London´s calling

Well we´ve made it safely to London.

The hotel certainly has some ´charm´ - but that´s what you get in a place built in the 1850s. Our room is the size of a small walkin robe and slopes in four different directions. That said it will be perfect for the next week and we´re currently looking out onto Hyde Park from our bed (not that there is any room to sit anywhere else).

We need to download photos to the computer from the last week so once we do that we´ll try and post again tomorrow. (Happy with that Kek?)

Alistair

Edinburgh weekend

Here are Carol, Alistair and I at Tigerlily for drinks. Note the Mojito - and my desperation to drink it! There is also the ever present whisky for Derek and Alistair - he has now had 18 different whiskies and counting. I´ve also sampled nearly that many - when in Scotland, do as the Scots do. It sure helps ward off the cold.

We had a great weekend of shopping, dining and wandering around Edinburgh with Derek and Carol.


This is Tigerlilly from the outside. We we had great dinner and drinks on here on Sunday night.














Here is Edinburgh Castle with some random woman who wandered into shot.

Alistair got some new shoes

Alistair got some gorgeous Churchs (why doesnt my apostrophe work?!?) for Valentines Day. They are a lovely dark green colour.

Some of our purchases

Amanda got shoes for g0ing out.













She also got a lovely Mulberry bag that is a much darker colour than it looks here.

Derek and Carol's

Here are some photos of Derek and Carol's (Alistair's cousins) street. They are kind enough to let us stay with them while we are in Aberdeen and are also showing us around. We are heading to Edinburgh with them on the weekend.

Alistair's Granny

Today we went to visit Alistair's Granny at Blythewood House.

It was wonderful to meet the woman who I had only spoken to on the phone previously.

Alistair's uncle Ian was kind enough to come and pick us up and take us there.

Granny has asked us to visit her again before we leave.

Mum2, I hope you like the photos :)

The naughty little puppy we spend lots of time with

Here is Bodie - the dog of boundless energy and jaws of steel.

Bodie is Derek and Carol's (Alistair's cousins) dog. We are staying with Derek and Carol and Bodie stops me from missing my boys too much. He is a beagle cross spaniel (allegedly cocker, more likely springer). He is absolutely gorgeous, but doesn't know when to stop.

He loves playing in the snow.

Now where was I?

Ah, yes, Sunday in sunny Aberdeen!

We had dinner at Alistair's Aunty Margaret's house. The girls started with Buck's Fizz. Dinner was lovely and we had a veritable feast. It was great to catch up with Elizabeth too, and she really appreciated the Cadbury Dream :). I think someone tipped Aunty Margaret off on the Tim Tams, as she asked about them!

Monday and Tuesday were spent shopping on Union Street and surrounds. Tuesday night we had drinks at Derek and Carol's local, the Ferryhill.

Wednesday we went to visit Jenna in hospital after her ankle operation, then went and saw David and Mhairi at Valentine Drive. All of you who are not family probably need a family tree about now - I could do with one too, though it is all a lot clearer after meeting everyone.

We also went to the beach on Wednesday - look how warm it was! There was only the two of us, so we had to take photos of each other.

You can also see the Scottish winter version of kite surfing - kite snowboarding.

Yesterday we went for a drive and then had lunch at the Dutch Mill with Elizabeth. Last night was great with going to Elizabeth's work for dinner, then to see Bolt 3D, which was great. I giggled at Alistair, Derek and Carol in their 3D glasses.

Perth - Aberdeen

We spent our first night in Perth, at a lovely hotel called the Isle of Skye. We had a lovely carvery dinner and a fairly early night. The picture above is the view from our hotel room window.

The next morning we went into the centre of town for a great breakfast and the best coffee I'd had in a week! I'm really struggling with the coffee here - it's just not the same.

We did a little shopping and then took the coast road back to Aberdeen, stopping in Montrose for "lunch". Lunch was really just dessert!

We also stopped at Stonehaven on the way back, where it was very cold and windy and there was snow on the beach.

We went to Valentine Drive and had dinner out with Cyn, Gordon, Jenna and Georgia as well as Carol and Derek. Derek took some photos, so we'll have to try and get them.

Alistair and Derek had fun shovelling snow and trying to get Cyn's car out of the driveway. I'll get the photo that Jenna cheekily took of them at work.

Updates

Good Morning!

Gee, I'm already pretty bad at updating this, sorry! So how is it we've ended up here with one in twenty year weather? It's freezing here (literally), however I won't complain too much as I know things are much worse at home. My condolences go out to anyone who has lost a home, a family member, friend or pet in the bushfires. If only you could have some of our cold and snow!

So, we eventually got out of Heathrow and proceeded up to Aberdeen....well that was the plan. We actually circled Aberdeen for about 30 minutes and then we were diverted to Edinburgh as Aberdeen airport was closed. The next part of the fun was that the pilot had exceeded his flying hours for the day, so even if they opened the airport again, he couldn't fly us up there. There was going to be about an hour wait, and then a bus ride to Aberdeen :( By this time it was about 4pm, and we had been scheduled to get into Aberdeen at about 10:30am. We had been awake for nearly 48 hours straight and were totally sick of travelling.

We finally worked out the phone numbers and called Carol. She insisted we were not going to catch the bus, which would have probably taken about 4 hours in the snow. What an angel! Carol and Derek left work early and drove down to Edinburgh to pick us up - it was wonderful to get in a comfy car instead of public transport.

To be continued....with photos

Good Morning

Is anybody reading?

We've landed in the UK, and we're stuck at Heathrow due to the weather. Our flight in was delayed, then our connecting flight was cancelled...bummer!

We've now been travelling for over 24 hours on little sleep and we're a bit over it.

We'll get there soon enough and I bet it's sunny and warm in Aberdeen :P It is currently snowing and only 1* in London.

...and another thing

Alistair bought me a pretty shiny thing at Tiffany.

Happy Chinese New Year

Sitting in QANTAS club in Singapore. Too tired to write anything interesting. Annoyed our flight has been delayed, but happy we won´t be getting in to London any later than planned. I´ll update with more photos later or maybe from the UK.

xxx

Why are we waiting?

Weŕe sitting in Sydney patiently (NOT) waiting for boarding time. This sitting around in airports is probably the hardest part of traveling for me. At least once you are on the plane you are usually on your way.

I am grateful that Alistair traveled for work enough that he has access to the Qantas business class lounge - I think I´d be really annoyed without the perks that come with it ;)

So I´m waiting as patiently as I can, hoping the time will pass quickly. Now, if I could have a nap I´d be fine! That´d make the waiting much more bearable.

The bags are packed!

Well we think we're ready for our trip. Our big adventure begins tomorrow morning. I didn't sleep much last night, so tonight isn't looking good ;)

We'll be well on our way to Singapore at this time tomorrow night, and hopefully I'll be catching up on some sleep. 

I hope our meals aren't like those Virgin ones Jenny! Thanks for sharing - we won't be eating any custard like substances we're served. 

We'll probably check in again in a couple of days with some news from Singapore.