pitlochry, and then returned her to camp and stayed on for a rather wet campfire. Getting back from Blair on the last Friday in July, we thought that Eilidh was due a well-deserved rest, so we went up to Sallachy for a week of relaxation (which admittedly involved mountain bikes, hikes and kayaks, but also included a lot of sleep!).

A large shadow was, however, cast on us whilst up north with receipt of the news that Roger had been diagnosed with a terminal cancer; left untreated, the oncologist gave him six weeks. After consultation with medical professionals and Brenda, and with a golden-wedding anniversary approaching in December, he resolved to receive whatever treatment was offered to prolong his life. The oncologist was non-committal about the anniversary. Amongst the sadness, it’s fair to say that we felt blessed that Brenda and Roger made the move to Livingston last year, and that we were correspondingly able to spend more time with them.

The fun continued in August with the rescheduled helicopter flight which had been cancelled in May. This was a very generous Christmas present from Auntie Wendy, and a splendid day saw us soar over the countryside around Cumbernauld on a short but spectacular flight.

At the September weekend, the girls received the last of their presents from Christmas 2023 - a trip to Alton Towers. We left the house early on Sunday morning, arrived early afternoon, stayed over, and had most of (a rather wet) Monday in the park as well. The girls have always loved roller coasters, and this was a weekend that went down particularly well!

As the days started shortening, we went up to Sallachy again during the October holidays. No kayaks this time, but we did manage to tick off one thing from the bucket list that has appealed to us ever since we started going up there - walking to the Falls of Glomach. Described as one of the tallest and most remote waterfalls in the UK, it would be difficult to argue the point. It’s also quite difficult to access - involving a 12-mile round trip hike. The difficulty level is ratcheted up a notch when the bottom of your hiking boot falls off just over a mile in, and your husband has to run / cycle back to the car to get a spare pair of walking shoes - the diversion was a sole-destroying experience! The falls themselves are indeed spectacular - photos and videos don’t really do them justice, but not a place for the faint-hearted!

Iona is now in her final year of primary school - where does the time go?! She’s still swimming, playing her flute (not at the same time), and has joined the school choir. She also enjoys playing (a bit too much?🤔) online computer games with her friends.

Eilidh is now reaching the crunch-time in education where exams start coming along! The homework has cranked up by a significant degree this year, and she’s been studying very hard to ensure that she can fit it all in between her activities. She passed her second and third artistic swimming exams this year, and also has a ballet exam in mid-December. With an ambition to be a primary school teacher, the opportunity for her to be a young leader in Scouting provides valuable experience. The Squirrel section that she’d been helping with had to change to a time that she couldn’t make, so she’s now started helping with the Beavers in West Calder. She is also fundraising for her next Scouting trip - to Norway in the summer!

It’s been a very busy year for Gwen (and Craig), supporting Brenda and Roger with their move to Livingston, and more recently with Roger’s illness. She’s also currently doing an extra shift at work to cover for a colleague’s paternity leave. In amongst all that, she’s managing to squeeze in concerts, exercise and living!

Craig is still getting (and subjecting the girls to) regular doses of sadness by going to see Hearts play (but ever the optimist, he thinks things are on the up after their worst start to a league season in history!). He’s also currently stepped in as a stand-in Scout Leader at Iona’s Troop (in addition to his regular Explorer work) to cover a leader who’s had to take some time off.

Finally, an update on Roger. His initial radiotherapy session didn’t go well and he had to be ambulanced to hospital after a bad reaction to it. After that, however, the remaining radiotherapy course went relatively well. The real turning point however, was starting on immunotherapy. He has been responding very well to that, and has a wonderful attitude to life, continuing to do short walks nearby and share with the family, and we’re at the stage where we feel like we can look to the future in weeks and months rather than days and weeks. He and Brenda are looking forward to their golden wedding anniversary just after Christmas and enjoying their time together.

All that’s left to say is that if you’re anywhere close by, please do let us know – we’d love to see you!  The Family Browning would like to wish all our friends and relations a very Merry Christmas, and all best wishes for a safe, healthy, happy and prosperous New Year!

December 2023 Christmas letter

Wow, it’s hard to believe it’s “that time of year” already.  What a year it’s turned out to be with some major changes as the year progressed (spoiler alert…keep reading!).  It all started fairly innocuously, with January.  Eilidh officially turned a teenager, despite having been doing a convincing impression of one for several years.  For her party she and her friends did a museum-break-in-themed escape room (which they duly completed, displaying their credentials to be criminal masterminds), before they retreated to their lair in our living room to watch a film and talk about stuff that adults aren’t allowed to hear or know!

February got off to a cold, wet and windy start for Craig at the annual Brass Monkey camp, before the whole family escaped up to Sallachy for a much-needed break for the week and a chance to slow things down.

Craig had another cold and wet weekend at the start of March on camp, before Eilidh played in a national school windband event in Perth at which James Young took home a medal.  The following weekend, it was Browning birthday time again.  Iona’s birthday was on the Saturday (moving into double figures!), and, inspired by Eilidh’s escape room, Iona and her friends did a Harry Potter-themed room of their own (and completed it).  On Gwen’s birthday on the Sunday, we went for afternoon tea at the Cauldron, a truly magical experience, before taking Iona to buy a wand (a replica of Ginny Weasley’s, for those ITK), which she was delighted with!

In April, we did something we don’t normally do, and went on an overseas holiday at Easter.  This was largely making up for a 40^th birthday present trip to Sweden for Gwen, which was cancelled due to the pandemic.  It wasn’t a complete like-for-like swap though; instead we explored other parts of Scandinavia. 

We flew into Oslo and spent two days there, finding out about arctic explorers, discovering Viking history in real life and virtual reality, and seeing art including Munch’s The Scream.  We then took an overnight ferry to Copenhagen, where we experienced Tivoli Gardens, architecture and general museums, a castle, and of course, the Little Mermaid via a canal boat ride.  Clearly, no family visit to Denmark would be complete without a trip to the home of Lego, and so, a train and a bus ride later, we found ourselves checking into the Lego Castle hotel.  We spent an afternoon in Lego House, where we had our dinner made by Lego robots, spent the following day in Legoland itself, and then spent the next morning at the Lalandia (indoor) waterpark, which is less than a kilometre away from Legoland.  For a town with a population of only just over 7,000, Billund is probably the best wee town in the world!  

You’d have thought that after that, it would be time to head home, but instead, we flew to London to spend Easter with the Peplers in London, before finally getting the train home on Easter Monday.  With all that, you might expect that we’d have a bit of time at home to recuperate, but in the last weekend of April, heading into the bank holiday Monday in May, we went away down to the borders with the Andrews and the Jenkins.

May was actually a quieter month.  There was a Cub camp for Iona, and then a highlight at the end of the month: a boat trip with Auntie Wendy to the Isle of May, where we had to step carefully to avoid squishing puffins and various other sea birds which nest there.

June was full of birthday parties, friends for dinner, gala days and concerts leading up to Eilidh’s dance show at the end of the month and into the start of July. 

Our summer holiday was a lovely family time together.  After a night in Bordeaux, we camped in the Dordogne region in the south-west of France.  A highlight was visiting Lascaux II, a faithful underground recreation of 17,000-year-old cave paintings which Craig had seen in his youth (not 17,000 years ago).  We were fortunate to get it to see it, with only a limited number of tickets available and most tourists being directed to Lascaux IV, housed in a specially constructed modern museum. We enjoyed various sporting pursuits (kayaking, cycling, and one-sided tennis, where Craig hit the ball over the net to some combination of Gwen, Eilidh and Iona, and it usually didn’t come back), and made good use of the swimming pool most days!

Our ninth night of camping brought our time in le sud-ouest to a close, but our French adventures were not over yet.  On our way back to the ferry, we visited Puys du Fou, a theme park that can only be described as spectacular.  Unlike any theme park in the UK, this attraction didn’t have any rides; instead, it had a theme (the past), and it contained several small stadia showing a variety of re‑enactments (Viking raids, roman chariot racing, etc).  It’s a place which has to be seen to be believed!

We arrived back home on the Sunday, just in time for the girls to participate in a five-day water sports summer course in Queensferry, where they got to try all manner of water sports activities in weather not quite as warm (or not raining) as it had been a couple of weeks previously in France.  Another week at home and then it was off on our travels once again, this time to Gwen’s parents on the south coast of England for a week, which encompassed Craig’s birthday, for which we enjoyed paddle-boarding and a lovely dinner out for two, and our 15^th wedding anniversary.  On the wedding anniversary, Craig left Gwen… for a summer camp in London with the Explorers (how romantic!); Craig feels lucky to have a very understanding wife!  And with that, our summer holidays ended.

The final four months of the year seem to have flown by.  We enjoyed the church weekend away in September, but the highlight of the month was a personal challenge for a very quiet and reserved  Eilidh, who attended a “selection weekend” of Scouts and Explorers from across West Lothian, most of whom were unknown to her, in a bid to claim a spot at the two-week-long Blair Athol Scout Jamborette next summer.  With approximately two applications for every in-demand space available, we were all delighted when the result came through that she’d been selected to attend the event.

October saw us take a very welcome retreat from our busy lives up to Sallachy.  It undoubtedly was one of the wettest breaks we’ve had up north (we saw lochs on our way north that don’t usually exist!), but we didn’t mind too much as we cosied down and enjoyed the grey-but-beautiful highland scenery, board games and books in front of the fire.  Having come off the back of that week, Craig got exceptionally lucky the following week in getting a dry weekend for his Explorers’ expedition practice hike and camp.

October was also a month of change, moving out of comfort zones, and pushing boundaries for the girls.  Iona showed very good resilience to continue her final few weeks of Cubs without her close friend there, putting it behind her and achieving the Chief Scout’s Silver award, the highest award obtainable in Cubs.  Following the October holidays, Iona moved up from Cubs to Scouts.  Eilidh’s Scouting activities closely mirrored Iona’s, managing to complete the Chief Scout’s Gold award, the highest award obtainable in Scouts.  Young people usually stay in Scouts until age 14, but in a move designed to suit all parties, Eilidh moved up to Explorers a few months early while her friend Penelope moved up a few months late, meaning that they made the move together.  It also meant that for the first time, Eilidh is now a member of a section led by Craig!  Eilidh and Penelope also carried on their Scouting journey by attending a Young Leader’s training course, enabling them to spend time helping out with a younger section.  The result of all of this has been a bit of a boost in confidence for the girls, and a lot of badge-sewing as new uniforms come into operation; having a simultaneous uniform change is probably the biggest failure of family planning that we’ve experienced in the almost-14 years of being parents!

In the diary, November seemed like a much more quite month (though that doesn’t tell the whole story – more to follow); the only “weekend” event in the calendar was Iona’s first Scout camp.  What a weekend her Troop chose, as they christened their brand new tents on a weekend during which the temperature fell to -4^oC.  We were extremely proud of Iona for having the confidence to go away on the camp only a month after moving up, and she breezed through it.

And so here we are in December.  The Friday night before Christmas Eilidh and Craig will be (or went, if you’re reading this after the event) on their first Explorer camp together, an indoor sleepover.  And we’ve got the small matter of temporary house guests.  Brenda and Roger are here, but not on holiday.  They decided at the start of autumn that they wanted to move up to Scotland sooner rather than later, put their house on the market, and did a whole lot of work clearing it out.

Initially, there wasn’t much serious interest, but in late October, a couple came to visit who seemed like they might take things further, and who would like to move in quickly in order to accommodate an imminent baby (sounds a bit Christmas-ish).  This was all very positive from a house-selling point of view, but required some immediate action to ensure that they didn’t become homeless!  This fired the starting pistol a race to find rental accommodation, sent us out to estate agents and their websites, and book visits to see properties.  Remarkably, especially given the crowded rental market, they were successful with their first application, a nice wee house in Cramond, and got everything all arranged.  However, in the short time between the rent being agreed and them moving in, we identified a bungalow being put on the market for sale just down the road from us.  They examined the details that evening, Gwen visited the next day, they put in an offer that afternoon, and had agreed the purchase the next day.  To complete the whirlwind of activity, they managed to cancel the rental agreement without being charged a penny, and are scheduled to take possession the Wednesday before Christmas.  The stresses of each stage of the transactions have affected everybody in different ways, but everything seems set for a fresh start in the New Year.  We went down to the south coast at the start of December notionally to help them pack, but in reality to say goodbye to the house, although the sale still wasn’t certain right to the last moment – truly nail‑biting stuff.  Gwen drove down on the Thursday, experiencing problems which required the car to be taken into the garage the next day, while the flight Craig and the girls were on on the Friday evening was delayed by 2 hours and 54 minutes, agonisingly short of the 3 hour delay required to get a refund (although they did get their dinner paid for!).  Things are never easy!

Iona is still continuing with her gymnastics, and enjoying her horse riding.  She has also started learning the flute at school.

Eilidh, having been a dancer all her life and developed into a strong swimmer, this year combined those hobbies into an additional one by doing something that she’s longed to do for several years – artistic swimming.  She started in May, and by November had already passed the first exam.  She’s also tried her hand at being a Young Leader with the new youngest section of Scouting, Squirrel Scouts.

Gwen is still teaching up-and-coming GPs in addition to her work in the practice.  She has played in most of the regular concerts over the year with Meadows Chamber Orchestra. She has also renewed her gym membership, realising that as taxi driver to the girls’ clubs, it is now easier to exercise whilst waiting for them to dance / swim / do gymnastics…than at home!

Craig tried his hand at being a lawyer during the course of the year, fighting a parking fine tooth and nail; currently, no court summons has been received!  He is though genuinely undergoing a career change (but not to a lawyer!) linked to his Master’s degree.  After more than 22 years working in pensions, he will be calculating firms’ carbon footprints and hopefully helping them to reduce their emissions.  The new job starts in mid-February.

As always, if you’re anywhere close by, please do give us a shout – we’d love to see you!  The Family Browning would like to wish all our friends and relations a very Merry Christmas, and all best wishes for a safe, healthy, happy and prosperous New Year!