Evil Aunt Edith

Not only did I recently catch naughty Aunt Edith filling my daughter's head full of highly inappropriate information regarding the totally unacceptable practice (to Daddy at any rate) of ear piercing - see this for an amusing view of the subject: Ear Piercing
but, as you can see from the picture she has been annointing my son's hair with some unidentified jelly like substance of dubious provenance. (She found a tube of the stuff in the bathroom cabinet of a model home she was visiting!)
As it turned out everybody thought the look suited him and it certainly made no difference to his appreciation of the muffins his sister helped to bake.
BTW, for those who do not know the family Little Ted is pictured with his Grandmommy, not his evil Aunt Edith.

Spiders and other things

Sometimes I wonder why I come here when there are cougars in the back yard, alligators in the drainage ditches, and snakes in the trees.
Mrs Ted will gently remind me that "family" is the reason; just as well they are all such good family is what I think especially when I review websites such as these:

• Spiders of Texas
  
• Snakes of Texas
• Venomous snakes of Texas
  

I am assured that the spider in this picture would not be particularly deadly but you would still not want to encourage it to bite you!

A day at the beach with our cousins

Today we got together with Ray and his daughters, Jordan and Brooke; recently returned to the State of Texas from California. The girls seem to like being here and Eddy and Little Ted fairly enjoyed being in the company of their cousins.
The ex Californians got to paddle in the bay but Mrs Ted refused to let her little Scottish babies join their more hardy cousins.
Pictures of our day on Rockport beach can be seen at Tartanted.com
Don't be fooled by the blue sky and sunshine; the temperature was a measly 60F

A day in Corpus Christi for our wedding anniversary

What more can you ask but to be released from your children for a whole day (much as we love them), head off to town, have a civilised adult dinner where no food gets "accidentaly" spilt and follow it with a movie. Why, a visit to Barnes and Noble of course! Coffee and book buying - yummy.
Some pictures of the journey to Corpus Christi, but not much else, are on Tartanted.com

Tartan Ted's travels continued again ...

Part 3 - Houston to Corpus Christi:

... the power on the train cut and we were left wondering if it might be quicker to walk.
Eventually the air and the lights came back on and off we went to Terminal B still with plenty of time in hand. We were met off the train by an official who redirected us to a new gate for our flight but, to cut a long story short, this turned out to be cancelled. The departure boards continued to declare our flight to be "on time" for about another 30 minutes but we knew better. The airport was in chaos and we had to join a queue for reticketing and that took us over an hour to reach the front. The result: we were on standby for the 9.20pm to Corpus AND the 10.20 to Corpus. All we could do was sit around and hope. I registered our presence with the gate agent and he said it was very likely he could get us on the 9.20 flight. At 9.20 he announced that there was a plane at the gate and there was a crew in the airport, he just didn't know where they were but he would board the plane as soon as they turned up. The flight time was changed to 10pm. After the crew had arrived, to cheering from the assembled passengers, it was announced that the flight would board and that some standby passengers had already been allocated seats but everyone else should not panic as he still had other places to allocate. We were not included in the first allocation and Mrs Ted had reconciled herself to going on the later flight when the gate agent picked up the PA and announced eight names, one after the other, "if you are in the terminal come to the gate for boarding or you will be unloaded from the flight and lose your ticket ... NOW" and put the PA phone down. He then tapped on his computer and announced "Tartan Ted and family". Hooray, Christmas has come early we all responded and got on the plane before anyone turned up to complain about losing their seats!
The kids slept through the one hour flight; Little Ted had to be carried off the flight but Eddy bounced through the airport until she saw her grandmommy waiting and then ran, in true movie reunion style, into her grandmommys arms. Little Ted needed a nights sleep before he was able to enthuse about our arrival in Texas.
The really remarkable thing about all this is that our baggage was first off the plane at Corpus and as we were loading the van outside the airport we heard an announcement telling people who were missing luggage that it would come off the next plane from Houston! We left for Rockport mightily relieved to have all our belongings intact.

Tartan Ted's travels continued ...

Wal Mart; just for one small inexpensive purchase. I knew that was unlikely - but $100 later I'm back at the computer.
Now where was I?

Part 2 continued:

I forgot to mention that on arrival at Newark we had to do some unscheduled stair climbing because the elevator from the arrival hall to the immigration area was out of order and the escalator had just blown a fuse. There being no other non powered alternative routes we were forced to walk up the malfuntioning escalator and that is no mean feat especially for little children.

So, although I am not averse to changing my children's diapers it was Mrs Ted who took Little Ted away to the restroom on this occasion. Trust me, I tell you this for a reason.
On this second flight we were in row 17, a vast improvement on the row 35 of the transatlantic leg, and meant that we would have been served our meal much earlier if only there were a meal service on the flight. Unfortunately there was no scheduled meal but then we knew that, hence the fried chicken. Once boarded and with the door closed our pilot announced on the PA that we were taking on additional fuel as he had been re-routed to avoid bad weather but we were still expected to make good time. After a few minutes delay we began to taxi towards the runway - but there we stopped. Once more on the PA our cheery pilot announced that he had good news, bad news, and possibly a little more good news depending on how upbeat we felt.
This translated to:

• the good news - we have extra fuel onboard so don't have to go back to the stand
  
• the bad news - Houston airport has just been shut down to incoming flights for the next 3 hours
• the more good news - we have a take-off slot in 1 hour

and that was how it came to pass that in 2005 we camped on the tarmac at Newark airport for 1 hour which was, at least, better than 2004 when we had to sleep on the terminal floor for 1 night!
One hour into the flight I returned to my seat from a toilet break of my own to find Little Ted sitting in my place. I asked him to move back to his own seat but he refused, telling me that he was wet. Sure enough my seat, yes my seat, was soaking wet, as was he. Well I was already standing in the aisle and I didn't feel like sitting in that seat, so I took him off to do the necessary. Now this is where you find out why I wanted you to know who changed the diaper at Newark airport because when I tried to change this diaper I couldn't find it. There was no diaper. Little Ted had gone commando for 2 hours. Hardly his fault he wet the seat. When we got back to our seats Mrs Ted had told the flight attendant about our accident and my seat cushion had been swapped out for a clean dry one with the comment that they were grateful to be told about it because people generally don't bother to own up to such accidents. Remember that the next time you sit down on your holiday flight to paradise. The rest of the flight was uneventful and we arrived at Houston after the stormy weather had passed and all looked like going well as we had 90 minutes to make our connection and we knew exactly where we needed to go and how to get there. Imagine our dismay to find that, having boarded the inter terminal train successfully, the power on the train cut and we were left wondering if it might be quicker to walk.

Jet lag has now caught up on me and I must collapse in a heap on the bed.
More tomorrow ...

Tartan Ted's travels turn a tad tetchy today

Part 1 - Edinburgh to Newark:

So, we'll set the alarm for 4.30am, get everything ready and leave the house at 5.30am to allow plenty of time to check in before our 9am flight. Yeah right! Jim, who was going to run us to the airport, phoned us at 6.10am to ask where we were and so the fastest preparation for departure ever ensued. Leaving for Edinburgh airport at 7am is not a smart move, especially since it was a frosty morning and there were dense pockets of fog en route. Also the morning rush hour traffic does not help. Anyway, we arrived at Edinburgh airport at 7.50am and got to the check in at 7.58am to be greeted by a frosty young lady who proceeded to give us a row like we were naughty schoolchildren. "Check in closes in two minutes, where have you been?" I was tempted to tell her that if it closes in 2 minutes then we are perfectly well on time but thought better of it. Now I do not recommend this method of frantic departure but I must say that it cut out a great deal of the hanging around associated with international air travel. We did have concerns as to whether our luggage would ever be seen again but, to our pleasant surprise, it was first off the carousel in Newark; all four pieces, intact and quickly retrieved. We filled in the customs form saying nothing to declare and no, we have not been on a farm ,so naturally we were the only people redirected through the Department of Food and Agriculture baggage check area. I suspect we were making up their daily quota since they did not seem very busy. On then to Immigration where, although I am officially regarded as a non resident alien, the authorities tolerate my presence in the returning US citizen line as I am accompanying 3 bona fide USC's - Immigration is good that way. You might think that processing me into the USA would take longer than the other 3 but no, not today. Another reason for not checking in with 2 minutes to spare reared it's ugly head when we discovered that Continental in Edinburgh had input Patty's details into the immigration computer using her maiden name. Luckily the officer granting us admission to the States could read her passport, unlike the fellow in Edinburgh, and eventually persuaded his computer to let us all into the country.

Part 2 - Newark to Houston:

Still with plently of time to catch our next flight we set off to the gate, confirmed the flight was running on time, arranged a toilet stop for the kids prior to boarding, and bought some fried chicken to eat because there is no meal on the 3.5 hour flight to Houston. (Newark is a nice clean airport with good clean toilet facilities, except for the "Companion toilet facility" I don't think much of the standard of cleanlieness associated with travelling companions in the Newark airport facility!)

... to be continued as I have been called away with an urgent request to visit Wal Mart.

Tartan Ted travels to Texas today

Once more we are about to subject ourselves to 18 hours locked in a confined space with a three and a four year old. At least the journey is broken down into 5 easy? stages; by road to Edinburgh, by air to Newark, by air to Houston, by air to Corpus Christi, and then by road to Rockport.
(Hmm, The Road to Rockport, sounds like a Bob Hope movie.)

Our own movie has been playing out here for the last two weeks as the kids have been flying around the light fittings shouting "WE GO TO TEXAS TO VISIT GRANDMOMMY AND GRANDFATHER TOMORROW TODAY NEXT WEEK" (They havn't quite grasped the concept of time just yet but then maybe that will work in our favour on the journey.)

Anyway, as cattle class is unlikely to have Internet access I do not expect to be posting anything more until we arrive.

Biggar Christmas Illuminations

Driving home tonight I took advantage of an empty parking bay in order to take a couple of pictures of the Christmas illuminations. As I sat in the car preparing my camera I noticed two things; first, the 18 wheeler bearing down on me from the Edinburgh direction and, secondly, an elderly border collie dog scavenging on the roadway. For one moment I thought I was destined to witness the final moments of the collies life but, being an elderly dog, he no doubt was very streetwise and waited until the juggernaut had passed and then crossed the road. Phew!