John and Janette (henceforth referred to as J&J) live in Dalkeith, about ten miles south east of Edinburgh. They have a delightful four-bedroom house in a small group of similar houses.
The boys are Peter (14) and Christopher (16). You will meet them in the pictures.
John and Janette (henceforth referred to as J&J) live in Dalkeith, about ten miles south east of Edinburgh. They have a delightful four-bedroom house in a small group of similar houses.
In the backyard, J&J built a summerhouse in the backyard to capture the infrequent sunshine and when the sun shines, it makes the summerhouse a paradise.John and Janette use it frequently for reading, listening to great music and private chats with each other. They also use it for entertaining friends as you see in the picture - in this case Janette's friends and relations at a "Wecome BBQ". (Diane, Peter, Janette, Christopher, Winnie and John).
The picture of Diane and John was taken while Diane practised the self-timing feature on the camera.
The back yard is great for relaxing (the people in the group are Peter - aka "Wee Pete", Peter, Diane, Janette, John-Christopher and Christopher-John ) and the perfect place for Peter and his friend Sam to use up their energy
The front room is the central meeting place for the family. Here John is catching up on his back-to-school work while Peter and Diane are in the dining room checking emails and making calls to the US through the new Skype facility.
John has a little office for computing and playing his guitar. Both he and Janette play and sing very well. Later, we were attending a Bach Requiem at the Edinburgh festival in a very ancient downtown church. During the intermissions we had a capella duet from them in the graveyard alongside the church - what a pleasure.
We made several trips during our first week. One was to have dinner at a wonderfulrestaurant in the Hawes Inn at Queensferry. Queensferry was the main place to catch a ferry across the Forth of Firth until a road bridge was built quite recently. The main attraction is the late 19th Century steel railway bridge - a major engineering feat back in those days
Another trip took us to Roslyn, the chapel made famous in the Da Vinci movie. We took a delightful little hike down a nearby valley and up to the castle. We walked past the old Roslyn pub (1660), down the wooded valley, over the stream, and up a long wall to the castle. Yes, the last picture is where the final kissing scene took place.
We went for a drive across the Forth road bridge to Janette's brother Brian's house. It's a typical newer Scottish bungalow in an upscale golfing community within commuting distance of Edinburgh. He hosted us for dinner at the local golf club looking out over the River Forth. In the last picture are Peter, John, Janette, Diane, Brian, Maddie and Peter.
We also visited her brother Morris who had a very accomplished musical family - Morris is an artist and school teacher. In the pictures are Lewis playing a duet with Fergus, Lewis and Peter playing a rather entertaining and fast-paced piano duet, and young Fergus playing the saxaphone very well after only six months' work on it. There was also Sarah who plays a beautiful violin but was upstairs when picture-taking time came around. Mom Janis joined us a little later.
We went to see Sarah, John's first child, now in her early forties. She was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis over twenty years ago. She is in a Sue Ryder home which is a charitable, world-wide care organization. This particular home is in a mansion as you will see from the shots of the house. Sarah is able to communicate in a very limited way but is still a delightful personality. She was very surprised to see Uncle Peter. In the last picture Janette, who is a reflexologist, is helping Sarah by touching pressure points in her feet.
On our last night together we had a delicious family dinner at Kushi's Indian Restaurant in Edinburgh - one of J&J's favourites. It was fabulous - a great ending to a G R E A T holiday.