So today started as most days after a night at Gilbert and Jenny’s: Frank and I were slightly dehydrated and unable to bend over without getting dizzy. Par for the course… But at least we could sleep in a bit because the first order of business wasn’t scheduled until 10am: Gillian was getting her first tattoo. She’s been pestering me to get one since she was 16 and I kept insisting that she would be perfectly within her rights to get one when she was 18. So in April she turned 18 and today she went to the Top Mark tattoo shop in Stirling and got this tattooed on her right hip:
I’d post a picture of the actual ink but it’s kinda messy right now. It’s a Gaelic phrase that translates to “live and learn” – or at least that’s what she thinks. If it doesn’t, please don’t tell her.
We spent half an hour while Darryl worked on her hip and I chatted with one of the other tattoo artists who happened to be from outside Salinas, California. He and his wife have lived in Scotland for the last 8 years as she was finishing her schooling: getting a PhD in English literature. Yes, I think I have found a more oddly matched couple profession wise than me and Frank. We thought we were unusual being the mechanic-PhD economist couple. We think the tattoo artist-PhD in English literature couple might just have us beat!
Half and hour and no major complaints later, she was being bandaged up (with cling wrap!) and given after care instructions which included recommendations for specific lotions and creams – including using Bepanthen twice a day for three days. In the US, it might be marketed as Desitin. Yes, Gillian gets to treat her new tattoo with nappy cream! (That was the best laugh of the morning for me!)
Then we stopped at the Bluebell Tea Room for a hot chocolate, coffee and gluten free cakes (Victoria sponge and a brownie – both excellent) while Frank and Duncan ran errands for my mother-in-law. We then met up with our niece Amy and hit the town! Of all the places we had rummaged through the rummagable, we hadn’t done so in our own back yard so we hit all the British Heart Foundation, Red Cross, Oxfam, Shelter, PSDA shops we could find. We were pretty successful and came away with more books, a wooly jumper, a flannel and a few other odds and sods.
Then lunch at the City Walls pub – which is a neat place actually built into the city wall of Stirling with a lovely roof terrace where we could eat our bar lunch in the screaming sunshine. Scotland has outdone itself again with beautiful sunny skies and temperatures in the high 70’s and low 80’s. Gammon steaks, steak pie, Chicken Balmoral and chicken tikka – typical Scottish pub food – were on the menu for us today.
Then back to the shops. Gillian has also been looking for a messenger bag – a very particular messenger bag which to me looks like a airline bag from the 1970’s but she is quite keen on. We saw many versions in leather in Italy for upwards of 100 euros but that was out of her price range. We saw a sporty, non-leather version in Schuh for 45 pounds which was much more up her alley and so another purchase procured. Even Duncan enjoyed some success, purchasing his first pair of Doc Martin’s. This brings the ‘trips to Europe where Duncan has bought shoes’ count to three straight. (Cue Imelda Marcos joke.)
We decided to complete the day with a quick trip to the only charity shop in Bridge of Allan – they are generally too posh for such things – and found that even the cheap stuff in a posh town tends to be posh. We ran into Jean and Jimmy on the high street and got a chance to say cheerio as we’ll be off to Troon tomorrow. They recommended one last stop: a charity shop in Dunblane so we made one last run and procured even more books before heading back home.
The rest of the afternoon was spent packing and doing wash as tomorrow we vacate this lovely flat and head to the west coast for more family visits: with my family this time. I see more wine drinking and world problem solving discussions in my future… but first we have to figure out how to get all this stuff into our cases. That took the better part of an hour and half a bottle of wine to manage. Then off to a quiet dinner just the four of us before a final visit with Tom and Una and Gran.
Steps: 16, 877 or 7.27 miles
Number of papers with Andy Murray on the front page: 0 (but we did get to see the gold post box in Dunblane!)
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