I’ve had jet lag before but never like
after our flight to the UK. We got to the UK early morning, had a quick nap at
our friends to revitalise then awake till bedtime, managed to sleep for an hour
or two before waking about midnight and lied in bed awake all night only to
start feeling sleepy about 7 in the morning. We then struggled through the next
day only to be awake all night again. Took about 4 days to come right. Life
isn’t much fun when you can’t sleep properly. Insomnia would be a nightmare (or
not?)
Spent the first week in the UK in London.
As we had both been there before and already seen all the big sights we spent
most of our time catching up with various friends. We also spent a fair amount
of time getting angry at the Tube which seemed to be constantly experiencing
delays. Good luck for the Olympics.
Our main reason for visiting the UK was to
see my brother Michael, his wife Gilly and their daughter Isabella. They live
in a small village in Derbyshire in pretty much the middle of the UK. We spent
a couple of weeks there doing day trips around the area. Also went on a couple
of day walks in the Peaks District National Park. Not our standard idea of a
national park as most of it is farmland and there are several villages in the
park too. Though still quite scenic and it’s nice to be able to stop into a pub
mid walk for a refreshing pint.
Spending time with our niece Isabella was
really good. Neither of us have much experience with babies or toddlers (as
Isabella is fast becoming). At first she
was a bit unsure of the strangers and didn’t want to come near us but after a
few days she warmed to us. We had fun building towers then knocking them over,
playing horseee, trying on shoes and reading ‘thats not my bear’ multiple
times.
We also went on a ‘holiday’ to the English
seaside. Michael and Gilly had booked a week away at Berwick upon Tweed staying
in a static caravan. We weren’t too sure what to expect but the caravan was
actually quite nice and we all managed to squeeze in reasonably comfortably.
The Northumberland coast is for England relatively unpopulated and has long
stretches of empty beaches and some very scenic coastal castles. We had a good
time doing day trips to Lindisfarne (An island only accessible at low tide),
Alnwick (Where we visited the poison garden – who knew that rubarb can kill you
in 12 hours) and walking the walls in Berwick. There was even time to check out
the beach. It was too cold for swimming but Isabella did get buried in the sand
– though she wasn’t that sure about it.
After our ‘holiday’ we headed north to
Scotland while Michael, Gilly and Isabella went home. We were borrowing Gillys
car so it was easy to get around. We were loving the short distances after our
American road trip. We started by heading up the east coast then over to
Inverness, past Loch Ness and down the west coast before finishing back in
Edinburgh.
In Dufftown we visited the Glen Fiddich
distillery and did some whisky tasting. Neither of us really like whisky but it
was free and the 18 year old stuff wasn’t bad with a touch of water. The part I
found interesting was the range of smells coming out of each stage of the process.
Over on the western side we climbed Ben
Nevis - the UK’s highest hill at 1344 m. We started really early in the hope of
beating the weather but by the time we were approaching the top it was
extremely windy and the cloud had closed in so we could only see about 20m at times. On
the way down we passed a steady stream of people heading up. It is potentially
the most over rated walk I’ve ever done.
In a last minute decision which got Dusk in
a packing fluster we decided to drive down to Oban. It turned out to be a good
decision as we both really liked Oban (maybe because the weather was slightly
better) and it meant we could do a day trip to the Island of Mull and cruise to
the Treshnish Isles and Staffa. The whole idea behind all this was to see
Puffins, and on the Treshnish Isles we saw thousands. They are really curious
with almost no fear of humans so will come right up to you. You can watch their
antics for hours but my personal favourite was watching them land as they fly
in low and then basically fall the last metre crashing into the ground.
Few of the strange things about the UK;
For a place that sees a lot of rain it
isn’t very well prepared for it, even a small downpour causes flooding and
chaos.
Road signs are not very logical, often
taking you on a roundabout route to get to a place rather than going straight
there.
People can get very excited about some
little wedding.
