A Few Days Back In Fife

We're back in St Andrews for a few days before we head south again. This week we're only doing a five hour drive down to Southport;  five hours is nothing compared to the twelve hour slog we had last Saturday when we travelled back from Paul and Josephine's house in Rochester via Framlingham and then via the bedroom fitter's showroom in Ely.

It was wonderful to see Paul, Josephine and Catherine even if we had less than forty eight hours with them. Catherine has grown so much since we last saw her and it was lovely to see her gorgeous little smiling face. Paul and Josephine were in the throes of organising a Halloween party and the house was fabulously decorated in readiness for the event.

Back in St Andrews Duncan and Rose have been poorly with stomach upsets and, although she is as happy as ever, Rose has been sick a few times. 

Sarah's been making her an outfit for a halloween party so Rose busied herself playing with the off cuts.

Yesterday it was time for new shoes. It's only six weeks since her last ones and she's already grown out of them. Toddlers shoes are no cheaper than adults' so it's pretty expensive being a mum and dad nowadays.  Beautiful little boots though.

We got the car's damaged bumper repaired yesterday. Someone reversed into it in the car park at Leuchars when we went to Edinburgh a couple of weeks ago. It wasn't worth claiming on the insurance due to the excess and the no claims bonus so, at £270, that was an expensive day out in the capital.

Today we went to babysit for Sarah this morning and then it was a trip to Dundee to see Skyfall.

We were worried that, after all the rave reviews, we might not get in. No fears there! (To be honest it did fill up a bit shortly after we arrived). I can't add much to all the reviews. It's really very good. There's plenty of action, some great chases and the usual glamorous and exotic locations (and stars) but what singles it out from many of the earlier Bond movies is the relationship between Bond and M (Judy Dench) which is done very sympathetically and shows a much softer and more human side to 007. Javier Bardem is a magnificently sinister megalomaniac baddy, Rory Kinnear plays M's assistant perfectly and Ben Wishaw's IT Crowd Q puts a completely new twist on the character. Great fun and well worth seeing. 

We're off on a bit of a grand tour on Saturday. It's down to Southport for an old colleague's fiftieth birthday and then we're going to have a short break in Cumbria and, as we haven't been to our home town for over three months we're then going to do a bit of visiting friends and family before heading down to Framlingham again on the following Sunday.