Saturday, November 24, 2018

.......all this and the application process continues

So I am spending my days off from school during the Thanksgiving break writing grants and submitting grants and crossing my fingers about grants..... So keep your fingers crossed for me as well......

Tuesday, August 14, 2018

Rocks and Cairns and how could we possibly have walked further than yesterday?

Today is the day we return the car and we are on our own , walking or bus riding. We have one more standing stone site to see and it is only a 5 minute car ride from the hotel. By now, you know that we walk everywhere... it is only a 20 minute walk ... no big deal. So how come it took us about 40 and we came at the cairn from the wrong angle? Could we possibly have taken a wrong turn yet again.... ah no matter, we find the stones and they are lovely! The cairn couldn't be any rounder and the marker stones are obviously placed in cardinal directions. We wanted to see if the light came in at specific angles and from a specific stone, but it was overcast and the time that we spent with the stones was the break in the rain for the morning. Reluctantly, we left the cairn and headed back to get the car , fuel it up and return it. Easily done! Returned, deposit recovered and we are off to Centre City to see the University new campus, the Royal Observatory and whatever else we can find. We get a bit off the beaten path trying to avoid the Fringe Festival attendees and find ourselves in the neighborhood called the Crags. We are at the foot of Arthur's Seat and the Crags. Huge volcanic remains that have been weathered by eastward moving glaciers , they are massive and fill the sky. As we are standing looking, a lovely little old woman with her wee dog, came up to us and started a chat. She lived in the Crags neighborhood and wondered if there was anything she could do for us.

30 minutes later, we knew everything about the area and she even shared with us a wee song from her youth.... this is what it is all about folks! As we  getting ready to leave, she hugged me tightly and thanked me so much for spending time with her ( we found out that she is 78 and boy was she a spry  thing! ) We walked up the steps she told us about and the view of Arthur's Seat and the Crags was just stunning. After we took in the height an breadth of the landlords, we continued our walk to the University........ and we walked .... walked some more and then just for good measure, added in a bit more walking . But the University was lovely and on the way to the Observatory. Ah yes, let's chat about the Observatory...... We found it! Up hill and around a corner on a gravel path. It was beautiful, old and with the greenish color that comes from the tarnishing of copper. The view when we turned around was breathtaking and the RAIN had stopped! We saw Edinburgh, the Crag , Arthur's Seat, the Castle , a volcano or two and the North Sea like we were looking through a crystal lens..... At the Observatory itself, we were warmly welcomed, given some material we can use in class ( star charts and stuff like that ) and then told that unfortunately, they were on heightened alert and all visitations were not happening. We wondered if that was because of the car that drove into the crowds in London today? No worries, we thanked our hosts, and walked down the hill , collecting blackberries and enjoying the view.......

Today was a long day and we didn't slow down once we returned to the Centre City.... we headed down to Parliament and on the way I had a bucket list item crushed! I got to hold and pet a really big owl!!! I am still excited about it..... she was so big! 10 pounds or so and wing span over 3 feet. I cannot believe that I actually did that!! We visited the storytelling center.... really an entire center just to develop how to tell stories and how to use them in education....  that is really cool.......
Planning on that this school year...... Tomorrow will be a day for tying up loose ends.... visiting and touring Parliament and Steve insists I have to ride the Huge Ferris wheel...... we'll see about that..... Oh and by the way ... our walking total today was a mere 10 miles....

For now , oidhche  mhath agus bruadar aisling ( good night and sweet dreams )



 

Well, Leith's house isn't in Leith ; but Leith does say thanks for cleaning up after your dog....

For as long as I have known Leith, he has told me about the castle that will be his sometime.... or at least that is how I remember the story. So when I found out that I had gotten the Fund for Teacher's Fellowship to study dark skies in Scotland, my mind immediately went back to seeing the sign for Leith and finding the castle to take a picture for my friend. Leith is within walking distance of Edinburgh and so none of us thought too much about the plan- we would walk to Leith , find the house and take a picture of it... as simple as that. What could go wrong? It was a straight shot down the Leith Walkway from Princes street. We are adults, studied the map endlessly and if all else failed, can read a street sign. 8 :30 and off we go to catch the bus to Centre City and the completion of our quest. Down Princes Road, turn by the horse statue ( really was Wellington ) , down the hill to the round-a-bout and by the Palace Theater. But then, the unthinkable happened and the signs disappeared.. ok .. no worries. Engage plan B .... look at the map and try to figure out which way to go.... so we do and off to the right we tramp! And tramp ! and tramp! And the road becomes like the song that goes on and on..... we pass by all these really cool neighborhoods, but there is no sign of the road we are desperately hunting : Elm Street. Yes, I said Elm Street...... we walked for about 30 minutes after our turn and finally I was just too antsy not to ask someone how much farther. Looking for someone, anyone that I could ask I spied a Dustman. They know everything because they are all over the city! So, I ventured over and said, Excuse me, but I am looking for your expert advice. I am looking for Elm Street and wondered how much father a walk it might be?".... He looked at me, gave me a toothy grin and said," Oh Darling, you have about 2 miles to go...... back the way you came! " Oh man! How can I tell the others that bit of news? Well, just do it I guess...... I did and we turned around and headed to the beginning of Leith Walkway which was at the turn ( yea , we should have gone straight and not turned ! ) The entire time we have been walking, it has been drizzling heavily and now as we start down the hill to Leith, the rain picks up in intensity so that my Gore-Tex is shedding water like a duck sheds water. We pass by a controversial section of the walkway and get the skinny on it from several sources. Apparently the University has a down payment on a block of extremely old buildings which they are planning to tear down and build student housing units. The public outcry is obvious by all the " save Leith walkway" and " stop the University" posters and graffiti everywhere along the block.

We swim, I mean walk to the foot of Leith Walkway and start to follow signs for the Leith Hermitage. I mean a hermitage is a home , right? Best guess anyway. No luck, but there were tons of signs on the dust bins saying , " Leith thanks you for cleaning up after your dog!"  I get to the point where I am ready to bust if I can't ask someone about this crazy house.... so I check in with a small breakfast shop whose owners have been there a combined total of 100 years and they look at me like I am from Mars when I ask about the house. Between all of us, we finally determine that Leith had no clue where his home was and that it really is Leith Hall in Aberdeen. We opt not to walk there - 3 hours by car and about 100 miles or so.....

As the rain poured, we explored the Port of Leith , beautifully referred to as the Water of Leith and finally just couldn't stand looking at things through a constant drip from our hoods and wall of water pouring from the sky. So back up the walkway, up to Princes Street and back into Centre City. Did you ever notice how quickly you seem to return from a place versus going to that same place? We headed for Edinburgh University ( the old, ancient campus ) and after touring around it a bit decided to visits the Royal Museum and their astronomy section. It was amazing! I have never seen pieces of meteorite like they have on display.. one was almost a big as me! We stayed until closing time and then jumped on the 100 bus and enjoyed the ride to the hotel....... we are planning on visiting a rock site in the morning before we return the car , so it is early to bed, early to rise.......

William Wallace!!! Where are you? For that matter, can anyone see Edinburgh Castle in the mist?

.... and the rain , rain , rain ; came down , down , down in rushing , rising, rivulets......

Today was the day we had been looking forward to for the months preceding the trip: the Perseids meteor shower.... the best display of meteors all year ... showering Earth at a rate of 100 a minute. The shower will be beautiful; just nowhere in the UK!!!

What to do instead? I mean realistically , there is no point in driving 2 hours to Dalmellington and then climbing a mountain in the pouring rain. David's scopes are great and can see through haze, but this is full blown cloud cover with persistent rain, not gentle showers , but rain in bucket loads accompanied by blowing winds. If the rain wasn't a deterrent enough, the road with washed out areas, slick bridges with no sides and strong crosswinds was.... school starts in a week and I would like to be there.

Our intrepid band, not to be dissuaded by the weather ,at least on a small scale , donned our Gore-Tex and loaded onto the bus for Edinburgh. We would enjoy the day , we told our  selves . We had chatted about the Edinburgh Castle , Mary King's Close , Greyfriars Bobby , Greyfriars Kirk and the weaver's exhibit over breakfast. In addition, the Edinburgh International Fringe Festival  #into the unknown..... is going on , and we figured that the rain would discourage many people that might have entertained ideas of attending.  Our bus ride in was uneventful and the rain actually slacked off a bit as we were dropped off at Waverly station to begin our climb up to High Street ( The Royal Mile ) and start our explore. Cutting through a close , we decided would cut our climb time in half and as we exited Advocate's Close, the rain began again in earnest. Pulling our hoods close about our faces, we headed up the hill. As we watched the crowd ebb and flow, and the rain pick up in intensity, I made the executive decision that if we were planning visits to some of our attractions of choice, we would need to purchase tickets now , even if the times were in the afternoon.... and so we did! Mary King's Close ticket purchased... off and up the hill or castle rock as it is called to buy Edinburgh Castle tickets. Cool thing about castle rock is that it is volcanic. Now I don't mean just little pieces of volcanic stuff, but rather the remains of a massive volcanic neck that had weathered away over the millennia .....for an earth science teacher, that is just too cool.

Working our way through the crowd, we decided that it wasn't as crowed as we anticipated and so maybe the thing to do would be to visit the castle now..... tickets purchased ; rain intensifies; group didn't realize that there wasn't that much of the site that was indoors and is now standing on the top of castle rock in the rain , mist and wind.... welcome to North Sea weather.

The castle was old , medieval and been the home to many monarchs, prisoners of war and I am sure an unhappy visitor or two.... it was damp, drafty and cold this day and I can only imagine the conditions in the 14th century. BUT, it was engaging and inspiring and caused your imagination to run amok as it was easy to pretend that you were part of history since the whole of present day Edinburgh was shrouded in mist and clouds..... we could feel alone , even though we were in a crowd because faces were hidden and all that was visible were colors of clothing or the humps of umbrellas...

Castle touring done, bones chilled, we left the relative dryness of the building to start our descent to the present day ( down the Royal Mile )and  we spied a whiskey tasting....I hate whiskey, but the idea of warming the bones was greater than my dislike of that golden liquid. This was a blend of whiskey and mead that was actually made into a liquor ...it was a wee dram , but it warmed the soul.....

Lunch called and we dropped into a wee pub near the castle and had some soup to warm up and then headed to the weaver's exhibit. It was small and unfortunately not as extensive as I would have like, but it gave you a great perspective on the expansive machinery needed to create the huge amount of tartan necessary to feed the nation's appetite for the plaids. I was very pleased to see that the weaver's guild had created a tartan called the World Peace Tartan and that it had been endorsed by the UN......

Time for the Mary King's Close adventure and it was an adventure... a population living under the city... subjected to the plague and other diseases ; living in housing levels up to 10 on top of each other. The poorest of the poor and the wealthiest all living in one place. Even Mary , Queen of Scots spent a night in the close on her way to Level
n Castle... The close was shut down as the city expanded since it is illegal to live under ground in Scotland. So , how did the closes get away with it centuries ago? They had open areas over the walkways and that counted as not underground. Best story was the gentleman who lived in the house with the wall paper that was painted with arsenic so that there was a lovely green color. He was eventually asked to leave his home, but refused because he couldn't take his most prized possession: the first indoor , working toilet ; a toilet of which he was so proud that it was placed in a direct line with the front door ... which he kept open so that he might wave to people as he was engaged in the logo.....

I will let you think about that.........

 

Monday, August 13, 2018

Well yes that is a baby clydesdale, thanks for asking..

" once in the highlands, the highlands of Scotland,
Deep in the night on a murky baer;
There in the highlands, the highlands of Scotland,
Three weary travelers lost their way.

And this is what happened, the strange thing that happened,
To three weary travelers that lost their way.

Brigadoon , Brigadoon
Blooming under sable skies.
Brigadoon, Brigadoon,
There my heart forever lies......

Ok , it wasn't Brigadoon, ... but we were headed for Croft Moraig , stone circle; a henge of sorts and it was located in Aberfeldy not Loch Lomond but it was close to the highlands and close to a Loch so we will allow this to count. Our original goal for standing stone locations was farther north and on advice of locals and travel folks not to go that far into relatively uninhabited areas with really bad weather coming ; lots of rain and high winds, we looked for sites that were closer to our home away from home. We hit the jackpot with our substitution . Croft Moraig is called a circle of light and that in and of itself is really cool. The stones are small with the tallest being only 5 feet or so and they have no top stones, but they are lovely. There are visible post areas from 3000 years ago and some of the stones have cup marks on them which indicate where the entrances were. Archaeologists have found charcoal stained soil and Neolithic shards. It is really a complex circle with two rings, one inside the other. According to archaeologists, Croft Moraig is " one of the most informative stone circles in the British Isles.. " They have found that the timber ring is one of the earliest known. So there you go! Pretty exciting in my book....... so now how do you top that? Well the stones are just up from the Bridge over the River Tay. Why is that important? Well it is the site of the a violent winter storm disaster. On 28 December 1879, the first Tay Rail Bridge collapsed due to structural failure and killed an estimated 75 people. The bridge today is one lane wide and requires infinite patience to cross if it is a busy time.

We noticed as we were headed to the stones, that across the bridge was a field that had some sort of fair activity going on and so on our way back through the bridge, we decided to take a peek. We had stumbled on the Aberfeldy Show and Highland games.... this day just kept getting more and more awesome...... We took a quick look around and were presented with the most amazing show animals: black face sheep, white face sheep, beautiful dressage horses, great huge cattle and Clydesdale mums with their wee Clydesdale colts. Now when I say wee... they were about 6 inches taller than me.. so you decide. We sampled mead, cheese, scones and I found the most lovely black sheep wool.... only it wasn't for sale..... as I was looking at the spinner's other yarns, he wandered off and came back with the only sample of the hand spin black wool that was earmarked for the historical center and he offered it to me!! Can you imagine how excited I was?  I got to pet Clydesdale mums and babies, wee sheep .. met a dog named Winkie and have black sheep yarn... this day was great. Think it is over? Nope. As we were driving up the M9, there was a sign for Scone Castle - site of Scottish King coronations fro generations, home to Charlotte's queen Charlotte and Mary Queen of Scots as an occasional visitor.

Scone Castle was lovely and impressive and the grounds were extensive, including the star maze that we took on and conquered. We visited highland cattle, more cool sheep and the peacocks that roamed freely. We could have spent double the time just exploring.  Alas, all this adventure makes one terribly hungry and we hit the back road looking for Loch Levin, thinking that there must be a restaurant there. Loch Levin is the lake and the small town that sites quietly on its shores is called Kinross. It is in Kinross that we had dinner and then decided to walk to the Loch. You see, this Loch is special because it is home to Castle Levin .... the same castle where Mary Queen of Scots was taken and spent a year in isolation before she escaped and made her way back to London looking for help from her cousin , Elizabeth ,the Queen of England.....

All in all ..... a varied day..... exciting , historical, cultural, full of great food and hiking and luckily an early night sleep so we can get going before the rain sets in tomorrow.

Sunday, August 12, 2018

If it's Friday , it must be Anstruther

Is it Friday already? That hardly seems possible.Well, give the late hour  that we got in last night and the fact that having no changes of clothing but two ( washing things out every other day ) , today was a leisurely start to the morning. I believe in fact that we didn't meet until. Around 9:30 am and after taking our time enjoying breakfast and a cappuccino or two, we headed out - bookcase, camera and water bottles in tow. Ignoring the darkening skies and the wildly whipping wind, we set our to find a stone circle or two , walk the Fife Coastal path and have a lunch consisting of some sort or other of with freshly caught fish, lobster or mussels. The goal for the day , you see was to get some great food, culture and archaeology that was pertinent to our grant and then return to the hotel early enough to get a good night's sleep. My secret goal was to have my luggage be waiting for me at whatever time I returned.

I have a pretty good conversational relationship with the lovely lady that cares for my room and so when I was thinking about where to end up on the 117 mile long coastal path, my mind naturally went to asking a local person. She was amazing and suggested that we go along the coast until we reached the sleepy fishing village of Anstruther. She was completely accurate. It was about 48 miles from the hotel and not an unpleasant drive. We got to the village in time to walk about a bit and then head to the Anstruther Fish Bar for the freshest food I think I have ever eaten. Now mind you I didn't say I had fish and chips, but the prawns were so fresh that they were still wiggling their little tails. While Steve was waiting on the food to be cooked, I went and found a bench to eat the food on while we watched  the crowd and the sky. Yup, I did say sky. Now for anyone that knows me, you are probably saying , no big deal, she does that all the time. Yes that is true. This sky was dark and menacing and the thunder was rolling. Again, you say " so what? She loves thunderstorms"... yes I do , but I was hungry and this thunderstorm had the potential to interrupt a really good meal.

The storm rolled around, circling our wee small area and seemed to wait until we were finished with our lunch before it said, " That's enough time" and let go with all of the wind and rain it could toss our way. No worries, we just popped into one of the small shops and waited until it calmed down. Now, most of you know that my next move was to collect sand. But there was a huge distraction as the beach was also littered with sea glass and in colors that were vibrant. I collected as much as I could put into my hands and pockets and the sky opened up again. The closest waiting spot was the overhang at the loo so, there we waited. The last bit of rain didn't last long and the next adventure was to head out to the point and see the rock formations. It was about a 30 minute walk , but we found beautiful things on the way, so it took about 45 minutes in all : two shell houses ( houses completely covered in shells), a lovely church cemetery with a tomb of an unknown soldier and a headstone from the 1600's , then the most amazing rock formations I have seen in a very long time highlighted by a rainbow shining above them.

After walking the trail for a ways and climbing the rock and various other playful activities, we decided it was time to head back to the hotel since our Saturday explorations were to locate Neolithic rocks in the area near  Loch Lomond. This means we need to leave about 7:30 am . It was a relatively quick trip back to the hotel and as we gathered our belongings from the car , that queasy, uneasy feeling crept back into the pit of my stomach.... what if my suitcase was still missing? I walked into the lobby and slowly worked my way towards the reception desk... wanting to look, but not wanting to look just in case I would be disappointed again. But.... there.. sitting in the corner was my bag!! My black and white hounds tooth bag! My 3 luggage tags on the handle bag!! I carried my bag to the room and immediately opened it and smelled the laundry detergent smell that my clothing carried... it was like heaven.

Saturday, August 11, 2018

yet another day without....

It is Thursday morning and we are anxious to get going! One small glitch, no suitcases yet ( not missing just one, but all three ) and so we chat about our day at breakfast and decide that since we are supposed to meet with David at the Scottish Dark Skies Observatory, we would head over that way and spend the day looking for things related to our topic of study while we are here. That is easier said than done, but we are adventurous and so muster on. About 30 minutes into our adventure, the tire pressure light comes on in the car and so we stop and get the air checked... seems ok and onward we go. Now one thing that anyone traveling in Scotland needs to consider is the comment that was made to me at the hotel, " Scotland is a small country that wants to seem big, so they have few major roads and lots of winding, sheep covered smaller roads." That makes for long driving to get short distances... keep this thought in mind.

We decide after driving almost the entire way to the Galloway Forest that we would stop and spend some time at the Clyde Falls. We were feeling pretty good about ourselves at that moment since we had had some coffee at a local tea and coffee shop and they had encouraged us to absolutely visit the falls. We were armed with new toothbrushes, toothpaste and two BIG packs of Jammie Dodgers... thank you Lidl and the sale you were running. 

After going around the roundabout several times, making a few wrong turns and turning a few colorful phrases, we end up at the Clyde Falls, only it is an entire historical site of which the falls are only a part. It is lovely and Steve and Trent make due notice of the homemade ice cream and determine that they will have a cone after the little hike we will be going on. Two and a half miles later, we had completed a beautiful hike, seen several gorgeous falls, stood next to William Wallace's hide out cave and thoroughly sweated up our extra clothes..... but as Steve would say, You have to do as much as you can when you are where you are! Now I want to remind you that falls are found in areas where the landscape is steep and a bit raggedy. We forgot this one small detail and as we got our ice cream ( mine was Jammie Dodgers ice cream ) and were enjoying it, the realization hit us that we had to walk up out of the gorge; and so we did, but it was no where near as enjoyable as walking down into the gorge.

As we headed out we were careful to watch for sheep who didn't like to be penned into a field. Now , when I say field, I mean a field of several hundreds of acres. If you were a sheep and you had that much space, honestly... would you want to play in the road? Especially since the roads are narrow and at times on bridges especially, they are one car wide. We had to be very careful since the sheep just wandered out into the road to play and that was dangerous for us and them. Finally, we make it to Ayr and Trent checks his texts and to his delight finds notifications that two of the suitcases are located and on the way to the hotel..... Trent's and Steve's........ argh......! Supper was simple and hearty ( well we were going to the top of a mountain where it would be cold and windy  and you need lots of hearty food to get by !)

So, let me tell you about the journey to the Observatory. It is in the Galloway Forest and is in the section designated as a dark sky site. But remember I told you to keep those roads in mind? Ok , so we turn off of the main road ( one lane sheep covered ) and head to the top of the mountain. The directions start out, please drive 10 miles ( not kilometers ) per hour and I believe that you will have no troubled getting here. The first direction tells us to go to the cow grid, cross it.... shortly after this we are to be on watch for a wooden sheep gate that needs to be closed behind us before we drive over the wooden bridge that has no sides. Ok, so far so good! Next step.. continue on making a sharp left up the hill , being carefully not to go too fast and continue on until one more left that goes as near to vertical as a car can safely travel. We get to our last deer gate , open it and know in our hearts we have made it!! It is 7:50 , not remotely dark yet and in an area of zero cell reception. We don't care right? We made it! As we turn the last corner, there it is ! The last  Gate and on it is the SDSO logo and insignia. It is closed and riding on our previous success, we just send Steve out to open the gate ( he has been the gate master after all ! ) He fiddles with the latch and then turns around, looks at us, shakes his head and utters the words we dread: " It is locked". Dejected we ponder plan B.

Plan B consists of waiting. I mean what else can we do? David said be there by 8... so , ok we are a little early. So waiting is good, that is until we start hearing noises and imaginations start to do their imagination thing. At one point we thought that badgers were hunting, or the sheep flock was coming... screams like humans echoed as bats flew overhead and the owls started ". whoo-ing"...  We waited about 20 minutes, long enough to see lots of very aggressive spiders and feel the nibble of some hungry flying bugs. At last, we hear David's vehicle roaring up the hill . He welcomes us, opens the gate and in a cloud of dust.... disappears. We continue on and encounter roads steeper than we have already driven, but we eventually pull into the observatory parking lot and begin a fabulous tour of the facility while we are waiting for the rest of the crowd to arrive and do some photography and star gazing. It was clouding up quickly and so once the other people arrived, David set the scopes up and we checked out Jupiter with Calisto and Ganymede , Arcturus and Altair. Because the clouds were rolling in at an ever increasing rate and because we plan to go back to see the meteor shower, we left about 10:45 pm. It is time to remember those winding roads I described and how you go short distances in long periods of time .... and that the sheep like the road as I tell you that we didn't get back to the hotel until 1:45 ( a full 90 minutes later than we should have ) , saw several families of sheep sleeping beside the road in little clusters and winding roads that had bridges that just appeared out of nowhere until you turned a corner.... it was an adventurous day and thoroughly enjoyable until we walked in the door and saw only two suitcases still....... I would have to go at least one more day as the last representative of our suitcase-less team. Nobody plans to be at breakfast before nine.......

Wednesday, August 8, 2018

Travel is what travel is..... an adventure wrapped in an inigma wrapped in crisis

Well you know how travel starts out... excitement, nerves , excitement, calm, excitement and finally a sense that everything that you could have done has been done and then checked and rechecked. Things simply cannot go wrong... right? Wrong!! Never underestimate the forces of the universe when they are determined that something will go wrong. Alas, after multiple forays into the world of travel with no mishaps of any consequence, we collectively gathered enough on the first 24 hours of our Fund For Teacher's Fellows grant trip to study Dark Skies in Scotland to make even most seasoned travelers wince.

Don't get me wrong, the day started out great! I got things finished ; we were ahead of schedule and headed to Charlotte to check in and have a leisurely meal before leaving for Scotland. Goal accomplished and we bade Nathan goodbye as he headed towards his flight to DC and we towards ours to  JFK to connect to Edinburgh. Not more than 45 minutes later , the day started to unravel. Our plane was late... that was still okay because it was on the ground and arriving in 5 minutes.  Nope wrong, remember that word, wrong? The flight is now delayed long enough that we will have 10 minutes to make our flight at JFK , so I figure that I will be proactive and hunt up the customer service folks... enter American Airlines employee Gwendolyn. She got us on a flight to London and from there we would simply jump the " shuttle" to Edinburgh.... Been done a hundred times and it was done this day as well.... We are feeling pretty good about things and you and I both know that never works.... take things into consideration with guarded optimism.

Our flights are uneventful... the movies haven't changed , so I made a jukebox mix of music and actually slept on the long leg of the flight... well if I am truthful, I slept on the short leg as well...I am really glad I did because the day unraveled, remember I told you it had started to do that? We arrived in Edinburgh and the clouds were breaking , sunlight beaming through and we took this as an omen! The universe was finally letting its icy cold finger release the vise like grip it had on us! That couldn't have been further from the truth as the realization of this fact dawned slowly on us as the huge group of passengers and their respective luggage started to dwindle until there was only a paltry group of luggage-less travelers hoping that there were just a few more suitcases that might make an appearance. You have heard the expression: If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride? Beggars had a better chance of riding a horse than we did to have our luggage with us tonight. File the claim, stand in line for 45 minutes to pick up our reserved car and we are off. Well I mean we go around the rotary and down the road a bit and arrive at the hotel that is our home for the next eight days.

Not to be discouraged by forces out of our control, we washed up, had a planning meeting , some great food and are making it an early night...... fingers crossed we have luggage tomorrow. Our days look amazing and we are not letting a minor setback slow us down!

Tuesday, April 10, 2018