In which I morph into Mrs Toad...

...or maybe not. No, I'll be GrannyH or Lady Barebow, should I need a name on here. What has brought this on? Well, The Dad and The Kid are clunky nomenclatures. Honourable First Daughter has previously named The Dad as Mr Toad – for reasons which may become apparent – so that's who he is for this blog... unless I settle on Hatman (send votes if you're bovvered). The Kid (Honourable Third Daughter) was going to be the Tadpole, but then I considered her legs, which seem to be getting longer by the day, and settled on Toadlet.

Early in the month Mr Toad and I, with the Toadlet in tow, took part in an archery coaching day at Polmont. It's a longish drive over for the early morning and nothing was open for coffee. This, however, is not why, having arrived at our destination, and having loaded myself up with archery rucksack, picnic basket and some rolls of target faces, I then fell over. Having no free hands, it was my knee and my forehead that hit the ground. Small bruise on knee, dramatic-looking but not serious graze on forehead. Someone swabbed it down and applied some micropore tape and I was set for a good day of target practice, coaching and learning how to make bowstrings by hand. There was a Lady Longbow at the event as well. She made a new string for her bow and then kindly let me shoot some arrows with it.

My practice hand-made longbow string, top loop.

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Early in the month also saw me waiting for the arrival of my second grandchild. He kept everyone waiting for twelve days but as it happened, his birth day could not have happened better if it had been planned down to the last detail. His mum, booked in to be induced, and setting off from home nervously, realised in transit to the hospital that she was in labour naturally (yay!). Then baby 'HH' got a move on and was born within six hours (double yay!), and he and his parents came home to dinner with the two waiting grannies and Aunty Toadlet (triple yay!). His three year old brother had already gone to bed after a tiring day with those three!

Baby 'HH'

GrannyH and baby HH

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The day after my return from the visit to Derbyshire, I drove to Inverary to meet another Argyll granny. The hoar frost on the trees was beautiful in the sunshine, as were the white frozen beaches of the sea lochs. Both Loch Long and Loch Fyne had ice on their still, sky-mirroring surfaces, which was still there in the afternoon when I drove home, even after the tide had been in and out. The fresh water lochan, Loch Restil, near "Rest and be Thankful" on the old military road over the mountain pass between the two sea lochs was frozen right over. But the sun was shining and Argyll was looking its winter best. I'm so lucky to live in such a beautiful part of the world.

Two Argyll grans

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During February one of the (up to) two visits to a church service that I make each year happens. It is the Thinking Day Service associated with the Baden-Powells, Robert and Olave, who started the scouting and girl guiding movements. They shared a birthday on 22 February. Cubs love being flag-bearers on such occasions, even if they, like me, hardly enter a church except to look at the architecture on other occasions. Actually, being but kids, I doubt if they're into architecture much. Anyway, the nice part this year was a story told by an 80+ year old Norwegian man. (The guides had organised some stuff around soft toys, the 'religious' reasoning behind which eluded me, I'm afraid). This man still has the small toy dog that his mum knitted for him when he was a baby, and which his father stuffed with sawdust from wood-choppings. It was well-patched. It lives in a drawer most of the time now but comes out to listen to bedtime stories with the grandchildren and their teddies. At the end of the service I accosted the Norwegian and asked if I might have a closer look at the dog. I wanted to see the knitting stitch because knitting can be quite holey and it would need to be a tight stitch to hold in sawdust. It was. It wasn't a stitch I'd seen before and the fabric actually looked a little like woven tapestry.

My teddy bear, Timothy, was stuffed with straw. He lost his squeak when one (or all three!) of my brothers jumped on him once too often, but he survived, or my parents might have been doing CPR on little boys rather than on my ted!

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One morning, late in the month, I noticed a broken toenail (possibly caused by my 'trip' at Polmont mentioned above). While trimming it, I mentioned to a half-asleep Mr Toad that my nails (fingers and toes) grow incredibly fast. From beneath the duvet came the whisper: "Witch! Witch!" and a little later: "Strange fondness for broomsticks."

With that I leave you, hoping you have enjoyed your Februaries too.