The Graham Family Together

A visit to a Nature Reserve in Newcastle with his Brother in Law Mario

Fraser with Mum and Dad at Northumberlandia in Newcastle today. We met up with Fiona for lunch at the  Snowy Owl Pub next to the park.

Fraser arrived from California last Saturday and spent a few days in Langholm before being taken to Newcastle to spend a couple of days with his sister Fiona

Coffee on Monday morning with the Hutton's. This was a regular place to visit when his friend Alistair lived there before they both headed off to University.

Followed by a visit to see Wilma and George in Bentpath

Photo courtesy of Mr. Tootlepedals blog

A visit to the Lower Tarras Nature Reserve at the Ponds

After our lovely week of sunshine in Berwickshire this was a bitterly cold day and Fraser was feeling the cold having just arrived from California.

Mother and Son. Gaye has had a lovely week with Fraser. It has been great having him for a few days and he is very relaxed as he is not working for a few weeks and taking a well earned rest. He heads back to California on Saturday morning.

 

A Visit to Cragside

Our plan today was to meet all our family at Cragside at 2.30pm and it worked perfectly. Fraser and family all had long lies except Fraser who had to pick up his hire car. They were still a bit jet lagged but the weather was beautiful so a good time was had by all. 

The lovely lake at Cragside

The view from the highest public room in the house

The stunning marble fireplace in the Gallery

Pride of place in the Gallery is this painting of Gilnockie Tower. Cragside was built by an Armstrong family and they were proud of their Border Reiver connections. So are the Graham family.

Elliot and Eleanor

A Hat Parade

Fiona with her American Nephew and Niece

In the basement where the bathrooms are plus a spa

A very posh bath. A most enjoyable day and so nice to have the family together again. Mario and Leo came from Newcastle as well but Mario is working next week and Leo is still at school as their holidays are later so they wont be able to join us at Seahouses for the rest of the week, but Fiona is staying with us and the American Graham's.

 

This one is for Irving Bell

 At Milntown this afternoon to see Langholm play Haddington I was given a telling off by Irving Bell about not posting any blogs recently so this hopefully will make up for it. On a cold frosty day but perfect conditions for open rugby Langholm took the field and by half time were 8-0 up. The second half saw Langholm pinned into their own half for 30 minutes during which Haddington scored a try, conversion and a penalty so were in the lead 8-10. Then in the last 15 minutes Langholm found their way and scored a lovely try a few minutes from the end and converted it to lead 15-10 until the final whistle 4 minutes later. These were some of my companions at the game and what a bunch they are. Irving, Tom, and Johnnie.

Haddington in red pressing the Langholm line early in the second half. 

This was half time

The final score

This was taken on Friday and shows them erecting Langholm's Christmas Tree and it must be one of the biggest ones in the country.

On Wednesday my daughter Fiona joined myself and Tom for our weekly walk and we did the 4.5 mile Kerr Triangle on a very damp and dour day but we enjoyed her company. She was over to see us to celebrate her 50th Birthday.  

To celebrate her birthday Fiona had fixed up a reunion with her 2 flatmates from Glasgow University days where she shared a flat with Helen and Graham for 2 years. Graham has spent most of his working life in Musical Theatre and appeared in many shows including Phantom and Les Miserable in the West End. His latest is a first time appearance as a Panto Dame in Newbury for a 6 week run. This is him on the left. Fiona and husband Mario flew to Bristol on Friday evening and then met Helen and her husband Matthew at Bristol airport on Saturday morning and they all went to Newbury for a 5.00pm show staring Graham as the Panto Dame. They then went for a meal after the show and will return to Newcastle and Edinburgh on Sunday morning.  

 

It's been an eventful week for the Graham family with our son Fraser starting a new job in USA. He has left Apple after 11 years and is now Director of Software Services at GM (General Motors). Its a change of industry but cars are now computers on wheels and GM are planning to go all EV in the future so this is the way forward and an interesting development in his exciting career. We are very proud of his achievements in USA. We are also very proud of our Fiona's achievements in her work at Newcastle University as a Lecturer in Speech Therapy. This photo was on Langholm Common Riding Day when he was over for a week with our grandson Tommy.

On a final note today I had great pleasure in messaging my grandson Tommy that Newcastle had beaten Chelsea today 4-1 at St James Park. This is Tommy in the visitors dressing room at the stadium during a special visit there in July. He loves his Football and plays regularly for a team in Silicon Valley where his full time coach is from Aberdeen and runs loads of Junior teams in the area. With this week being Thanksgiving in USA the family are up in the Sierra Nevada mountains and in about another month or so will be going on regular skiing trips up there. I think Tommy loves to Ski as much as he loves his Football. I deliberately say Football as of course in the US its Soccer but after his visit to Newcastle United in July Tommy announced its Football from now on.  

Common Riding Day

Ready for the first Fair Crying at 9.15 am

Its Langholm Common Riding day and Cornet Christopher Tait carries the flag through the Market Place

Up at the sports field and Tommy has a win on the first race of the day

Our friend Bruce Latimer up from Hastings in Kent

My long time friend John Irving from Edinburgh and his son Craig were down just for the day.

Granny Gaye with her two boys son Fraser and Grandson Tommy

John and Bruce and myself have met at this very spot on Common Riding Day for many years and its 9 years since Fraser was last at the Common Riding.

 

Shopping, Walking, and Oktoberfest.

As per usual Saturday is a busy day and the Graham Girls set off just before 10.00am for a trip to The Mall and some Shopping therapy. 

The Graham Boys headed off to Vasona Lake Country Park for a walk with Sammy and then doughnuts on the way home. 

There is an old Jet aircraft in the park and Elliot and Tommy enjoyed climbing on it.

They were good company and had a great time.

This was the first running water I had seen since arrived over 2 weeks ago but the lake is very low and the river feeding it is controlled from a reservoir further upstream so the flow is low at the moment, but at least there is a flow. 

You can see how low the river is as it enters Lake Vasona here.

In the evening we headed to Brookside Swimming and Tennis Club for an Oktoberfest German evening with Sausages and German Beer. I'm afraid I found the Beer a bit too strong so stuck to Lemon flavoured water. It was worth getting some glad rags on and Leslie and Fraser are looking very smart at their front door.

We also smartened up a bit, but we were the oldest by about 20 years at the party and felt a bit out of place, but were made very welcome. Most of the guests worked in Silicon valley in IT and Fraser and Leslie enjoyed a conversation with a guy who worked for Google and his wife used to work for Disney as did Fraser over 10 years ago.

The complex is a Members club and has a limit of 250 families. This is the pool and there are 9 Tennis Courts plus a small function room. 

Some of the Tennis Courts

Sunday Lunchtime at Wrights Station Winery

It was suggested by Fraser's neighbour Kelly that we should attend this Winery near Los Gatos on Sunday morning so a very pleasant short drive into the mountains took us to Wrights Station Winery. It was a lovely morning although the sun was not shining.  

We had 7 wines to taste so the time passed very quickly and each one seemed to taste better than the last. Leslie with her neighbours Kelly and Brad and daughter Emily 

Gaye with her first and last wine. 

Elliot enjoying his picnic 

The Graham and Lear family enjoying their wine tasting

The area in between the vines is very wet and in places extremely muddy. The winter in California has been very wet and the road to this winery has been closed several times due to landslips caused by flooding. It is hoped that there will be no more flooding but the snow melt will cause problems as the reservoirs are full and there is record snow levels in the mountains so more flooding might happen.