My trip to Scotland was long and mostly uneventful -- until near the end. After a virtually sleepless night en route to Amsterdam, thanks to a deadly combination of excessive excitement and a nearby extremely unhappy baby, I found my way through the densely populated Amsterdam (Schiphol) airport without too much difficulty. The much smaller plane (only 4 across) from Amsterdam to Aberdeen was fully loaded and 5 minutes past its scheduled departure time, when I was alarmed to see the captain appear personally in the passenger compartment, microphone in hand. There was no possibility that this was good news. It seems the aircraft we were on had had an "incident" during its immediately previous flight and the flight recorder box needed to have its data uploaded. Consequently, it could not fly to Aberdeen without compromising that data. We would have to be moved to another plane. A temporary inconvenience - not nearly as bad as it could have been - except that I had already schlepped my much-too-heavy carry-on bag up steep outdoor metal steps. Naturally, it seemed to be growing colder and windier by the minute as we waited for the bus to transport us a relatively short distance on the tarmac to repeat the process, with extra standing about in the wind this time. Following all that, the flight to Aberdeen was mercifully short and without further incident.
Contrary to my fears, I was not detained by UK border control as a suspicious American little old lady spy.
I was warmly greeted and swept away - to Inverness!
Scotland is even more breathtakingly beautiful than I recalled it, and that is no small feat! The weather has been gorgeous - sun every day so far - quite unseasonable for January and can't be expected to last. I will enjoy it while I can, and find other things to enjoy when I can't.
I have already been on 2 long lovely walks (one of them by the sea) and I have eaten Marmite! Now THAT is an adventure!
Pictures soon....
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