Our Grand Tour of Europe

Saturday, July 31

We were up early to do our packing and load up the car so we could be on our way by 10:00 am. Buddy came outside and took our photo at the little garden across the road, and we waved goodbye to her. She’s been a very nice person to be around. We were very low on gas, so we couldn’t go the pretty back way to Inverness and instead went by the “main” road through Dores. It’s strange to realize that the “main” road is a single lane with passing places! We got gas at the big Safeway (one of two Safeways very near each other in downtown Inverness)… spent 49 GBP—almost $100! We parked at the lot connected to the big modern enclosed shopping mall, right in the center of downtown. Inverness is obviously the regional center, as there’s an incredible amount of shopping for a town of 40,000. We’ve seen lots of backpackers in this area and more of an international mix of people than we’ve seen outside of London. I watch the young people with their enormous backpacks… often they also have a smaller pack they carry on the front… it’s a tough way to travel and probably best suited to the very young! We’ve also seen a lot of people on bike trips, their bikes loaded down with packs as well. That’s especially tough in the hills of the Highlands.

I went back to the Mailboxes store to use a PC, and Charley and Kelly wandered around Inverness and went to the library to use their “free” 15 minutes of computer time. Kelly got a Subway and Charley got a hamburger at Burger King. (I haven’t been very interested in American fast food since we’ve been here!) I needed about 1-1/2 hours on the PC to handle my e-mail, post my Yorkshire blog, and pay a few bills. We left Inverness about 1:00 pm. It was a very busy place on a sunny Saturday. A group of teenagers in kilts were playing bagpipes on one of the squares.

Our drive south was uneventful—we went back the same way we had driven up, and we didn’t stop anywhere. Kelly slept much of the way, and Charley and I talked about how the two of them could get along better. Kelly is very headstrong and I think because we so often treat her as an equal, she has a hard time accepting the role of submissive child when that’s required. Charley can be quick to anger—especially at Kelly—and so the two of them (who are very close and love each other tremendously) end up butting heads. It’s been more pronounced on this trip because we’re together almost 24/7. Charley has suggested that this next week we do something different—each of us have a day with Kelly while the other one has a “day off.” Since we’ll start our intensive walk the next week, we’ll try this during our Edinburgh week and see how it works out. (When we told Kelly about this plan, she was receptive but wondered when she would get her own day off from both of us!)

As we headed south, we noticed that the traffic heading north to the Highlands was very heavy—a steady stream of cars and campers, many with bicycles on top. July and August are the two peak tourist months for the Highlands and seem to be a popular destination for the British and other Europeans.

We’re staying this week near Edinburgh, just off the first exit before the Forth Bridge... maybe 15 miles from the city. I had originally looked at rentals right in Edinburgh, but they were very expensive… $1000 for the week. I wasn’t willing to pay that in Edinburgh—London and Paris, yes. Edinburgh, no. I found our cottage on an owners’ website (holiday-rentals.co.uk) and it is the second least-expensive place we’re staying in Britain (Gants Mill was the cheapest)—about $600 for the week.

The cottage is about a mile off the M90—the route we took when we drove up to Loch Ness. It’s quite an unusual place—a 100-year old stone estate workers’ cottage on the edge of 15-acres of woodlands… truly in the countryside. But then we’re one mile from a village with a railway station, one mile from a major interstate-type highway, and just on the edge of Edinburgh suburbia.

The owner Yvonne met us at the cottage. She was very nice and showed us around the cottage—anxious to know if it was acceptable to us… almost as if we might say “no, we don’t like it… give us our money back!” I wonder if that’s happened before….

Actually, we’re very pleased with the cottage—it’s spacious, clean and comfortable with many special touches. Yvonne and her husband Chris own two holiday cottages that share part of a wall, but are otherwise totally private. We have no sense that there are neighbors on the other side. She was a bit mysterious about where she and her husband live, and they have a system for guests without a mobile phone where you can leave a note in a pouch at the back of the yard, raise a little flag, and she will get back to you. There’s another building of some sort back behind the fence where you leave the note, and we think they live there. Chris does woodworking, and they also have a shop where they sell wooden garden furniture he makes. From information I found in the cottage, I suspect they normally live in the cottage next to where we are, but move back to the other building when they are able to rent the second cottage.

The layout of our cottage is unusual. You enter into a tiny foyer with a big closet. To the left is a decent-sized master bedroom facing the front garden. To the right is a big living/dining room, also facing the front. On a clear day the two famous Firth of Forth bridges—railway and car—are visible through the window. (A “firth” is what we would know of as a bay.) The living room is the most comfortable we’ve had—a three-person couch and three very comfortable chairs… all facing a coal-burning fireplace. The dining table is by the window with leaves that fold out to make it dining-size. We’ve decided to open up the leaves only for meals. There’s a big bookcase filled with books—mostly classics (I think they may have gotten a good deal on books), but many other good books as well. Through a doorway at the back of the living room is another hallway—off this is another good-sized closet (which Kelly will use), a smaller bedroom for Kelly, the bathroom, and the kitchen. Both bedrooms have a double and a single bed. A door at the end of this hallway opens to a large backyard with flowers and various terraced areas… a table with chairs, a couple of wooden chaise lounges, a whirlygig clothes line…. in the very back is a roofed eating area with a fireplace. We spotted an enormous rosemary bush—Kelly broke off a big piece that we put in our bottle of olive oil.

The cottage is very well equipped—video and DVD (she’s left an assortment of movies for us, including several for a child of Kelly’s age), washer/dryer combination, and a dishwasher. The kitchen has everything we could possibly need—even a wok! Yvonne left us a bowl of fruit, a loaf of bread and a few other food items, flowers, and a bottle of wine. Chris (Yvonne’s husband) has done a lot of woodwork inside the cottage—bed headboards, countertops, and small tables. The wooden doors throughout the cottage are beautiful. We like it here.

At the back of our yard is a gate that leads to the Barleys’ 15 acres of woodland…. we are free to go back and explore, with the possibility of seeing animals. She’s left information describing where we might go at dusk to see badgers, so Kelly will have one more opportunity to perhaps see the elusive badger. It’s really interesting to find this quiet oasis so near a big city.

The only difficulty about the cottage is the driveway. A small road runs right in front of the cottage… surprisingly busy with cars just buzzing by, and the cottage is on the edge of a curve that makes visibility difficult. The front yard is enclosed by a privacy fence and has a gravel driveway off the road. There’s a small gravel turnaround spot right in front of the house so at least you don’t have to try to back out onto the road, which would be very difficult given the traffic. On his first attempt Charley did about a 15-point turn to position the car to drive out front-first. The first time we drove out, he had me go out to check out the traffic, then jump back in the car. (Later he would perfect a technique of backing into the narrow driveway, avoiding the need to try to turn around in the small turnaround spot.)

We unpacked the kitchen and Kelly’s room, then went off in search of the Tesco. We went in the wrong direction at first, but did check out the nearby town/village of Inverkeithing, closed up on Sunday at 6:00 pm. It has a small main street with maybe 20 shops and small businesses. We are very close to the Firth of Forth, and drove through a nearby subdivision to a yacht club right on the firth… it was a 1950’s style subdivision that reminded us strangely of Florida without the palm trees or maybe San Francisco without the hills. We found a little Tesco in a strip center (wrong one) and finally went back to the cottage to get the directions that we should have brought with us to begin with. The big Tesco is just about three miles away in the other direction—across the M90 on a bridge and adjacent to a big relatively new development that reminded me of the Laurel Lakes development in my hometown.

We spent about an hour in the big Tesco… last time we will shop in a big grocery store in Britain! This Tesco also had clothes and housewares, like a Super Wal-Mart at home. We split up as usual, each with a list. We tried not to buy too much this time, because we will need to leave any leftovers behind… we won’t be carrying bags of food with us on the walking trip! Despite our best efforts, we spent just over 70 GBP. We could easily spend that on two dinners out, so it’s still extremely economical to eat most of our meals at “home.”

We got back late—after 8:00 pm—and fixed our Tesco pizzas. We’ve established a “tradition” on this trip to have supermarket pizza on our first night in a new place. We ate at the little table, looking out over the red Forth railway bridge glowing in the distance.

About 9:30 pm Kelly decided to watch a movie—Dr. Dolittle with Eddie Murphy. It seemed to have a lot of “bathroom” humor, but she and Charley enjoyed it. I went on to bed.

Sunday, August 1

A new month! Another tradition we’ve established is to not set the alarm on Sundays. We decided to have a very low-key day today. I was up about 7:30 am, and Charley emerged about an hour later. We finally woke Kelly up at 10:00 am. We really ended up taking the whole day “off”… maybe a good thing after seven full weeks of touring. Charley walked a mile into Inverkeithing to get a newspaper, but otherwise we just stayed around the cottage and really did enjoy ourselves.

After “brunch” (quiche and muffins) we walked out the back to explore the woodlands—a lot more to explore than I had realized. The Barleys have created a number of trails through the woods and meadows and along a stream. There are several areas where Chris is working with fallen trees to plane wood, and he’s built wooden benches and structures in a couple of places. Later in the afternoon Charley and Kelly walked over to their shop next door where they have garden furniture and some plants for sale.

And that was pretty much our day. I relaxed on one of the wooded chaise lounges and read two Sunday papers out in the sun in the backyard… actually wore a pair of shorts! Charley did laundry and hung some of it outside on the whirlygig clothesline—that’s a first for us, spoiled as we are by our great clothes dryer at home! Kelly started working on a 500-piece circular puzzle she found in the big bookcase cabinet. We fixed hamburgers for dinner—tried first to fix them on a little portable grill and then had to bring them inside because they weren’t cooking. The hamburgers really weren’t good, but fortunately the baked potatoes and snow peas were! Somehow ground beef in England and Scotland just isn’t the same. There seem to be a lot of cows… but why isn’t the beef the same?

We watched our Sunday night miniseries Island at War on television at 9:00 pm… this is the only TV we’ve really watched in Britain. I was on the edge of my seat over this episode. The Nazis are getting more aggressive and a young man was executed by a firing squad. We only have two more Sundays left in Britain, so we will have to see what happens in our show before we have to leave it…

Monday, August 2

Another late start again today. Kelly is staying up too late, and we had a hard time getting her up. I realize now that she’s been seriously sleep deprived, as we all probably have been! Charley walked to Inverkeithing to get me my London Times (this one a Scottish version), which I do enjoy reading in the morning. We had our breakfast and finally got going around 11:00 am. We walked to the train station… about a mile—15 minutes, on sidewalk most of the way. The train to Edinburgh cost us 8.75 GBP for the three of us (a fare called a “cheap day return”) and took about 20 minutes with a couple of stops. We went across the famous Forth Railway Bridge, built between 1883 and 1890. At the time it was built it was the biggest bridge in the world, and it’s apparently being painted all the time to preserve its metalwork—when the painters reach one end, they immediately start over again! The more modern road bridge runs parallel to the rail bridge. The two bridges are considered among the UK’s “most spectacular engineering feats,” according to my guidebook.

The train station in Edinburgh is right in the middle of the city… the tracks run right next to the big rock with the massive Edinburgh Castle at the top. The tracks almost seem to cut the city in half… the station is definitely convenient!

We stopped at Tourist Information to get a map and some other information. Edinburgh is pretty crowded, probably because the Festival season is just beginning. Edinburgh has the biggest arts festival in the world… actually several festivals that take place over five weeks every summer. The Jazz Festival is in progress now, and something called the Fringe Festival begins at the end of the week… all kinds of plays, musical performances, comedy shows, street performances…normally put on by amateur groups. Kelly and I were disappointed to miss the Book Festival, which takes place after we leave. J. K. Rowling is one of the speakers at the Book Festival this year.

We walked around the city a bit, getting our bearings and trying to decide what to do. Edinburgh is a big, busy city with a lot of tourists and a lot of activity. The bus tour—a good way to get an orientation of a big city—was expensive… almost 20 GBP (close to $40) for the three of us. We walked up toward the Old Town and saw a Mexican restaurant… it was about 1:00 pm, so we decided to stop and indulge. It was genuine Mexican and good! Kelly and Charley had enchiladas (something new for Kelly) and I had a burrito. We shared nachos as a starter. I even had a Corona, complete with lime! One of the big things we have missed about America is Mexican food. In Britain there are proportionally as many Indian restaurants as we have Mexican restaurants at home. We can’t seem to interest Kelly in trying Indian food—surprise! She talks about Taco Bell all the time. When people ask her what she misses about home, she mentions her dog Milly and Taco Bell.

After lunch Kelly wanted to go to something called the Camera Obscura… she’s learned about this at her photography camps. We walked up toward the Castle to the Camera Obscura building, but Charley wasn’t too interested… he said we could save our money on him and he would wait outside, so Kelly and I decided to go there on “our” day instead. We decided to go to a big new attraction called “Our Dynamic Earth,” which was highly recommended in my guidebook. Our Dynamic Earth was at the end of the big High Street—the Royal Mile—that runs between the Edinburgh Castle and Holyrood Palace in the “Old Town” section of Edinburgh. Holyrood Palace is the official Scottish palace of the Queen and was once the home of Mary, Queen of Scots. Right across from Holyrood Palace is a big modern construction project—almost complete… the new Scottish Parliament building. The first staff members are just moving in this week. The project has been eight times more expensive than the original budget and four years late! The total cost is over 400 million GBP—a lot of tax dollars! The building is extremely contemporary with strangely shaped wooden décor around the rectangular windows—we thought it was quite odd and out of place in such an old ornate city.

Because of the construction, we had a very hard time finding our way into Our Dynamic Earth… as we circled around to find the entry, we saw the expanse of Holyrood Park, a very wild-looking park with a huge hill. The views of Edinburgh are apparently fantastic from the highest peak. We decided to save our hill-walking for our big walk next week. We finally found Our Dynamic Earth, built in a big tent-like structure, one of the British “Millennium Projects.” We paid our 20 GBP here instead of for the bus tour. Our Dynamic Earth tells the story of the earth, beginning with the Big Bang and including exhibits on volcanoes, hurricanes, the tropical rain forest, and artic lands. It was an Epcot-type attraction—but absolutely not in the same league. I think once you’ve been to DisneyWorld or Universal Studios, your expectations are just set much higher. There were several interactive activities Kelly seemed to enjoy, but I was very disappointed, especially given the price. I wouldn’t recommend it. After our great experience at the Eden Project, I definitely expected more.

We walked back up the Royal Mile and got Kelly an ice cream. There are lots of old, intriguing buildings all along the Mile. We stopped at an interesting place for Charley and I to have tea and dessert… got a table, looked at the menu, decided it was overpriced, and left before the waiter returned.

We walked up to Edinburgh Castle and saw the stands that have been erected in the esplanade outside the Castle for the Military Tattoo that begins on Friday evening. We’re excited to have tickets for Friday—fortunately our last night in Edinburgh coincides with the first night of the Tattoo. We decided not to tour the ancient castle—it’s extremely impressive though… towering over the city. It reminds me a lot of Hohensalzburg in Salzburg—a very old fortress, built on a rock and dominating the city landscape.

At the end of the afternoon we walked down through pretty gardens to Princes Street, the main shopping street. A big ornate monument honors Sir Walter Scott, Scotland’s most influential writer. The stores are only on one side of the street with the park on the other side. We stopped in a big Boots drug store for a few things, then went back to Tourist Information where there was an internet center. 3 GBP for an hour though—expensive. I needed about an hour to catch up on all my e-mail. I’m getting good feedback about my blog, which is definitely encouraging!

We took a train back to Inverkeithing about 7:00 pm… only one stop this time, so we got back in about 15 minutes. It was 7:45 pm when we got to the cottage, but I fixed a quick and good pasta meal, and we ate by candlelight. After dinner Kelly and I worked more on our puzzle, then we all read till bedtime.

Tuesday, August 3

Today was Kelly and my day together, and we really had a good time. I think Charley enjoyed his “day off” too.

We poked around in the morning… slept till 8:00 am. Kelly and I finished our puzzle. They were doing roadwork right in front of our house this morning. A workman came to our door to ask for a few gallons of water. Charley talked with him for a while—he could barely understand the man’s Scottish brogue, even though he was speaking English!

Charley dropped us off at the train station about 11:00 am… we had to wait till 11:25 for the next train. We knew our way around Edinburgh today. Kelly had seen a Pizza Hut yesterday, and I told her she could pick where we would have lunch. So off we went to Pizza Hut for the buffet. It was 11 GBP for the two of us, which included all we could eat from the pizza/pasta/salad buffet and unlimited drink refills. We ate way too much…. probably would have had even more, but they only put out one pepperoni pizza while we were there. A “pepperoni pizza” is definitely not as popular in the UK as it is at home. On some menus they even call this an “American” pizza.

There was an EasyInternetCafé just around the corner from Pizza Hut on a narrow pedestrian street—Rose Street—full of pubs and clubs. The internet café was really nice… 400 PCs combined with a Café Nero coffee shop. We used the internet for about 40 minutes. Kelly even had time to play a computer game. I’m trying to coordinate with Sherpa concerning our luggage for the walking tour, since we have more than the one bag each that’s allowed.

After the internet café, we decided to do a bus tour of the city—cheaper for just the two of us and actually Charley and Kelly can use the same tickets tomorrow if they go within the 24 hour period when we bought the tickets. We sat up top in the open air. Kelly and I chose a tour that had live commentary, so everyone on the bus was English-speaking and we could have some interaction with the guide. You could get on and off the bus at a couple of different places, so we got off near Edinburgh Castle and went through the Camera Obscura. We even got a 10% discount with our tour bus ticket. The Camera Obscura was a lot of fun—a much better investment than Our Dynamic Earth yesterday. There are five floors in an old narrow building—the top floor has a “camera obscura” from 1853…. a camera of some sort that projects live moving images of the city onto a concave viewing table. I didn’t really understand exactly how this works, but Kelly did. We sat in a circular dark room around the screen for the camera show… about 20 minutes long. The guide could move the camera, so we really had almost a tour of the city. He did a little trick where he appeared to scoop up people and cars on the street onto a little card. Kelly got to try doing this too. The whole thing was really very interesting.

Also on the top floor was a viewing platform with free telescopes. Kelly especially liked operating a live camera where she could “spy” on people on another floor of the building. The other floors of Camera Obscura were also interesting—exhibits relating to photography, holograms, optical illusions, mirrors—several neat tricks and a lot of fun. Kelly had a good time and so did I—much better than Our Dynamic Earth!

From the Camera Obscura we down the Royal Mile to a big complex called the Tartan Weaving Mill—a massive Scottish shop that did include a real tartan weaving operation down at the lowest level. I bought Kelly a few more tartan hair ribbons. She is still fascinated by the clans and the tartans and would love a scarf. I told her that once we are in Provence, she would not want to wear her Scottish tartan scarf to school We then walked down to see the Greyfriars Bobby statue of the little dog who was so devoted to his master. The statue was just across from the Greyfriars Bobby pub. Farther down the street we visited Greyfriars Church… just inside the churchyard is the little grave of Greyfriars Bobby. Kelly is reading the Greyfriars Bobby book, so she was very interested. We walked around the cemetery (a bit creepy) and looked for the grave of John Grey—Old Jock, Greyfriars Bobby’s master. We finally found it, around on the other side. The headstone had been paid for by a group of Americans who loved the story of Greyfriars Bobby and Old Jock.

On the way back to the Royal Mile, we stopped in a coffee shop called The Elephant. J. K. Rowling used to come here when she was a poor single mother and work on the book she was writing—the first Harry Potter book. The coffee shop was very crowded… they take full advantage of the J. K. Rowling connection and even sell t-shirts. Since it was hot and crowded, we decided not to stay.

At this point, it had started to rain lightly. We went into the main library, which had a separate library for children. We were hoping to find some of the sequel books to The Swish of the Curtain, a wonderful British children’s book that I had passed onto Kelly. We have looked for it in several libraries and used bookstores… no luck again today.

We rejoined the bus tour back on the Royal Mile… we sat on the top level of the bus, but under cover due to the rain. This time there was a woman tour guide who was quite good. We saw many parts of the city we would not have seen on foot, and learned a lot about this interesting city. For example, there are three big churches on the Royal Mile, but only one of them is currently used as a church and the other two are used for other things—there just aren’t enough people living in this part of Edinburgh to support three big churches. The guide pointed out a statue of Abraham Lincoln in a graveyard up on Calton Hill, but we didn’t look at exactly the right time. Kelly was disappointed not to see it. We did see the house where Robert Louis Stevenson lived as a boy.

We stopped back in the internet café to see if I had a message back from Sherpa about the luggage (not yet), and then went over to Jenners, the big fancy department store in Edinburgh. There are many Scottish things I would buy if this were just a two-week trip! Kelly and I would both like wool tartan scarves. We couldn’t take a train back till after 6:11 pm due to restrictions on our “cheap day return” ticket, so we still had a little time… we decided to visit a bookstore. This turned out to be too painful for Kelly, since she wasn’t able to buy any more books. We didn’t stay long and waited out the rest of our time at the station.

Charley was at the Inverkeithing station to meet us…. he seemed to have enjoyed his day, though he didn’t get the haircut he had planned. Kelly and I told him about our good day. We really did have a wonderful time, though it seemed odd not to be with Charley.

Charley fixed soup and sandwiches for dinner, and then we started watching a really good video series that we found in the cottage—Our Darling Buds of May… apparently a television miniseries… very British, very funny… and featuring a very young Catherine Zeta-Jones, long before she became famous. We really enjoyed it. We watched the first video…stayed up till after 11:30 pm. We still have the other half to look forward to.

Wednesday, August 4

Today was “my” day alone… a bit strange really to be alone for most of a day in a foreign country while my husband and daughter went off to have a good time without me! Kelly and Charley left about 10:15 am… they walked to the train station and headed into Edinburgh. I have not learned to drive here in England, so I didn’t use the car on my own. I dawdled around the cottage… started working on my Loch Ness blog… the blog process really does take a fair amount of time, though I do enjoy it and I’m definitely glad to have a record of our big adventure. I fixed a sandwich and ate at the little table looking out across the countryside.

At 12:45 pm I started my walk into Inverkeithing… an easy walk…. down a short mowed section beginning at our cottage, then across the road to a sidewalk. The sidewalk crosses over a busy traffic roundabout… I had to be careful I was looking the right way—I still get confused with the traffic here in Britain. Charley had made me an appointment in Inverkeithing yesterday to have my hair cut. I thought I understood where I was supposed to go, but when I went in the beauty salon at 1:05, they had no record of an appointment for me at 1:15 pm and couldn’t take me until 2:30. I asked if there was another salon… fortunately there was, and the second salon was where I was supposed to be.

They were setting up a carnival on the main street of Inverkeithing—the woman in the salon said this was part of a Highland Games coming up this weekend. It seems we’ve missed several things like this in the towns where we’ve stayed… they always seem to be scheduled right after we leave!

I was very nervous about the haircut—my first in a foreign country. I’ve been going to the same hairdresser for about eight years, and I have thick, wavy hair that she knows very well. I’ve waited a bit over two months to get this haircut… at home I’d normally have it cut—and colored—every five weeks or so. I would never be able to wait two months. Of course, I got it cut extremely short right before we left. I haven’t used a curling iron since we left and sometimes haven’t even used a blow dryer. I decided not to get my hair colored – it would be very expensive and I think also more risky. Charley says the color looks fine, but I’m not sure about his input… and would he really tell me it looks bad?? I’ve decided to wait a while and see what’s really underneath this color I’ve had done for the past ten years. Will I find out that I’m totally gray? I’m hoping all this outdoor living will brighten up whatever my real color now is….

My haircut was great—I was extremely pleased with it. The woman was young, extremely thin and very attractive. She said she had a 13 year old daughter, but she may have been as young as 30. She was very efficient—not a big conversationalist and not really interested in me or our trip, which is fine… as long as I got a good haircut! I couldn’t understand her very well anyway, but she did say she grew up in Edinburgh… right on the Royal Mile.

I stopped in the Post Office to get a paper and some mailing envelopes, then walked briskly back to the cottage. It’s about a mile. It’s only about a mile to Cedar Bluff Road at home, but I’d never walk there to run an errand… maybe for exercise, but not just to go there. Our lifestyle in America is very much one that revolves around driving. I’ve enjoyed the emphasis on walking in Britain.

When I got back to the cottage I saw Yvonne through the hedge, mowing the grass at the cottage next door. We talked for a few minutes, and I told her how much we appreciated all the special touches in the cottage. She’s been a very thoughtful owner. I still had a couple of hours before Charley and Kelly were due back. I knew they would take the same 6:25 train that Kelly and I had taken yesterday. I read, worked on the blog, played spider solitaire… not especially productive, but relaxing. I was disappointed the weather wasn’t warmer and sunnier… I would have enjoyed sitting out in the pretty backyard.

Charley and Kelly got in about 7:15 pm. They had a great day too—they went on the bus tour of the city with our tickets from yesterday, and Kelly saw the statue of Abraham Lincoln this time. They ate at Burger King and went to the National Gallery of Art. The highlight of their day was seeing Prince Phillip, who was there to open a new section of the gallery. (We had seen the workers frantically trying to finish this yesterday.) Kelly was anxious to show me the photos she had taken of the prince, but her digital camera memory stick is messed up again and we couldn’t see the pictures. Kelly was devastated. They even brought me a present—a little sit-on pad for the walk like we had gotten Kelly for her birthday.

I fixed Chinese stir-fry for dinner… the last time we’ll have this for a while. Our cottage even has a wok and good wok tools. After dinner we watched the rest of Our Darling Buds of May. In this episode the family was vacationing in France. We really enjoyed this program and we sorry it was over. Kelly fixed one of her special desserts—she’s become the dessert queen on this trip. We stayed up way too late again—so much for our intention to start a new pattern and be in bed by 10 pm!

Thursday, August 5

The weather today was very strange…. extremely foggy and cool. We slept in and were lazy around the house in the morning…. I continued my work on my blog. Charley had made me an appointment at the Inverkeithing library for 11:30 am so I could use the internet there. He and Kelly dropped me off and drove over to Dumfermline (birthplace of Andrew Carnegie, among other things) to try to find an electronic shop that could help with Kelly’s digital camera problem. She desperately wants to retrieve the Prince Phillip pictures.

Inverkeithing has just a small library but three nice computers (fast connection) that I could use for free. The librarian was very nice. Charley and Kelly picked me up after an hour. The advice they got at the electronics store would have required them to delete the Prince Phillip photos and reformat the memory stick. They decided not to do that and see if they can somehow find a solution through Sony.

We planned to do a long walk today—maybe seven or eight miles—our last preparation for the big trek across England that we’ll begin on Sunday. On his “day” Charley had researched possible walks, and we had decided to walk on the Fife Coastal Path. This is an 81-mile path that goes around the entire coast of the “kingdom” of Fife, from the Forth Bridge near Inverkeithing to the Tay Bridge near Dundee. We had picked a section of the path that began about 20 miles from our cottage and went through several fishing villages.

We decided to do the “scenic” tourist drive around the coast to get to our starting point, hoping it would warm up and the fog would life. We could not see the Forth bridges from the cottage at all this morning… and could just barely see the fields across the street. We packed a lunch and had our hiking clothes on, but honestly… perhaps it was the weather… none of us were very enthused about walking.

We spotted a park in the town of Kirkcaldy (birthplace of the famous economist Adam Smith). According to the sign, the park was right next to Ravenscraig Castle—built in 1460. We couldn’t see a castle at all and had no sense that we were anywhere near the coast—it was so foggy. It was also very cool… the car thermometer said it was 15.5C, about 60. It was really too cool to enjoy our lunch sitting at a picnic table.

We continued our drive along the coast to the fishing village of St. Monans where we planned to start our walk. We had just a few instructions Charley had printed off the internet, but the route was supposed to be well marked. We parked in a public lot and used some restrooms near a park. A sign pointed the way to the windmill, which was supposed to be on the route. We headed the way the sign pointed… across the park and through a holiday caravan (trailer) park… and came out on a road near a bus stop. No windmill, no harbor or coast, no coastal path… and no more signs. We started down the road and saw the top of the school near where we had parked. When we got to the school, there was our car. Charley said, “Let’s not walk today,” and neither Kelly nor I protested. We simply weren’t motivated at all. If it had been a gorgeous sunny day, we probably would have felt differently. So after 1/4th of a mile, we took off our boots. We think some kids turned the sign so that it pointed in the wrong direction. We decided instead to drive to another fishing village called Anstruther, which would have been the turnaround point for our walk. When we got to Anstruther, we parked and walked around on the harbor front… a busy place! We had afternoon tea at a restaurant and looked in a shop or two, then decided to drive on to St. Andrews, famous as the home of golf. There are seven golf courses in St. Andrews—the most famous is called the Old Course.

St. Andrews was a big, busy place and we could tell that in better weather it would be very pretty. There’s a major old university, and we also saw the ruins of an old cathedral (beautiful in the fog) and also an old castle. The parking was a strange arrangement (you had to go into designated shops and buy a sticker to put on your car), so we decided not to park and get out of our car. We did see one of the big golf courses outside the town—we’ve seen lots of golf courses in Scotland. Despite the weather, people are always golfing. We also saw a shaggy Highland cow in a field and stopped to take its picture.

We took an inland route most of the way back to our cottage. The fog lifted once we were away from the coast, and it was very pretty with crops, cows and sheep… quite different than the Highlands near Loch Ness. I was sorry we hadn’t done this drive on a prettier day. We passed by a lot of modern industry and office buildings in the Edinburgh suburbs. We got back to the cottage about 5:00 pm and decided to call it a day. I had major work to do on my blog, and we also started organizing our packing. We’re trying to consolidate to one large bag that we’ll share on the walking tour. We’ll bury the laptop in this bag and also will carry our laptop bag with our papers and books. We hope Sherpa can store our other two big bags for us and get them to us at the end of the walk in Robin Hood’s Bay. My fingers are crossed that I’ll get a positive answer from Sherpa on this when I check the internet tomorrow. Charley also started working on our laundry this evening… a slow process since we have a combination washer/dryer.

Charley and Kelly went out into the woods one last time in hopes of seeing a badger… they did see a deer, but it seems that Kelly will not see a badger on this trip. Charley and I were up very late, probably till midnight. We are getting very excited—and a little nervous—about our walk.

Friday, August 6

I had an appointment to use the internet back at the library at 9:30 am… right when it opened. Charley dropped me off and the nice librarian even offered me a cup of coffee. The cottage is only a five-minute drive from Inverkeithing, so he left Kelly there still sleeping. I posted my Loch Ness blog and finished up on e-mail. I did hear from Trina at Sherpa, and we will be able to store the two big bags. Charley and Kelly picked me up about 11:00 am, and we went back to the cottage to have lunch and finish our laundry and packing. We have everything for the walking trip in my big blue duffel and our three backpacks. My things have been split between Charley and Kelly’s duffels. I cleaned out the kitchen… we have packed a few small items like spices in our luggage, but have finished up or thrown away everything else we have accumulated over the past eight weeks. Tomorrow is really the beginning of another phase of our trip—the Walk Across England—as we finish up the eight weeks I’ve called Self Catering in England and Scotland.

By 4:00 pm we were finished with our chores and drove over to the Inverkeithing Station to take the train into Edinburgh. Tonight was one of the big events of our trip—the Military Tattoo at Edinburgh Castle. We were fortunate that our last night near Edinburgh was the first night of the Tattoo, a unique performance that’s been an annual tradition for 55 years. I bought our tickets on the internet all the way back in January!

This was Kelly’s fourth trip to Edinburgh this week, and she has become very comfortable and confident in the city. We made a quick stop at the EasyInternetCafe… we do not expect to have internet access for most of the next three weeks. We had decided to have dinner at the Mexican restaurant where we had eaten lunch on Monday. We were seated downstairs—the restaurant is much bigger than we realized. Our meal was great—but very expensive ($100 US), more than double what we had paid for the same amount of food at lunch! We couldn’t imagine spending $100 for a Mexican meal at home, even with two beers each. This would have been a $35 meal at El Charro at home… but it was still good… real Mexican. food.

The Tattoo was to begin at 9 pm and the ticket said the doors would open at 8:15 pm… we decided to walk up to the Royal Mile and browse in some of the shops. We had lost Kelly’s hiking hat somewhere in our travels, and she needed some type of hat for the walking trip. We found a nice Scotland ball cap at a reasonable price. When we came out of the store, we noticed a crowd of people on the Royal Mile… although it was only not even 7:30 pm, the line had already formed for the Tattoo. We joined the line and eventually began to make our way up the street to Edinburgh Castle. We had to go through security and show the inside of our purses, which was a rather slow process. This year’s Tattoo has been controversial because there is a group performing from the People’s Republic of China for the first time. There were a number of demonstrators in the street protesting China’s inclusion in the program.

We got to our seats around 8:30 or so… good seats, but not much space to move around. Charley had his backpack with our rain gear (just in case) and was on the aisle. The man next to me—unfortunately a rather large man—was by himself and didn’t speak English. Eventually—just before the program started—all the seats filled up. I wasn’t sure they would be able to get everyone seated in time. While we were waiting, the announcer began to call the names of various countries and people shouted and raised their hands when their country was called. There were lots of Americans, and of course we shouted and raised our hands. The man next to me raised his hand for Switzerland… not too many Swiss in the audience. It was a beautiful evening… we didn’t need the rain gear or even our jackets.

The Tattoo was one of the most amazing musical performances I have ever attended. The setting—just outside Edinburgh Castle—was inspiring. Bleachers seating maybe 8000 people had been constructed on three sides, with the castle as the fourth side of the rectangle. The castle was lit with spotlights and gas lanterns. The program began with a fighter jet passing just overhead, then the bagpipers and drum corps… several of them… came marching out of the castle, a mass of colors and marching and music. The program had a military theme… various groups that marched and played… from several different countries. There were also a couple of bands, singers and folk dancers from other countries. Apparently different international groups are included every year, though none from the USA this year. This year’s program included groups from India, Australia, South Africa, and the People’s Republic of China. We especially liked the Queen’s Colour Squadron from the Royal Air Force. They did a precision march with bayonets… fortunately everyone marched in exactly the right place! The People’s Republic group was also very very good. We were worried that there might be booing, but everyone applauded politely at the beginning and then very enthusiastically at the end. One military band played a selection of big band music—a strange inclusion in this program. We got very excited when they played Chattanooga Choo-Choo. The finale was spectacular—all 1000 performers on the grounds at the same time. The audience sang together the National Anthem (God Save the Queen!) and then held hands and swayed to Auld Lang Syne. They also sang a hymn called Abide With Me, that we didn’t know. Then the lights went down with a spotlight on one lone piper up on the battlements of the Castle. The performers marched out of the Esplanade to a burst of Scottish pipes and drums once again—simply wonderful!

The program lasted until about 10:45 pm. We needed to catch one of the last two trains back to Inverkeithing and had planned our route back to the station. We caught the second to the last train, at about 11:20 pm. We sat across from a family with two grown daughters who had been in Edinburgh to see a play in the Fringe Festival that a third daughter was involved in. They had lived in America for several years and maybe all of the daughters had been born there. The daughter Kelly and I sat across from had done a major backpacking trip in Asia and Australia after college and had married an Australian and now lived in Australia. Her trip seemed much more adventurous than ours! We got back to the cottage close to midnight, humming the songs of the Scottish bagpipes. Fortunately all our packing was done… we’re leaving early in the morning to drive to Carlisle and turn in our trusty rental car. Then we take a train to St. Bees on the Irish Sea, where we begin our 190-mile trek across England on Sunday morning.