didn’t expect it, and lots of rain (in Spain) when we didn’t expect it.
Eilidh’s 8th birthday in January saw us have a short party lunch in the house before taking a minibus-load of her friends to the local Scout campsite so that they could do crate climbing. Climbing up (attached to a harness) as they stacked milk crates on top of each other to make towers 10+ feet high was a new experience for most of them, which they seemed to enjoy.Craig finished 2017 by taking on a new role in Scouting – as Explorer Scout Leader (14-18 year-olds), and stepped down to Assistant Scout Leader, on a once-a-month basis. The winter consequence of that change was that the annual overnight Brass Monkey camp in the local campsite was followed up the next weekend by the two night SubZero camp in very cold conditions just outside Glasgow.
With all this cold-weather camping and outside partying going on, Gwen was keeping herself busy doing concert rehearsals in cold church halls. One concert in January and two in February set the tone (if you’ll forgive the musical pun) for a year of performance for the female members of the family.
March saw the biennial dance show for the girls, with Iona making her stage debut and Eilidh not letting the occasion faze her; the Friday evening and Sunday matinee and evening shows meant a demanding schedule, which they coped with well and we were of course very proud of them.
With dancing performances out of the way, it was time to think about Iona’s birthday, which this year was on Palm Sunday. We had a party in our neighbouring Scout Hall on the Saturday, with a magician in attendance to wow the children. It was lovely to have the cousins Bronwen and Imogen there, as they, Eleanor and James joined us for the week leading up to Easter when we all retreated up to Sallachy on the Sunday afternoon until the Friday. That meant that Gwen celebrated her birthday up north, with a nice lunch in Plockton.
With birthday and Easter celebrations over and done with, a joint Cub and Scout camp on the outskirts of Edinburgh saw Craig and Eilidh disappear together. We were fortunate to get some lovely weather over the weekend, a precursor of things to come as it turned out (and as you’ll know, unless you spent the middle part of the year on Mars).
As the year progressed, we managed to find things to keep us busy (something we’ve never found difficult!). Craig embarked on some introductory mountain leader training, Gwen had a weekend away with friends in Lindisfarne, and Eilidh had another Cub camp. As spring was ending and summer began, Gwen had a couple of concerts, while the skills Eilidh picked up at her Saturday morning musical classes were demonstrated at a concert featuring her playing the violin and singing in the choir (but not at the same time!).
With World Cup fever striking the Browning household (it felt like all 32 nations must have been
supported for some reason at one point or another!), Craig felt he had to get away from all the
football and go camping with the Explorers!
As June gave way to July and temperatures increased, Gwen decided that the decidedly un-Scottish weather was insufficient for her, and so went to Bath for Lynne’s hen weekend. At points, the temperature there genuinely wasn’t that far off what you find in an actual bath, and air-conditioned buildings were the order of the day, if you could find any.
And so to our summer holiday, which was three weeks this year. A fantastic chance for a busy family to relax and recharge their batteries, you might think. You’d be wrong (or perhaps only get partial credit for your answer).
We arrived in Spain to glorious sunshine, and drove the couple of hours along the north coast to our campsite on the Costa Verde (which means “Green Coast” in English). After getting the tent pitched, hanging the hammocks (we’ve all got one now!) and relaxing by the pool, we settled in for nine days of sunshine. Alas, the reason the Costa Verde got its name is due to the stunning greenery between the Picos de Europa mountains and the coast, but such vegetation requires not only sunshine but rain as well; lo and behold, this oh-so-important precipitation fell (at some times in Scottish quantities) on six of our nine days. Thanks to Gwen’s mild obsession with weather apps, were able to plan our days east and west along the coast to avoid the worst of what fell.
The Costa Verde has some very interesting history / prehistory. We explored a reconstruction of
cave painting, went fossil-hunting and stood in real dinosaur footprints. We had a couple of good
family cycles, and managed to spend some time at the beach and have a lot of giggles with a
bodyboard. Our final day in Spain was spent at the Guggenheim museum of modern art, before getting the ferry back from Bilbao to Plymouth. Sadly, the ferry’s swimming pool, which had been an attraction on the way over, had been drained and not refilled yet, as all the water was sloshing out on a rough sailing earlier in the week!
England’s south coast. Some nice places. Some very nice places. Some not-so-nice places. No decent roads linking them. The Spanish road network puts England’s to shame. The 3.5 hour drive from Plymouth to Gwen’s parents in Lymington would have been 2-2.5 hours for an equivalent distance along Spain’s north coast. Nevertheless, once there we were able to unload some camping and cycling gear, re-load the car with wedding finery, and head back west to Bath for Lynne’s wedding to James. With Gwen as a bridesmaid and the girls as flower girls, lots of forward planning had to be done to get dresses and kilt down to Lymington beforehand (in May!), in order for the logistics to work; there certainly wasn’t any spare room in our car! The wedding itself was lovely, but wow, it was genuinely too hot to go outside! Lynne and James make a very happy couple, and young Ethan buzzing around put a smile on everyone’s face.The next day, we packed up our things, and headed back east to London, where we arrived in time for Imogen’s 5th birthday party (which was on Sunday 5th if you’re losing track of days, like we were!).
Her actual birthday was on the Monday, and the eight of us went to London Zoo for the day (nearly losing two of the girls in the lion enclosure!). Having had Imogen’s birthday on the Monday, it was time to celebrate Craig’s birthday on the Tuesday (told you it was a busy trip). We got six free tickets for the Tower of London courtesy of Craig’s work, which was enough for the four of us and the two cousins to go. At the end of the day, thanks to Eleanor who had looked after a bag of smarter clothes for Gwen and Craig, we nipped into the nearest department store for a quick change, said goodbye to the four girls, and had a night out to see the Thriller stage show.
The following day, it was back down to Lymington to swap our wedding clothes back for the camping equipment and bikes, and to spend a few days with Gwen’s parents. The Thursday of that week was our 10th wedding anniversary (I know – we find it hard to believe too!). We spent the afternoon at a beach near Bournemouth, before checking into a nice hotel (without kids, who’d gone back to Lymington) and meeting up with some of Gwen’s school friends for some early evening drinks, and then enjoyed a very nice local seafood meal.
On our way back up the road, we went via the Welsh border to see Gwen’s other cousins, before
staying the night in Wrexham, making Wales the fifth country of our holiday, after Scotland, England, Spain, and French territorial waters!
Having a later holiday than usual cut down our opportunities to see shows at the Fringe, but we did manage to squeeze in a few shows, both as a family and as an all-too-rare night out. Craig had his summer camp with the Scouts in Northumberland in mid-August, while at the end of the month, the weekend of Eilidh’s Cub summer camp and Craig’s Explorer water-sports-based camp coincided, leaving Gwen and Iona the space to have a girlie weekend. There was another important event during August – Iona started school! She’d been ready for it for a while, and has settled in very well.
After that, it was back to the stage, for Iona’s gymnastics show. Just one show this time, but she did very well. The senior gymnasts were doing flips from the top of human pyramids that literally made the audience gasp – some truly spectacular stuff!There was still time In September for Craig to have another Scout camp, this time in Fife. Craig had been double-booked by the Scouts that weekend – he’d also been asked by West Lothian Scout District to run a campfire at the local campsite’s 60th anniversary celebrations on the Saturday afternoon. He picked the girls up from Gwen in Edinburgh at Saturday lunchtime, took them to the anniversary event in the afternoon, and then took them home for a babysitter to look after them and give them dinner while Gwen performed at a concert and he went back up to Fife; a busy weekend indeed!
The final quarter of the year has flown by for us (as we’re sure it has for everyone).
We were able to get up to Sallachy for the school holidays, and were joined by Buck and Catherine for the first weekend of it. On the Thursday, we came part-way down the road, stayed over in a hotel, and then continued down to Dumfries to spend a long weekend with the Andrews and Jenkins families.
November saw a final concert of the year for Gwen, as the year drew to a close.
Iona is still enjoying her dancing, gymnastics and swimming, and her Saturday morning music
classes; she’s looking forward to starting Beavers in April. Eilidh is enjoying Cubs, dancing and swimming. She stopped her Saturday morning violin classes but still goes to the choir, and Gwen has been teaching her some piano at home. She has just started learning the Oboe through school.
Gwen is now the longest-serving partner in her practice, and has been joined by some new permanent GPs to form a new team of five. Craig is still working at Mercer. Craig managed to snap up a children’s season ticket next to his seat at Tynecastle, and the girls take it in turns to have some special “Daddy-time” at the matches.
As always, if you ever find yourself passing through or near Livingston, please give us a shout. The Family Browning would like to wish all our friends and family a very Merry Christmas and every good wish for a happy and prosperous 2019!
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