On the way – and keeping up our tradition of something going wrong!

 

Thursday morning, caught the 10.30am train from Broadmeadow to Central, then the airport, for our 4.10pm flight to Singapore.  Arrived there about 9.30pm, then whiled away the time in the Business Class lounge before boarding our 11.55pm flight and taking our business class seats (thanks to a FF points upgrade) for the 15 hour flight to Amsterdam. Such a treat for us. The comfort and the services were wonderful so surely luck was on our side this trip. Unfortunately that luck ran out; we were an hour and a half late taking off, which meant that we were an hour and a half late arriving in Amsterdam, resulting in a mad dash the length of the huge airport to make our flight to Glasgow. Our haste in making the flight wasn’t matched in getting our luggage transferred, so we arrived in Glasgow sans suitcases .  After reporting this and being assured that they would be delivered to Strachur, our destination, later in the day we collected our Skoda SUV and set off for Strachur, arriving about noon (after several frustrating to-and-fro phone calls our luggage was delivered to our accommodation at 1am, waking our delightful host Sylvia, who had already provided us with spare clothing and toiletries to tie us over).  Our digs are a delightful studio on the outskirts of the tiny village of Strachur, with panoramic views of the surrounding hills. Zero degrees in temperature and a light fall of snow really was a striking difference to the 38 degrees we had left behind in Newcastle but the sun was shining which was more than we had expected.

We spent the afternoon, then the evening, with almost-90 Aunt Betty and husband Norman – two of the loveliest people you could ever meet – at their home overlooking Loch Fyne.  We caught up on all the happenings within the extensive Scottish family, reminisced, and generally had great afternoon and evening.  Back to our digs about 10pm for a much-needed sleep, interrupted only by the gentle tap on the door by Sylvia, who had been woken by the courier delivering our luggage in the middle of the night.

Tomorrow is the big day: lunch to celebrate Aunt Betty’s 90^th birthday, with all the family coming from all round Scotland to be with her and to welcome us.