Jacquetta

Set back by yesterday’s train running 50 minutes late, after undue anxiety we finally made it to Dulwich College Library with ten minutes to spare before the marriage! The service included wonderful readings from Ovid's The Art of Love (my sister Lindsay, Saskia’s mother), Edward Lear's The Owl and the Pussycat (Giselle, Trewin’s daughter) and Ann Morrow Lindbergh’s The Gift from the Sea (Saskia’s friend Sarah). Saskia was a truly radiant bride, and my three other nieces (Olivia, Helena and Rosie) were cheery and stunning as bridesmaids. I’ll add some unofficial photographs after I get home: this blog comes straight from the train.

We walked back to champagne and canapés in Lin and Nick’s magnificent garden, where 96 guests later sat down to a superb meal featuring organic lamb, in an enormous marquee. Drink flowed very freely, the dance floor was well used but not too crowded and it was the happiest, least formal wedding I’ve attended. Speeches were made by Saskia, as well as Trewin, best man Dave, the bridesmaids and bride’s father Nick, the latter clearly unscripted, inebriated and, as ever, very articulate and entertaining. After a dubious moment when Nick seemed in danger of going over the edge, he drew back from the brink just in time: brilliant.

We were in Dulwich for a total of 22 hours, at the price of over 16 hours on trains or in transit, and although that ratio was far from ideal, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. The fact I had totally lost my voice to an unseasonal throat infection was a bit frustrating, but it led to some interesting conversations, necessarily one-sided. Several guests worked at Global Action Plan, an environmental charity that Trewin set up in 1993, long before sustainable development had become trendy. It now employs 50 staff on a wide range of projects aimed at home, school and workplace.

And I really enjoyed my chat with Helena’s boyfriend, Henry Hemming. His father, John Hemming, wrote the definitive Conquest of the Incas which was important to me when researching our Explore the Inca Trail. Henry has clearly inherited his father's writing talent and appetite for adventurous travel. He works both as artist and writer, and was talking about his latest book, In Search of the English Eccentric.

Saskia and Trewin already have established a lovely home together in Clapham. Perhaps that’s why they had requested no presents, instead asking guests to email a recipe and a photograph. We complied, slightly puzzled, and months later were thrilled to find all recipes anthologised into a smart, spiral-bound book with recipes attributed and displayed alongside the photos. What a generous and imaginative souvenir to give your guests!

A blog is the wrong medium for a photo gallery, but it may be a few weeks before the official photos are available so I'm uploading a few meantime for family and friends. Yesterday's entry gives the context. First, here are bride and groom, Saskia and Trewin, relaxing in the garden after the service:

The rest were taken later, inside the marquee, first Helena and Henry over dinner:

The bride's sisters, from left to right Olivia, Rosie and Helena making their wonderful speech:

And finally, late at night, here's my gorgeous sister Lindsay dancing with my fit nephew Seb:

Yesterday, we launched Light on Dumyat, the wonderful adventure novel for children, as part of Stirling Literary Festival, at the Stirling Smith. Elspeth King, its curator who has so successfully captured the Leonardo drawings for this, its only Scottish venue, was chairman for the evening. Moira Lawson, Chairman of the Friends of the Smith, spoke about the book’s origin and appeal. Clearly an ex-teacher, she had excellent rapport with the audience of over 100.

False modesty will not, however, prevent me from expressing my belief that husband Keir was on top form in his speech which set the “political incorrectness” of Rennie’s fine novel in the context of modern educational thinking about childhood and children’s needs for autonomy and real experiences. Willie Thom, an old friend of Rennie’s and former policeman and advocate, told me that this last speaker was so good that somebody should make a transcript available. Since he didn't know of my connection with the event, I gave this some weight. Keir speaks only from a few notes, but this morning I sat him down and simply took dictation. You can read the result on our website.

All credit to the McOwan family who hosted a fine launch and to Moira who also created the superb refreshments. Rennie is well known to this audience, not only as founder of Stirling Literary Society and Friends of the Ochils, but also as a celebrated and popular Stirling citizen. He was kept busy, signing about 90 books, and chatting to so many guests who obviously warmly welcomed the book's rebirth.

It’s lucky that the PowerBook keyboard is near-silent, because I’m typing this in the same room that grand-daughter Amy is sleeping. She has had an exciting day, with no nap, lots of exercise, games with two large black Labradors, sociability and a swim. She wore the Polyotter today, a swimsuit with removable body floats, and it was her longest, and most independent swim so far. Then we visited neighbours and dear friends Malcolm and Aileen, which was a brilliant distraction from the fact that her mother was going out for the evening for a well-deserved break and her grand-father Keir was going to Glasgow for a concert to celebrate Nigel Osborne’s 60th birthday. We walked back up the hill in near-darkness (Amy in the buggy by now) and had the loveliest bath with bubbles. Before I had finished reading Jill Lambert’s wonderful “Peace at last” to her, she was already asleep.

Much as I would like to have gone to Nigel’s concert, fielding Amy was more compelling. (I’ve just found out that it will be broadcast by the BBC on Saturday 25 October, 22.30 to midnight, which is great news as he sang a cameo role in one of the opera selections and I’ve never heard Nigel sing before.) I feel absurdly proud of Amy’s water confidence, and her insistence ‘I can do it by myself’. This is approximately true when she’s wearing the Polyotter but doomed to failure when, as so often, she asks to come back in the water, after I had thought she was finished, without a stitch on. But she will get there, as long as she goes on enjoying it. She has the most wonderful social confidence, a real tribute to her mother’s patience and child-centredness. But she fell asleep before 8.30 pm and I needed to occupy myself for the evening.

Real work is now out of the question: the office is too far away to be in earshot, and neither music nor TV are compatible with monitoring her welfare. So this is the ideal moment to update my blog, which at least has proved useful to me when I forget things (which has become increasingly often lately). I’m wildly unreliable about update frequency but have decided just to accept my own faults and forgive them. If I blogged about some of the exciting things I’ve done recently, I might never be able to make myself write the book. My time in June on Kili by the Lemosho route is an example: I just have to keep my powder dry or the book would never be written.

We've just been staying at the Savanna Lodge. I had been sceptical of its website claim "the ultimate safari experience", but I was wrong, it's all true. The Savanna Lodge staff are passionate, dedicated and skilful, and the whole day is geared to maximising your chances of game viewing in the Sabi Sand Game Reserve (which borders the Kruger). The morning game drive leaves at 0530, with breakfast served on return. Lunch is at 1530 followed by the evening game drive. (Between the two you can sleep, swim, chill or whatever.) Guests are assigned to a 2-man team which takes you on game drives in vehicles with no sides or canopy. Sitting thus exposed, within a few yards of elephant, lion or leopard, really does feel like the ultimate safari experience.

Keir and I were assigned to ranger Shaune and tracker Nordic – a long-term partnership in which communication was mainly wordless. They had an uncanny knack of being in the right place at the right time, each depending on each other's skills not only for successful sightings, but also for safety. They read the animal's body language, approach only when the animals are calm, often positioning the vehicle (engine always switched off) so that the animals approach it. Thus we found ourselves amidst a herd of 40-50 elephants, including very young ones and the matriarch, calmly feeding and walking past us, at one point only inches away. Here is one of the many photos I took (telephoto lens unnecessary:):

Elephant, rhino and lion were plentiful and most drives gave us close sightings of these and more. Rhino were even grazing quietly outside our cabin on the day we arrived, although I captured the one below at a water-hole, late afternoon. Shortly after, we saw these two lions near a kill, and they were so relaxed that they resumed mating. Apparently they do this every 15-30 minutes for as long as the lioness is in oestrus – only yards from the vehicle. I felt slightly voyeuristic at first, then just awe-struck.

But the most thrilling sight of all was leopard. Solitary, stealthy and secretive, it's the most elusive of all carnivores. We followed this female as she stalked and killed a baby kudu. The chase was literally breath-taking and the experience utterly unforgettable.

We really enjoyed the excellent Savanna Lodge food and drink: game drives always stop for a sundowner, and unlike many "inclusive" resorts, this one charges nothing for extras, whether drinks, laundry or bathtime luxuries (e.g. lavender oil in a quail's egg). They even give you a blank CD on which to burn your photographs!

It's hard to know what became of December, although the 5th-13th was spent very enjoyably in France, ski-ing with friends and neighbours Aileen and Malcolm Johnson at Val Claret, just above Tignes. We had both the best conditions I can remember, and almost the worst, with two whole days out of seven when I didn't ski at all. However, it was so brilliant when we could that this hardly mattered. Now that the apartments at Val Claret have wi-fi, I routinely take my laptop and regard bad weather as an opportunity to work, rather than a challenge to ski regardless of wisdom. This has had a good effect on my broken bone tally: after three years out of five with successively a serious back and head injury, then broken clavicle, finally just a scaphoid, I was beginning to feel defensive when asked if I wasn't getting past it. Nowadays when blizzards loom, I just get out the laptop. Just as well, too, as a kind fellow skier spotted a mistake in our new Everest guidebook (on the back cover too) that had somehow slipped through all proofreading. Thanks to the magic of email, this was fixed, proofs rechecked and the whole book put to bed just as fast as if I'd been at home.

After the return from Val Claret, there wasn't long before Christmas and I must say that this was the most peaceful, amiable and enjoyable Christmas Day I can remember. I think Amy was partly the cause, but my wonderful family must take some credit too. Probably we were all seeing the event through two-year old eyes this time. Certainly she got super presents: Uncle Sandy provided a music centre with karaoke, and you can see how popular that was:

My pre-Christmas trip to the Early Learning Centre for the grandparent present had started badly, because I naively answered the assistant's questions about age and gender truthfully: this led to my being steered toward a toy ironing station! Once I told them she liked transport, we refocused on one of those garages with lifts, ramps and a helicopter pad and about 20 diecast cars of the right scale to go with it. Sandy and I had a wonderful time "helping" Amy (i.e. preventing her) sticking on the transfers and we all had a great time playing with her toys. Pure magic!

We had a lovely visit yesterday from the Flynns. It had to be postponed from Saturday because the snow and ice on our hill has been so bad – not a problem for adults in suitable hiking boots, but far from buggy-friendly at the best of times. Craig and Carol-Anne were bringing a Very Important Visitor – Gregor, their ten-month old baby – all the way from Greenock to meet us.

Craig runs Mini Tours Scotland - which gives private guided tours of Scotland to visitors (mainly from the States) in smallish groups. Carol-Anne is currently a full-time mother and Gregor, as you can see below, is just adorable. Amy, being two years older, was the focus of Gregor's attention and admiration. It was fascinating to watch them together, and Amy's obvious delight in Gregor's company was fully reciprocated. The paddling pool-cum-ball swamp gave them their own territory.

Yesterday I finally cashed in my voucher for a microlight flight from East Fortune with East of Scotland Microlights. This was a generous birthday present from son Sandy, who runs Experience Ecosse which issued the voucher. Sandy is also training to pilot one, and last Sunday he was listed at number 31 in the Scotland on Sunday Hot 100 eligible men. I was hoping to see him fly.

It had taken us a while to sort out a date, partly diary problems but also weather constraints (too much crosswind is a showstopper). It was well worth the wait. The visibility was great, a dusting of snow on the Pentlands and with Gordon Douglas at the controls I had never a moment's nervousness. He even let me do some simple turns and a bit of descent toward the airfield, although from the back seat it's hard to see where you're going.

I have a satisfying souvenir in the shape of some decent photographs (I had my new Lumix G1 round my neck) of the Bass Rock, Tantallon Castle, Gosford House and North Berwick Harbour. Another time I'd try for an even faster shutter speed: the helmet visor meant I couldn't use the viewfinder and it was too bright to change settings, but I'm trying to put perfectionism aside and just enjoy them as they are. After a quick lunch, there was time to watch Sandy doing take-offs and landings (Gordon in the back seat). This put both him and the microlight in a new perspective: the image was suddenly of a flimsy contraption, heavier than air yet impossibly vulnerable in flight. As he disappeared into the wide blue yonder, I turned away to drive home, lump in throat, suddenly reminded of what enormous strides he has taken in recent years.

Here's a selection of what I saw: Sandy flying past the airfield, then Queen Margaret University (which I took for husband Keir who is Vice-chair of its Court), then Gosford House and (my favourite) the sands of Gosford Bay. Things look refreshingly different from up there!

Today is our 15th consecutive day with snow on the ground at Landrick, although the thaw has begun. It's been a time of leaving a car at the foot of the hill and walking up and down, far preferable to risking getting the car up but not down again. There's a great deal of rubbish talked about snow ploughs that takes no account of the cost of maintaining them to combat conditions that arise about once in 18 years. Sometimes the weather is in charge and you just have to adapt.

Anyway the snow has its upside, too. Daughter Helen and I took Amy outside yesterday and we built her first snowman, a fine collaborative project. He may look a little lopsided to you, but to us he was a splendid creation: sturdy birch arms, twigs for his hair, pebbles for eyes and a half-carrot nose. We were just in time, because this morning his neck has thinned to breaking point and he seems unlikely to survive the day.

Being country bumkins, and pensioners besides, we don't often get out on a Saturday evening. Yesterday was different: we took the train to Edinburgh to celebrate Experience Ecosse, Sandy's gift experience company, which was 5 years old. He threw a wonderful party at the Hawke and Hunter, Picardy Place, where the Prosecco flowed freely and the 60-100 guests included his suppliers, office staff, friends and family. Husband Keir and I went to it, along with long-standing friends Nick and Margaret Walshaw, but sadly minus grand-daughter Amy who was banned by the byzantine licensing laws, thus also preventing her mother Helen from sharing the event. Amy, watching everybody getting ready, was asking why she couldn't come to Uncle Sandy's party too, and we couldn't really explain.

Anyway, if you've ever had to think up a present for somebody who seems to have everything, the answer is easy: give them an experience voucher - from tank driving to cook school, hot air ballooning to wine tasting, speedboat to pampering. Sandy's website shows the locations nearly all over Scotland and tells you more. For the last nine months he's been assisted by the highly personable and capable Claire Maasch, but Claire is returning home to South Africa this week. Still, I doubt if we've heard the last of her!

Here is Sandy cutting the "Experience Ecosse" birthday cake, with Claire in the background. The cake was kindly created by friends Sheila and Celia, who also provided the photograph:

Yesterday we had a very special treat: Keir and I went up in a hot air balloon from Bush House, south of Edinburgh, and floated south-west for about 8 miles, broadly parallel to the A702, at heights ranging from tree-tops to 3000 feet. Each of us had been given an Experience Ecosse voucher as a present for a past birthday by son Sandy. Since ballooning demands still, dry weathe, it naturally took several bookings to get on a flight that went ahead. Our pilot was Pete Foster of Alba Ballooning, ably assisted by pursuit driver Tam. (Tam also has the delicate task of negotiating access to retrieve the balloon with whichever farmer's field is used for landing.) Pete is highly professional, refreshingly concise and calm in his safety briefings, and, as you can see, utterly dwarfed by his balloon:

A feature of the experience is that everybody helps to manhandle, blow up and, later, douse the balloon. This gives you a much more hands-on sense of the scale and weight of this extraordinarily 19th-century form of transport by wicker basket. The pilot has no steering, only the ability to control altitude and hence perhaps to benefit from a different wind direction. Here is Keir, wearing thermal gloves and holding the mouth open while burners are blasting very hot air into it:

Our 7 fellow passengers included another person on a birthday treat - his eighth. He did seem to enjoy the flight, but I found myself wondering what his mother, who came along sporting her D&G handbag and fashion shoes, will find to give him for his ninth. Keir and I were celebrating birthdays totalling 121 years, and I don't mean to suggest that makes us any more deserving than an 8-year old, but at least we could see out over the basket.

We also enjoyed watching the balloon's effect on the astonishing range of people and animals whom we overflew. It's difficult not to feel elevated when looking down over barking dogs, cantering horses and waving children. We were also buzzed by some microlite enthusiasts. Fortunately, in the air as at sea, motorised transport gives way to sail. Here's one of them:

We all enjoyed the eerily silent smooth take-off and at dusk had an exciting, but well-controlled landing: just a few bounces and the basket landed on its side. The departure from the basket was orderly and surprisingly trouble-free given that some folk had to climb down from the upper deck. The flight was rounded off by a glass of bubbly, and we returned to Landrick both elated and soothed. Brilliant!

This has been an interesting week with many journeys, both short and long. After Monday's trips to Aberfoyle and to Alloa (the latter to discuss how to bring our existing website fully into the 21st century), I visited Edinburgh on Tuesday. Mainly this was to meet the team at Seol, the repping cousin of Edinburgh publisher Birlinn. Since February, Seol has been repping our list in Scotland and it was great to meet them at last, and get some feedback from the retailing viewpoint. I managed a quick visit to the National Galleries before it was time to walk down to son Sandy's new flat in East London Street. This is a lovely modern development, with light, spacious rooms and it's great to see him settled there. Even better, he cooked a lovely seared tuna salad for us which we ate at an elegant glass table – in his previous flat, it was more a question of balancing a plate on your knees on the sofa-bed.

Wednesday's visit to Aberfeldy was to meet Richard Struthers of Safe Journeys, who has been leading trips to Nepal for 16 years and with whom I have booked an Everest Base Camp trek in September. I'm hoping to get a fair crack at Kala Pattar this time, and also to return via the Cho La pass (5450m/18,000ft) to Gokyo Lakes, and climb Gokyo Ri. Richard thinks that heavy snowfall is the main hazard that might prevent this, but at present, I suspect that it's my own lack of preparation that would create the challenge.

Thursday was my trip to London, on two publishing visits connected with my IPG membership. The first was a session with Susie Dunlop of Allison & Busby, who is kindly acting as my mentor, and she is proving incredibly helpful. Being a somewhat maverick publisher, based out on a limb in Dunblane, it's all too easy for me to sail on blithely unaware of things we should be doing, or doing differently. Supportive advice from an experienced publisher is a fantastic resource, and I intend to make the most of it.

Then it was time to hasten to the IPG's Meet the Buyers event at which publishers meet buyers from key wholesalers and retailers, both online and bricks-and-mortar, and discover how to try to make them aware of our offer. The answer turns out to be different in almost every case, so it's lots of work but definitely worth knowing how to go about it better. It was held in the recently refurbished Royal Institution in Albemarle Street, a superb blend of modern and traditional. The briefing was held in the Library:

After arriving late at my sister's house in Dulwich, I had a lovely lazy start next day in the wonderful garden that brother-in-law Nick and sister Lindsay are just completing. Here are some photos of its swimming pond with beach hut: no chemicals, with water kept clean by ecological means. It's a beautiful feature, and this time was an island of tranquillity before an intense session of follow-up by wi-fi on the busy train home to Dunblane:

I just got a phone call from Sandy. Today, unexpectedly soon, he flew solo at East of Scotland Microlights and I'm feeling very proud of him. Like riding a motor bike, you are allowed to go solo before you pass your test, but (unlike a motor bike) you don't go solo until your instructor has decided you are competent enough not to pose a danger to other air traffic or yourself. So until today, he had never experienced the very different handling of the microlight flying "light" (carrying only one adult).

In only about 15 flying hours, he's made remarkable progress. Although he's always been a good learner when motivated, his educational career has been unorthodox, to put it uber-mildly. I saw him fly in February, but that was with his instructor on board. Apparently Gordon now supervises him from the ground, though I don't like to think too hard about how that would work in a real emergency. Here is a shot of him landing, taken just after I'd had my own flying experience in February (he had given me an Experience Ecosse voucher as a birthday present). I'll have to go back there soon, to snap him flying solo:

PS: update from 16 July: courtesy of Jill Douglas, here is the contemporary shot of the cat that got the cream:

Dumyat has featured in this blog a few times as my favourite local hill. But yesterday marked a watershed: on my way back down, I met grand-daughter Amy, who (with her mother Helen, friend Catriona and Catriona's parents) had climbed nearly the whole mountain by the normal route!

Aware of their plan, but thinking it fairly ambitious for two 3-year-olds, and above all anxious not to risk disrupting or gate-crashing it, I had taken Bramble up the less-trodden route from the north, wondering whether or not I might meet them. I was truly delighted on my way down to meet this cheery group. They weren't far short of the summit and, more important, were clearly having a splendid day.

Here, courtesy of Jim (Catriona's dad) are some pictures celebrating Amy and Catriona's first day on a big hill:

On Saturday we went to the wedding of my dearest cousin Kevin’s eldest son, Ed Megarry, to Jane Devanney in the Teviot Church in Hawick. The reception afterwards was at Hothcote House, Roberton, in its beautiful gardens where music played and the sun shone on young love and devoted families. It was a wonderful day, especially the chance to catch up with Ed’s younger siblings Will, Patrick and Kate, and to meet Becs, Will’s Canadian fiancée.

The wedding breakfast was in the marquee, and I was lucky to be seated between Keir and John Pringle (Ed’s uncle, whereas I consider myself an occasional aunt), with some of his lifelong family friends nearby. The choice of speakers was splendidly unconventional, and the Megarry side had a lot of air time after Peter Devanney’s highly emotional speech. His struggle for control was echoed by many of the audience who were also close to tears for a high proportion of the time. Bridget, mother of the bride, spoke with passionate maternal feeling on behalf of mothers throughout the marquee. The light relief was from Will and Paddy, jointly acting as best man and stand-up comedians. It’s a rare talent to be able to be so rude about your brother in a totally unmalicious and entertaining way, and a privilege for the audience to listen to so much heartfelt, unembarrassed emotion. It was obvious how much these two families were delighted to be joined, and we all smiled a lot as well as choking back a few tears. (There are some photos below.)

The only down side was the combination of date and location meant that we had to drive back to Landrick before the evening event, which for me meant extremely limited wine. (No bad thing, since I should really have been in training for months.) After 5 hours’ driving and 7 hours socialising, it was time prepare for Sunday’s pre-Nepal event in Aberfeldy. Safe Journeys is the small company that is organising our trek, and although there are others that offer pre-expedition events, Richard Struthers is very unusual in that he personally accompanies both the pre-trek event and the trek itself, and he also doesn’t charge for the pre-trek guided walk. So staying sober enough to turn up seemed the least I could do, despite a poor forecast.

The day turned out less daunting than I expected. As I feared, others had devoted far more time to their training, having done the Ten Tors and the Three Peaks and many other feats in preparation. However we all plodded up Meall nan Tarmachan (above Killin) at roughly the same pace, and although I probably found it harder than some, at least I wasn’t left behind. Knowing what life would be like during the week that followed, including several days spent at the Edinburgh Festival, just one day on the hills seemed the bare minimum. (In the event, a week later I would find myself toying with the idea of going to the Hilton gym after checking in at Edinburgh Airport, but even I realised that this would create needless last-minute pressure and decided against.) But it’s a measure of what that last week was like that although I wrote this on 31 August, I finally got around to uploading it and the photos below from Kathmandu, once things had calmed down.

They show two family groups, first Megarry then Devanney, and finally Ed and Jane cutting the cake. May they have a long and happy marriage:

The 2009 festival was perhaps our most exciting yet. It began on 18 August with Mendelssohn’s Elijah, a work that I had performed while still a member of the Stirling University chorus, so I found it particularly engaging. And it ended on Saturday night with Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius, a sublime and dramatic performance conducted by Mark Elder with the Hallé Orchestra, Edinburgh Festival Chorus and splendid soloists. 24 hours later, after the pressure of packing and preparing for Nepal, I’m sitting here at Heathrow typing this with Alice Coote’s sublime interpretation of the Angel still going around in my head singing her “Softly and gently”. These two choral works stand like colossuses, marking the beginning and end of our 2009 Festival experience.

In between, two days stand out a mile. The first was a week ago, when we journeyed to the Queen’s Hall for an important reason: the premiere of a work by Nigel Osborne on 31 August. Looking with mounting desperation at the piles of unfinished work and production issues around the Rucksack Readers office, I came close to resenting giving up most of a working day to this concert. But it was wholly extraordinary, truly a revelation. The Arditti Quartet played a late Beethoven quartet (op 85) and a Berg which was challenging but not offputting. After the interval followed the world premiere of Nigel’s Tiree, commissioned by EIF specially for these players, augmented by the shimmering live sounds of the metal plate loudspeaker installation (controlled by a Mac, naturally). This recreated the sounds made by Tiree’s famous stones, and added a wholly fresh, new dimension to the tones and timbre of the string quartet.

Nigel, who is a friend and colleague of Keir’s, joined us after the concert for a beer. I wasn‘t surprised to learn that he had deputised for Ligeti (whose String Quartet no 2 followed Tiree) but when the conversation drifted to fractal geometry (talking to Nigel is full of such hazards) it turned out that he knew and had worked with Mandelbrot at a conference about art, music and maths. Having studied sums long ago at Cambridge, Mandelbrot was a famous name to me, but Nigel is innocent of all pretension when he drops such names. Fractal geometry of the Scottish coastline is grist to his mill as a composer, as is Tiree’s best-known folksong. Nigel is a very rare example of a 21st century polymath: he also speaks about 19 languages. It's just as well he is so modest, or he might be very daunting, or even quite annoying. Anyway, I was fired up enough to ask him to sign my programme, which he did without a murmur. I wonder what he thought of the review I just read on the plane (in Scotland on Sunday, 6.9.09) which described the work as “an ethereal miasma of folk tunes and harmonic expansiveness”. Hmmm.

The other outstanding day was last Friday, which also began with String Quartets: the Emerson were playing Beethoven and two Mendelssohn quartets, one early and the other written in the year he died. We went straight on to Oloroso, to take son Sandy for a birthday lunch. Afterwards, we just had time for the National Gallery of Scotland exhibition on Spain and Scotland (Spain had all the world-class artists) before Brian Friel’s extraordinary “Yalta Game” at the King’s – an unbroken hour of pyrotechnic theatre with shades of Bennett and Stoppard full of teasing ambiguity and tensions between reality, imagination and yearning.

Finally, after several cups of coffee we were off to another world premiere from Scottish Ballet with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra at the Playhouse. The first Stravinsky (Scènes de ballet) was choreographed by Frederick Ashton, followed by Workwithinwork set to Berio. But beyond question, what set the evening apart was the stunningly fresh, modern and fluid Petrushka choreographed by Ian Spink. By setting the story in Russia of the 1990s (instead of Tsarist St Petersburg) it gained a whole new lease of life. Scottish Ballet created a spectacle of energy, drama, full of innovation, and it was good to see the programme give credits for specialist coaching in breakdancing and pole-dancing. The staging was brilliant, showing the love triangle portrayed in the “show” performed in a lorry trailer and "for real" in the chaotic, and finally violent, street scene. It was breathtaking.

During the last month of the 1988 Glasgow Garden Festival, we hired a one-man band called Mr Boom to celebrate our two children's birthday. They had reached the ages of 7 and 4 respectively, on the same day, and they and their pals (and parents) had a brilliant time singing and dancing along with Mr Boom. We danced around the "Pixie Tree", and Helen was transformed from a frog back into herself. We all went to the airport, and Sandy got to hold the famous flying sock. We sang the days of the week, acted out the planets moving around the sun and ended with a heartfelt, haunting "What a lovely day I've had". Mr Boom's cassettes were with us on every car journey thereafter, and I think we know most of them by heart.

After over 21 years, it was exciting news that Mr Boom was coming to Dunblane today, and Helen and Amy and I hastened along to Scottish Churches House to see if he'd make it all the way from the moon (where he lives) despite the snow and slush. His spaceship arrival sounds hadn't changed, his much-loved songs and jokes were just the same, and – best of all – his gentle, playful rapport with very young children was as warm as ever. He got 30-odd children and adults to their feet, singing, dancing and acting like animals or machines or planets, and we all went away smiling.

Even his costume and props don't look much different, but now there's a URL on his drum! Yes, the internet must reach the moon, because he now has a charming website where you can buy his music, book a gig or and make contact with his lunar or terrestial offices. You can read about his perfomances to 20,000 children at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, on BBC2 television and live from Adelaide to Tokyo to Orkney. But this modest, charming man, surely a unique entertainer, still seems accessible to those lucky enough to know about him:

Here is Helen, with Amy and her pal Catriona, being planets:

And finally a general shot of Churches House with half the room taking part:

Keir was on BBC1's Politics Show today, talking about the need for more diversity in Scottish education and commending the East Lothian proposal for Trust schools (promoted today by Cllr David Berry) as a step towards combatting too much uniformity in school governance. He stressed the need for more school autonomy and the vital role of the quality of headteachers in making the most of it.

For a week or however long the BBC retains it, you can watch this on iPlayer here. The ten-minute item on Trust schools was near the end of a show lasting 90 minutes, so you may want to drag the slider to 1 hr 15 min. And I have just realised that iPlayer is the only way you can access any of the other Politics Shows not transmitted in your area, such as the versions for Northern Ireland, Wales, West Midlands or London. So the internet lets you overcome broadcast TV's restrictions of geography as well as schedules.

Every Saturday, grand-daughter Amy goes to Little Tiger Cubs, a fun and fitness club for 3-5 year olds. It meets in the Braeport Centre, Dunblane, and for 45 minutes the children do exercises and play games that will lead, if they stay with it, to Taekwon-Do (Korean martial arts). There's a national network of these: Amy's class is run by the Taekwon-Do School which Stephen Rooney (6th Dan) founded in Alloa in 1990.

The Little Tiger Clubs are taught by the wonderful Liane Rooney (herself a 5th Dan, and Stephen's sister) who has terrific rapport with the children. She sets high standards for herself, too: I was asking how she got on in the recent European Championships in Barletta, Italy, and she was a bit crestfallen: "only" a gold and a silver! Her expertise comes across in her manner, and the children knows she is no push-over. What is brilliant is how she organises and motivates them, letting them compete while also gently teaching that winning isn't everything. They played a chasing game wearing animal tails: the object is to grab as many tails as you can while trying to retain your own. Below is Amy in the act of a tail-snatch:

Anyway, today she earned her stripes and 1st Cub certificate (having completed ten classes), so she is looking pleased and proud, with the formidable Miss Rooney:

Today was also the day of her Easter treasure hunt at Landrick, in which I had rewarded intermediate clues with tiny sugar eggs and the main treasure was virtuously chocolate-free: Emily Gravett's wonderful hardback "The Rabbit Problem". Amy is starting school in August, and certainly seems to be growing up fast and becoming a really interesting little person.