Tag Archives: Scotland

2021: Trying to Plan – 7Y2D COVID-19 Diaries Weeks 45 & 46

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I always forget how much I dislike this time of year until it rolls around once again and I regularly wonder what I could do to make it easier. The seemingly unending length of January combined with the cold, wet, grey days can make it a challenging time and this year, more than ever, that seems to be true as we continue in lockdown until at least mid-February at best.

At work it’s one of the busiest times of our financial year, what with the regular monthly processing and monthly management accounts to prepare as well as budget-planning and the prospect of the year-end and audit fast looming too. I’m also trying to squeeze into my diary the remaining days of annual leave I’m supposed to take in our current holiday year, which is a real mixed blessing. Like so many, I can see the signs of some COVID-fatigue amongst my colleagues, especially as we work within the care sector, but it can be difficult to take those days when you can’t go anywhere and feel that your workload is heavy. I’ve been encouraging my team to use their annual leave to take a break from the day-to-day, something I will be taking advantage of myself over the coming weeks.

Of course, planning for work made me think about our plans for the year ahead and what we could reasonably organise without too much fear of interruption. As the COVID-19 vaccines are rolled out across the UK, the opportunities to spend time once again with family and friends start to open up. My Mum had her vaccination at the start of this week, my Aunt is having hers this weekend and I’m hoping that mine will happen March or April time given I sit in priority group 6. Of course, Mike and G will have to wait considerably longer for theirs as neither is viewed as high risk and oM isn’t even eligible for it until he turns 16, which is well over a year away.

So, we have been beginning to think about our options for a holiday later this year and whilst I’d love to go to one of our much-loved previous destinations such as Florida or Greece for some much-longed-for sun, I suspect that a UK-based holiday to simply get away from it all will be what we end up with. With successful family trips to both Cornwall and Scotland under our belts in years past, we’ve been tempted to think about visiting either one again, but are also considering venturing elsewhere for something new. I’m still adverse to taking too many risks, so it needs to be somewhere with great self-catering facilities, that’s hopefully not too busy and with plenty of outside space to explore well away from too many other people. We have really become very spoilt in the last 12 months enjoying the beautiful countryside that surrounds us in splendid isolation, so I’m longing for a destination that will tick all those boxes whilst also getting us away from the same 4 walls we now know intimately after so long.

What are your plans for this year? Any favourite destinations to recommend within the UK? Nowhere is too far for us to consider and I just love going to places that others have enjoyed,

Scotland Photo Round-up 2018

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“10 days” seems to have become a mantra for our holidays over the last few years. Be it Portugal, Greece or Scotland, we’ve had some amazing fun, making memories and just spending time together. Here’s the photographic proof:

Homeward bound

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With our whistle-stop tour of Scotland almost over, there were just a couple of places left on our hit list before we finally got back home. Mike was keen to detour via the Angel of the North, whilst G was desperate to make Scarborough our destination for the last night of our holiday. The last 2 days we were spending away from home were very much going to be all about the travelling, so it was good to have a couple of pit stops already planned for the necessary toilet breaks, stretches of our legs and escape from the relatively small confines of the car.

We crossed the Scottish border around lunch-time and I just about managed to snap a quick photo of the 3 Scottish flags that were flying to mark our departure. It then took us another 2 hours to travel down to Gateshead, home to the impressive Angel of the North. For those of you who don’t know, this is another Antony Gormley sculpture and one that dominates the landscape albeit in a surprisingly unintrusive way. As always there was a small competition in the car to see which family member could spot the Angel first and as it so often is, M managed to beat G and spotted it first. We parked easily and wandered across the grass to stand beneath its incredible wingspan and just stare up at the clouds. There was a somewhat heated debate between M and Mike as to whether the wings were moving in the wind, whilst G and I left the boys to it and simply stretched our legs out before climbing back in the car for the next part of the journey.

It would be fair to say that most of us slept – except Mike as designated driver thank goodness – over the next few hours, until we finally arrived in Scarborough far too late to do much more than drive rather aimlessly through the town and look at what we could have explored if only we’d arrived a little earlier. It’s still something of a mystery as to why exactly G was so determined to visit Scarborough, but I rather suspect that it has a lot to do with the infamous song, “Scarborough Fair” and not really anything else. She didn’t have a plan for anything she wanted to visit whilst there and M’s rather fed-up quizzing of her motives resulted in nothing more than a cursory shoulder shrug and typical teenage smile.

We were all a little tired, a lot travel-weary and in desperate need of food. Thanks to a speedy bit of googling on my trusty i-phone, I managed to find a well-recommended fish and chips shop that specialised in gluten-free batter and we decided to push the boat out for one last time on our holiday and spoil us all with that little treat. The gluten-free menu at Fish and Chips at 149 in Bridlington was incredible and I would highly recommend to anyone looking for a great allergy-friendly meal. We each chose our fish and accompaniment of choice and then headed to the seafront to sit and enjoy our meal. The portions were huge, but much enjoyed and we finished the evening off with a much-needed and refreshing walk along the seafront. It was a wonderful end to a fantastic holiday, though we were all looking forward to being homeward-bound once again.

Visiting Edinburgh in every weather

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There’s been so much going on in the last few weeks and I have a lot to catch you up on, including some fantastic new recipes that have been a great addition to my kitchen, but I wanted to make sure I also took the time to tell you about the last few days of our Scottish adventures back in March. Having started in Liverpool before travelling on to Glasgow and Inverness, via Falkirk and Loch Ness, it was finally time to start our long journey home and we simply couldn’t miss out the Scottish capital city itself, Edinburgh.

Mike and I have some amazing memories of Edinburgh as it was our honeymoon destination back in 1999 and we were keen to retrace some of our steps and share some of the wonderful sights with the children for them to experience too. We had chosen to spend an extra night there and given the weather we had, it was a good thing we had made that decision. On our first full day, we caught the tram from our hotel into the city centre, before jumping on to the City Sightseeing tour bus and heading towards the castle. Edinburgh is an undoubtedly beautiful city, but we struggled to convince G and M of that as we tramped our way up Castle Rock in the cold, sleety rain and rapidly darkening grey skies.

Despite our warm winter coats, hats, gloves and scarves, M got progressively colder and more miserable as we made our way between the different exhibits you can find within the Castle grounds. One of M’s godmothers is married to a lovely military man and both children were keen to learn more about the various Scottish regiments in the regimental museum. First exhibit done, we acknowledged the need for a temporary break from the wintery weather and headed into the cafe, where we enjoyed hot drinks, some safe lunchtime food and were in place to hear the 1 o’clock gun salute.

Having warmed up enough to bring a smile back to M’s face, we convinced them to traipse around a few more exhibits before we headed back down to the bus, stopping on the way for some dry wool socks and a brand new woollen hat for M. We had originally planned to stop at the Scottish Parliament, but the weather had quite literally put a damper on our travels and instead we completed a full loop and a half, before getting off and heading to the Hard Rock Cafe for an early supper.

However, the next day was almost a complete opposite to the day before and much to our surprise, M’s yearning for a day at Edinburgh zoo was an absolute success, despite the lengthy queue to get in, as we enjoyed a beautiful, sunny and surprisingly warm spring day. G and M were particularly keen to see the pandas, but we also had great fun spotting the lions and tigers and watching the penguin parade. We didn’t perhaps do all that we had wanted whilst we were in Edinburgh, but the children enjoyed the time we had there, even the snow, and would love to go back for another visit and the chance to see a bit more when it’s not so cold.

Quiet week…?

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I wish!

I thought this week would be quiet as G is away at pony camp for her school’s enrichment week and M is busy doing “activity adventures” for his. I thought that would give me a week to catch up on writing some blog posts, finish the tales of our trip to Scotland over Easter and sort and store the photos from that said-same trip.

And then work just exploded and deadlines needed to be met – and still do to be fair – and life carried on with little consideration for my plans for the week.

Ah well, maybe that quiet week is just around the next corner?

The Hunt for Nessie…and other adventures

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Inverness was the location for yet another flying visit on our whistle-stop tour of Scotland, but was one we all enjoyed hugely and it even saw both children expressing a surprising yearning to move North as they gazed at properties in the estate agents’ windows. Inverness itself was not the primary focus of our visit, but rather nearby Loch Ness, which M insisted was a place we absolutely couldn’t even consider missing out when we were practically passing right by the proverbial doorstep. Our time spent there was tight, but we managed to squeeze in everything we wanted to do and even found an unexpected bonus before we left again to travel on to our next destination.

It was whilst we were in Inverness that the snow that had been dogging our every step finally caught up with us, but it didn’t spoil our morning’s trip to Culloden, the site of the final battle of the Jacobite rising in 1745. Despite M’s reluctant traipse around the visitor centre itself, the rest of us enjoyed the interactive displays which carefully talked the visitor through both sides of the story and depicted the events that led to the final battle. It is not a part of British history that either Mike or the children really knew at all and I enjoyed brushing up on my rather scant knowledge too. Mike and G took their time reading the displays, whilst M and I moved at his usual faster pace as I desperately tried to cut through all the facts to capture his interest in the story itself.

Being the Easter holidays, there were some great children-friendly activities available for younger visitors and they appealed to both M and G, who were fascinated to learn more about the weapons used during the battle as well as glimpsing a small insight into the household essentials of the time. We even participated in the family orientated quiz that was held in the last exhibition space and M proved once again that although he moves fast, he’s able to pick up a surprising amount of information in a short space of time and was able to answer with ease questions that left the rest of our side scratching our heads. Once we had finished exploring all that the museum had to offer on the inside, it was time to wrap up warm and venture out onto the snowy battlefield itself. Despite the grey skies and intermittent snowfall, we managed to make our way all around the site, although the return journey back to the warmth was at speed. Neither child had been particularly interested in visiting Culloden in the first place, so to make a full morning of it counted as a real success in our book!

We enjoyed a picnic lunch in the car as we travelled from Culloden to Loch Ness itself and stopped en route to take a few snaps of the beautiful scenery we were passing. Our destination for the afternoon was the Loch Ness Centre and Exhibition, which talked us through the history of Nessie and all of the scientific (and otherwise) investigations into whether she really exists. The children had the chance to investigate the photographs and evidence themselves and drew their own conclusions about whether the Loch Ness monster really exists. It was a fun and interesting exhibition and I particularly enjoyed the last room, which talked about other incidents and discoveries in the Loch Ness area, rather than focus on Nessie herself. A quick jaunt through the gift shop heralded the end of our day out and we headed back to the hotel for some much-needed sleep before moving on once again for the final destination on our tour of Scotland.

Scottish Engineering

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Looking back now, 2 months on since our Scottish adventures, I can’t believe just how much we did in what really was so short a time. Having “done” Glasgow, our next major destination was through the beautiful, snow-tipped Cairngorms to Inverness, but not before we had stopped off to experience 2 unmissable sights – the Falkirk Wheel and the Kelpies. When we first started planning our trip to Scotland, so many family members and friends told us that we absolutely had to visit the Falkirk Wheel and warned us to pre-book our tickets to make sure that we didn’t miss out that we both took heed and booked our Easter Sunday day out.

The engineering wizardry of the wheel, which was the world’s first rotating boat lift when it was opened in 2002 to link the Forth & Clyde and Union canals, had M absolutely hooked from the moment we showed him the website and he couldn’t wait to actually experience it in person. The transition from the lower canal to the higher one (and back again) is unbelievably smooth and you hardly realise you are moving 35 metres into the air on a remarkable man-made structure, planned in Lego and powered by the energy required to boil just 8 kettles for tea. Without a doubt, it is an impressive sight to observe and having done our “turn” on it, we settled in at the cafe for a light allergy-friendly lunch accompanied by a side order of a great view of the wheel doing its thing as we ate. 

The tour guide on our boat gave us so many facts and figures about the Wheel that it seemed almost impossible for the children to absorb many of them and yet, even now, they still remember the ones that particularly fascinated them whilst we were there. As we looked out from the top canal towards the Firth of Forth, we heard about the Kelpies just a short drive away and knew without a shadow of a doubt that we absolutely couldn’t head further north until we had taken our horse-mad girlie to see these amazing structures.

Built in a phenomenally short space of time in 2013 to form a gateway to the eastern entrance to the Forth & Clyde canal, this monument encapsulates the mythical beauty of the water spirits of Scottish folklore whilst forming a fitting tribute to the horse-powered heritage of Scottish industry. These 30-metres high horse heads are simply breathtaking to see and although we didn’t have time to enjoy the Easter sunshine with a walk through the Helix parkland project, we all relished the opportunity to stretch our legs and even perfect some dance steps on the way to the structures. All in all, it was a perfect way to spend a peaceful Easter Sunday with family and one that perfectly combined so many varied aspects of the Scotland we were slowly discovering each day.

Glorious Glasgow

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When we first started planning our holiday in Scotland, I had a quick internet search to try to uncover what there would be to do and see for the few days we were in Glasgow. Disappointed by my search results, I turned to my Mum who has visited there in the past to see if she had any recommendations to make, but her comments were equally sparse, though perhaps more understandably given she had been there for the Commonwealth Games in 2014. Having now spent less than 48 hours in this city, I can honestly say that it’s somewhere that I would like to visit again and take the time to go to some of the hidden gems that we didn’t discover until this trip. There were, however, 2 things that we all agreed were a “must-do” whilst we were there – the hop-on, hop-off bus tour and the Hard Rock Café!

Our day started out a little less successfully than we’d have liked. M had munched his way through the cereal I had brought and was in desperate need of a new box to supplement his banana and milk. It was cold and wet, though we had planned for the likelihood of wintery weather conditions in Scotland in late March/early April so were well equipped with hats, gloves and coats; and even worse, as far as the children were concerned, we had to do some walking before we could join the bus tour around the city! Our hotel was conveniently located opposite the SSE Hydro and SEC Centre, both of which look incredibly impressive when seen all lit up from across the river at night. Unfortunately, we didn’t have much luck in finding the Nestle GoFree rice pops that are M’s current favourite breakfast cereal, though we did stumble across a great little cafe where we were able to pick up some freshly made gluten-free sandwiches for lunch.

With Mike fully laden down with sandwiches, soft drinks and other suitable snacks, we finally made it to a bus stop, bought our tickets and settled down on the next bus for the City Sightseeing tour of Glasgow. M absolutely loves taking these bus tours whenever we’re visiting somewhere new and it really is a great way to learn a little more about where we are as well as being a helpful way of planning the rest of our time in the city. Our plan for Glasgow was to complete around half of the bus tour before we reached our next destination and our stop for lunch, and for the afternoon. Despite our pitiful attempts to find something to do in Glasgow before we arrived, the success story of our time there was the Riverside Museum – and that discovery was thanks to the tenacity and determination of our youngest.

M had taken very seriously the responsibility for finding things to do or visit or see in every place we visited and on the night of our arrival, spent some time before bed scouring Google to find somewhere to go. He had stumbled across the Riverside Museum and instantly announced that he was keen to go there, confident that we would all enjoy what it had to offer. I’ll be honest to say that a transport museum didn’t initially sit at the top of my list of things to do, not least because I’ve been involved in setting up a similar museum over the last 18 months, but I will absolutely take my hat off to him as it was an absolute success. We spent a fantastic afternoon in this gem of a museum, that had more cars, cycles, boats, planes, trains and motorbikes squeezed into the space than you can even begin to imagine. We have visited very many museums over the years, but this exhibition is truly incredible and all 4 of us would highly recommend it to anyone planning a visit to Glasgow in the future.

Our time at Riverside drew to an end and we caught the penultimate bus back into the centre of Glasgow, finishing the tour we had started a few hours earlier. The final destination for our day was the Hard Rock Cafe and it was just a short walk from the final bus stop to the restaurant for our last dinner in Glasgow. We didn’t spend a lot of time in this glorious city and there are definitely things I wish we had done whilst we were there. Of course, the answer to that dilemma is an easy one – it just requires another visit to Glasgow to be planned!

Easter holidays

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There’s only one thing that beats going on holiday for me and that’s planning for the next one…or two…or several. After our hugely successful Greek jaunt last summer, our attentions had naturally turned to our travels for 2018 and beyond: or perhaps, more honest, my attention was drawn to the “beyond”, whilst Mike and the kids were happy to just think about the next 12 months! With G heading into the start of 2 years studying for her GCSEs, which will kick off our family’s long haul navigation through the wonderful world of exams for both children, our holiday choices will need to accommodate school deadlines and revision demands as well as giving them, and us, the chance to kick back and relax away from it all.

We have long been considering a much overdue trip back to Canada to visit our family and friends, and have decided that 2018 is the year to do it. We are still ironing out the finer details for the trip – including which time of year is going to work best for us to go allowing for term dates, weather and flight availability – but with that big holiday tentatively pencilled into our calendars, our attention turned to fitting on some other smaller adventures throughout the rest of the year. Our starting point was a holiday in Scotland, somewhere neither child had been to before as well as a place we knew we’d be able to cater for M with relative ease and minimum stress. Having heard that G didn’t have a place on this year’s South Siblings OTW camp, we decided on 10 days during the Easter holiday and set to planning with relish once Christmas was out of the way.

Unfortunately, the bout of Aussie ‘flu that hit Mike and M in January combined with the tough couple of months that followed, meant that March rolled around with, much to my discomfort, nothing booked and only a very basic sketch of our proposed route through the North of England and Scotland. We decided to involve G and M in as much as the planning as they wanted and had been informed that the key places to visit on our approximately 1,800 miles car trip included Liverpool, Glasgow, Inverness, Edinburgh and Scarborough (don’t ask!). Armed with our calendar, a list of activities in each location, a reliable internet connection to facilitate mileage, travel time and hotel bookings in each of our destinations and a glass or two of wine, Mike and I sat down one night and booked what rapidly became known as our “Premier Inn” tour of Scotland.

As ever with our family, our plans to set off early to our first stop of Liverpool didn’t quite go according to plan, when Mike managed to enthusiastically floss a filling out of one of M’s baby teeth the weekend before our start date. It was only once the emergency appointment at our dentist was complete that we finally found ourselves on our way. Despite the late start, the Wednesday afternoon traffic wasn’t too bad, albeit the week before the Easter weekend, and we arrived in Liverpool by dinner time, ready to immerse ourselves in all things Beatles before carrying on in a more Northerly direction.

And I’m back!

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You might have noticed that my blog has been quiet for a few weeks and, in time, I will explain a little more about the need…my need… for an extended silence as life has happened around us. However, we’re home after some family time away from home over the Easter holidays and I’m back with a vengeance with just so many reviews, recipes and photos to share from the last month or so.

But, before I get to the fun bits, I thought there was a much-needed health update, which is desperately long overdue. On the medical front, things are still ticking along without much intervention from anyone other than us. We haven’t been seen at GOSH for over a year and I have no idea when or if an appointment will come through the door. The gastro department there are very much working on moving patients back into local care and whilst I have steadfastly refused to let them discharge M from their care fully, they have definitely taken a step back and are in the background in an advisory capacity only should we want or need to call on them.

It also feels a little as if our local hospital has shrugged their shoulders with something of a “…we don’t really know or understand what’s going on with him…” attitude and are touching base with us on a fairly infrequent basis. I don’t really blame them as, for the most part, M is just going along as always and frankly I’m certain that I know far more about managing the ups and downs of his EGID on a day-to-day basis than anyone else. The one biggest change that has hit us has been the confirmation that there is almost definitely a mast cell problem lying alongside the EGID, but as the treatment is more or less the same for both, that diagnosis hasn’t made a difference to him or us in any way.

Food-wise, we’re now tentatively up to around the 9 or 10 food mark, having introduced onion, bacon and bananas on a regular basis and allowing the occasional other food creep in when circumstances call for it and we can be reasonably confident we can manage the outcome. These 3 foods have really added to my repertoire of recipes and make cooking so much more interesting and flavourful for M. Holidays continue to be the time when we really stretch our boundaries and whilst there are always consequences to live with – some of which are easier than others – our approach has led to a much happier M.

Both children are doing well at school with glowing “short” reports and parents’ evenings for them. G has selected her GCSE options with relatively little fuss or argument or discussion and we’re heading with a little trepidation into the wonderful world of humanities combined with dance. She recently took and passed her Grade 3 clarinet exam, a day I wasn’t sure we’d ever see and is also teaching herself to play the keyboard, guitar and ukulele in any spare moments she finds at home. G and M also recently took part in a regional Stagecoach performance celebrating 30 years of Stagecoach and loved every moment of it. It was great to watch them from the wings (I was back in chaperone role once more) as they danced and sang with enthusiasm on stage. As you can see, it’s been a busy few weeks and there’s just so much to share that I’m not entirely certain where I’ll begin!