........ was also a trip down memory lane! First, we went to Stenhousemuir and Larbert, where we lived before we moved here. Stenhousemuir has changed drastically, with a new, large shopping precinct, which has these wonderful cows
Why cows? Because Stenhousemuir is home to the world famous McCowan's Highland toffee. Some years ago I was in a shop in Sydney and saw that they had Highland toffee. I said to the sales assistant that I lived about half a mile from the toffee factory back in Scotland, but she didn't find that at all interesting ......
Sorry about the quality of the photo, I 'borrowed' it from a website selling the toffee (eat it at your peril - I am sure it has kept dentists in work for years!. We went next to Torwood Garden Centre, where we used to go quite often for lunch. When we went in, there was another major change waiting for us - they have a wonderful new coffee shop
We enjoyed a cuppa and an exceedingly delicious slice of iced gingerbread
I don't like to see birds in cages, but I couldn't resist stopping to try to take a photo of the two very cute little birds which were chattering away - many attempts later, I had one usable photo of one of them, as they were having a great time flitting about the cage
At last I have a really colourful bird to show off - when we went out to the car park, this slightly bedraggled peacock was taking a stately stroll around his domain (holding up the traffic as he went!)
Next, we headed off to Airdrie, where was I was born and grew up. The first stop was to be at Airdrie Academy, my secondary school ....... but I was in for a shock. Instead of this wonderful old building
........ there was this new one (Malcolm thought it looked like a prison!!)
By now it was lunchtime, so we headed here .....
After my Mum died in 1995, I used to go over to Airdrie once a week to see my Dad. We would go out for lunch, and the Tudor Hotel was one of our favourite places to go. So when it came to ordering, of course I had to have my Dad's favourite - the well-named 'Big Breakfast'
Dad would have washed it down with a beer, but I had 'our other national drink' Irn Bru, as that is what I always had, as I always drove when we went out (Malcolm had Coke)
I should say that I didn't eat all of my meal - as Malcolm had ordered the small portion of steak pie, he had room to eat some of mine, but there was still some left! After lunch, we left the car in the Hotel car park, and walked up the hill to my primary school
There have been a lot of changes - this used to be the infants entrance
This was the girls' entrance
What is now the main entrance was the boys' entrance
From the school we crossed the road (helped by the Lollipop man!) and headed down the hill to ...... what I still think of as Walkers' shop, although it is many, many years since it was owned by Mr and Mrs Walker. This is where I spent some of my pocket money on sweets on Saturday mornings!
The shop sits at the top of an area of grass, which we always called 'the park', although that was a bit of a grand name for it! We walked down the far side, so that I would have a view over to my childhood home
Nowadays, homes in these blocks of four are called quarter villas, which sounds terribly posh - we simply referred to them as houses! Ours was the one on the bottom right hand side (with a rather nice car in the front garden). I lived there until I was twenty one .... but my Dad lived there until he died at the age of 86! In this next photo, I am standing with the street to my left, looking up the hill ......
....... to the beautiful old red sandstone terrace where my Dad was born
His parents moved from there the few yards down the hill to the house when he was about four. Mum and Dad lived with Granny and Grandpa after they got married in 1946, until they went to Ireland (Granny and Grandpa, not Mum and Dad!) to live with my only Aunt. My parents took over the tenancy (it was a 'council house'), eventually buying it in 1995, just when my Mum died. I thought that the council should have given them the house, as ours was the only family to have lived in it, and I'm sure they had paid enough in rent over the years to have paid for it several times over!
On our way back to the car, I took one last photo - this beautiful house was owned by Doctor and Mrs McDougall (my Mum never could say that, and said Mc Doodle!). They had five sons, and every year they had a collective birthday party during the summer holidays, to which all the neighbouring children were invited. We had the run of the house, the very large garden and various assorted outbuildings .... but the best thing was the old wind-up gramaphone, which played '78s'!!