Crossword Help Forum
Forum Rules

Thanks again for your help

Thanks, Julie Aberdeen, but as a mere male, all I can do protest quietly if suggestions of such outings are made. Actually, it is not just highland games I moan about. I like my island life, and any time the ten minute crossing is mentioned, I moan.

Please have sympathy for Mrs P. She has much to put up with.

P

Believe me Pipesmoker I ALREADY have the greatest sympathy for Mrs P and its not just for her having to contend with all those holey-fronted shirts and smouldering jacket pocket scares. I too have been there ! "Arranitis" is our affliction so I can understand your point of view, although we have not actually visited you know where. Having holidayed on Arran as a child we took our girls there for 15 yrs on the trot. We made a sentimental journey last October (on the cheapo train from Aberdeen!) and not even NZ's Bay of Islands compares. You lucky thing ! Why don't you borrow an "oarie boat" and row Mrs P round to the Shiskine and Blackwaterfoot Games - that should do the trick for a special treat. Wouldn't like to live at the mercy of Calmac.

Hi, Julie,

I would gladly transport Mrs P to any of these locations, if she would simply leave me in the car to smoke my pipe. I have also accompanied her to many a dress shop, where I have been left holding a handbag while she tried on everything on the rails. I did get my own back, once though, when I asked her to hold my pipe in the middle of a busy shopping mall. I went away for five minutes, and left her looking like an oddity.

The beauty of being held to ransom by Calmac is that visitors must always catch the last ferry home. It is not the first time I have driven to the ferry slip at quite high speeds to make sure that they don't miss the ferry.

I remember one holiday in Aberdeen. We stayed with a Mrs Donald. Her son, Sandy, had a wee tin lizzie Austin Seven. Must have been in the early 1950s. We passed through a few years ago en route to Orkney. It is a nice city.

P

Pipesmoker,my great granny used to smoke a pipe, a clay one apparently. She would sit on the stoup and puff away watching the world go by.

HI, Sally, I am in awe of your grandmother. I tried a clay pipe once, and it was a very strong smoke. If you can picture a pimply fifteen year old (I had hair then), roughly the colour of Shrek, then that was me.

Many smokers try the pipe and then give it up almost immediately. A pipe must be lovingly burned in to be enjoyed at its best. This process takes about two or three weeks.

If you should seek to follow in your grandmother's footsteps, please let me know, and I will discuss suitable tobaccos for a lady, choice of pipe etc.

Mrs P has returned. I must go and be sociable, make coffee, bow at her feet etc.

Best wishes for now.

P

Sorry, just realised it was your great granny. Any granny who could cope with a clay pipe is, in my opinion, great.

Sleep well.

P