The McCumesty Weblog

2008-03-08T00:11:00.002Z

Nearly Summer and I've not posted anything

Shocking really. So much for blogging, when I've nothing to say. Haven't really updated my main family website for ages either. Must be indication of how busy things have been over the past wee while.

Euan on Skerryvore

2007-08-27T12:52:00.001Z

Euan on Skerryvore
Originally uploaded by jamcc

This is a nice blue-sky photo of Euan on Skerryvore lighthouse.

I'm back after a long Absence

2007-08-18T20:32:00.001Z

Yes, it's been a while, I know. Thought I'd get back to writing some things in this blog thing. Using Microsoft Windows Live Writer beta for a wee change... See how it goes.

2006-07-27T19:41:00.000Z

Still very hot here in UK. Scotland's not as bad as rest of UK, though. Global warming must be having its effect.
Heard from my cousin Heather from Louisiana. That's their house nearly re-built now. One year ago, the hurricane season was just beginning. I dread to think how they're feeling about the coming hurricane season. Let's hope it's kind on them this time.

2006-04-01T09:43:00.000Z

New Googlepages - Great Stuff
Was showing my brother-in-Law the great new googlepages facility - which I've been playing about with in the last week.
Think it'll open up web page creation to the masses. Can only be a good thing, IMHO.

2005-11-28T09:48:00.000Z

Radiance Glasgow
Was at the fantastic Radiance Glasgow Festival last night. Great idea for getting tourists to wander around Merchant City area of Glasgow on a cold late November night.
We were treated to cleverly lit up buildings, video projections and a fantastic show at rottenrow with flame thrower music, fireworks, bagpipes, weird sounds, lights - great stuff. Down at the clydeside, the lighting was brilliant - especially liked the trees all covered in lights on the south bank, contrasting with the deep blue lights under the bridges. Good stuff, Glasgow - lets do it again next year (only more maps!).

2005-09-30T23:05:00.000Z

building progress - 3rd full week
Well, despite the wet and windy weather - they now have half the walls up, the floor joists, and our big chimney is about 6 foot high now. Still a lot of brickwork to do. Expect they'll start on the roof sometime late next week.

2005-09-28T22:52:00.000Z

Back to the Future
Got my back fixed the other night... and my shoulder. My chiropractor had reckoned my shoulder muscles were in a badly-knotted state. Anyway - 'Remedial Massage' was the order. De-knotting involved a lot of slowly-painful-traction and compression. It seems to have done the trick so far. Quite an experience gettting your arm slowly pulled out of its socket. Great stuff! :-)

2005-09-26T22:46:00.000Z

Bad Weather
And I thought *we* got bad weather. My poor cousin Heather's house was slap bang in the middle of the path of Hurricane Katrina (which devastated New Orleans). She luckily got out and moved temporarily to Texas.. Two weeks later - where does "Hurricane Rita" hit ?? ... yes you guessed...

Hope things get sorted out for Heather and family sometime soon. I can't begin to imagine what they're going through.

2005-09-22T23:08:00.000Z

building progress - 2nd full week
Well, that's the foundations done now. Loads of concrete and blocks where the big muddy holes were. Beginning to see it take shape. Our driveway and most of the garden is now taken over by building material etc. It's probably better not to look - until it's done. Now have our fancy new Morso wood-burning stove and chimney bits ordered and will arrive next week. I've now read practically everything there is on twin-wall chimney flue systems... how sad is that?? The stove instructions say that you should 'season' the wood for TWO YEARS! Oh dear, perhaps I should have built an even bigger wood-store!

2005-09-09T18:03:00.000Z

Building blog#1
The builders arrived yesterday! We're getting bits added onto our house. A wee digger has appeared - ready for the buidling onslaught.

2005-08-19T21:46:00.000Z

Blogging Season is Back
It's been a while. You know the usual story ... busy doing other things .. enjoying the wonderful summer weather ... going away places... that kind of thing.

At least that's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it. :-)

I often wonder if anyone will ever read this stuff anyway, and if there's really any point of expending the valuable energy and time to type in some thoughts into this blogspace. Maybe it was embarassing me that it was sitting there empty, waiting for me like a pet dog sitting by the door with a leash in its mouth, waiting to go for a walk.

My theory is that people like to 'empty their heads' and write it down somewhere (semi) public as some kind of therapy ; might be something in that, after all.

Well what can I say? Suffering a wee bit from late-summer blues. The boys have started back at school again; we're back to the old routine. Before I know it, the snows of winter will start falling -- depressing really.

Wait a minute! Why am I thinking so negatively? Strike that thought! Lets be positive - we've some summer left, and Autumn is a great time of year, after all.

2005-02-08T21:54:00.000Z

Happy Birthday Ann!
My sister just celebrated her 50th ...

My theory is that these days a 50th is equivalent to 30th in old money. Here's to another 50!

2005-02-06T22:55:00.000Z

Well done Niall!
My eldest son, Niall told me last week that he'd been selected as a 'sub' for the Cub scouts' five-a-side football team in the district/area tournament with around 20 teams. We duly went along - thinking that was good that they'd let Niall at least take part. Lo and behold - Niall came on the second game - and - scored the 'deciding' goal! We (and others) were flabbergasted to say the least. They then got into the finals, and WON the tournament! Now he goes to the final tournament in Kelvin Hall! Just shows that you can easily underestimate the capabilities of your kids. From a proud father - Good luck, Niall!

2005-01-23T23:48:00.000Z

Super Burns Suppers
Was away with my old Mountaineering chums - for their annual Burns Supper meet, this time on the shores of Loch Ness. The supper itself was great fun - well organised, and some great speeches and recitations to honour the 'bard'. A couple of days on the hills saw me bring my muckle great 'winter boots' out of semi-retirement.

Some great alpine-like sunny days corbetting way up Glen Affric reminded me all of what I miss about getting onto the hills every weekend. My tired feet reminded me it's high time I came out of kid-induced semi-retirement! Great stuff. A great weekend indeed.

2004-12-16T10:04:00.000Z

Some people have loadsa time on their hands
Following on from a previous post... tripped over this in my net-wanderings last night... Lego Harpsichord. Incredible - and it works.
I won't bore you with all the other *vast* amount of lego-related sites there are ... safe to say, 'anorak' is a mild term for some peoples obsession with the wee coloured plastic bricks... Well, since you asked try these links if you don't believe me..

2004-12-14T22:32:00.000Z

Could we be kin ?

Our 'family website' got this delightful post today from Scandanavia...

Angus and Morag McCumesty af Upsala.

We have found your wee website an couldna haud back oor cyooriositie. Family legend says oor great great grandfaithir tried to sail from Orkney to the land of ice but was blown to the land of the nordmen.

He wandered over the hills to Jemtland and met a bonnie lassie of Scots descendancy. Since then all women in our family are called Morag, the very first Morag is in between us in the portrait.

There were no sheep in Jemtland and Angus was fair homesick. He heard that sheep were to be found in Upland, being not so fond on the boiled reindeer himself.

Since then Upland has been the seat of the Swedish branch of the McCumesty familj. Even though sheep are scarce…our own pet sheep is called Norman..

2004-12-08T22:10:00.000Z

The Trunk Monkey
Thanks to John from Sweden for pointing out this one. www.trunkmonkeyad.com ... I just want to rush out and buy one of those cars!

2004-12-06T23:16:00.000Z

Notable site links #1
Decided to start a mini-series of sites which can only be described as notable in their time an effort spent on them. Even though I don't agree nor promote nor condone what they're saying..

Well, since its the run-up to that religious-type time of year ... thanks to Sandy in the office who pointed this my way : thebricktestament.com for example must've taken the Reverend bloke ages to do... The boys are great Lego fans - and I recognise a few of the wee lego chaps from having stood on them at various times with my bare feet. (ouch!).
What next? The entire Lord of The Rings in Lego ? ... might start a whole trend if we're not careful...

2004-12-06T23:02:00.000Z

Incredible acheivements
Went to the local Multiplex to see "The Incredibles" at the weekend with the boys. Thoroughly enjoyed it. I think the testament to the state-of-the-art computer graphics was that at no point did you think the characters were not real, living 3d people. Great stuff - would recommend it.

Got presented with my hard-earned RYA certificate at the weekend! Its official - I can sail now! ... well a bit, anyway. Looking forward to next season with the CCC.

Also, my other year's new activity, the piano - that's me with 20-odd lessons completed. Having great fun. Strangely, I notice my finger-muscles are changing somewhat! I find working on the computer has been affected a bit, as I keep wanting to type in F# major.

Now Mirco$*ft are at this blogging thing

2004-12-03T13:20:00.000Z

Noticed the other day that Mirco$*ft are at it again - following where others have led the way - announcing their "msn spaces". Wonder what other great ideas they'll rip off next? :-)

2004-12-01T23:21:00.000Z

Merry Whatsitsname
Saw this elsewhere ... probably appropriate in this PC-world...

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, our best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all; and a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2005, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures, and without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith, choice of computer platform, or sexual preference of the wishees. By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms. This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or others, and is void where prohibited by law, and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year, or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.

Fifty Years of Glenmore

2004-11-02T01:10:00.000Z

Glasgow Glenmore 50th Anniversary
This weekend (30th Oct) we had the great pleasure of attending the Glasgow Glenmore Club's 50th Anniversary dinner/dance. A very enjoyable evening attended by around 140 former and current members of the club.
Venue was the grand Loch Lomond Youth Hostel. Good food, good company, meeting up with old acquaintances - reminiscing mountaineering days (and nights!) in all the weird and exotic locations we've shared.

Concorde at East Fortune

2004-09-28T13:11:00.000Z

Concorde at East Fortune
Last weekend in September is a traditional holiday weekend for us Glasgwegians. This time, in light of a wild-wet-west forecast, we headed eastward for the weekend. One of the places on the weekend's list was one of our favourite haunts - East Fortune Museum of Flight.
They'd recently taken delivery of a Concorde, and as part of 'doors open' were letting you have a sneaky peek at reassembly progress in the main hangar building. Should be ready next spring - which is probably faster than the likely finish of Niall's huge Airfix model he bought - which, as is traditional, needs his Daddy's assistance to assemble the many thousands of bits! :-)

We stayed at our fave campsite Barns Ness. Its a lovely spot, indeed. Well hidden, near the lighthouse - and fends off most of the crowds partly by its location half way in between a Nuclear Power Station and a Cement Works. (no, really). Brilliant site. We had our usual wee fire on the beach, with sunset over Bass Rock. Great stuff - really tested our 'family' dome tent to the limit of its wind-resistance though - good Scottish Vango design saves the day. A couple of years from now (we're told) Barns Ness will disappear and move to near Dunbar, a victim of the demand for Cement. The lovely red poppy fields near the access road have all but one now... enough nostalgia for now...

Rest of the weekend, we visited quite a few other interesting places. The Ratho Adventure Centre is amazing - a very large indoor climbing experience - we certainly will return. It made the Alien Rock in Granton seem quite diminutive, really. Another highlight was the Seabird Centre in North Berwick, which gives remote-controlled camera closeup views of the seabird population around that area - fascinating. Well recommended for those with kids, too - as is the chip-shop in Dunbar (not the one in North Berwick!).

On the way back through we stopped off at a surprisingly good Castle - Craigmillar Castle. Extremely well-preserved, with lots of nooks and crannys, combined with fantastic panoramic views of the surrounding Edinburgh - especially the new nearby Royal Infirmary. Well worth a visit, though.

2004-09-13T22:38:00.000Z

Airshow 2004
For first time in a few years, went to the big annual Airshow at Leuchars in fife. The Red Arrows again were very impressive, as were the Eurofighter Typhoon, F15, F16, Tornado etc, etc.
Amazing the power in those jets...