May 24 long weekend with Jared's christening

Jared was baptized this past weekend. Godparents Rob and Steph hosted everyone afterwards.

Rhys put on his new swimsuit for a dip in his pool.

Rhys and Jared seem to get along. They both giggle at each other.

May 12

Today was lunch with Josephine. She is my second cousin. Her grandmother and my Dad were brother and sister.

We took another train today to her house. The transportation system is wonderful here. For 2 tickets return it was L5.90.

Josephine made a lovely lunch and we had a nice visit and she had some pictures for us to see. Her house is from the 1900's with large rooms and high ceilings. It had a Victorian feel to it.

Now it is time to sort out and organize my suitcase to get home tomorrow

May 12

May 11

We were on a double Decker bus and did a city tour. I took some pictures of some of the buildings. Maybe I will get some help when I get home for locations. We started at St Georges square and I think Mom will recognize these pictures.

Afternoon tea was at the Willow Tea house. Complete with cucumber, egg, Salmon, and ham and cheese sandwiches. Tea biscuits with butter, cream and jam, cookies and cakes.

We then took the Whifflet train the Uncle Graham and Aunt Olive's. Their stop was Mt Vernon and Uncle Graham was waiting for us and he recognized me right away. We had a lovely visit with dinner and a few whiskey's. I am so glad that I was able to see them

May 10

We left Edinburgh for Glasgow. We took the train from Waverly station. The trip took about 50mins

I have spoken to Olive and Josephine. We will be visiting Olive and Graham tomorrow and Josephine on Wednesday.

This last hotel is not as nice as last ones we have been in, but it is close to the main shopping

May 9

We went to see if we could have tea with the Queen today. We don't know if she was in but we did visit her Edinburgh residence, Hollyrood Castle. It was a nice and sunny day so we strolled thru her gardens too.

We met up with Paul and Shannon for dinner and a pint. We stopped into a couple of places along the "Royal Mile"

May 8 evening

We went to a "Scottish night" of entertainment. It included dinner, wine and the show. It was very good with a fiddler, piper and a small band including drums, accordion and keyboard. Also, three highland dancers. I took a picture of the dancer doing the sword dance

They had piping in the "Haggis" and we all got a scoop with mashed potatoes and turnip

May 8

We had a short bus tour of Edinburgh on our way to the castle. Some of the roads were closed as there was a parade of soldiers just back from a 3 year tour of duty in Afghanistan. The Royal Mile was 4 people deep cheering and clapping. We arrived at the castle about 10:30 and stayed for 4 hours.

We also walked up Calton hill for a great view of the city

We ran into Shannon and Paul. See the picture of her shocked face. We hope to have a pint with them tomorrow

may 7

Left Perthshire and traveld thru the Kingdom of Fife. We went to St Andrew's. Saw St Salvatores College where Prince William went. The town had lots of shops and pubs. We saw the ruins of the castle and cathedral.

We then traveled to Edinburgh. We have walked part of the

royal mile. Tomorrow we will have more free time

May 6

May 6

It was another nice day. The weather has been cooperating for sightseeing. We do get the occasional misty rain, but then the sun comes out again

Appropriately, we had the misty rain when we were at Culloden. They have done a wonderful job in the visitor's center. You see the history of both sides. Jacobite and the English The walk thru the battlefield was eerie. Many of men were buried right

For the afternoon we went to Glenlivet Distillery. Very interesting and the wee dram afterwards was tasty

We spent the night in Perthshire at a very nice hotel on top of a great hill. I think the hotel was once a great manor house.

Ticked off that they charged for internet

May 4

Our coach tour started today. There 21 of us on the bus and everyone seems very nice and all in good spirits. Our tour guide Ross and bus driver Ian are great. They have been very informative. We have seen Lock Lomond, Glencove and went Nessy hunting at Loch Ness. Ross, told us the story of the slaughter of the MacDonalds by the Campbells by the order of King William at the site of the "Three Sisters" which is three mountains. Very sad!! He finished the story with a song written about this event and all was quiet when he finished. We also sang "I'll be in Scotland before Ye"

Never saw the Loch Ness Monster, but maybe today as we will be going back that way today on our way to Isle of Skye.

We spent last night in Inverness and the castle is right across the road. Maybe we will get there tonight as we have one more night here.

We are in a great location. Just around the corner from the central shopping centre. It must be a total of 12 blocks of shopping. There were several busters. A electric guitarist, am 90 old woman playing the accordion and two young lads playing the bag pipes. We stopped into a fish and chip shop for some chips to eat out of the bag. Absolutely delicious!!! Time for some dinner and maybe a swim in the pool

I have been trying to post pictures, but it does not seem to be working, I will keep trying

We have make it to Glasgow. We were lucky that we were able to check in to our hotel as it was about 6am (Scotland time) when we arrived here at the hotel.

Unfortunately, I cannot sleep, I will try again. It is going to be a nice day here. Sunny and a high of 10

The flight was good, but all the staff seemed to do is try and sell. They were selling headsets or adaptors for your own, blankets, drinks (including pop and coffee) and then they had a wide selection of duty free goods