Day 16: Fending for ourselves

And today begins the transition from vacation to visiting.  For two weeks we were tourists, with the majority of that time spent surrounded by people whose job it was to make us happy.  Then we had this lovely transition weekend where technically we were visiting family but they consistently go out of their way to make us feel special: cooking fantastic meals, pouring copious amounts of tasty beverages, and generally providing incredible camaraderie.  We still feel like we are on vacation when we visit.  And all that was to change.

The rain from the night before had persisted and we awoke to the steady thrum of persistent showers.  We managed to have breakfast while it was still considered morning and hashed through a few more weighty topics such as road rage, the second amendment and international comparisons of sports fans. But then we had to pack up and move on to visiting Frank’s family.  We took the obligatory good-bye photo in the front garden – not hungover for a change! – and headed north east.

We headed to Stirling  to check into our AirBnB.  We are staying at Limegrove Cottage, a flat we’ve stayed in before, which is really more than we need with 2 bedrooms and 2 baths but it’s comfy and well located with parking and a large utility room where we can get all the cruise clothes washed so we don’t have to wander around Scotland smelling like sunscreen! We arrived a bit too early so it was off to the youngest Cannon brother’s house to say hello, catch up on all the happenings, make some plans for the week, and get some information on the condition of Frank’s mom.  Then it was off to the care home for a quick visit to mom to let her know we’ve arrived and that we’ll be by to spend some time with her tomorrow.

And now to really be a local:  stop by the flat to drop off the bags, off to Sainsbury’s to pick up essentials for breakfast (bacon, eggs, brown loaf, yogurt, muesli, etc) as well as for evenings (wine, beer, and cider). 

Travel tip #31: always have a carrier bag or two in your case. They come in handy for all kinds of things and if you don’t have one with you when you leave hone, you’ll probably have one when you return. But that does make you look cool when you go to Wegmans with foreign grocery bags.

And finally, we really needed to eat a meal.  Tea and biscuits with the family helped to tide us over but we hadn’t had anything proper since the bacon and egg roll just before noon.  And there was no one around who was charged with or cared enough to take care of that for us! So we were on our own. Yes, we could have bought ingredients at the store to cook something or eaten out at a restaurant but why when there is an excellent chippy nearby.  So off to Paulino’s on the Glasgow road for a fish and a chicken supper, washed down with beer, and enjoyed it while trying to find something to watch on the telly.

Travel tip #32: don’t expect television in a foreign country to be any better than what you get at home. We still had a choice of dozens of channels of crap – some of it was American crap.

Dubious data for the day:
5758 steps and 4 floors
Miles driven: approximately 80 (which is why the step count is so low)
Loads of washing completed so far: 2
Different beers and ciders purchased: 9