Apparently saving the world through wine (and whisky – an empty Dalwhinne bottle was among the wreckage) has some side effects, especially if there isn’t many hours between when you go to bed and when you are required to surface from the bed if you want to still call it morning. I would love to say that I felt no worse the wear for the lots of wine and little sleep but I would
be lying. But as always, the conversation and camaraderie was well worth it. We eventually all surfaced by noon and fortified by bacon and egg rolls and some strong coffee, we ventured out for our “we’re not hungover” photo and prepared to head back for the rest of our goodbyes.
A painfully slow crawl through traffic and rain in Glasgow and we were able to fetch Frank’s mum to go for our final family visit to Broomridge. My nephew (12) had just finished putting together his own PC from parts and we spend some time diagnosing some wifi connectivity issues over tea and moved on to discussions of differences in mortgage markets between the US and UK and a variety of other important topics. After a few hours, mum was ready to go back to her care home so we said goodbyes all around, made a quick stop in Bannockburn to cover the rest of the Cannon clan and then it was off to Edinburgh.
We figured out a few years ago that it is far less stressful to stay at the airport hotel the night before the morning transatlantic flight. It make it easier to return the hire car in a timely manner, grab one more quiet drink before struggling to rearrange the contents of the cases to make sure everything is appropriately packed, and sleep just a little longer in the morning since it’s only a few minutes walk to the terminal. So that’s what we have done again this year with a room booked at the airport Hilton (and covered by my Hilton points!) including a reasonable meal in the hotel restaurant (many GF options marked) and a last pint of cider before an early night.
Today’s numbers:
- Number of ibuprofen required to make it through today: 4
- Number of bottles of Irn Bru consumed: 1
- Number of goodbye hugs rendered: 12
- Number of steps (trudged): 5025 (2.16 miles)
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