Bonnie Scotland

St Ives

Well this was an unexpected treat on our tour to Scotland. Not to be confused with it's Cornish namesake, St Ives gave us the perfect break with a gorgeous riverside cafe to rest our early morning start. St Ives is a market town with a lovely 15th Century bridge, complete with it's own chapel!

Richmond

3 hours later!! We stopped at Richmond Castle 1100AD… filled with ghosts of ladies and lords gorging on 50 course meals and prisoners scratching images of their loved ones on the cell walls…. And bear fighting and lots of religion of course.

Newcastle

The Angel of the North - Wow it’s much bigger close up than it looks from the train.

Whitley Bay

The place I grew up in ….. Gorgeous day out with Fiona Robby… my best friend all the way through my childhood who I hadn’t seen for 21 years!... but felt like old times… and the sun was shining. Wished we had our swimming stuff because it was definitely hot enough to take a dip in the North Sea (and that is a rare day indeed)

Wylam

So lovely to see Mike Becs Eli and Dibsy from Waiheke…. All looking well and healthy. Great pub.. Great food… great company.

Edinburgh

Edinburgh Tattoo

Wow Wow Wow. From beginning to end this show was spectacular. A once in a lifetime experience… Scottish dancers so light on their feet…. spine tingling bagpipes…. Nigerian dance… Trinidadian Carnival… the French Can Can… and the New Zealand band, dancers and singers who were certainly the most fun…
Roddy and Isabel were such great company and such great hosts .


Edinburgh Castle

Edinburgh Fringe Festival

Edinburgh was alive with so many people… street performers, tourists and performers from shows trying to rustle up a crowd on every corner. Great to meet up with my cousin Gavin and his gorgeous little girl Sorcha.

Then a day of events - Alternotives (acapella pitch perfect band), Japanes LADY drummers and then a delicious chinese meal … yum. Hemming Wehn…. Very funny. Great places to see on a stroll around town include the Royal Mile , the Castle and Calton Hill(where we saw a South American Bagpipe band who were brilliant) . Fab lunch with Auntie Anne, Gavin, Sabrina, Sorcha, Roddy Isabel Dad and Phil.

Pittenweem and Anstruther

These are gorgeous little fishing villages on the way from Edinburgh up to Montrose on the coast. We spent many a great family holiday here. The best fish and chips and we even saw seals.

Montrose

What a beautiful beach… miles and miles long (we should know we ran the length of it and back) . Had a gorgeous walk out to the lighthouse with my dad.

Cairngorms to Inverness

A beautiful drive through the wild and purple heather coated Cairngorms. Stopping in on the way to check whether the Queen was home at her scottish residence of Balmoral… she was! So we couldn’t go

Haggis, Neeps and mash

Rosemarkie

Rosemarkie is just along from Inverness in the Black Isles. So lovely to see my cousin Graham and his lovely wife Akiko and kids Molly and Hattie. The beach is gorgeous and we saw Dolphins! Yay. We were treated to our own private musical performance and thoroughly spoilt rotten who were such fabulous hosts.
We walked up a big hill )and saw LOTS of mushrooms) to a sculpture at the top(which was only created to give the locals some income by a very caring lord!) Then off to see Salmon jumping UP stream… 4 out of 100 salmon make it back home to try to jump up stream to lay their eggs… only 1 of them will make it… and then after finally getting to the top they lay their eggs and die from exhaustion! It’s a hard life being a Salmon.
We finished the day at the theatre watching the Blazin Fiddles.

Loch Ness to Oban to Mull

We drove down beautiful loch Ness and stopped at Urquhart Castle… which was very old and interesting…. Then a tree fell down and we were stuck in a 3 hour traffic jam! 9 hours after setting off we arrived at Oban… thankfully right next door to a distillery.

The Isle of Mull

The black skies around made the lighthouse more startling and striking as our ferry jaunted it’s way to Mull. The views from the bus on Mull were film like and we arrived in Tobermory (where the kids TV programme Balamory was filmed) with its colourful seafront cottages. The scenery on the walk out to the lighthouse was just stunning as we gazed across still waters.. So remote and wild and magical. Quick stop at the distillery for a tasting then home on the boat to eat Langoustine… yum yum yum.

Lighthouses on Mull

Largs

After a lovely night stop at Auntie Margaret and Lou's house in Largs where we were spoilt rotten we headed on to Portpatrick and Stranrear.

Stranraer and Portpatrick

Stranraer is a port town where the ferry from Ireland comes in. It’s also where all of my mums family are from and where I was born. It’s basically a massive council estate but the seafront is gorgeous as is the beach. So lovely to see all the places that have been talked about in my family.

Port Patrick is an idyllic little fishing village on the other side on the head only 5 km from Stranraer. My mum and her family spent a lot of time here. It is such a pretty little town. I loved it. As we walked along the coastline, it reminded me of Waiheke… and the sun was even shining… hooray.

Lake District - Keswick and Lake Derwent

We arrived at Keswick iin the pouring rain! It always seems to rain in the Lake District. Phil and I braved the weather and walked to Castlerigg Stone Circle 5000 years old (3000BC) then what to do in the Lake District in the pouring rain….we headed to the pub!

Next day we got up superearly and walked up the Catbells…beautiful views from the top (after a pretty scary literally rock climb to get to the top) but well worth the 15km….. Then what to do after a 15km walk…. Head to the pub of course

Manchester

So lovely to see my Auntie Marie Louise and my cousin Stephen, Clara and Josh and Ethan who I’d never met before. What a lovely day in the garden in the VERY hot sunshine (back in England now lol) eating BBQ food and drinking wine and beer…and a little bit of dancing too.

Wow what an awesome trip.