I needed to order some more of Scout’s joint supplement – the vet in Orkney gave a 4-month supply when we left. So I went online looking for a vet – I could only find one in town and they are only open M-F 2:30 – 5:00pm. Hunh. When I finally got through to the receptionist, she explained that she’d have to call to one of the other offices (they have surgeries all over Lanarkshire, it seems) to get a supply of the pills. I wasn’t worried, as I still had a few weeks’ worth left (this was on Aug 4). After 10 days I realised I hadn’t heard back, so I called again and the receptionist said, “Oh dear, the other office must have forgot. I’ll call again and get back to you.” The ‘other office’ forgot? Okaaay.

Two weeks later – still nothing so I called again – by now I’m running out of the pills (and patience). After some searching the new receptionist found them and booked an appointment for the vet to see Scout first. NP, they have their protocols before handing out meds, even OTC. Then someone else phoned back and said the appointment wasn’t necessary; I could just pop in. But by now I was starting to worry about this veterinarian’s office’s approach to, well, everything. In just under 90 days I am transporting a dog via air to another country. Are these people going to be able to meet all the requirements? Will they have their sh#t together? For example, rabies shots aren’t a usual thing here, so most vet’s offices have to order the vaccine in specially – and a rabies vaccine is a deal-breaker for animal transport. So, I decided to keep the appointment so I could ask the vet a few pointed questions and assess their overall competency. I mean, I prided myself on my organizational skills at work, and I admire it in others, and right now, with the move imminent, that skill set is particularly important. And they seem to be the only game in town. So I took Scout this afternoon; we just got back.

The vet was a young lady from France. I had a whole bunch of things I wanted to ask her about: rabies shot, expiration date of some of Scout’s meds, flea, tick, de-worming, and distemper meds, Scout’s medical history from Orkney, etc. Instead of writing all this down on a list, like any sensible, organised retired businesswoman would, I just started throwing out questions; I was all over the map, mixing things up right, left, and centre, and jumping from one topic to the next. We finally sorted through most of it; I’ve got a date for ordering the rabies vaccine, she clarified my misunderstanding about expiry dates, and we reviewed Scout’s recent history. But I truly was all over the place – it was at the point that I mixed up de-worming and distemper (they both start with ‘d’, you see), that the sweet, young, French veterinarian leaned over to me and kindly said, “This is all causing you very much stress and confusion, isn’t it?”

OMG. I am a dippy old lady. When the feck did that happen? Why wouldn’t I have taken a list? Why? I always use lists (either paper or OneNote). I wanted to jump up and show her my phone with the Trello software outlining the various steps of my move; the app with all the details of an upcoming trip to Ireland; the way my Outlook is sorted to maximize efficiency and stay on top of things; my spreadsheets tracking the Milton property, my taxes, my expenses. Dammit, I am not a dippy old lady, current evidence to the contrary. (Thank God she didn’t realise I had arrived 20 minutes early for the appointment because I hadn’t checked my Calendar and had had to kill time in the park waiting.) Instead I just apologised for all the mix-ups, stood quietly while she examined Scout, and let her be kind to the doddery old fool in front of her.

I felt like an eejit.

Edit (30 minutes later): I just noticed that the receptionist charged me completely the wrong amount for today’s visit (£130 in my favour – completely her fault, nothing I would have been aware of at the time). I will correct this with them when I am in later this month, but I am not going to address it now – let’s just see how long it takes them to catch it and let me know. *Suddenly I’m not feeling quite so stupid. But I am back to worrying about their competency for the move in November.

I took the train into Glasgow on the weekend. There was a mum sitting across the aisle from me with her little girl. The mum and I got talking – the weather, the man speaking loudly on his phone farther down the carriage, that sort of thing – idle chit chat.

As they were waiting to step off the train at Bellshill, I heard the little girl ask if I was on TV. Her mother asked why she thought that, and she said, “Because she talks like the people on TV.”

What can I say? Fame is the cross I bear.

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.