Friends and Family

We had a lovely visit yesterday afternoon with our friends, Helen and Andrew Miller, and their 3 delightful children, Calum, Iona, and Ewan. They live in England but were in Scotland on holiday, staying in nearby Killin.

As you can see from the photograph, these are folks who are comfortable with themselves and each other and like to laugh and smile. They are all polite, bright, articulate, jolly, and a joy to be around. We were so happy to see Andy and Helen again after 12 years and especially to meet their children for the first time. We were sorry to see the visit end, but have resolved that it won't be so long before we see them the next time.

In the evening, we were invited to Helen and Gordon Rae's for what Helen termed 'a fork supper'. It has been so hot that Helen fed us out in the garden. We started the evening with what they called Buck Fizzes and we would call Mimosas, champagne with orange juice. It was a delicious light meal and an ongoing visit that went on until after 11. We had walked and so had a comfortable stroll back home after it had cooled off considerably.

The Back Story About How We Know Andy and Helen

We have known Andy since 1987 when he was still at Edinburgh University but was in the States before his final year as a summer intern at Peat Marwick, where I was working at the time. As soon as I heard his Scots accent waiting for the elevator one evening, I 'glommed' onto him. The poor fellow made the mistake of telling me where his office was and so the next day, was forced to sit and look at photographs from our first trip to Scotland (1986) which we knew wouldn't be our last. As a reward for his patient indulgence, I invited him home for dinner. He and Don hit it off because they both like jazz. We even took Andy to a Dixieland Band gig where friends of ours were playing. Another evening we all met up after work to visit an international pub in Washington.

The following summer (1988), we returned to Scotland and saw Andy in Edinburgh where he was awaiting his final exam results prior to graduation. He had promised us that he would show us Edinburgh. He did a great job of it and showed us several other things besides, including afternoon tea at Gleneagles Resort. While in Edinburgh, we met his parents who generously offered us their holiday home in Grantown-on-Spey for a few days as we made our way up to the Northern Highlands, our objective for that particular trip. Prior to bidding each other farewell, Andy sat down with our road atlas and marked all sorts of driving routes for us and scenic spots to visit, including drawing in some routes that didn't even show up as roads on the atlas! The 3-day, 4-night stay in Grantown and the special side trips we were able to take (following all but three of Andy's suggestions) added immeasurably to our Highland adventure.

At the end of that holiday, Andy met us at Glasgow Airport after we turned our hired car in and whisked us away for a tantalising glimpse of The Burrell Collection, a museum/gallery with an amazing range of antiquities, collectibles, artwork, and other exhibits. He knew we didn't have time to really see anything before our plane left but wanted us to know about The Burrell so that we would go back on our next trip over.

When we returned in 1990, we stayed the first night in the West Coast town of Ayr. Andy was there with his girlfriend Helen visiting her parents for the weekend. This was our first opportunity to meet Helen and we liked her instantly. The last 4 days of that two-week holiday was spent in Glasgow. We were able to spend a whole day at the fabulous Burrell Collection and see many Charles Rennie Mackintosh-designed buildings. Andy and Helen were living and working in Edinburgh at that time and so one night we took the train from Glasgow to Edinburgh and met them for dinner. (If you haven't already heard it, get Don to tell you the story sometime of the $100 hamburger dinner and our adventure getting home!)

In January of 1991, Andy phoned to wish me happy 50th birthday and to say that he and Helen were getting married that summer and we were invited to the wedding. So although 1991 wasn't a scheduled Scotland trip, we couldn't pass up the invitation. The wedding was lovely and the reception was a lot of fun with a combination of about one-third regular dancing and two-thirds Scottish country dancing. We spent the rest of that holiday exploring about a 50-mile radius of Glasgow, which was quite different for us. We finally had the opportunity to see Lochs Earn and Tay as well as Glen Lyon, the leftover adventures Andy had marked on our atlas back in 1988. We fell madly in love with Glen Lyon and have made many, many return visits. In fact, we have taken some of you there. Who would have guested in 1991 that we would have ended up living just 5 miles from Loch Earn?

Helen and Andy moved to Durham, England, right after they got married. As neither had ever lived outside Scotland, for their wedding present I wanted to make them a wall quilt which would reflect something of their homeland that they could always have with them. That is when I made the first Craighie Dhu quilt (from Dougie Maclean's first album cover). The quilt depicts old stone cottages behind a dry stone wall. They have said that it takes pride of place in each place they have lived.

In the summer of 1993, we delivered a copy of the Craighie Dhu quilt to Dougie Maclean in Dunkeld (and that's another story in itself). At the end of that holiday, we spent a couple of days with Helen and Andy who showed us around the charming city of Durham. We saw them again at the start of our 1994 holiday, this time when they were living in Epping Forest in Essex, England. That was the last time we saw them although we've stayed in touch through the years.

When the children started arriving in 1995, I made each of them a small wall quilt, which, they each said yesterday, they really like. (How to win friends and influence people!) What a treat it was for us to get to know these three individual young people. They speak right up and carry on intelligent and lively conversations. Helen and Andrew seem to be doing all the right things as parents. You can tell the children are not just allowed but encouraged to be who they are and yet they are not overindulged.

As for Helen and Andrew, we can still see the 21-year-olds whom we first met in their ready smiles and laughter. They have done well. Andy is about to turn 40 and is CFO of a growing company. Helen, who has also worked on the financial side of business, is working part-time for the Royal Shakespeare Company. They live in a 17th-century cottage in the village of Cold Ash in Berks (near Reading, England).
When they pulled out of the driveway yesterday afternoon, we felt we had been given a tonic. I think we were high on their visit for the rest of the evening. It's not every day you can say a thing like that after being descended on by a family of five!