Category Archives: Life reflections

Edinburgh: Cassidy’s Firsts

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Edinburgh: Tour minus one day

We departed Knoxville with Cassidy in tow. Her mother entrusted this perpetually happy 20-something to us, as Cassidy had never flown before, let alone been overseas.

The flight from Knoxville to Atlanta was 38 peaceful minutes of Cassidy glued to the window emitting occasional gasps of delight. We tried to explain that the flight from Atlanta to Edinburgh would be, shall we say, less comfortable. Every time I looked over on that 10 pm-6 am ATL-EDI flight, Cassidy was twisted into a different bread product shape. There was the pretzel, when she tried sleeping with her knees tucked up, feet on her chair. The brioche, when she slumped onto a pillow on the folding tray. The croissant, a kind of diagonal lean that annoyed the man next to her. The donut. Nuff said.

None of it worked. Microsleeping in three-minute intervals sucks. We arrived groggy, grabbed our luggage, and boarded the tram for downtown Edinburgh, where we would stay with beloved friends Barbara and Oliver. Cassidy loved the tram ride, waking up more with each stop.

The skies opened as we departed the tram with about a half-mile walk to BnO. Cassidy loved the rain. She said it was lucky if it rained on your wedding day, so this was Scotland welcoming us. We didn’t quite follow the logic, but she was helping pull Jack’s suitcase, and she was cheerful, so it didn’t matter. This would become a pattern. Cassidy=cheerful.

We squelched into BnO’s and went down the staircase to their warm kitchen, where the Aga (a kind of stove that’s on perpetually in British houses, providing what is often the only internal heat) welcomed us. BnO live in an old four-story, where they own two of the stories including a sunken garden out the back where Cassidy had her first cup of tea. We had naps.

We met Mark, some wealthy real estate guy who was a lot of fun and took us all to the local pub. (We should explain, Barbara is famous. She’s like the Dolly Parton of Scotland, so she has a lot of people who are friends because it’s cool to go to a pub with Barbara, etc.) Mark was a hoot. He thought Cassidy was a hoot and bought her a Guinness with Black Currant. Her first drink.

“The Currant will make it palatable,” he said with a grin, setting the thing down before her. (It didn’t, but she managed to get it down while the rest of us had three rounds of something.)

We had fish suppers, and this Cassidy found more palatable. For those who have never had a fish supper, it’s deep fried battered fish and chips—french fries to you—with a wee Styrofoam cup of mushy peas usually thrown in. Because, we should all eat our vegetables. I often refer to the natural self-loathing that follows a good fish supper. You can’t believe you ate something that bad for you, but at the time it’s sooooo good you ignore the voices saying things like cholesterol, calories, heart attacks….

Then I took Cassidy for an evening ramble as the rest sat chatting about music, politics, and other Scottish subjects. Up past Princes Gardens to the High Street, thence to the Royal Mile, so tomorrow she could conquer it herself. And so we could walk off the fish suppers. The child caught on quickly.

Home again, in the Scottish daylight that lasts well into 11 pm, and face down into the eiderdown we went. And there was darkness from about 1-4 am, and that was Cassidy’s first day in a foreign land.

Sabbath in Scotland

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Dear Regular Readers (and everybody else *waves cheerfully*) –

You will have noticed a dearth of blogs these last two weeks. Jack and I took a small group to Scotland to tour around enjoying the history and the folk arts. I didn’t keep up with the blog then for two reasons: to concentrate on the making sure our little band of travelers had a good time with all their needs met; and because my doctor and chiropractor said “you really need to rest your wrist.”

So I did. Call it a Sabbath rest; call it a sabbatical. At first I called it weird. As most of you know, when I’m not writing I’m crocheting. So the concept of two weeks in which I neither typed nor stitched was an interesting experiment in self-discovery. Who am I when I’m not being who I normally am?

Turns out, this brief “change is as good as a rest” time was great for both body and soul. More of that later. For now please know I’m starting a one-a-day until we’re caught up with all the tiny scribbled notes on bits of paper and napkin I brought back so each of you could share the tour with us. It was fun. Inspiring. Exhausting in a good way. The kind where you go to bed at night and think, “Yep used up all my energy today making other people happy and had a good time doing it.”

In preparation for the posts to come, meet our crew:

Alan, bus driver – Alan was the founding member of Battlefield Band. He knows a lot about history and occasionally broke into song as we passed towns whose names resonated with ballads he knew or songs he had written.

Zahnke, party of 3: Let’s start with Fiona, the matriarch at 90 years of age. She used a walking stick. That was it. Any suggestion she might want to you know, take it easy, skip an attraction, was greeted with her patented withering stare. Which works better because she’s like 4’11” so it burns all the skin off from your chin up. Then there’s Lulu, Fiona’s daughter, a puppeteer who lives in Majorca. She brought Mr. Fox and Ratsputin on the trip. They did a lot of scene play as we careened across the countryside. And the third Zahnke isn’t actually just a Zahnke, but has a hybrid last name I can’t spell. Gareth is Fiona’s grandson and Lulu’s nephew. He runs a farm in SWVA and as the tour progressed, if you couldn’t finish your three-course-nightly hotel dinner, just tilt the table toward Gareth. He was always ready to take one for the team.

Maria: I’ve known Maria since college, when we car pooled together to University of Tennessee Knoxville. In the past ten years Maria dealt with a life-altering brain tumor, followed by the death of her husband, best friend, and mother in rapid succession. Maria can, as she describes herself, quiver like a tuning fork with anxiety, and she can also come out with some awesome thoughts about life, scenery, and humor. You will never meet a more observant person.

Harry and Andrea: the other married couple on the trip, enjoying their “retirement” years. Although seasoned travelers, this was one of their few overseas vacations. Also, please be aware this sweet couple who launched three boys into adulthood are not quite as, ehm, straight-laced? Predictable? as one might wish to assign them to be. Harry’s dry wit and Andrea’s “I’m not sure about this but let’s do it because it sounds like fun” sense of adventure kept us all laughing.

Cassidy: First time overseas. First time on an airplane. First time having a cup of tea. First time having a Guinness. First fish supper. We stopped counting firsts after awhile. This kid (early 20s) was racking them up. We got in the habit of looking up–when we stopped for petrol near a hill with a trail, or took lunch breaks in a place with a cathedral–to find Cassidy waving at us from whatever the highest point was. A fast walker, a quiet thinker, and a barrel of fun, Harry summed up Cassidy well: You could drop that girl in boiling water and she’d still be happy.

So with Jack and Wendy at the head of this happy band of travelers, look for adventures over the forthcoming days, along with a few observations on humanity in general and Scottish humanity in particular.