Alexander " Sawney" Bean was born near Edinburgh sometime during the reign of James VI of Scotland. ( James I of England). He was the son of a "hedger and ditcher". He initially followed in his father`s footsteps, but soon found that hard work and honest toil didn`t suit him particularly well. So along with a woman of similar values, he fled to County Galloway, where he and his `wife` took up residence in a cave along the shore. In the years following, they had many children, who went on to produce even more grandchilden, all of them inbred.
Living in a cave and having an aversion to honest work, Alexander and his family needed some way to support themselves. So they settled on what, for them, was the perfect occupation: robbing passers-by. Whils they were by no means intelligent they did possess a level of ruthless cunning, demonstrated by their solutions to various problems. Of course, they didn`t want to get caught, so they made certain that their victims were in no position to tell the tale. So they all ended up dead. To prevent any of them getting away, the Beans set up their ambushes so that all means of escape was blocked. But is was the solution to the last problem which was the most ruthless and gruesome.
With such a quickly growing family, Alexander needed some way of feeding them all. Conveniently enough, their nightly activities provided them with a large source of food. They did not only rob and kill their victims but they took their bodies back to the cave where they ate them too. Anything that was left would be pickled for another time. In fact , they were so proficient in their work and there was often a surplus that was thrown away into the sea. There are numerous accounts of people who had made the macabre discovery of limbs and other body parts washed up on the shore.
It is not known how long the Beans continued their murderous spree, but it was estimated that during that time they killed close to a thousand people. Obviously, this didn`t go unnoticed by the residents nearby, but the perpetrators remained unknown because the Beans` existence wasn`t known. They kept to their caves and their own company during the day, and no they met during the night lived to tell the tale. Several local innkeepers were wrongly accused and executed for the crimes.
Their reign of terror came to an end due to bad luck on this grotesque family`s part. One night during the 17th century, they attacked a man and wife who were returning on horseback from a fair. When the Beans set upon them, the husband was able to hold them off for some time, possessing the advantage of being on horseback and having a sword, but they were able to knock his wife off her horse and killed her instantly. The same fate would certainly has befallen the husband, but the Beans were forced to retreat when a large party of people coming from the fair arrived at the scene.
With the Beans` existence now revealed, a large party was gathered to search the surrounding area. Led by the King himself, and made up of about four hundred men, along with several bloodhounds, they soon found the cave.
At the final count, Alexander "Sawney" Bean`s family consisted of himself, his wife, eight sons, six daughters, eighteen grand-sons, and fourteen grand-daughters. Sawney and the rest of the adult mals in his family were dismembered and allowed to bleed to death, while the women and children were burned at the stake.
There is much argument as to whether this is all fact or fiction. Who knows, but II`m just glad I wasn`t there at the time to find out!
Hello.... I`m a bit late in the day with this entry I`m afraid. I wanted to post a ghost story but I`ve not been able to come up with anything worth posting. I`ll just have to try harder tomorrow as I`m sure there are some decent spooky tales to tell. Thanks for all the comments about my problems with AOL. I tried re-booting, that helped, I cleaned up by deleted the temporary internet files and cookies. All seems to be okay today. So it must have been one of those things.
Hello everyone! I`d love to report that today is warm and sunny but sadly, all we have is a very miserable, overcast and chilly day. I suppose we have been lucky with the weather over Easter so I can`t really complain. Apart from the fact that this southerly wind has blown all the petals of the magnolia tree...grrrr! AND when we got home from walking Jake I felt as though I`d never get warm again....apart from that I can`t complain...except... OK I`ll shut up about the weather!
I just thought this was so funny. Jim was merrily driving along when he saw him looking over the back seat of the car. HE told me to get the camera and take the photo. To do this I had to turn right around and stick my head between the front seats to get it. I felt like a contortionist and thought I might have got stuck in that position, which would have been difficult to explain had we been stopped by the police! Everybody have a good day and if like us, you have sunshine, enjoy it....!
Happy Easter one and all. I hope you`ve had a lovely day. It`s been a very good day for me as I`ve just said goodbye to the family who descended on me for Sunday dinner. It`s always lovely to see them but just as nice when they all go home. Jim and I did a little jig and some air-punching as we shut the door...... shouting ` yes! yes! yes!`. We do love them really :-) !
Happy Saturday to you all. I`ve just got home and am seizing the opportunity to use the computer while I have a chance. Jim said I could post this photo of him and the 15 1/2lbs carp he caught on thursday. He had a very good day fishing and caught 50lbs of fish altogether. He asked another angler to take this photo as he always likes to have proof of his conquests!
Happy Thursday! The sun is in the sky and shining brightly.......no, wait a minute it now looks like rain...no it`s coming out again. It`s certainly been one of those days weather-wise. Pouring down first thing and getting brighter throughout the day but still threatening to change at any minute. Let`s hope it won`t rain for a while yet. I think it`s traditional for it to rain on Good Friday but the forecast says not...... we shall see. Looking out of the window has always been the best form of forecasting there is.
OMG! I don`t believe it! The moment I turn my back! Does anyone want a unruly garden-wrecker of a labrador???!!!! I went downstairs at 6pm to put something in the oven for my dinner when I happened to look outside the backdoor. 
I was confronted by my own version of the Hound of the Baskervilles covered in compost and the garden looked like it had just been ploughed. The new plants I bought last week were spread all over the lawn, pots, canes etc. The Clematis I thought was ruined but i managed to save it and have repotted it. The Peony has seen better days but hopefully it will recover minus 3 branches! The Magnolia I think he saved for another day. ( He`s hoping) Oh yes and another door mat has bitten the dust as well! Chewed to bits as were the canes, pots and labels, I don`t know why he didn`t eat the compost and be done with it! So there I was with a trowel and the indoor broom , it was the only one I could find, doing a quick salvage job, while the guilty culprit was hiding in the hallway with his head down. I am just wondering what any of our neighbours thought about the mad woman who was sweeping the garden lawn as it was getting dark.......I don`t know.......dogs....... who`d have `em?
Happy Wednesday............I am exhausted after shopping with Kerry. My feet ache and I feel as if I could go to bed and sleep for a few hours. But it would be fatal because I wouldn`t sleep tonight if I did. So I`ll stay on here and hopefully I`ll be more awake later on. I`m a bit miffed because while out shopping I bought a new quilt cover set. When I got home and opened it it had only one pillowcase, which is ok if you have a single bed but this one is for a king-size. So I have to take it back tomorrow morning, I rang the shop and asked them to put another one by for me so with luck it will have two it that one. I also had to pick up my prescription from the doctor`s surgery today, but when I arrived there was a sign saying the surgery was closed and would be all day. So after town tomorrow I have to make another journey just for the prescription, which I need before the weekend.....grrrr!
Grandson number 1
I`ve done it ! I`ve done! I`ve done it and it`s all thanks to Sara`s advice. I`ve beaten my score playing Bookworm and I would never have done it without help....I`ll get to that later . I am now proud to announce the princely score of 203,080 and I`m now an Archivist. I never got past 146,000 odd and I was only a lowly Senior Librarian. But now the sky`s the limit . If you want to know what advice Sara gave me you have to go to the comments section of my last entry!
Sunday greetings one and all. Yesterday was Jake`s 2nd birthday. All along I`ve been thinking it was the 20th, when in fact it is the 19th. Not that he`ll mind of course, with birthdays not being high on a labrador`s agenda.
Happy Saturday! I`ve done it at last. A photo of a parakeet, actually an Indian ring-necked parakeet to give it it`s proper name. We saw a flock of them this morning in the park and this one stopped long enough for me to get a good picture. It was looking inside a hole in the tree but, thanks to Jake coming up behind me, it looked round and I got it`s face with the red beak showing. I`ve been trying to get this for weeks now and I was beginning to think they had moved on now the weather is warmer but they are back in greater numbers now and they make quite a sight flying among the wood pigeons and magpies.
I had to take this photo of Jakey with his new toy. Its called a `Fling-Ring` and it does just that, it goes forever and he is very attached to it, but it has this tendency to fall back over his head and he can`t work out how to get it off!
`The sun has got its hat off` Hip Hip Hip Hooray! The sun has got its hat off and its coming out to play!..............`
A very late entry, for me anyway. I`ve had one of those days when I`ve been very busy and not stopped. This morning, being so sunny and warm, we went out earlier than usual with Jake. I took you camera and got some nice photos of him. Jim and I walked for an hour and a half in the park while Jake had the time of his life playing with other dogs and swimming in the stream there. Later we went for lunch and we looked in the garden centre shop at a wooden table and chairs set for the garden. Our old green plastic ones have seen much better days and I think the chairs would break if sat on, so it looks as though I`ll get the new set soon with a bit of luck. 
It`s arrived. My Avon has arrived including this lovely chain I bought myself. It didn`t cost a lot but I think it`s very pretty. I also bought some liquid soaps, and some hair and skin stuff too. Smashing! But I turned down the chance of ordering more and asked the agent to drop the catalogue through my door once a month only as I don`t want to spend too much which is the easiest thing for me to do.
Good morning on this lovely spring-like day. There is really signs that winter is leaving us, and good riddance I say too! The camelia has big creamy yellow flowers on it (apart from the one that I saw Jake eat this morning!) I think they are gorgeous flowers and I wish they could last all year. Soon the magnolia will flower and hopefully that will survive the April showers that usually blow the pretty petals away. I hope to get a photo of the camelias soon because I planted two bushes with different colour flowers close together to get the effect of a bi-coloured shrub. But at the moment the red flowers are a bit late flowering so I just hope the cream flowers don`t die off before the red opens up. I also want to thank all my friends that have wished me well since my elbow surgery. It`s so nice knowing how kind you all are and that I`m very grateful for all your support.
What do you do when you get a birthday card like this one! Kerry sent this card to Jim when she was working in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan. Of course, we haven`t the slightest idea what it says apart from the happy birthday bit. Any idea as to what the little angel is saying? ANY SUGGESTIONS PLEASE, THE FUNNIER THE BETTER, please leave in the comments section :-)
