Newcastle to Dunblane
We arrived at the hotel and had dinner with the boys and staff. The next day we saw Hadrian’s Wall (a highlight for Sasha – seeing horses and foals galloping around vast paddocks, which left her pining). Got some photos for a horse web site we are helping Sasha to build as a project. Visited the Newcastle town centre …lots of shops!
We went along to the game and cheered on the Force, who won 25-15 against the Falcons. Sasha enjoyed meeting some of the players. She later asked me what one of the sizeable props wants to be “when he grows up” – hilarious!
We arrived at our next week long stint at self-catering accommodation in Dunblane, near Stirling in Scotland. Lovely spot, on the racing river.
View from the apartment window :
There’s a lovely group of ducks and one fluffy duckling. Sasha has adopted them and we are now calling her “duck girl”. She shoos away the rooks and the ducks follow her everywhere and let her get close.
Good spot to do some work here. We have wireless broadband here, so can all connect simultaneously. Sasha has been doing maths with Mum. Ed and Lois have also been doing a bit of ‘schoolwork’. We have all been assigned languages:
Lois – French and Japanese
Ed – Spanish and Portuguese
Sasha – Italian
As you can imagine, it is a bit of a crash course, but we are having fun testing each other and doing round robins: “Bonjour, Bonjourno….” (Well, at least we will be able to say hello…)
We haven’t stayed in many boutique hotels yet, but some things remind us of Fawlty Towers, in fact the BBC show often rates a frequent mention on TripAdvisor.com (we use Trip Advisor to help choose accommodation sometimes, or to check if we have chosen something really dodgy.) We watched the episode where Basil says “Manuel! – you have too much butter on those trays.” And Manuel says “no, no, no, it’s….uno, dos, tres.” Sash thinks this is just hilarious and we now hear her say it a dozen times a day!
Speaking of TV, most of it is rubbish (we couldn’t believe that the UK power grid needs to buy additional electricity because everyone switches on their kettles all at the same time of night, when EastEnders finishes!). And the Olympic coverage is all about Great Britain – funny that.
But we do love Dragons Den, where people have to pitch their businesses to venture capitalists. Cool! Ed’s fave Top Gear is a must watch, Long Way Round and Beryl put us onto Francesco’s Venice and Mediterranean voyage. (Mum…you will just adore him. ? )
Whilst in Dunblane, near Stirling, we visited the Falkirk Wheel – incredible engineering feat (clever Scots ? ) – it’s the only rotating boat lift in the world. The tour guide and driver, Fiona was just great. We have been blessed with some excellent commentators /guides – obviously passionate about what they are demonstrating, great sense of humour and love the “patter” and interacting with the people.
Stirling Castle was another highlight, the guide there would yell “Bam, Bam, Bam!” at the top of his voice, when telling the history of the castle and the assault by attacking cannons. We all got to have a go too…and scared a few people around us in the process.
Lois went off to meet Susie who runs the Performance Lifestyle program at the Scottish Institute of Sport in Stirling, while Ed and Sasha had lunch at the William Wallace Hotel. Afterwards, Sash checked out the running track at the Institute.
“What’s the soup of the day?” has become a favourite catch cry. When we are oot ‘n aboot, the best thing to have is soup. Cheap, tasty (usually), hearty and low cal (except the creamy ones). It has now become a game to see who can guess what the soup of the day is. Lentil and scotch broth are firm favourites!
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