Farewell to Scotland.

After a night in a wee Scottish town that started with one of the letters of the alphabet, we headed out for our last day in Scotland. A surprisingly good sleep on the main road and near the pub, and once I had ripped the soul out of the noisy clock on the wall. 

A standard bed and breakfast, breakfast with the hero once more being a pastry filled with choc chips.

In our last battle between car gps and Google maps, Google won out, depositing us on the front steps of Avis by 10am.

As I feared, the walk to Edinburgh Waverley station was mainly uphill, part cobble stone, but after 3 weeks of mountain and stair climbing, it wasn't too bad.

2 pasties and 4 hours later we were in London. The Harry Potter luggage trolley at platform 9 3/4  at King's Cross station was easy to find. It was surrounded by a million people.

We declined a one hour wait and headed to Wimbledon. We had promised to cook dinner for Jeremy and Claire, who were coming in from Denmark, so we mosied on up the street to our favourite supermarket from the past. Morrison's closed at 5pm. Tesco closed at 5pm. It's Sunday. Luckily we stumbled on an open shop and garlic lemon chicken was the result. 

A good sleep only interrupted by meowing cats once. (Editor: I was disturbed twice)

The Home of Golf

Just a 90 minute drive with some factory outlet stops on the way. I suspect another brooch was purchased just hours after the Springsteen decision. I need that overtime shift on the 13th.

We made our way to St Andrews. It is nothing like I imagined but I would hit the 1st fairway (although the guy we watched missed the course). I would almost drive the 18th, and I would also put my tee shot on the 17th straight into the hotel. The valley of sin looks less scary than on TV. The Tom Watson chip in spot looks different,  but the green of the Road Hole looks impossible. 

We did a 1 hour walking tour. Would I play the course? Probably not. I need trees on a course.

We had lunch in the clubhouse. At last, proper chips. Yeah, I know I said no more chips, but what can you do?

We decided to wander around town, ignoring all of the golf shops, and seeing one last church and one last castle.

A short drive to a small town somewhere between St Andrews and Edinburgh. A ham roll and pepsi for dinner (a new low for me) and it's now 10pm. I suspect an alarm going off tomorrow as we have car returns and trains to catch. 

Late addition. I really need the Mars Bar near the fridge. 

The Last Castle

While being confused by Google maps last night, we discovered that Stirling Castle was above us and an easy walk away. 

We decided to do the tour, which was an excellent choice as the tour guide was fazza (sorry, I just drifted off to the 70s for a moment - fazza = fantastic). 

Two hours of castle walking and it was a quick retreat down to our accommodation, a hastily made peanut butter sandwich and then a drive to find out about the Battle of Bannockburn and why the Scottish hate the English. Even though I'm on holidays I am learning (I even got an English history question right on the Chaser last night that the fat smart guy didn't know.

Back in the car and off to the other side of town to the William Wallace monument. A ten minute uphill walk was greeted with 246 mainly spiral stairs up to the top. I just want to know how they built it, but that info does not exist. Back down the stairs,  246 I think, and possibly our last scone session for the holiday.

Home for some food and then the strangest thing happened. Seems like we just purchased tickets to see The Boss in Austin Texas next February. I guess I'm not quitting work yet.

Deaf as....

Hearing is a bit shonky today. Pigged out at breakfast, because I could. Another alarm clock start but thankfully we navigated out of Glasgow. 

We did a walk to the Kelpies, which is two horses heads near a canal system (hopefully the photos can explain)

Then to the Wheel of Falkirk. It's a wheel that lifts a boat from the lower level canal to a higher level (see pictures again). It saves on having to build and operate locks, as well as time - it would have previously taken all day for canal boats to go through all the necessary locks whereas this system takes 5 minutes.

We went from lower to higher and back again. This is almost as good as a good waterfall.

I did get detained by local police for urinating in the canal but was released after pleading stupidity.

We travelled to an old town (Culross),

drove up a narrow road to see a castle that was fenced off and behind a massive tree (Castle Campbell), 

There were also some bad waterfalls.

Then it was off to Stirling for a couple of nights but mainly to use the washing machine as one of us is running out of clothes.

We are high on a hill and have a kitchen so it was time to actually cook something. I decided it was time to run somewhere so did a couple of km's looking for shops. It turns out I went the opposite direction but we did find  Tesco later, got ourselves two nights of meals (including something called vegetables). Cooking? Washing? Getting ready to return to reality.

Glasgow Bound

Another alarm is going off. Another cup of porridge. Another long day of driving. We had to start by 8am because that's when our parking ticket expired. 

Lots of stops and walks and castles and churches. The long walk up Dun Na Cuaiche (on the grounds of Inverary Castle) was tough but the views were worth it. Just over 90 minutes of exercise was welcomed after a few slack days.

Now I know we have sworn off chips, but somehow they made a comeback at lunch....with nachos and onion rings. Way, way too much and we should have listened to ourselves. 

The Editor may wish to add all the places we stopped (St Conan's Kirk - a lovely waterside historical church we happened upon - and Kilchurn Castle - one of the many ruins that have been closed for safety reasons).

I will say that Loch Lomond was on even par with Loch Ness for the biggest disappointment. 

It was a tough drive through the hills and winding roads. And then we got to Glasgow.

The traffic was terrible, we missed our turn off, the traffic stayed awful, but we did find a car park, which is like winning the jackpot.

We came to Glasgow for one reason, to see Rose Tattoo. It had been booked for a long time. I can't remember how it happened but we left for the concert at 7.30pm. Just as we arrived, Angry Anderson was walking across our path into the venue. He was within autograph-signing distance, but they blocked us and put up a barrier. Chance gone. I had made an Angry Anderson shirt with a photo I got from Neil Higgins (an ex-MSB work colleague) who got it from a newspaper in about 1983. The fact that I still had it says a lot about my hoarding ability. I had stated that the plan was to get Angry to sign the shirt. An hour earlier, Annette asked if I had my permanent marker ready. Oops. She went and purchased one from a shop, just in case.

Inside the venue, we got a good vantage point just behind a small seated area.....and 5m from the speakers. Probably the best spot in the house. Anyway, the concert was loud, awesome, and then it was finishing. Angry disappeared off stage as the music played, he appeared in the seated section in front of us, shaking hands and hugging people. Then he stood in front of me. I pointed to the shirt, handed him the pen and my shirt was signed. It's all a bit of a blur. Annette took a photo. Wow. This plan was hatched six months ago and it's just a bit surreal to realise how it panned out.

At some stage I hope to get my hearing back.

A Day Off Driving

Porridge in a cup in our tiny room to start the day gets my official thumbs up. A nice early morning stroll along the waterfront to board the ferry to the Isle of something or other. The Editor will put the correct answer here (Isle of Mull).

We saw a castle (Duart Castle) and some scenery before getting offboard, and hopping on a bus to do some one lane roads whilst not driving. 

We got off and had half an hour doing the tourist thing, and more importantly getting 2 sausage rolls. Of course, we needed to run the last 300m to catch the return bus and prevent waiting another 2 hours. 

The ride back at the front of the top of our double decker bus was the hero of the day.

Back on the mainland we went our separate ways. I found the local swimming pool while Annette went wool shopping. She ended up with red shoes (for future reference she purchased 1 more pair of shoes this holiday than me). 

I did buy some second hand CDs today. I ended up swimming for the first time in 3 weeks. The September triathlon training is not looking good.

For dinner we decided on takeaway from the local fish and chip shop. I have to say that I never want British chips again and that the deep fried burger was a mistake.