Going Home.......back to Scotland

The first time I went to Scotland was back in 1993.  My husband's cousin, Jackie, was getting married and my friend and I were going to the wedding.  Jackie had lived with Gordon and I for 6 months after Jillian was born.  She helped with the transition back to work for me.  Jackie was just 18 then and now she was getting married and I wanted to be there for her wedding.

Jackie and I post-wedding.

Jackie's Dad, Gordon's Uncle, George and I.

Alastair and Jackie at a truly lovely Scottish wedding.

We were only there one full week but never got on the Scottish time zone.  That's back before I was aware of Ambien and the wonderful effects it has on helping to adjust your inner time clock.  Basically, my friend and I were zombies for one week.....awake when we should have been sleeping and awake when we were supposed to be awake and mostly at the Scottish pubs with friends having a wonderful time.

Me, Jimmy's girlfriend, Marsha and Isa at a local pub.

In 1993 the twins had just turned 2 and Jillian wasn't quite 5 yet.  Back before my elementary school-mom days began and my life revolved around school schedules and after-school play dates and music lessons and sporting events, etc.

Gordon's mum, Isa, lived alone in Edinburgh at the time of my first visit in a very lovely small home that backed to a golf course just out of the City Center.  It was decided that my friend and I would stay at Isa's friend, Jimmy.  He lived in a quite posh West End neighborhood with his girlfriend in downtown Edinburgh.  The three story town home sat across from a beautiful gated and locked park on Belgrave Crescent.  The park had the most glorious and in full bloom rhododendrons I have ever seen.

The gardens at Belgrave Crescent.

It was May and a beautiful month to visit Scotland.  Of course it rained....it wouldn't be Scotland if it didn't.

I wouldn't return to Scotland until 2004.  I worked my tush off during those years raising our three daughters, working in the school system and generally trying to make the world as pleasant, healthy and fun a place for my family as I could.  Each of those years Isa would come to visit us sometimes twice a year.  During the summer and at Christmas.  It was wonderful having her around and her visits would last anywhere from 4 to 7 weeks.  Because she was able to come over so frequently, Gordon and I did not travel to Scotland.  Of course it would have been fairly hard for one or the other of us to be gone (remember my family is all on the East Coast and Gordon is an only child and away from his country) and the cost exorbitant.  Besides, Isa only really wanted to be with the girls anyway!

That all changed in 2003.  Isa's last visit to California occurred on her 70th birthday in 2003.  She announced to us that there was no way she could continue the journey to California.  For those of you who haven't made the journey...it's a 10 hour flight from San Francisco to London/Heathrow or Amsterdam (the two most convenient and closest airports) then another hour flight to Edinburgh.  But then there's the layover in whichever city/country you fly into and that can be anywhere from 1 1/2 hours in Amsterdam to 3 hours in London.  OR, and this is what we like to do, you can fly from SFO to Newark and then from Newark directly into Edinburgh.  You see, when the airport at Edinburgh was built they constructed it with a minimum runway length therefore only short haul flights can land into Edinburgh.  AND, the runway is built at the edge of the Firth of Forth and there isn't room for expansion so that long haul flights can land there thus the need to "layover" somewhere in order to take a smaller aircraft into Edinburgh.  Whew!  So for poor Isa, it made for a VERY long day to travel from Edinburgh to Heathrow and into San Francisco.  BTW, flying into Heathrow is okay if you are going to stay in London or continue your travel to another country via the international terminal.  If you must travel within the United Kingdom on another flight and need to transfer to the domestic terminal from the international terminal YOU MUST allow yourself at least a 3 hour layover. Ya know the Brits need their tea breaks and such!  This is why we don't fly into Heathrow.

So beginning in 2004, we started making annual trips to visit Isa.  She had moved from Edinburgh  into the home we now have in Moffat in '03; a bigger home with a yard only a couple of blocks from the High Street. In 2004 we took the girls to Edinburgh to see their father's haunts and then down to Moffat and then into London.

Arrival at Heathrow and a tired crew waiting for our next flight!

Ali at the Edinburgh Castle.

Jillian likes a good piper!

Each year since we have taken a child with us and, additionally, Gordon visited his Mum on his own.  In 2007, after a cruise from Dover to Rome, we went to visit Isa for a week and bid her farewell in November. It was the last time we saw her.  She passed from kidney complications the last day of January 2008.

We were in Scotland, obviously, in February '08 for Isa's service.  At that point we decided to keep her house at least two years before making any decision to sell it.  So each year we have returned for 4 or 5 weeks to enjoy the countryside and explore Scotland.

The first year we visited Melrose and Melrose Abbey where Robert the Bruce's heart is buried.  We went to Abbotsford to see Sir Walter Scott's home. Gordon very happily got to put his hand in RobRoy's actual sword!  By the way, there is a fabulous clock on the entry mantle that was sent to Walter Scott from Marie Antoinette before the French Revolution.  This magnificent home sits on the Tweed River in The Border region of Scotland.  We have also visited the Solway Firth to see the "beach" and the tides with our friends Maureen and Hunter from Moffat.

On other visits we have driven about 40 minutes south into England to go to the Lake District in the Cumbrian Mountains and up to the Highlands where we rode the "Harry Potter" train to Mallaig, a tiny fishing village in northwest Scotland.  We stayed at a quaint, if overdressed, B&B called Tigh Na Bruach (ha, can you say that?  Teeg-na-braw) right on Loch Ness.  Alas, Nessy must have been sleeping that 3 days cause she didn't show her face.  We also went to this still liveable castle called Eileen Donan on route to the Isle of Skye while in the Highlands and stood at the base of Ben Nevis, the highest moutain in Great Britain.

Me at the base of Ben Nevis!

On another trip we went to Kirkcudbright, a two hour drive from our home toward the west coast of Scotland.  A little farther and we would have been at the ferry to Ireland.  Okay here's your history lesson for the day.  While in Kirkcudbright, which by the way is pronounced Ka-coo-bury (those crazy Scotsmen!), we went into the old Tolbooth (jail) for a visit.  Guess who was the most famous prisoner?  John Paul Jones for raping a young woman.  Do you know who that is?  The father of our U.S. Navy!  Nice huh? He was born John Paul, a nobody, not far from Kirkcudbright and added the name Jones later.  When he was young he went to sea as a cabin boy on a merchant vessel and learned the ropes of sailing ships. Anyway, he escaped from jail, ended up in the West Indies where he murdered a mutineer and boarded a ship for the States.  He ended up in Philadelphia, got into the infant navy and before you know it was the first commissioned navel lieutenant commissioned by the Continental Congress.  Right place at the right time eh? He actually signed the Declaration of Independence (the only rapists lets hope).  He crossed the Atlantic again and sailed for the French East Indiaman where he defeated a British Royal Navy Frigate (remember he's British but running from the law there) during which time he supposedly said "I have not yet begun to fight".    He was offered a "high command" in the Russian Navy under Catherine the Great.....but he didn't speak Russian.  He was later relieved of his command and passed time in Russian waiting for another assignment in the Baltic Fleet.  Apparently he got bored and sexually assaulted a 10 year old girl!  He never commanded a ship again and died in Paris at the age of 45.  He was to be given a pauper's grave but the French remembered him for his defeat of the Royal Naval frigate and paid for a little better burial.  100 years later the Amercians came over, found his lead coffin buried under pavement in an obscure cemetery outside Paris and Teddy Roosevelt paid to have his body moved to the U.S. Naval Academy and buried in the chapel there.  121 years after his death.  (Read about him in the biography Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman).  So there's your sad little history lesson.

We have also visited Stirling Castle  (my mother's family name is Stewart - think Mary Queen of Scots....my one possible claim to fame!) just out side of Edinburgh and other fine local castles and beautiful remains of old Abbey's and scary cemeteries including Greyfriars Cemetery in Edinburgh!

An old grave marker in Greyfrair's Cemetery!

So after having our fill of exploring Scottish and English Castles and mansions and having hiked hill and dale, we decided that maybe it's time to use our location in the U.K. as a launching pad to see Europe.  We had already toured Italy, a quick trip into Dubrovnik, Croatia, southern France, Spain and into Casablanca, Morocco. Next we went to Paris for 6 days; last year we went to Germany on a driving tour of Castles on the Rhine; and this year we are flying into Stockholm and boarding a ship to tour the Scandinavian countries of the Baltic Sea.  Eleven countries in total including Southhampton in southern England.  But the really cool thing is, Jillian will be joining us for our entire 6 week vacation and cruise.

While I'm so grateful that I have had all these really wonderful travel experiences, I would trade them all to have Isa back.  She passed far too young at only 74 and she is missed every day.  Her home in Moffat feels like my home in Moffat and I can still see her there, sitting on her leather settee, standing at the door blowing us a kiss as we drive away.  Her property has offered us a terrific opportunity for exploration and we have been lucky enough to take full advantage and look forward to our upcoming trip.

My next blog will be from Scotland where the wonderful "Noise in My Head" might be the wind "blowin' a gale" or the rain pounding down on a summer's night that will feel like fall.  Until then.