Come Dine With Me

In the evenings in Scotland, we would relax and watch the tellie. We indulged in two funny local television shows --- “Border Patrol” and “Come Dine with Me”. Both are reality shows; one chronicles the exploits of the Border Police as they apprehend dimwitted perpetrators at the airport customs check. “Come Dine with Me”was my favorite – it plays two or three times a night so we got to enjoy it multiple times. This show pairs up four very incompatible people, who take turns putting on a dinner party for each other over four consecutive nights. Each participant then ranks the others’ event in rude and uncomplimentary terms, and the highest scorer wins a thousand pounds, after having to endure humiliating and awkward dinner conversation with people they don’t particularly like.  

 

On our second day in Moffat, we took a really nice hike up the Mare’s Tail Falls. 

 

Goats on the trail ahead of us

At the lake at the top of the falls

Once we reached the top of the falls and took our share of pictures, Sharon and I hiked back and traveled down the road for a spot of tea and some scones, while Bob and Gordon continued the hike around the Loch and met us when we returned to town. As we sipped our tea at the little roadside stop across from a beautiful lake, we met Annie, a woman a little older than us who had cycled about 10 kilometers down the hill from her village and had also stopped for tea to take the chill off.  Annie explained that she originally came from the part of Scotland above Glasgow that is a peninsula “shaped like a penis”.  I had to laugh. 

Sharon and I returned to town and did a little shopping at Lothlorian – a really cool antique shop full of lots of old china and tea sets.  We each bought a set of “fish knives” which are silver plated knives a little wider than butter knives, with beautiful scrollwork etched into the blade, and a set of matching forks. I also bought some silver teaspoons and later in Ireland, I found a beautiful spode tea cup/saucer to complete my collection.

Arn Magh Fada

Our visit in Moffat (Arn Magh Fada in Scottish Gaelic, meaning The Long Plain) was wonderful, and it was great to have a few days of quiet time with Gordon and Sharon.  I am providing a link to Sharon’s blog, because she does such a good job of describing the serenity of village life in Moffat.  http://thenimh56.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-kissing-gate.html  This particular entry of Sharon's describes the walk we took on our first day in Moffat.

We took a beautiful walk up a boggy hillside to the edge of the woods, stopping at the kissing gate for a brief interlude before rambling down the trail past small streams and lots of beautiful country landscapes.

Sharon says these trees are lucky when planted on your property

 

 

 

And who could forget those helpful signs? This one inspired great confidence after we’d just traversed a big, open pasture.  It’s bad enough to have to worry about charging cows, but landmines??   I wonder if there is much of a market for wooden legs in Scotland?

Then there was this sign, regarding the Dog Fouling (Scotland) Act 2003!  I wonder if there was a companion Dog Fouling (England) and Dog Fouling (Wales) Act as well?  Maybe those signs had different types of dogs on their placard?  Little Yorkies with commensurately smaller smoking piles?

The walk back to town had more beautiful scenery to enjoy.

 

 

 

 

After our walk, we headed into town to visit the weekly Farmer’s market and do some exploring at the graveyard.

 

I especially loved this gravestone.  "His life was spent in relieving the depressed.  Erected by his friend - 1776".   What a wonderful tribute and legacy.     We finished off the day with a visit to one of the local pubs for some Speckled Hen IPA, Guinness, and Carlisle, then a quick clean up and off to a dinner of local specialties – steak pie, pork belly, and for Bob, there was even a vegan vegetable stack, complete with a side of chips and vinegar.  A nice end to a really nice day.

Off and Running in Scotland

 

Today we slept in, then set out for a cup of coffee and a quick walk around Edinburgh in the daylight. 

Bob is happy to have his familiar Starbuck's coffee

 

One of my favorite stops was a visit to the Writer’s Museum where there was an interesting display about Robert Louis Stevenson.  As a child, I loved my RLS book, “A Child’s Garden of Verses”, and there was a small display about this book.  It seems that Stevenson in his later works, the most famous of which was  Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde, was struggling with the concept of evil surmounting good in humanity, and many of his works had themes of the triumph of evil over good, which did not earn him many points with the church at the time these things were written. 

Outside the Writer's Museum there are quotes of Scottish authors stamped into the ground.  This one:

And yet, and yet the New Road will Some Day be the Old Road too

Robert Burns:  For Man to Man the World O'er Shall Brothers be for a' that

 

I love the focus on art when civic infrastructure is built.  This cobblestone heart was built into the sidewalk on the Royal Mile.

One of the embelishments on a statue - it was raining outside so the picture is a bit gray but you get the idea.

Edinburgh Castle in the daylight.  Huge and impressive. We were too lazy to take the tour, though. 

One of the many funny pub signs in this country!
 

Adam Smith, founder of capitalism.  I had to have a picture!

 

 We picked up a phone to replace the one we’d lost at Heathrow and then set off to Stirling Castle and the William Wallace (i.e., Braveheart) monument for some sightseeing.  Despite the rain, the countryside was beautiful, and the cool weather made the cup of tea at lunchtime taste even better.  We thoroughly enjoyed a peaceful walk through the woods to the base of the monument and then up a billion spiraling stone stairs to the top of the Wallace Memorial.   

Robert the Bruce looks surprisingly like my friend Dan Ellecamp

William Wallace Monument

 

After visiting Stirling Castle, we noticed the tire damage on our rental car and that pretty much set the course of the rest of our day.  We left Stirling at about 5 PM, drove an hour to Glasgow Airport to pick up another car, and then headed south to our friend’s home in Moffat. 

One thing about the Scottish highway ministry --- they are fixated on safety.  Having had our share of terror trying to drive on the “wrong” side of the road, we could understand this.  There were lighted signs every few miles on the roadway, offering helpful advice:

“Tiredness can kill -- take a break!”  This sign was conveniently stationed just before a roadside stop where you could indulge in a “KFC Welcome Break” – yep, the Colonel is alive and well in Scotland.

“Don’t set your sat/nav while driving” followed by “Don’t talk on your mobile while driving!”  OK, sensible enough.  But I loved the next two -  “Drive Courteously” and “Drive Efficiently”-- What does “Drive Efficiently” mean anyway???

The only sign which was missing, but was sorely needed, was “Look out for foreign drivers – they don’t know what the hell they are doing or where the hell they are going, and they are likely to mow you down on the wrong side of the road with little or no warning!”

One day, when rambling through the countryside with Gordon and Sharon, we left the town of Leadville (yes, that’s right, as in Lead, the toxic mineral- it was an old mining town), and we entered South Lanarkshire, with its town motto of “Thriving on Safe Driving”.  I wonder if they had issues with the driving habits of the lead-intoxicated residents of the neighboring town. which resulted in the extra special need to pay attention to their driving safety?  The next day, another small town boasted “We Pride Ourselves on Roadside Safety” although judging from the condition of this town’s pothole-ridden, very, very narrow and winding roads, I am thinking this was more wishful thinking than statement of fact. 

All the emphasis on automobile safety served its purpose of making us completely paranoid about our driving, and we were happy to arrive at the Corsie’s warm and inviting home on Saturday night, to enjoy a delicious dinner of homemade minestrone soup and fresh bread, along with a very nice bottle of wine. 

Gordon and Sharon greet us when we finally arrive!

 

Welcome to Edinburgh! Haste Ye Back!

I loved this sign on all the doors at the airport

We arrived at our hotel in Edinburgh on Friday night, with a light rain falling.  Our hotel innkeeper pointed the way to the Royal Mile, a street that stretched between the Holyrood Palace (where Mary Queen of Scots was kept under house arrest prior to her execution) and Edinburgh Castle.  The street housed a mile of pubs, liquor stores (well, scotch whiskey stores, to be exact), and kilt shops.  I think the hope was that you’d crawl your way through the pubs, top off with a substantial whiskey tasting, and then lose all reason, and buy a kilt.   I think Bob might look good in a kilt, after all.  Well, maybe not “after all”, but at least after a pint of Guinness and a few shots of Scotch!

We started out with a walk from Holyrood Palace to the castle, and then we circled back to find a place to eat.  There was a highly rated restaurant called The Witchery which we tried to get into at 8 PM on a Friday night, but were turned away due to lack of reservations (unless we wanted to eat at 10:30 PM).  Instead, we selected a pub called Deacon Brody’s which had a lively bar downstairs and a cozy dining room upstairs.  The Guinness was great, the atmosphere fun, but the food was severely lacking that evening.  Not that we cared – anything would have tasted good after the day we’d had. 

My dinner sounded promising - sea bass with mashed potatoes and seasonal vegetables, while Bob ordered a vegetable pie.  The description of his dish was tantalizing – butternut squash, onions, and mushrooms in a pastry crust.  Unfortunately, both dishes seemed to have been cooked the day before then placed under a heat lamp for one to two hours until sufficiently dried to the consistency of beef jerky.  The fish was about as thick as a piece of stiff cardboard and tasted about the same.  The squash in Bob’s pie tasted as if it had been freeze-dried and only partially reconstituted.  We noticed the person across from us having similar issues with her squash – both Bob and this woman had built a little cairn of brown-orange cubes set on the side of the plate.  The poor couple next to us had it worse, though.  His dinner of prime rib and potatoes arrived with an apology from the kitchen – “Sorry to tell you there was a mix up in the order and your companion’s dish was not made, but will be up shortly.  I’ve brought a second plate in case you want to share your dinner with her.”  Oh, well, OK, the guy said.  His dinner looked and apparently tasted delicious. The couple slowly finished it trying to buy time waiting for hers to arrive.  After they had been done for 15 minutes or so, her dish was finally delivered.  At least hers appeared to be succulent and freshly made – she’d also ordered the sea bass – and the waitress told her she was sure the bill would be adjusted to reflect the inconvenience. 

 

Waiting for our dinners in the Deacon Brody dining room

 

Deacon Brody's - who could resist such a cute pub??

 

After dinner, we wandered through the whiskey stores and went into a really quaint, old bar to taste a flight of smoky, peaty whiskeys from the bar’s selection of over 100 bottles.  Scotch is definitely an acquired taste, and it was interesting to note how different the spirits tasted from each other.   We wrote down the names of some of the more interesting bottles, and when we returned to our room I searched Bevmo online to compare prices – very similar, so no need to lug a fragile bottle around with us.  Also, we had 40 pounds of coupons from Virgin for use on inflight shopping, so maybe a bottle would make its way home with us that way.  (We got the Virgin coupons as a “thank you” for volunteering to give up our seats on the flight from SF to Heathrow; turns out our seats weren’t needed but to say “thanks anyway”, the airline provided the vouchers).

 

 

We finished off the night with a really nice cheese course and then strolled home down the royal mile, feeling all romantic in the misty rain and golden glow of street lights on the medieval buildings.

Murphy's Law, Revisited

Murphy's Law, Revisited

 

Bob and I had the good fortune of being invited to visit our friends at their home in Scotland this fall.  Although we had several months' advance notice, we deliberately made no plans or arrangements other than booking our airfare, so this trip would have a chance at being a happy-go-lucky jaunt through the British Isles, beginning with Scotland and then moving on to visit relatives in Ireland.  Well, I don't know if it was the lack of planning, jet lag or just plain old senility, but Murphy's Law kicked in and all we can do now is laugh about it and wonder what the heck is the matter with us. 

We look so happy, before all the "fun" began!

 

Starting off the trip, our neighbor Bryan drove us to the airport and Bob left his phone in the car after we were dropped off.  Since he is constantly texting the girls, Bob realized it was missing before Bryan got too far away, and got the phone back before we finished checking in. 

Then, after landing at Heathrow for a 5 hour layover before heading up to Edinburgh, Bob somehow misplaced his phone again.  He noticed it was missing as we were sitting down for lunch, because I suddenly realized I'd left my laptop at the security checkpoint and in my panic, he started fumbling for his phone and found it was also gone.  I got my laptop back without issue, but Bob was not so lucky.  To make matters worse, this was a new iphone5, his second in two weeks.  He'd just replaced the first one because it went through the washing machine, presumably to rinse off the salt water from when he dropped it into Tomales Bay the week before that.  The bright side:  a good samaritan German tourist found the phone and took it home.  He called Marie to make arrangements to return it, and I believe it's on its way back to the States right now.  In the meantime, we bought a basic phone in Scotland for about $25.00 and now I am in charge of it.  Although that is not really much comfort....

 

After stressing over the phone (before we knew it was getting returned) we decided there was nothing that could be done, so we did a little shoppping at Heathrow and then I sat down with my newly recovered laptop to book a hotel in Scotland. After nearly finalizing my hotel reservation, I clicked on a link to view the parking and cancellation policies.  Little did I know that when I was returned to the reservation form, the dates of my reservation had defaulted back to some kind of standing date, which was December 10, 2012.  I completed my reservation and paid the non-cancellable fee before noticing this. Ugh!!  I tried to change the date using the "amend my reservation" button, but apparently that button is only meant for people with a working brain.  For people like me there was only a rude message reminding me my reservation was non-cancellable.  I booked a seccond reservation for that evening, hoping I could work something out with the front desk.  And, as luck would have it, the people of Scotland are nice and pleasant and are accustomed to senile old women. They very cheerfully fixed the mess I'd created and sent us on our way to the pubs to unwind after a very long day.

 

The next day, when we were refreshed, we did a little local sight-seeing then headed back to the airport to pick up our rental car and begin our journey to our friend's home in Moffat, with a detour to Stirling Castle and the monument to William Wallace (of "Braveheart" fame).  On the way there, we had a close encounter with a curb which ended up damaging the rental car tire to the tune of about $300.  The car agency told us to go to the nearest Hertz location to change the car, which happened to be Glasgow Airport, but upon arriving, they had no cars of any type available.  What next????  We begged and pleaded and eventually they found a car for us, called a "Juke".  Not as nice as the Audi we had, but at least it fit our monstrous amount of luggage.  So again, everything worked out. 

 

We spent several fun days with our friends, then departed today to head over by ferry to Ireland.  ViaMichelin, the MapQuest-equivalent over here, said to estimate 4.5 hours of driving time.  Our ferry left at 2:10 PM so we left Moffat at about 7 AM.  About an hour into the route, the GPS started talking to us, telling us there were traffic issues ahead.  It kindly informed us it was redirecting our route which took us off the main freeway and onto a winding maze of little side streets, all the while adding time to our trip. We did not have a reliable map so we were at the mercy of this demonic GPS.  At 11 AM, we pulled off to get fuel, and Guess What?  Another mishap.  Unleaded fuel into the Diesel engine.  UGHHHHHHH.  What NEXT????  We called Clyde the Mechanic who came down to siphon our tank, for the low price of only $200. And now we realized we are most likely going to miss our ferry.  OK, enough stress for one day. I decided to call the ferry company and change our tickets to the 5 PM ferry, and just pay the $30 change fee.  Except, due to the terrible storms that day, the 5 PM highspeed ferry had been cancelled and the next available ferry was not until the next day.  That meant paying the change fee and losing one night's deposit on our hotel in Dublin - another $150.   OK, give up on that idea. We are going to make that ferry.  The good news?  Bob was able to get us to the terminal with about 15 minutes to spare.  We ran inside to drop off the rental car......except the port rental car office was closed and a kindly sign suggested we drive into town and drop the car there.  Only a 5 minute walk back to the ferry building, it assured us.  Forget it.  We left the keys at the closed desk and called the car company and told them to come pick up the car.  No idea if that is going to cost us or not.  Don't care.  We made the ferry - last ones to board - arrived in Dublin and made it without incident to our hotel, where we are now hunkered down and getting ready for bed. 

In the US, diesel has a green handle.  In Scotland Unleaded has a green handle - hence the confusion!

 

These guys must make a killing siphoning out tanks, at the rates they charge!

 

 

After disembarking the ferry, Bob is still shell-shocked, so we commemorated the day with some shell-fish.  Oysters and Mussels, yum!