Well can you believe it we’ve actually had a bit of a summer and done things you do in summer. This post is testament that we have had at least 5 days of sunshine.
On the last blog I mentioned that Tabby had been getting tennis lessons. The following week she was asked to play for David Lloyd u8’s against Mortonhall. As they say, “It’s not the winning.......” Although she won one of her games, Tabby was a bit annoyed with her principal coach (me) as we hadn’t quite got on to overhead serves yet. This has now been rectified!
One of the highlights of the last month was our BBQ, which happened to coincide with the sunniest and hottest day of the year so far. We were so lucky! Donella decided that we should hire a “Bucking Bronco” for the occasion – a bouncy castle for adults. I have to say it looked a lot more like a giant hamster than any form of horse or bull. However, for those of you who have never ridden a “Bucking Hamster”, it was great fun. As you can see Tabby was laughing fit to burst.
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| See it's a hamster! |
The following day, Donella and Tabby were at Craigie’s Farm open day helping Lynne McNicoll at the ”It’s good 2 give” charity stall. Again the sun shone, the farm was packed and more burgers were eaten. With the Pedal for Scotland Glasgow-Edinburgh cycle ride coming up we tried to encourage people to join our “Pedal 4 Paul”. Hopefully we made some useful contacts.
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| I defy you to get this picture the right way up! |
The next thing that usually gets rained off in a summer deluge is the school sports. But Hey! – yet again clear blue skies, birds singing, the sound of children laughing and cheering, the pistol-crack of one dad’s Achilles tendon snapping in the father’s race......! Anyway the children had a good day and Tabby was running and winning and determined as ever. This was an amazing contrast to last year when she was really weak and struggling to run at all. Long may this progress continue.
Over the last few years, Tabby has loved to read the “Horrible Histories” series of books. Written by Terry Deary these books focus on certain periods and places in history and pick out the more gruesome and often pooey aspects of the time – thus a universal appeal to children. “It’s good 2 give” arranged for Terry to take part in an open top bus, historical tour around Edinburgh. He then signed copies of his books for the children. Olivia took Tabby along for the trip.
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| Terry signing his book for Tabby |
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| The "It's good to give" team |
Over the last couple of weeks Tabby has had a cough and sniffles. As her immune system is still pretty compromised we took her back to the “Sick Kids” Hospital last week. Lots of swabs and blood tests later it appeared Tabby was fit to return home. The ward phoned a couple of nights ago to let us know they had identified a “rhinovirus” as the cause of her cough. This is a fairly harmless virus but it’s name causes no end of amusement to Tabby.
Anyway, summer holidays are now upon us. Amidst everyone’s travel plans to far off places, Tabby really cannot go far away for any length of time because of her ongoing treatment and susceptibility to infection. Donella and I hope we may sneak her a few days in London or go to see Grannie and Grandpa in Lochcarron. Despite all this Tabby just doesn’t complain although, it has to be said, she is compiling quite an extensive list of places she wants to go on holiday to when her treatment finishes next May!
Last of all, I have been the chance to climb Kilimanjaro in aid of our local childrens cancer charity “It’s good 2 give”. When first suggested last year, we had no idea how Tabby would be doing so were not keen on going far away for any length of time. As you can see she is making good progress and so when the chance came up! I now have 3 months to get fit and raise a lot of sponsorship. If you fancy sponsoring me, I have set up a site as follows;
www.virginmoneygiving.com/GRAHAMLAWSON
Thanks for reading,
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| "Ride 'em cowgirl" |
