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Part of my ‘mission’ while in Carluke is to help my cousin clear out her loft. Her parents weren’t hoarders, but two ninety-year olds, after 60+ years of marriage and in the same house for 50 years, are gonna have stuff. Periodically my cousin and I will FaceTime, I’ll head up into the loft, shine the camera around the room, and as I point to things, she’ll say, “Keep, Toss, or Donate”, as the case may be. Then I’ll head up there in a couple of days and do some sorting per her guidance.

Like most people of that generation, my aunt & uncle had a fair amount of silver cutlery. During the flood, (the burst pipes in December; I’m not getting biblical here), Viv and her family tackled the clean-up by just gathering things up, and either chucking them in the garbage, or shoving them up into the loft. There was no time for sorting then. Included in all that shoving things out of the way was a lot of sliverware. This morning I went through the various bags, boxes, and trays of cutlery, sorting the Tesco stainless steel everyday-ware from the bone-handle, sterling silver. And then I came across this little guy – how cute is he? What I want to know is, why on earth doesn’t every home back in Canada have one of these? Surely our lives would be better with a toffee hammer to hand.

As well as culling objects, I have been re-arranging items in the loft to make things easier for Viv to find in the future. (My mother always said, “even if you’ve got clutter, things look better in neat piles.”) A few weeks ago I pulled down the hatch, climbed the ladder, and started shifting items around the dim, dusty, every so slightly spooky loft. I picked up this little chalet made of what looks like matchsticks (about the size of a Kleenex box), and set it down over beside some other decor pieces, and turned away. As I walked away, unprompted it started playing this thin, reedy, tinkly tune; it was a music box. I’m not going to lie, it made me jump. All I could think was, imagine it had started up randomly like that in the middle of the night. How freaked out would I be to wake up to that haunting melody at 3 in the morning? I would have been lying in bed, with the blankets up to my chin, thinking, “There is no way in hell I am going up to see what is going on up there.”

Well, I’ve done it. No turning back now. I’ve bought my ticket and will be back in Ontario by the end of November. Not sure how I feel about this – still processing.

Going out for a massive midday roast dinner on a Sunday is a big thing here. Or at least in England and the southern part of Scotland. As I recall, the hotels and restaurants in Orkney didn’t really big it up – roast was often on the menu, but not as its own ‘let’s go to the Harbour View for a Roast Dinner after church’ kind of a thing. But elsewhere in the UK? It’s what you do.

Whenever I’m down in England, every hotel restaurant, inn, and gastro-pub has a box on the bottom of their menu offering a Roast Dinner from 11:30 in the morning until 8 or 9 at night, only on Sundays. Same around here. Online, if someone poses the question, “I’m new to the UK; what food should I try?”, a Sunday roast dinner is at the top of the list. Or they post on social media, “I’m coming from Canada/ USA/ wherever to London/ York/ Edinburgh for a visit and I want to have a roast dinner, where should I go?” And dozens of people weigh in on the best dinner in town. There are restaurant chains devoted to roast dinners, called carveries. Toby Carvery is kind of the Keg of England, but slightly less pricey (not by much, tho; dining out here can be expensive). The meal will always be beef or lamb, plus gravy, roast potatoes, often with mashed potatoes as well, a Yorkshire pudding, and at least one veg. I never think to order it – my Mum made delicious roast dinners on a Sunday evening, as do both of my sisters, so why would I bother here?

But I was looking for foods to introduce Nancy to last week. We did all the obvious: fish & chips, Scotch pie & sausage rolls, Cullen Skink, ordered in an Indian; we even had sticky toffee pudding. And of course I warned her not to order anything Mexican off any menu. (Seriously. I’ve said it before: unless you know that the owner/chef was born and raised in Oaxaca or Yucatan or Chihuahua, ‘Mexican’ food in the UK is to be avoided at all costs.) I wanted something special and classically British for her last day, so we went to The Horseshoe Inn in Peebles for Sunday Roast Dinner. She had the beef; I had the lamb. And Scout had Sir Woofchester’s Bark Burgers off the inn’s doggy menu. All three of us were very pleased with our dinner – absolutely delicious.

(But, to be perfectly honest, I still think my sisters’ & brother-in-law’s roast dinners are better.)

Nancy left Monday (more on the tail end of our trip later). For reasons due to scheduling, and connections, and just generally speaking airlines, her flight was as follows: Glasgow to Reykjavik, Reykjavik to Seattle (yes, Seattle), then Seattle to Tampa, then drive home to Sarasota. It would mean that she would be on the North Sea last Friday (the V&A Museum in Dundee), the Atlantic and the Pacific on Monday, then the Gulf of Mexico Tuesday morning. From my house to her house: approximately 30 hours. A marathon. Then shit started happening.

I dropped her at GLA Monday morning ☹. She texted me a couple of hours later to say, “Check the news – glitch in UK air traffic control – may not get out of Scotland today”. Evenutally her flight got away, but what about her Seattle connection? Would she have to find out what other US cities IcelandAir flies to? Or change airlines? This wasn’t just delays that could make her trip less pleasant; things were getting real because now Hurricane Idalia meant that Tampa airport could close at any time Tuesday. If she didn’t land Tuesday morning, there was a very good chance she couldn’t get home for days. Unbelievably, she made her flight out of Reykjavik. But by the time she got to Seattle. Tampa’s airport had closed for the hurricane. She managed to snag a flight to Orlando, although its airport was likely to close at some point too. And Orlando is three hours from Sarasota (that’s on a good day, sunny weather, no towns evacuating onto the Florida highways). So now it’s a race.

She texted me last night – flight landed in Orlando, a friend had driven the three hours to get her, and she was home safe and sound. Thank goodness.

But now, they wait for Idalia. At the time of posting this, Idalia is a Category 4, with storm surge flooding of 2′ to 16′ projected for Sarasota. Nancy’s house is extremely well fortified, but still.

We hope for the best for everyone in Florida today.

When the Victoria & Albert Museum decided to branch out from London, they chose the seaside town of Dundee, and built a museum dedicated to Scottish design. I have always wanted to visit. It was going to be the longest drive Nancy & I have done for this holiday and I had given up on the hope that it might be in sunshine – as well as wanting Nancy to see Scotland at its prettiest, I’m really not keen on driving these roads in the rain. But, it was inevitable. Wait, wrong again. We left Carluke in rain, but Nancy was monitoring the forecast carefully and assured me we would have sun. And as soon as we crossed the Forth Bridge into Fife, she was right.

The V&A is an absolutely stunning building, right in the middle of Dundee, sitting on the Tay river. Their parking is crap, but the building is lovely. We thought it would be a good idea to sign up for the 45 minute tour to give us a flavour of the place. It was just the two of us, and our tour guide Kate was a local with a background in UK museums. She was very knowledgable, and very passionate about the V&A and about Dundee. She could also talk for Scotland. OMG. She talked non-stop for 93 minutes. At first she encouraged us to ask questions but we couldn’t squeeze them in. By the end of the tour we were afraid to say anything, for fear of starting her down yet another tangent. Don’t get me wrong, she was pleasant, friendly, and informative, but . . . dear God, an hour and a half. Thank goodness I had accidently bought the maximum 4-hour time slot for parking.

But it was worth it. Fascinating building, dedicated to Scotland, to Scotland out in the world, and to the world coming to Scotland. My mother would be so pleased; she was constantly telling us about all the great things invented by Scots (the steam engine, penicillin, rubber tires, etc… — she was a bit like the father in My Big Fat Greek Wedding). The design of the building is unlike anything I’ve ever seen (architect Kengo Kuma). It was based on the cliffs at Noup Head, Westray in Orkney (Lori & I walked the top of those cliffs last year). I am so glad we made a point of going there – I would recommend it to anyone visiting Scotland (only about an hour from Edinburgh).

And I learned the kaleidoscope was invented by a Scot. Hunh.

Our next day’s sightseeing was spent visiting Mary Queen of Scots’ birthplace, Linlithgow Palace. It’s a recently re-opened, in-fairly-good-condition-for-a-ruin, palace (Rabbie Burns called it a ‘tolerably fine, but melancholy ruin’). Imagine living in a town with a 700+ year old palace ruin in your midst, right in the centre of town. So much of it was accessible, and we were able to wander into the chapel, and great hall, but there is still a lot under scaffolding.

What absolutely tickled me at Linlithgow Palace was that you could download the audio tour in English, or in Scots. I chose the latter, and am proud to say I followed it perfectly well. To give you a literal translation of the Scots instructions for the Audio Guide signboard: Lug-in = Ear-in. Daunder = Saunter. yer ain = your own.

Then we headed into the village for lunch and some shopping. I don’t why I haven’t been visiting the towns along the south shore of the Forth river – they are lovely. Great cafes and shops – only 40 minutes from my hoose (sorry, Scots on the brain noo) – will make a point of coming back to Queensferry, Linlithgow, and Bo’ness before I head home.

We’re having a blast this week – the weather has held for us and we’ve been to several places I haven’t seen before. Monday was Glasgow, and while I’ve done the Hop On Hop Off before – each time I do that tour, the guide touches on a different aspect of the city. This time it was Byers Road, and lunch at The Ubiquitous Chip. Delicious food and an absolutely stunning indoor raised grotto-like dining room.

The next day was the Firth of Forth (a firth is an estuary, the Forth is the river), starting with the Kelpies then the Falkirk Wheel. The latter is the only rotating boat lift lock in the world, linking the Forth & Clyde Canal with the Union Canal. Our timing was impeccable: we arrived in time to see two tour boats enter the lock, rotate, and exit the lock into the alternate canal. The top photo shows the lock sitting with the Forth & Clyde Canal pool at the bottom, and the Union aquaduct feeding into the upper lock. The orange boat has just arrived from the Union aquaduct, and in the 2nd photo the pink boat is pulling into the lower berth. The 3rd shot is the lock halfway around its rotation, with the orange boat being lowered to the Forth & Clyde. Once the rotation was finished, each boat sailed away.

Then an amazing lunch on the waterfront, and a 90 minute cruise under the Forth Bridges. If we don’t count a few missed turns on the drive home (and I don’t care how angry that cyclist was, I know I didn’t do anything wrong), it was a perfect day.

Years ago, two friends and I travelled to London and Paris. Apart from our collective inability to turn on the showers in English hotels, we discovered that one of our friends had the uncanny knack of standing exactly on a subway platform where the doors of the still-as-yet-unarrived train were about to open. Eventually PS & I learned to stand back and watch as MB would drift to the front of the platform, slide slightly to one side or the other, then stop and wait on the next train (completely unaware of what she was doing), and every single time that one pulled into the station, amazingly the doors would open exactly in front of her as she waited. Like magic.

Nancy arrived here on Sunday. The forecasts have been all over the map (so to speak) for the past week as I tried to plan for our upcoming travels together. I shared with her that we might be seeing some rain, but that was okay – she knew she was coming to Scotland and had packed accordingly. The day before her arrival I texted that she might be arriving to the tail-end of Storm Betty, but she assured me (via email from Iceland) that by the time she got there it would be sunny. It was.

The next day the forecast was 70% chance of rain so we wore macks and carried umbrellas into the city. On the train, Nancy looked out at the rainy countryside and announced that it would be sunny by the time we reached Glasgow. And it was.

This morning was overcast and we had tickets for a 90-minute cruise on the Firth of Forth. I knew it would be warm, but the forecast showed rain for a variety of times, including the time of our cruise reservations. About 20 minutes into the drive Nancy decided it would be clear and sunny by the time we got on the boat. And it was.

We can’t decide where to go tomorrow but we’re looking at the forecast. Based on Nancy’s meteorlogical assessment, we’re thinking a later start to the day, and head back home early afternoon to relax. Since she suggested that a couple of hours ago, I’ve been watching the forecast like a hawk, and it has slowly changed to fit in perfectly with our plans for the day.

Really, prescient friends are the way to travel.

Last year I went on a cruise down the Seine. On the first evening on board, as I was sitting in the boat’s lounge sipping champagne and watching out the window for my lost luggage to be delivered (I had a four-day wait for that, but never mind, Elaine – let it go), a lady approached my table and asked if she could join me. Of course I said yes. By the end of the evening Nancy from Florida & I had become firm friends. Over the next few days, we met two more lovely ladies, the Judys from Massachusetts, and the four of us have stayed in touch ever since (the other three have even met up back home in the States).

You know how people say, “oh, you must come for a visit”, but we never act on that? On the cruise, of course we all said that to one another – it’s what you do at the end of a cruise. As everyone is saying good bye, you hear over and over, “if ever you’re in [insert country/region/city here], you must come for a visit.” Well, I can understand that remote Orkney was not an easy place to visit. But a couple of months ago, Nancy looked a picture I had posted of Uncle Ian’s garden here in Carluke, and thought, ‘why not?’ So she wrote and asked If I had been serious, or was just being polite. And in four hours her plane lands in Glasgow!

I am so excited. Even though I really don’t know her very well at all, she struck me as a very easy-going traveller. I remember she liked wine (yay), fine dining (yay), was very interested in all the places we had been visiting (yay), was very interesting to talk to (yay), and has already been to Edinburgh and doesn’t need to go there again (YAY!!!). She likes all the places I’ve suggested which I’ve been meaning to visit but haven’t yet, and she’s made some unusual suggestions of her own (we’re going on a cruise of the Firth of Forth).

So, house is clean, dog is walked, and I’m off the Glasgow to pick up my new house guest.

This is the view from my lounge (living room) as I’m sitting on the sofa; through the big picture window I see a lot of sky, and the tops of my neighbours’ houses. Lots of different birds use those the houses’ ridgepoles as a stopping-off point: perching, strutting, sunbathing, arguing. We have crows, magpies, blackbirds, and wood pigeons. I hate wood pigeons.

Well, really, what I hate is mourning doves. A) they are really, really dumb. They nest on the low branches of trees; you can walk right up to them and they don’t move – just sit there, staring at you blankly, almost begging to be picked off; and B) they have that dreadful, haunting, bloody repetitive, mournful ‘hoo hoo hoo’ call. I’ve read that some people find their call calming. Calming? Calming? They go on and on, cooing and hooing, and just won’t bloody shut up. I’ve never been hunting, but seriously, that’s one wild animal I have thought about killing. Frequently. And the British wood pigeon sounds much like the North American mourning dove.

On July first, when I had all my decorations on display, my neighbour from across the street came over sporting her wee Maple Leaf pin to wish me a Happy Canada Day. I invited her in for a coffee and we sat in the front room on my sofa, chatting. She could see her house and chimney (which I believe is still a functioning chimney over the fireplace) and at one point we saw some wood pigeons land on her aerial. “God, I hate those things”, she said. “They sit on top of my roof and make that stupid cooing, and it echoes down into my lounge.” We commiserated on how annoying we both find them, and then moved on to some of the birds we do like: robins, wagtails, blue tits.

Well, now, every time I see pigeons on June’s chimney, I can’t help but imagine her sitting in her lounge in an easy chair, with a cup of tea and the crossword, with 20 minutes worth of the echo-y, amplified, ever-persistent cooing of a half dozen of those twits who are perched 12′ above her, pouring down out the fireplace, driving her absolutely mad. I do feel bad for her.

And I shouldn’t laugh.