Summer Holidays - Week Four

Week four of our summer started with a special breakfast at my dad's church on the Sunday morning. I loved the wild flowers in bobbins as table decorations.

I love the charity shops in Stornoway. We've found so many great bargains over the years. My latest find was the beautiful bundle of Spode China for just £12.

We headed over to the west side to watch Point play again. It was beautiful when we left Stornoway and pouring rain when we reached the west side! Still, we watched Point win again so it wasn't all bad.

We spent another day at our favourite beach.

While the boys played shinty I had a new crochet project on my hook.

We found a huge jellyfish on the shore line.

We enjoyed a lovely dinner out with my mum and dad.

We called in to visit my uncle and aunt and Fraser loved seeing my uncle's old tractors.

And the boys all enjoyed a quick spin on his quad.

I managed to catch up with a few of my cousins this summer which was really lovely. One of these catch ups was at the beach where we spent out summers hanging about together as kids.

At the end of week four we packed up and had a super early drive down to Harris to catch the ferry down to Skye for this year's Shinty Camp. I drove down with most of the boys, and James' girlfriend, while my husband Andy and David took the Ullapool ferry as he had to go to Inverness first to pick up a minibus for the camp.

It was a really beautiful morning, it almost made getting up at 5am not quite so bad.

Like last year I was the cook at camp. This year my assistant cook was James' girlfriend.

This was where I would be spending most of my time for week five of our summer.

I had organised and booked all of our food to arrive in three separate huge Tesco deliveries over three different days and so the first of these deliveries arrived and needed put away a few hours after we arrived in Portree. 

The hostel where the camp is held is a lovely place. The dining room is so cheery.

Campers arrived by about 5pm and then it was all go for the next 8 days.

The boys had all been looking forward to shinty camp as they had enjoyed it so much last year. 

Fraser was particularly excited when he saw that his little bed was right next to my one!

By 11pm I was more than ready for bed, after being up at 5am and having such a non stop day.

Summer Holidays - Week One

Right at the start of the first week of the school holidays the boys and I made the journey home to my mum and dad's. It was a beautiful day for driving and it went past quite quickly - which was good as hubby won't be joining us for a couple more weeks so I had to do all the driving.

Don't worry, it was David who took those photos above and not me while driving!

This was our 'waiting for the ferry' selfie as we sat in the very large amount of cars waiting in Ullapool.

The ferry was a little delayed as it was so busy, but eventually we were all aboard and heading across the minch, which is always so exciting for everybody.

We woke up on our first morning at Granny & Shen's to yet more beautiful sunshine and so Fraser and I enjoyed our breakfast outside in the garden.

Despite our long journey the previous day, we decided to go to the beach that day as you just never can tell how long the sunshine is going to last. 

You'll all have seen this beach before, we go here almost every time we are home, but I make no apologies for sharing lots more pictures of it again as it's just so perfect and so here is our day at the beach in pictures.

We needed a bit of indoor time after spending most of the day at the beach so Ally and I enjoyed playing some classic battleships.

And Rosco watched us from the sofa.

Another sunny day followed and Granny & Shen got out their new paddling pool.

Shen dusted down the bbq and we had a late lunch outdoors.

Later on that afternoon we went for a beach walk. 

We had left the walk for later on in the day as we wanted to go at low tide so that we could walk along past the rocks to the caves beyond them.

My grandparent's house was just a short walk from this beach and so as kids we would spend summers playing down here with our cousins.

On our way back from the caves we explored the rock pools.

Usually there is water running down here to the sea but it's been so dry recently that it has completely dried up.

Fraser's favourite game to play just now is Cars Uno and so we have played a lot of it this first week of the holidays. He's really good at it too!

Sticking with Fraser and his talents, we took the stabilisers off his bike one night last week and he had mastered riding his bike without them in about 5 minutes! So the following afternoon we went for a walk through the Castle Grounds to give him a chance for a proper cycle that was also nice and flat. He loved it and was a perfect cyclist.

The views from the Castle Grounds are lovely.

We stopped at this little stony bay where the boys always find lots of sea glass.

Then we stopped so that the cyclists could have some refreshments on the way back home again.

The day of the first two World Cup Quarter Finals was a lovely lazy day.

We spent a little while going around the charity shops in Stornoway where we got a few bargains.

I picked up some vintage sewing notions in my favourite vintage shop.

And Ally was overjoyed with his find in the vintage shop - a suitcase just like his favourite character Paddington has!

While we all watched the football I made a good start on a new blanket, a lovely pattern that is simple enough to work on with one eye on the football at the same time.

After all the football was done the boys went outside for some late night shinty.

At the end of the first week of the holidays it was the Uig Gala day. We had never been to this Gala before as it's a 45 minute drive away, but we had heard it was a good one that was worth going to and so we decided to go along since the weather was so good. We were so glad that we did!

Again, I think I can let the photos do most of the talking for me.

This was the children's hill race. They were timed running up to the flag.

These Sumo suits were hilarious. Fraser could barely stand up in his but loved it!

This was football pool. Harder than it sounded too!

All in all, a pretty good start to the summer holidays I would say.