Sunday, July 25th …..

On one of their trips to Scotland, probably in the late-1970s or early-1980s, my mother and father brought back a wooden plaque with the purported Christie family crest attached. It was quite a nice piece of work, with a background of the Christie tartan, the clan motto and a depiction of a tree-stump with new growth coming from it. The motto was Sic Virilis, translated as Thus I Flourish. Apparently we are know as Christie of Glenfarg, which is a small village in Perthshire in Scotland, on the M90 between Dunfermline and Perth itself.

The plaque was displayed on the wall of each place we lived until we packed up the flat at Grammar, so it is now in a box in the storage shed. No doubt I will find it one day. I looked on the internet to see whether I could find an image of the crest but haven’t found the exact one. However, there are several others, with slightly differing depictions of the three stump. It is interesting that it seems universally agreed that the Christie crest is an oak stump with new growth, but the motto seems now to be Sic Viresco, which can be translated I Flourish Again

The reason I mention this today is that I found in my wanders around the block, a tree stump with a healthy new growth coming from the side. Is it an omen? Perhaps not, but it is certainly a welcome sight.

It’s all go here today. A fellow arrived very early with a digger on the back of his truck, ready to level out the spots for the shed and a possible future little cabin. His name is Bob and, soon after he arrived, Trevor pulled up in his truck with all the stuff needed to peg out the areas to be levelled. I can’t believe how much soil Bob has taken out and it has certainly added to the piles we have from Graeme and Patsy’s previous excavations. So, our thoughts are now focussing on imaginative (and quite large) rockeries. Bob’s on an hourly rate and I can see the dollars ticking away. Still, he keeps at it so there’s no time being wasted.

Les, the handyman, is also here, catching up on some of the minor jobs we have for him to do. There’s not really much to do but there are a few jobs which Jamie and I can’t tackle. Jamie is around, keeping an eye on things and getting his whipper-snipper ready to attack the rockery once Bob has taken his machine away.

The cat is having a wonderful time. She loves new vehicles coming into the yard and runs to check them out. I don’t think she has seen anything as big as Bob’s truck and she has climbed all over it. We always have to check when visitors leave that she is not still in their car.