Diary 2006

January

We started 2006 with a picnic in the Birsley Brae Community Woodland.

We collected Time II & Time III from the RSA and enjoyed looking around the Winter Gardens.

A large part of January was taken up with the house move/sale. The 'For Sale' sign went up in our front garden and we exchanged contracts on our new house.

Our "I Love You Toast" page was awarded the AlterVistas Weird Web Award of Excellence.

We took time out to visit North Berwick calling in at Poonthais for lunch.

Nigel went down the pub - but only to discuss the forthcoming Prestoungrange Arts Festival.

We celebrated the Bard's birthday with Laura, Kev & Mo.

Chinese Year of the Dog was celebrated in style at the Edinburgh Festival Theatre.

February

Lucy turned 2 and was delighted with her trike.

We posted lots of "I Love You" toast for Valentine's Day.

Every spare moment was spent sourcing boxes, making up boxes, packing boxes and labelling boxes.

Nigel managed to escape for a couple of hours to attend a talk about other mural towns.

March

As part of the World Book Day activities, Nigel read stories to some of Emily's classmates.

We moved house!

The girls went to a totem pole workshop.

Emily went to see Molly Whuppie at the Brunton Theatre.

We warmed oor hoose.

April

A lot of Nigel's time was taken up with meetings about the forthcoming 3 Harbour Arts Festival. This unfortunately required him to go the pub much more often that he would have wished.

On a trip to Glasgow Jan visited the continental market while Nigel met up with Ivor at Red Hot Comics and Nulsh.

We were visited by Bill, Brenda & Andrew and Penny the dog who enjoyed the Easter Egg Hunt in the garden as much as the kids did.

Lucy & Georgie went to a pal's third birthday party.

Jan joined the Prestongrange Consultation panel and heard about the ambitious plans (pdf) for Prestongrange Industrial Museum and Morison's Haven.

Laura came round to spend some time with her nieces.

Prestongrange Museum had a Family Fun Day over the Bank Holiday weekend as part of Show Scotland. We enjoyed the mural painting in the visitor centre, a rare look inside the Engine House and a demonstration by glass artist Robert Atherton.

May

Emily took part in a sponsored skip to raise funds for British Heart Foundation. In fact, we all had a go at skipping. In fact, everyone who visited us during "Healthy Week" had a go at skipping. Emily can now skip very well indeed. Georgie began crawling (and climbing) and Lucy learned to jump with her feet together.

We took part in Free Comic Day, albeit in a very small way...

Rachel, Peter & Lauren came to visit and we were joined for lunch by Laura & Kev. In exchange for a bed for the night, Peter took a look at our central heating system- it's brilliant having an electrician for a brother-in-law ;-)

Malcy came to see the exhibition space and plans for "Monkey Loft@3 Harbours Arts Festival" began to take over everything else.

Nigel was sad that West Ham didn't win some football thing. We paid a visit to Glasgow's West End and enjoyed tramping around Byres Road and the Botanics. God, what an exciting life we lead... We spent a lovely day in North Berwick with lunch in Poonthais. I manned the tombola stand at the PTA coffee morning, blah, blah, blah, I put out the recycling crate, blah blah - does anyone actually read this crap?

Edith and Alan were guests of the Monkey Loft when they stayed all too briefly on their great journey north in search of the Lesser Spotted Twit (or summat).

We celebrated Walk to School Week by, erm, walking to school, just like we do every day...(who writes this stuff?)

At the end of the month a pleasant day was had with Malcy and Nulsh (and his lovely family) who had come over to put up their artwork.

June

The month kicked off with the opening night of our exhibition when Malcy & Nulsh rocked the Monkey Loft and then we had the public exhibtion the following weekend.

The weather was wonderful at the beginning of the month - perfect for Emily's school sports day.

We visited Linlithgow and had a lovely time at the Peel and the Canal Centre there. Definately a place to return to over the summer.

We bought Prestonpandemonium.com and Monkeyloft.com

Nigel celebrated Father's Day.

Jan went rock climbing and only broke one tooth (and lost a filling, bruised both knees and blistered her hands...).

Emily had a school trip to East Links Family Park and we said goodbye to her teachers at a Teddy Bear's Picnic.

Jan took part in the RSA Coffee House Challenge at the Goth where the topic for discussion was "How Can We Better Interpret and Present the Battle of Prestonpans 1745 - for ourselves and for visitors?". The entire clan were back at the Goth the same day for a buffet to celebrate the success of the 3 Harbours Arts Festival.

July

The school holidays began!

At the beginning of the month we were out and about publicising Prestonpandemonium so visited the neighbouring towns of North Berwick and Cockenzie where we spent a pleasant afternoon with the Crummys.

Emily attended a series of workshops at Prestongrange Industrial Museum which included mask making, zoetropes & paper marbling. We all went to the museum's open evening which marked the start of their late night Thursday opening throughout the summer. We all had fun and painted ourselves into the crowd of a football mural.

For her sixth birthday, Emily wanted to go on a boat so we returned to Linlithgow Canal Centre and had a pleasant trip on the 'Victoria'. We also had a look around St Michael's Parish Church.

We all enjoyed lunch at Musselburgh's Lanna Thai and distributed more flyers throughout the town.

The long-awaited Prestonpandemonium took place! It was a great success and we were delighted that so many people had travelled from all parts of Scotland. Photos and more information can be seen at the Prestonpandemonium website.

As the comic mart took place in the Thomas Nelson Suite of the Goth, we were able to view the Burris Bursary 2005/2006 Winners Exhibition of some really great work by Adele Robertson and Maggie Fraser.

A stroll to Morison's Haven resulted in lots of pottery finds and kilnware to add to Jan & Emily's respective collections.

Jan visited the Robert Mapplethorpe private view at the Modern Art Gallery.

August

A lot of this month was spent outdoors soaking up the brilliant sunshine and making the most of our garden.

Georgie had her first trip south of the border when we all went to Berwick-upon-Tweed at the beginning of the month and shortly afterwards we celebrated the youngest Barker's first birthday. How time flies.

Nigel was half-way to requalifying as a Solaris-certified systems administrator when he passed his Part One exam in Edinburgh. He was celebrating again later that week as it was his birthday. For his special day we had a trip to North Berwick and ate fish and chips on the beach.

We all went to the Community Centre for the civic reception that marked the end of the Global Murals Conference. A totem pole was erected in Prestonpans as part of the week-long conference.

Emily started Primary 2 and Lucy and Georgie started going to a creche while Jan attended committee training for a new community group in the town.

September

We celebrated North Sea Trail Day with a trip to Fisherrow Harbour in Musselburgh. Activites included haggis tastings and the Fisherrow Community Exhibition at the Quayside.

Nigel gave blood. Jan tried her best to donate blood but they suggested she needed all of hers. Nigel almost fainted.

Eight weekends of rail engineering work seriously curtailed our travel plans.

Beachwatch was well attended once again and the Baron kindly donated burgers, pies, chips and soft drinks to everyone who helped clear his section of beach and log the detritus.

Unsurprisingly, we didn't run in the Prestonpans Half Marathon, organised by Julie and Grant Aitken. But we did hand out water and cheered on the 100 or so runners as they made their way past our water station in the pouring rain.

Thanks Sam Burns et al for the 2007 calendar (to be displayed with pride in the kitchen - definately being auctioned off).bNigel spends much of his time writing SpamAssassin rules and continues his interests in hardened builds and LDAP. He also enjoys getting lunch at Pret a Manger and Cornerstone Cafe.

Nigel passed part two of his Solaris Certified Systems Administrator exam so once again has a little badge to prove he is a certifiable systems administrator.

October

We had the Crummys over for lunch. Sausage casserole, bean crumble, yorkshire puddings and good company. Later that afternoon we all went along to the opening of the new Pennypit Centre and enjoyed the entertainment from cosmic kids entertainer Mr Boom.

We saw very big and very little people when we went to the last day of the Mueck exhibition in the Royal Scottish Academy Building.

Jan and Emily helped out at a Coffee Morning which raised £570 for the Prestonlinks Woodland Group.

We celebrated Diwali with a candlelit dinner of Dal.

Nigel attended the Baron's presentation on The Dream.

Jan's plans for a local "what's on" website started to take shape.

November

The second Prestonpandemonium took place. This time we had Alan Grant as a very special guest and BBC Radio Scotland in attendance recording for their Radio Cafe slot. Attendance was down a little bit compared with July but we were very pleased when Ian Rankin and sons turned up.

Nigel friend Christopher came to stay for a long weekend. Weather and public transport were dreadful but we did manage to show off most of the Pans and spend an enjoyable afternoon in Edinburgh. Jan took Nigel to the Forrest Cafe and Nigel took Christopher to the Labour Club for a very late night drinking session.

Nigel began the BCS Edinburgh Information Security Management Systems course given by Peter Wenham over four Tuesday evenings at Napier University.

We had a full house when Kate, John, Ceinwyn, Ian and their respective kids came for lunch. Nigel cooked sausage casserole, bean crumble and yorkshire puddings. He really needs a new cook book.

We all celebrated 37 years of Jan's existence. The kids enjoyed exceedingly good cakes sent by Jan's mum and Jan and Nigel enjoyed an exceedingly rare evening out thanks to the babysitting of Laura and Kev.

December

Jan, Lucy and Georgie went to the School Christmas Bazaar while Nigel and Emily manned the Monkey Loft Comics stall at the Gothenburg Winter Crafts Fair. Jan's team saw Santa, won raffle prizes galore and bought some fantastic goodies. Nigel's team sold some comics and fridge magnets.

Following a wonderful lunch with Carmel and Andrew, we all went to see the switching on of the Cockenzie and Port Seton Christmas lights.

Emily's school put on a marvellous "wriggly" nativity with Emily's class all playing donkeys. There wasn't a dry eye in the school hall.

We served mulled wine and mince pies to our pals.

We paid another visit to the Forest Cafe and saw the Dazzlement exhibition (which runs until 8th January 2007) in the Total Kunst Gallery.

We celebrated our wedding anniversary quietly and without much ado.

We all all had a great time at Donna's 40th birthday party in the Labour Club.

Despite aches and pains and general poorlyness, we had a splendid first Christmas in Barker Towers. In fact, the whole festive season was pretty groovy with relaxed days, bonfires, walks, picnics, visits from friends, and watching films together.