Bonnie Wee Scotland

Polish Clan

We arrived at the port of Larne in Northern Ireland in plenty of time and more to spare to find our ferry cancelled due to the weather conditions.  We’d booked a fast ferry, which would have brought us to Scotland in an hour, a strategic plan to avoid, or at best, shorten the time of potential sea sickness!  As it worked out a conventional ferry took us across a bit later in the day, taking two hours to get there, and as you can imagine it was absolutely packed.  But gratefully we arrived in Scotland well and happy, even if pretty tired.

Princess Tiana and the Snow Queen

We’d booked a night at Premier Inn, a chain of hotels much the same as Holiday Inn and the like.  We highly recommend it though.  Large, clean, comfortable rooms newly built or refurbished, yummy breakfast in the morning, late checkout of 12noon.  And cheap.  What more do you want for a good night’s sleep?

Due to the late ferry we arrived at our friend’s place later than expected.  But to finally sit down and relax with Paul and Lisa who we met at our first campsite in Austria was really nice and quite surreal as it seemed like so long ago that we first met them.  Amelia, Noah and Emma played together like no time had passed.  We had a lovely evening with them and grateful for the dinner they’d prepared after our long day of travelling.

Next stop was Edinburgh, as lovely as we remember it.  The only place on Earth where men can get away with wearing skirts………..those strong highland legs and deep gruff Scottish accents…….hmmmm……Anyway!  We definitely recommend it as a city break.  Lovely atmosphere and so much to see and do.  Perhaps without the kids and the rain though, it would make the visit a lot easier!  We were lucky enough to be able to stay with my friend Keara (Sinead’s sister – The Murphy’s should start a hotel chain!) who has two boys so all the kids entertained each other.

We met Maciek’s 2^nd cousin Pszemek, and his wife Kate who live in Edinburgh.  They welcomed us with loads of food and drink in traditional Polish fashion while ‘Cho Cha Babcia’ (Aunty Grandma!) looked after the kids for 6 hours!  Poor lady, up and down the stairs all day, and not even being able to understand what the kids were saying to her the whole time!  We were grateful though as it allowed us to relax for the afternoon.

Our last day in Edinburgh was unfortunately marred by the lashing rain!  Negotiating the streets of a busy city with a toddler in a stroller and a bouncy 4 year old is hard enough without umbrella’s and raincoats and leaky wellies.  It was off to a bad start as on the way to the bus stop (the car was in for a service) Amelia chased the boys and not being used to running in wellies tripped and fell and then sat on the puddly pavement staring at her muddy hands wailing like it was the end of the world!  Needless to say her bum was soaked.  But on we went.  The Edinburgh Fringe Festival is on throughout the month of August every year, and if we’d have known we may have planned our visit a little better.  We ventured into to town to catch a couple of shows for the kids and soak up the atmosphere, only to find the particular venue we’d planned to visit not open until the following week, and the only thing that soaked anything up were our feet as we hurried across Princes Street to avoid a bus and encountered an enormous puddle not unlike a river on the other side of the road!  I had luckily worn my new waterproof hiking shoes, but poor Maciek and Amelia squelched around for the next couple of hours until we finally gave up and went home!

Keara, Kenny and us

Love is in the air?  James and Milly

That evening though, after we’d dried off and warmed up, Keara and Kenny brought us into town to catch a snippet of the festival in the way of comedian Rob Deering.  We took a punt on buying tickets for his show as none of us had heard of him.  And we were glad we did as he was hilarious!  Laugh out loud funny all the way through.  So keep an eye out for him, you’ll not be disappointed!

It was lovely to see Keara again after so long, and meet her boys James and Conor (and Kenny of course!).  And thanks to Maribel for looking after the sleeping angels (?) while we escaped for an hour or two!

It would have been nice to head this blog with a gorgeous photo of Edinburgh Castle, but to attempt to take the camera out of the bag while outdoors would have resulted in it's death!