Scotland in the sunshine!

This summer we had out annual pilgrimage to Scotland scout camp followed by a week with Ken's sister and her family. Remarkably, we had super weather for the camp, remarkable as they nearly finished camp early last year due to the rain being so persistent.

Look out for further pictures not to show a social worker!

Angus loved camp and had a great time playing with the leaders and Scouts. I was particularly pleased with the way the Scouts allowed him to join in even encouraged him. He wasn't treated like the pesky little brother that he have been! I have four memories especially. The first was two days after the start of camp. All the scouts were making sandwiches at a table, Angus was watching and eating his lunch. He went up to the table and began pretending to move things around the table in the style of a digger, with the accompanying hand gestures and noise effects. Amazingly, about half the scouts joined in and he began showing them how to do diggers in the right way! Secondly was when they stopped a game of volleyball halfway through to make lunch and Angus walked over the pitch and began throwing the ball around. Gradually all the scouts went back to the pitch, sat around him and played catch with him for a good quarter of an hour, encouraging him, running after the ball and so on. Then there was the time he was sitting on my lap drinking milk in his pyjamas before bed with the scouts who were waiting around the camp fire. He had realised that this usually involved singing so when one of the leaders asked for a song, Angus began with his current favourite "Our God is a great big God", then led the scouts in nursery rhymes such as Humpty Dumpty for the next 20 minutes with them all joining in! The final memory is of Colin, a sometimes surly scout leader who was very sceptical about bringing a young child to camp. He is single, in his 50s and has no children of his own. He really took to Angus who smiled with him, chatted with him, asked to play with him, and so on. Just as we were about to leave the morning they were all packing up, Colin presented Angus with a new digger. I was speechless: Colin was clearly smitten and has a soft side after all.

This week of gorgeousness was followed by a family holiday in Mallaig which sadly, was more typical of Scotland with persistent rain and during which I was mostly housebound. Ken therefore had Angus and the camera and promptly forgot to use the camera. I have very few photos except for one event which will be discussed tomorrow...

Watching the Jacobite steam engine going under the bridge about 100m from our holiday cottage. It went past twice a day much to Angus's delight. Sadly the timetable offered meant that we couldn't go on it but maybe next year.