Ruaraidh

This is my second brother, Ruaraidh, who arrived this afternoon with his wife and his three boys. They are relocating from Botswana to Holland, where his Dutch wife Sandra has a new job. The three boys set about building a castle in the Japanese knotweed below my mother's property, while we made beds frantically and tried to stop my sister's dog from running away. Joe, the dog, is deaf, so does not respond to calls.

Later, in the kitchen I threw together a Thai red curry while my brother played the small pipes, and Sandra read to us from the tourist brochures about steam trains, and where to see eagles and beavers in Argyll. CleanSteve was in blipland, my mother was in the bath, having exhausted herself schlepping around Edinburgh yesterday, and my niece Maria was trying to pack a rucksack two days before her departure to Crete, where she lives.

I asked CleanSteve to take some candid shots that included me, but ended up using this portrait that I shot myself. One of the indoor settings I was using had turned everything totally yellow, so I ended up using a B&W effect here. Ruaraidh is just taking a break from playing the pipes in this shot, because someone is trying to make a phone call beside him.

Business as usual, then, at the House on the Bog.

I have fallen behind with my comments, and do apologise, but my flesh and blood family have been all around me, which is lovely, because I don't see them often.