WHAT A WEEKEND!

Friday--a shopping trip

The purpose for our weekend trip was to attend Nki’s graduation (with a Master’s Degree) from TWU in Denton. A side portion of our trip is to do some shopping unavailable in Bwd. The night before we left, I found addresses of the stores we wanted to visit and entered them in Sara’s (my orange van) navigation system. She is sooooo smart, she took us right to Hulen Mall, which was near our first stop -- a Men’s wear store to buy N. a suit coat.. That accomplished, we found an Academy store for some particular very special fishing accessories. While N was finding the little plastic grub thingies, I browsed. Found lots of Burt’s Bees products, an entire end-cap of red white and blue sparkly stuff like necklaces, pony tail holders, terry cloth swim bags, etc. Academy is one of N’s favorite places to browse, but not one of mine.

Third stop of the day was to Circuit City to look at digital video cameras. [Side note, we seem to get a new video camera every time Nki graduates] Found one with a hard drive that should be pretty easy to use and download , not only for the graduation, but also to record our yearly long trips . I may also try to figure out how to attach video to this blog site.

Lunch was at an interesting place named MImi’s where we had chicken wraps w/ soup.

Our final destination for the shopping trip was the Arlington Sewing Center. Sara already had the address entered, we just told her to guide us there and she advised us where to turn, what lane to get in, and how much longer to the next turn. As you might guess, this is not N’s favorite place to shop, but he was very patient with me.

This is the shop where I find very special embroidery designs. The customer looks through an enormous book of designs, picks the 10 or 20 she wants from the gazzillions listed and they will burn it on a CD of them for about $5 per design also included is a color picture of the design and a color chart showing what thread was used. (I have paid as much as $20 for a special design I wanted from a lady who digitized it just for me) This is a pretty good deal. I asked the lady who owns the shop if she had LARGE alphabets for putting words on church banners. She did some research and could only come up with one item that would meet my needs. It is a very large program with FIFTY (50) fonts that can be sized as large as a person’s embroidery hoop allows and may be slanted or printed in an arch or any number of other configurations. N asked some technical questions that hadn’t occurred to me to ask--i.e. format for Singer machines, save to desktop, etc.
YES--I bought it and--- as I write this--have not had the time to play with it yet. I’ll include a picture when I get it all figured out. Maybe Monday afternoon or Wednesday will be good times to play. I also picked 10 separate designs for a disc and have already embroidered one of them. A really cute stick figure angel.



After we were through at the Sewing Center, we told Sara to take us to Allegheny Street and she guided us right there. We had a great brisket supper that had been cooking most of the day and we organized things for the very early breakfast on Saturday morning. N’s graduation is at 9 in Denton (about an hour away) and her three 1/2 friends who are going to the ceremony with us are coming for breakfast at 6:30. Three and a half, because GB is bringing her 7 month old son Owen. The other guests for breakfast are M. and S. Nki made coffee cake and I prepared a fruit salad. Then we went to bed.

The Longest Day--Thursday - April 10

AIN'T TECHNOLOGY GRAND!


I’m writing this on the plane from London’s Heathrow to Chicago O’Hare. No, I’m not transmitting it, but I am able to write it and capture my thoughts WHILE I’M STILL AWAKE AND ABLE TO THINK.

This morning- Thursday- began at 3:30am Scotland time (9:30 Wed night Texas time) with our wake up call. Bags were out in the hall by 4:30 and we went down to the lobby for our continental breakfast of muffin, sweet roll, apple and sandwich to be eaten w/ tea or coffee. (And yes, I’m getting used to the too strong tea that sits in the pot a really long time before it is served—but these folks don’t believe in lemon in tea)

We loaded the bus at 5 for the hour drive to Glasgow. It was raining, but we were hoping to bring some rain back to Texas with us. Looks like Bwd has had some in the past day or so.

Glasgow airport wasn't hard to navigate—we all got settled in and had about an hour flight to Heathrow. What a MAZE as I mentioned before—up an escalator and then moving sidewalks and then the tram and then twisting and turning and going thru security, again, etc.


We all got on our plane for the LONG leg of this trip, we've settled in and have had a meal- and not a bad meal at that. I think we’ll have another before we disembark.

About noon (before our meal) the head stewardess (they probably aren’t called that anymore, but you know who I mean) came on with the announcement that we should move our watches BACK 6 hours to 6 am---did I mention the never-ending day? I didn’t feel like 6 am, but I’m not sure what it did feel like. As I write this my watch is set to Texas time and it is 11:30 am, but I think my body feels like 8pm because we got up so early. This will all sort out in the next day or two, just be patient, if I fall asleep in church. We’re expected to arrive in Chicago at 3:15 and then will go on to DFW. We hope to be in Bwd by midnight.

I finally finished my book I was reading (IRELAND) and it is really worthwhile. Not too sure about the accuracy of all the information, but it is intriguing.

We have filled out our customs forms and will need to "schlep" our bags to customs when we get into O’Hare, then re check them on to DFW.

This trek through O'Hare was difficult for some in our group- we again, went up, went thru security, changed terminals, re-checked baggag and we thought we were in a time crunch--not realizing that our flight has been delayed. No need to hurry, we found out later.

The rain was so strong in the Chicago part of the world, that the plane we needed to get from Chicago to DFW was over an hour late arriving at O’Hare. This made us about 2 hours late lifting off and that much later getting home to Bwd. Folks on the trip had been in touch via cell phone w/ family in Bwd and were very concerned about the high winds and serious storms that had been here for the past day or so.

We were relieved to see that everything seemed to be relatively normal on re-entering Brownwood.

Home and in bed by 3 am. —Thus ends a 30 hour day. And a really good trip. Many thanks to Citizens National Bank and Edda for sponsoring this excursion. It was good to get to know all the Bwd area folks--Shirley, Barbara, Coyce, Connie, Susan, Sue, Harold, Ann, Nancy, Sandra, Kay, Ruth, Mariann, Sharon, Elicia, Phyllis, Carol

Ten and a half days of Sunshine

The sun has been our friend and constant companion.
We have had wonderful touring weather (even the snow was “cool” and only lasted a few hours--- but in our group picture, it looks like we are a bunch of Eskimos) We could not have wished for better weather over all, even tho' at times it was windy and cool, we did not have the usual Ireland/Scotland overcast days complete with rain and drizzle.

As we begin our final day of touring (not counting tomorrow ---on the airplane forever), people are talking about missing their families and pets. They are talking about what they are getting for gifts for friends and folks back home and they are also talking about the differences in the hotel accommodations. We’ve all rather gotten used to sleeping under a duvet without a top sheet. We did have “American” bedding at one place, but I’d have to go back in my notes to look it up. No matter. Sometimes the shower knobs and levers need to be figured out BEFORE the water is turned on for the bath or shower. I think we’ve all enjoyed the really huge towels at some hotels as well as the timed electric towel warmers. We’ve grown accustomed to keeping a 20 pence coin at all times for use in the pay toilets. Some of our rooms in the hotels have been quite small, not as large as we are used to at the Holiday Inn or Best Western. In one place, N and I had a really interesting room with a full sized bed and two twin beds along with TWO (2) bathrooms. One was a “normal” bathroom area and the other was set up for handicapped assistance. And then there was the room with the “second floor bathroom”. These are unique establishments, not “cookie-cutter” hotels of American chains.

On our last day, we stopped on the way to a sheep dog demonstration for a picture stop. The water in Loch Awe was so still; it seemed to be a mirror. The pictures we took won’t do it justice. It had rained the night before and the ground was squishy. John, our driver, cautioned us “No muck in the coach”. He meant mud and since it was his job to keep the bus clean, we were careful

Collette Tours is having a photo contest and we have been encouraged to submit pictures from this tour, since it is a relatively new itinerary. (Northern Ireland has just become “available” in the past few years) We have loads of really good pictures, but few of them have the Collette symbol in the picture.

We stopped at the Woolen Mills where the sheep dog demonstration was and it was a bit disappointing. We had seen a sheep dog demo in New Zealand on a farm and it was fascinating. This one consisted of a (hard to understand) Scotsman talking to us about sheep, wool and his dogs. His wife talked about spinning the wool to thread to be woven into cloth. We saw his dogs and then it was over. No real "demonstration".






It was at this stop that I bought my favorite “souvenir”. A lovely blue wool cape. Those of you, who know me well, know of my affinity for capes. We bought some gifts there and then later went to see Hamish a huge Highland Cow—pronounced for those who’d like to say it with a Scottish accent -- ( HEEL-and COO)




Aberfoyle was next for lunch. N had an Angus burger and I had steak pie. Not quite what I expected, but really good. There was a large puff pastry sitting on top of some beef and gravy—and of course “chips” and mashed parsnips. That is not a bun, it is pastry.




We’ve been given a list of movies about Ireland to continue our “tour “ when we get home, a list of music (one of which I plan to find on Amazon and purchase) and a list of books and authors about Ireland and Scotland. This is a nice addition to the trip. I don’t remember having any of this sort of information before on any of our other trips. Oh, our “yellow cheat sheet” was also a welcome addition. Loreen boiled the entire itinerary down onto half a sheet of paper that we could keep in a pocket to refer to during the 13 days and to refer to later as a reminder what we did and on which day. Thanks, L

We heard lots more about William Wallace and Robert the Bruce on our way to Stirling Castle. –One of the best castles I have visited- wish we had had more time there.





Nick was thrilled to see several SmartCars with “Stirling Castle“ stenciled on the side. I think that made his trip better.

We drove to our last hotel— in Falkirk—and prepared for supper. We tried the wireless availability and tho’ a little weak and really SLOW, I was able to download two days of postings. I tried to add a picture, but it was SO SLOW that the computer went to sleep before one was loaded. I’ll do that when we get home.---So don’t think if you are reading the “gray and white” version of this, I am finished.. I do plan to add pictures.

The farewell dinner was nice. A veritable frenzy of picture taking. Almost embarrassing. Loreen and John joined us for the first time and we said “farewell”.
The dessert was especially memorable—called cronicha (I probably spelled it wrong, I think it had more letters in the word)—it is a mixture of whipped cream with fresh berries folded in and frozen. It is served like a scoop of ice cream between two shortbread cookies. Nice and light and sweet and YUMMY!

TOMORROW—THE LONGEST DAY!

Island Hopping

Island Hopping- Tuesday, April 8, 2008


Lots of big and small ferries in our future today. We leave Oban on an hour ferry ride for the Isle of Mull, drive down the island for about an hour and get on a much smaller ferry for about 15 min. to get to the Isle of Iona.


I’m not sure why it bothers me, but when our tour manager, Laureen, gives us all sorts of information -some aren’t listening. About 10-20 minutes later these “non-listeners” begin asking the folks behind or ahead of them the same info she just gave us. Grrr! pay attention!

An interesting note, locals come to Oban (pop about 8,000) to get groceries. They bring rolling suitcases to take their groceries back home in. Maybe I’ll take a suitcase to Brookshire’s next time I go.

Another interesting note, “Lambing” season is around Easter. Now I guess someone shows the Mama sheep a calendar and tells them, Easter is really early this year, dear. We saw lots and lots of really little lambs.

Iona means “yew tree”. The town is really tinyl and the Abby and nunnery are quite interesting. Very cold and windy, even tho’ the sun was shining most of the day.


We had a special tour of the Abbey, learned the history of the place—it is thought that the Book of Kells (which we saw in Dublin) was begun here.

I am reading a novel entitled IRELAND that is full of tales of Ireland and one of them “explains” why the Book of Kells was written. It is a fascinating book which has as its “frame” an old traveling storyteller and the young boy that he impressed at the age of 9. The author is Frank Delaney—I haven’t finished it yet, but I definitely recommend it to anyone who loves Irish tales.

After Iona, we went back to Mull, drove back the entire length of the island and visited Duarte Castle. We had 3 levels of castle to see, with dining rooms, kitchen (no electricity) and bedrooms complete with ladies gowns from various centuries.



This is the Castle of the MacLean Clan and we were given the impression that some of the MacLean folks live in the parts that we did not see.

The road from one end of the Isle of Mull to the other is, for the most part, a ONE LANE ROAD that twists and turns. When two vehicles meet one must pull over and let the other proceed. This road showcased our driver, John’s skill and driving abilities.

On the way back we had a “sheep delay”. The bus had to completely stop as a flock of sheep leisurely crossed the road on “sheep time”. That means whenever they got cotton pickin’ ready to go. Since we didn’t seem to be in too much of a hurry at that time, no big deal. Also on the way back, we saw a MOBILE DENTAL CLINIC (Good Samaritan folks- take note— This is an idea to consider —like a bookmobile—Go to the folks, don’t make them come to you).


Sometimes talking to the other members of the tour is as interesting as seeing the sights. We have a young lady from Seattle on our trip who asked us to explain Meals on Wheels, ( two of us from Bwd deliver for our churches and we were comparing notes about our routes). We also told her about making jam, jelly, pear honey and chow chow. She has been using her phone over here and she is w/ AT&T just as we are. We were told that our service wouldn’t work here. It’s just as well, we communicate just as well this way and it’s a little less expensive.

Other Non Texans are Ron, Shirlee, David, and Nancy—a family from California, Marilyn from Florida, Brandie from the Seattle area, and Pat and Shawn from Connecticut. It has been a pleasure to meet these folks and I hope we can stay in touch. Of course, the Texans didn’t all know each other when the trip began, and we all come from different backgrounds and experiences, but our Texan-ness is a common link.


Not sure how internet access will be at our LAST stop tomorrow in Falkirk. We'll add more tomorrow or when we return.

Loch Lomond and ice cream

Oban- Tuesday

Rum raisin Ice cream is STRONG. This begins at the end of the day with supper. We continue to have 3 choices of “starter”, entrée, and “sweet”. The vegetable broth was thick, filling and very good tasting. The roasted chicken w/ gravy was just right with it’s roasted carrots and potatoes, but the rum raisin ice cream did not just have rum “flavoring”, it had real rum and not just a little.

We’re in Oban tonight, on the west coast of Scotland getting ready to “island hop” tomorrow. We’ll go to the Isle of Mull and the “mysterious” Isle of Iona. I have really been looking forward to tomorrow.

We cruised Loch Lomond (how is it spelled? – you know the song?) today and did lots of traveling on the bus.





After arriving in the 128 year old hotel, which told us free wireless internet was available.—we tried to get online to download the latest chapter in the Ireland/Scotland saga, but couldn’t. They gave us the password, we sat just feet from the server in the lobby, but it just wouldn’t talk to our little laptop. We were told about a pub down the street w/ free wireless internet and it worked just fine. We’ll be here another night, so we’ll probably do the same thing tomorrow.

If any of you out there want to go online to check your Scottish ancestory you can check- ancestralscotland.com
Several in our group are interested in this site.

During our trip today we also traveled along Loch Awe (pronounced Aww!)

Last night we veered from Scotish food when we ate “supper” at our 10th Hard Rock Café spanning about 20+ years of traveling. We were craving salad and onion rings and that’s what we had, served by a neat Polish young lady, who tried to convince us that Pepsi was the same as Coke. She couldn’t understand how anyone could tell the difference. I said that this is our 10th Hard Rock Café---our others have been in Washington D.C., New York City, Boston, Las Vegas, San Antonio, San Francisco, CanCun, Mexico, London, Copenhagen and now Edinborough. What! No Hard Rock Café in Brownwood?

The Rum raisin ice cream is making me sleepy, so-------------

Let it SNOW!

It’s snowing this morning- and I don’t mean a flurry—It was COMING DOWN! Our city tour of Edinborough this morning will cover “old town”, new town, Edinborough Castle and Holyrood Palace. We got our bearings a bit and headed to the Palace. On each of these trips, Collette arranges for a photographer to take the group picture. OUTSIDE. By the time we arranged ourselves for the picture, the snow had ceased for a time, but it was still really cold and wet.

We heard all about Robert Louis Stephenson, who lived here and wrote “A Child’s Garden of Verses” which was read to me as I grew up and he also wrote Treasure Island. We saw his house and were told about his sickly childhood. We were told that he lived for a while in San Francisco and then Borneo.

Edinborough is known for 4 “B”’s—Banking, Brewing, Baking and lately Bio-technology (this is where Dolly the sheep was cloned, having been named after Dolly Parton)

Several stories were told about the frugality of Scots people. One of these was that copper wire was invented by two Scotsmen fighting over a penny.

We heard about Alexander Graham Bell, who lived here as a child and young man, and who moved to Canada and then the U.S. where he invented the telephone.

We heard about the midwifery (obstetrical) doctor who first used chloroform. The prominent churchmen told him that using it was against the Biblical proclaimation that women should bear children in pain and hardship. However after Queen Victoria experienced the effects of chloroform with the birth of her 8th child, she declared it wonderful and the churchmen were quiet on the subject ever after.

I also heard the tour guide tell us that Presbyterians (back several centuries ago) did not approve of theatre and dance. Oops! I guess the Bwd Presbyterians don't agree with that.

We heard about St. Giles, the “Mother Church of Presbyterianism” --didn’t know we had one of those.

We saw the Elephant House—the pub where J. K. Rowling began writing the Harry Potter books. She wrote there to stay warm because she couldn’t afford to heat her flat.

We toured the Palace and the Castle and were not able to take pictures inside either place. We do have some postcards, which are probably better representations that we could have taken.








The castle was COLD, but there was considerable walking to keep us warm.

As we were leaving Edinborough castle we came across a young man dressed as William Wallace (or better yet, as Mel Gibson in Braveheart) To raise money for leukemia research and care, he was posing for pictures in full battle regalia . There was a crush of tourists around him and we declined to join the crush, so we got pictures from afar. And his resemblance to Gibson is remarkable. I hope he collects lots of money for his cause.













After the tour we were “on our own” for the rest of the day. We changed dollars into pounds in the Marks and Spencer’s department store. (It is Sunday and banks are closed)




We found an internet café and checked mail.
N. had put the blog I wrote last night on a flash drive and we were able to transfer it to the blog site without too much trouble. But no pictures yet. That will happen when we have some time and wireless internet in our rooms. Which may not be til we’re home---not sure what the rest of the trip will bring.


On checking e-mail—Nick found out that his cousin Anne Grimes died this morning and will be buried in Shamrock, Tx. on Tuesday. I am sorry that we will not be able to attend Anne’s services.

We ate lunch in a place called THE FILLING STATION- a good selection of food to chose from—and our waiter was a charming your man from Poland. He thought we might be from Ireland. He really must have a poor ear for accents. Interesting items on the menu include: a choice of potatoes, house fries, mash, jacket. (I am guessing that jacket is a baked or boiled potato, but that is just a guess)
The burgers included tomato chili relish on the side (is that salsa?)

I haven’t told you about our hotel room. The bathroom is up a flight of 6 stairs. Treacherous in the dark.



We’re at that part of the hotel that is built on a hill and that portion happens to be higher. We had trouble with the sink stopper (it wouldn’t lift up) and we called maintenance. The man looked at it, declared it not fixable right not and offered us another room on the same floor. We declined- we have unpacked too much stuff—we’ll just DEAL.

Right now N is in the bathroom clanking on the sink, trying to get it working. He shouldn’t be, but he is—It does no good to tell him to CHILL and leave it alone. Doesn’t work.

Of course, I should not be surprised--, N. repaired the sink. I apologize,-- his persistence pays of, usually.

So long from Edinborough.

To Scotland

This is being published from an internet cafe in Edinborough without pictures for now. They will be added later, so if you're reading the pictureless version, please come back in a day or two to get the full color version---

We were given more info concerning the reputation of the Europa Hotel in Belfast. It was the most bombed hotel in Europe because that is where the world’s media and politicians stayed and bombing that particular place got the world media’s notice. The Opera house next door also was peripherally involved w/ the bombings.
Last year the LAST British soldier left Belfast and the Guard towers came down. For them this is a huge event.

There is “serious” barbed wire around the top of the fence around the Royal Hospital still.



Before leaving Belfast, we visited CULTURLANN—a politically neural organization whose purpose is to foster cultural education of all children of Belfast. They teach CEILI (pronounced kay-lee—which means Irish dance) and also the Irish language (Gaelic) An old Presbyterian church building houses an Irish language radio station, the foundation school (sort of like a community center) and various other organizations. It includes a café and gift shop. Collette tours is one of the sponsors of this foundation and before the trip we were invited to bring art supplies for the children (colored pencils, coloring books, crayons, etc). We put our donations in a large plastic bag which the tour manager gave to the director of the “school”. Collette’s sponsorship is so new that we were the first group to tour the facility. We “learned” to do Irish dances (at least we tried—and it was fun) I wish there had been more light in the "dance" area, so pictures would have been better.






and we watched the children play and interact with puppets- all in Gaelic.



We saw the radio station control room and heard some of the Gaelic broadcast. The school began in 1991 with 9 students and now has 600.





We took the high speed Ferry to Strenmaer, Scotland. An amazing vessel—really huge, with all sorts of seating- for eating, for watching out windows, even some where folks lie down and nap.


The ferry had a Burger King, and also had “traditional” food. With my traditional food I was offered “mashy peas”—which looked a lot like guacamole from a distance. The bus was on the lower deck and we went up 2 flights of stairs to get to the observation areas. If a person was really bored, he could spend the 1 hr and 45 min playing slot machines, which on the map were called BANDITS.



Rather appropriate! There were shops and even a nail salon on the ferry




The name of the ship is the STENA VOYAGER.

I was lamenting in the previous posting that I was having trouble finding what I wanted for gifts when I went shopping---I found EXACTLY what I’d been looking for in the shop in the ferry.

At the signal we all made our way back down to the bus and we were in to Scotland. No passport checks, or any sort of immigration.

The flag of Scotland is the flag of St. Andrews—a blue flag with a white cross.

As in Ireland most of the front yards of the houses have daffodils blooming and they are blooming in all the medians of the highway—very pretty.




In Scotland it is the law that we must wear seatbelts on the bus. We spent about 4 hours driving along the coast. Very rugged in places During this entire trip from Dublin, Ireland through to Glasgow, Scotland (where we end the tour) we will have traveled about 950 miles by bus and ferry.

We began driving into a higher elevation and snow began to fall about 4 pm. It flurried off and on until we reached Edinborough.

Tomorrow we will hear a great deal more about William Wallace (Braveheart) and Edward I--- Longshanks

My camera’s battery died, so it is now charging. I’ll probably need to get a new rechargeable battery when we get home.

We ate at a Spanish tapas restaurant tonite. We had about 10-12 appetizers, which ranged from Calamari, to eggplant, to meatballs and tiny chicken wings, to (of course,) potatoes. The serving dishes were placed on the tables and we helped ourselves. An interesting meal, which finished with chocolate chip ice cream.

It was a long day—and when we finally got to the room (about 8pm) we discovered that this hotel does not have wireless internet. I’ll try to download this later. Good night.