Category: Holidays

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Holidays

Home From Home – Day 29

The day starts at Portabello Road market, where M2’s daughter is selling articles for charity as part of her course. I buy a present for my daughter there. M2 and I then wander through the market and I make another purchase, once I know what to ask for.

You see, when you leave your home country and go to live elsewhere, your native language changes without you knowing it. And the thing I want to buy, which I know as “tights” turns out to be “leggings”. Fortunately, I’m not caught out asking for the wrong thing, because I assumed “tights” wouldn’t be used for both tights and… erm… tights. Other changes have hit me over the years, like the meaning of the word “right” when used as an exclamation.

M2 and I go to Earl’s Court on what I’m sure is a wild goose chase. My daughter has asked me to collect a mask that she inadvertently left in a cupboard in a youth hostel over a week ago. Surely, it couldn’t possibly still be there. But there it is, in a box in a plastic bag, lying at the bottom of the cupboard. Amazing! And M2 kindly offers to take it home with her so that I won’t have to drag it around with me.

After a very tasty lunch near Waterloo Station, I go on to Euston to catch a train to Stoke-on-Trent, where I’m met by Gill’s husband who takes me and Jane (who arrives from elsewhere) to their house where I stay for three nights and two very interesting days.

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Holidays

Home From Home – Days 26-28

Oops, I missed out yesterday. I was too bogged down. In my WIP, that is; the bogs of Scotland are all but forgotten.

***

Three lovely days in Amsterdam. On the first, we visit an art exhibition: From Matisse to Malevich, the Royal Palace and the Historical Museum. All are very interesting, especially the historical museum.

On the second day, we walk 16 km from Castricum to Egmond-on-See. The terrain is flat. Flat! So different from Scotland. On the way, we see a group of children on bikes. “Probably a school trip,” my brother says. “What happens if a child doesn’t know how to ride a bike?” I ask. “All Dutch children know how to ride a bike,” he says.

The walk ends at a beach. I’m interested in the seat cabins people have brought with them.

On the third day, we hire a bike and go for a 35-km ride through the Amsterdam Bos to Waver and along the river Amstel back to Amsterdam. It’s fun and I’m proud of myself – I haven’t ridden a bike for a long time. But, when in Rome….

I hop on another plane back to the familiar south of England. Cheap flights are good, although I don’t enjoy standing for over half an hour to wait for the plane to arrive and unload its passengers, especially as my legs are aching from all that exercise.

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Holidays

Home From Home – Days 22-25

M2’s house is always busy. People are in and out all the time, phones ring constantly. Despite all that, M2 manages to organize food and other things and can even keep up with my activities. I don’t know how she does it. M2’s house becomes my base for the rest of my stay in Europe. It’s convenient to have a place to leave some of my stuff. She apologises for dragging me to the supermarket, but really even that is fun with her. And I buy things I have to take home, like salt and vinegar crisps.

M2’s husband tends to ask interesting questions. That’s not to say that M2 doesn’t. I suppose his questions are more thought-provoking. He asks me what I learned in my life that I wish I’d known earlier. I don’t answer. I say I have to think about that.

One day, I go to visit P in Windsor. We’re joined by someone I haven’t seen since uni, and later P takes me for a walk round Windsor, where I see the theatre where I enjoyed watching several plays while at uni. All is in keeping with this trip back to the past.

After three days at M2’s house, I hop over to Amsterdam where my brother lives.

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Bullying Holidays

Home From Home – Days 19-21

Our visit to the nursing home where my mother resides is a bit hard. It’s hard because you remember the person as she used to be and realise that person is no longer. The carer who tends to her is very patient and I remark on that. “You have to be patient to work here,” she replies.

The next morning, I receive a text message from M2: “Happy birthday!” I phone her back. “Thanks for reminding me!” Later, we set off for the Jewish Museum, where we meet another cousin. We see three exhibitions – Judaism: a living faith, History: A British Story and a changing exhibition: “Illuminations”.  I find the history one the most interesting. Afterwards, we have lunch in the café. I choose a salt-beef sandwich in rye bread (what else?). In the evening, I’m delighted to see all the birthday wishes on Facebook and reply, “Just for that, it’s worth having a Facebook account.”

The following morning, I take the train to my childhood. I look at the house where I grew up. The stone wall is now painted white and the front garden has become a parking area. I take a once-familiar walk up to my old school, which I haven’t set eyes on for 39 years. As far as I remember, the outside of the building looks just the same.

The school is closed for the summer holidays. That’s probably just as well. I’ve seen enough. I visit a nearby well-equipped leisure centre. Why wasn’t that there when I lived here?

In the afternoon, I meet up with my cousins for a play at the Churchill Theatre – Alan Ayckbourn’s “Bedroom Farce”. I have a lovely time, but … well, I’ve seen better farces.

***

Looking at my school’s website, I see that today is the start of anti-bullying week, and that the school has an anti-bullying policy. Progress has been made. I wonder if it would have made a difference in my case. I hope so.

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Holidays Social anxiety

Home From Home – Day 18

This is taking too long. It’s now two months since I returned home and my blog is still on holiday. So I’m going to post every day until it’s finished. Well, that’s the plan anyway….

***

I say goodbye to M1, who has been so good to me, take a train to Euston Station and walk to St Pancras Station dragging my suitcase with me. I’m sure those mounds on the pavement at each crossing are useful to some, but they’re quite a nuisance when you’re wheeling a suitcase. It takes me some time to discover I’m in King’s Cross and not St Pancras. While I’m waiting at the information desk to ask, “Sorry for the stupid question, but where is Starbucks?”, I notice that one of the staff’s jobs is to help elderly/infirm people to get to their platforms. I’m impressed.

Fortunately, I’m still on time for my meeting with Cathy Walter, who turns out to be a friendly, warm person and very pleasant to chat to – even for me. The two hours we spend together fly by. She says she wouldn’t have known I had a problem and that causes mixed feelings. I’m happy that I’m managing to keep up my side of the conversation. And I wonder if I come over as a fraud. The fact is that I behave differently with different people, and Cathy is very easy to talk to. Also, I’m generally more at ease with strangers because they don’t have preconceived opinions of me. Most people with social anxiety are just the opposite and are most scared of talking to strangers.

Then I meet my eighteen-year-old daughter, who has been visiting Paris and London with a friend. I’m amazed how well she has coped. She gives me a music box with my favourite French tune, one that brings back pleasant memories:



I don’t want to arrive at my cousins’ house too early and I don’t want to wander around any more with my suitcase. So I sit in the station and watch people and wheeled articles going past. Of all the things we used to manage without – mobile phones, laptops, electric kettles that lift off the part connected to the electric point – wheeled suitcases are the most unfathomable. Surely the technology was available to put wheels on suitcases fifty years ago, a hundred years ago, and more. I also see wheelie bins in a line, pulled by a man in a vehicle. They remind me of a line of ducklings following their mother.

My cousins are pleased to see me and tell me the plans for the next three days.

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Holidays

Home From Home – Day 17

Back to civilisation.

The woman in the tourist office did well to warn us about the deer. Many of them are caught in our headlights as we hurtle along the road towards Inverness at an unearthly hour of the morning. Fortunately, D spots every one. They don’t seem particularly scared. I think the driver is more scared. But he drives very well, leaving me time to remember that, in our hurry this morning, we forgot to take the shortbread that was left over, and to worry that the petrol will run out. We pass only one petrol station on the way, at Ullapool, and that’s closed.

We’re met at Gatwick by M1 and her husband, who have driven for two hours on a Sunday morning to compensate us – well, me actually – for our recent troubles. How wonderful! Here, as I kiss D goodbye, begins the second part of my trip.

The first difference I notice, as I get out of the car after the pleasant two-hour drive to M1’s house, is that it’s much warmer here. We have drinks outside in their garden, marred only by several unwanted buzzing guests. After a delicious lunch made by M1’s husband (I’m not jealous of her even though he makes all the meals … well, not much), M1 takes me to a lovely place where we walk around the grounds. Unfortunately, I fail to write down the name of it. But I do note how nice it is to be able to be online again after Achiltibuie, where even phone connections were problematic.

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Holidays

Home From Home – Day 16

My notebook is now sprinkled with phone numbers and flight information, but we’re no nearer to knowing how we’re going to get away from this remote corner of the British Isles. It’s not that we haven’t enjoyed our time away here, but enough is enough. We want to leave.

The ferry journey back to Ullapool seems interminable. When we finally arrive, we make our way to the car, where we try to discuss our options civilly while not in the best of moods. We decide to try the tourist office and end up spending over an hour while an overworked assistant takes time from helping other customers to try and sort us out. All the options turn out to be very expensive, and so we choose the most convenient one – a flight from Inverness to Gatwick tomorrow morning. As we thank the assistant for her help, she gives us a word of warning: “When you drive to the airport, look out for the deer.”

In the evening, standing outside in the cold by the road (because there’s no reception for the phone in the house), D manages to book a later flight home. Adding up the prices of all the flights, the car and the hotel, he calculates that the cancelled ferry has cost us about £600.

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Holidays

Home From Home – Day 15

I have been reprimanded for keeping you in suspense for too long. It’s time to reveal all … in the middle of this post. No peeping!

***

The day starts well. After a delicious breakfast, our wonderful hosts drive us to the start of our walk. The walk is long and solitary. We don’t see another soul for its duration, although footprints show us that others have gone this way. The most difficult thing we do is to walk uphill through tall grass and bogs. Fortunately, the rain starts after the most difficult part of the walk. Our feet are soaking, but it’s all part of the fun … isn’t it? Finally we arrive at a beach with pillars of rock.

When we walk up the hill to the bus stop, it’s sunny and rather windy.

Back in Stornaway, we have plenty of time before the ferry leaves. We spend it in a book shop. It’s very windy outside. When someone opens the door, instead of using the revolving one, a lot of dirt flies in.

As we walk towards the ferry station, beside the sea with its high waves, we notice that no one else is going our way. Strange. Then, at the entrance to the building, there’s a blackboard on an easel. On the blackboard, in white chalk, someone has written: FERRY CANCELLED. The man behind the desk confirms that, due to the weather, this is indeed the case, and the next ferry is scheduled for tomorrow morning at 9:30.

It takes a few seconds for the full ramifications of this news to sink in. We’re going to miss our flight to London, and D will miss his flight back home, unless…. We need some travel information, so we head for the tourist office. It’s closed. It seems it usually stays open late to serve people who arrive on the evening ferry and, as that was cancelled, they closed. What about those who are stranded on the island because the ferry back to the mainland is cancelled?

We do have some luck. We get the last room in the hotel. And it has a hair dryer which we use to dry out our boots and socks as much as possible. The smell still lingers. The woman at the desk is very helpful and finds out a lot of transport information, although, in the end, it doesn’t really help us. M1, the friend I’d arranged to stay with for two nights, is also very helpful and finds out some phone numbers for us, but we don’t manage to book anything except for another night in our house in Achiltibuie. (Luckily, it hasn’t been let out to more holiday makers.) When we go downstairs for a meal before the hotel restaurant closes, we’re still discussing our options.

One option is for D to take the bus straight from Ullapool to Inverness tomorrow. Then he’ll be able to catch a later flight to London and still arrive in time to catch his flight home. That would leave me to arrange transport to London, drive to Achiltibuie (I’ve let D navigate the single-track road up to now, as he does it so well), pack all our luggage, organise keeping the car for another day, clear up the house, deal with excess luggage on flights, drag two suitcases and a rucksack around with me for three-and-a-half weeks, …. Need I explain why this option doesn’t appeal to me?

We’re just finishing our meal when the fire alarm goes. During the meal, we’ve been noticing signs of the gale blowing outside – a hanging plant swinging furiously, one or two brave people fighting an invisible force. Now we have to leave our warm and comfortable enclave to stand in driving rain and wind without coats. It’s the last straw.

Fortunately, the alarm stops after two minutes and we all troop back inside.

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Holidays

Home From Home – Day 14

The three-hour ferry ride from Ullapool to Stornaway is uneventful. We have a look around Stornaway while waiting for the bus to Eoropie. Eventually, the bus leaves the “big” metropolis and weaves its way to the northern tip of the island. As we go, I look out of the window hoping to see B&B signs. I see none. And only one hotel, which isn’t very near to the place where we want to start our walk tomorrow. D doesn’t seem at all worried. I don’t know why not.

On arrival, we visit an ancient church built some time between the late 12th century and the early 16th century. To get to the church we walk along a path, past a man and his dog cutting a hedge. Actually, I think the man was doing most of the work. On our way back, we see the man loading his cutting machine and dog into a van. I go up to him and ask if there’s anywhere to stay in the area. Was that brave of me? I’m better with strangers. The man recommends a place nearby. We chat to the man about the walk we’re planning for tomorrow, the weather and so on. Then we walk to the lighthouse and on past the cemetery, back to the road and on to the B&B.

True enough, there’s a house with a B&B sign, exactly as the man described. How wonderful! Or not. We approach the house full of hope. D says, “Do you really do bed and breakfast?”

“Oh no,” says the lady. We don’t do that any more. We wonder why the sign is still there. She phones the only other B&B in the area, two miles away. “Can you walk that?” she asks. “Oh yes,” we say happily in unison, but that place turns out to be full. I have visions of sleeping outside in a field. (Remember this is northern Scotland and it’s none too warm.) Then the nice lady, for such she has become, says she and her husband are willing to put us up anyway. Now this really is wonderful. We wait while they prepare the room, and then go in to find a luxurious and spotlessly clean room with an en suite bathroom. We slide in between the sheets covering a soft mattress, lay our heads on soft, welcoming pillows and sleep soundly. Our dreams possibly touch on the long and isolated walk we plan to do tomorrow, but certainly don’t reflect the calamity that is about to befall us.

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Holidays

Home From Home – Days 12-13

A day in Ullapool without walking. Visits to the museum and book shops. Delightful.

The next day we do the Mellon Udrigle walk, which leaves us plenty of time to sit and watch boats tracing paths far below.

In the evening we make a quick stop to see the Corrieshalloch Gorge and its suspension bridge. Like all the other tourists we see there, we walk quickly, covering our bodies as much as possible. Midges again.

Later, we have to make a decision. Tomorrow is our last opportunity to take the ferry to the Isle of Lewis so that we can do the walk D has read about on the following day. The walk is through isolated countryside far from any road. The weather might not be perfect. Do we really want to do it?

We decide to go for it. It’ll be something different to end our holiday together. Little do we know what we’re letting ourselves in for.

***

Looking up the Corrieshalloch Gorge bridge, I discovered that it was closed due to safety concerns shortly after we crossed it. Fortunately, we’re still here.