Whiskey & Haggis, Skyfall Road and a Reunion.

I finished my last blog with some beautiful spring photos of our private park and not the least with the story of our moth attack in the house! They’re still there! The horrible mini creatures are still flying through our house, not many but still. We have literally moth prevention stuff everywhere, I wish we could say that we are out of the woods, but we need to be careful.

From April 9^th we had every weekend friends over, which is wonderful. Some already knew this beautiful city and some had never been.

First Shelley, Gary, and Tony and Paula came to Edinburgh. As we have only one guest room, Tony and Paula stayed at a hotel around the corner. With Shelley I did a workshop of making Harrison Tweed bags, we had a lot of fun.

We ate at home, and we heard all the wonderful stories of their grandson Arthur.

The next day Tony and Paula drove up from Oxfordshire, and we did a nice walk through the Princess Gardens and Dean Village and Circus Lane back home.

Rob came home late, he had Pilates, and this is extremely important for him, it really helps to keep his back pain-free.

In the evening, we ate at an tapas restaurant and finished it in a bar with of course some whiskeys for the men! Gary had a strict diet this weekend, starting the day with whiskey and eating a lot of haggis! He loves it!

The next day we did the Royal Mile from Holyrood Palace up to the castle, it’s a bit more than a mile, but lots to see. Victoria street, Grass market, Princess Street and Gardens, George Street this is all in our weekend package what we show to our friends.

Saturday afternoon Rob and I booked Johnnie Walker Experience for all of us. This was nicely done, very high tech and well explained in an interactive way. Do I like whisky, no I think it’s like drinking an ashtray, but we had a lot of fun!

Tony and Paula left after breakfast on Sunday morning; they had a long drive back home.

With Shelley and Gary, we took the car and drove to Tantallon Castle, or more what’s left of it. Afterwards we had a Sunday roast at a pub in North Berwick, a lovely village with cute little shops. This is a 45 minutes’ drive. At the end of that Sunday Shelley and Gary left and flew back to Bristol, then they still had a 2 hours’ drive to Cornwall, where they arrived 2am!

Next were Kate and Andre, our Heineken colleague’s friends from Warsaw years. Kate and Andre had arrived half a year before us, she took me under her wings. Andre worked on Friday at the Heineken office with Rob. Kate and I had a stroll through the city.

Saturday morning, they went for a run when we were still in bed. Andre ran around Arthur’s Seat and up the mountain! In the afternoon we walked around the city.

In the evening, we ate at Mowgli, our favourite Indian street food restaurant.

On Sunday, Kate saw a friend who lives near Edinburgh. Rob went for a golf lesson.

It was wonderful seeing them!

Next in line was Cisca the following weekend. She’s my “twin sister”, not really of course, we share the same birthday, we were born 6 kilometers from each other. We did something new. We had a tour through a “city” under the city, it’s called Mary King’s Close. Only 4 Closes are preserved. This is an underground alleyway, a maze under the Royal Mile dating back to the 1600s. The tour takes an hour and was very interesting.

The poorest of the poorest lived there. It’s named after a prominent 17^th century female merchant. A Close is the Scottish term for narrow alleyways or streets. It was a bustling, densely populated area. You can imagine what happened when the Plague in 1645 (the Black Death) hit Edinburgh. The population of Edinburgh had been halved by the Plague.

On Sunday morning we saw Sander and Annelien, Cisca’s sister and brother-in-law. They travelled through Scotland for several days and happen to be in Edinburgh when Cis was there too. We had a brunch together at Rabble.

In the afternoon Cis left to the airport again and flew home.

 End of April, beginning of May, Rob’s project went live! They were working all weekend long with approximately 60 people. I came by with Ayo around lunch time. Ayo run around and everyone adores him. He was petted and stroked by lots of people.

On Monday May 4^th Sanneke my sister-in-law came to Edinburgh, this was her third time. This time we were going on a road trip through Scotland. Scotland is such an amazing country. We started on Tuesday morning and drove to St Andrews, a tiny village at the east coast, 1,5 hours away from our house. Jack did his first master’s degree there. We parked the car near the Old Course and decided to walk on the beach first. Unfortunately, it was Baltic weather! The wind was strong and made the temperature drop. With our warmest coats on and Ayo in his jumper we had a lovely stroll.

Then we walked into the village and decided to have a coffee and tea somewhere in a pub. Sanneke went to the toilet and came back to me, we were sitting near the toilet entrance. She said I can’t open the door; “can you help me”. The lady behind the bar heard us, understood what was happening and said calmly: “perhaps someone is in it??” There was only one toilet at the lady’s toilet. I laughed so hard, I almost pissed my pants! We then drove to Balmoral Castle. There we walked in the gardens and saw a piece of the castle. In April Queen Elizabeth would have turned 100 years old and therefore they’ve made a photo exposition at a hall of the castle. Beautiful photos and being there with a professional photographer it was nice to hear San’s opinion!

 Then we left to find our B&B. This was a lovely but simple place, run by a lady from Jo’Burgh. She asked if wanted to have breakfast in the morning. We confirmed and then without a blink she said, alright 07:45 then? I thought wow, we’re on a holiday here, please let us sleep a bit longer, but no, you get a time slot and that’s it. However, we could change it in 08:15, amen, 30 minutes extra! Breakfast was absolutely amazing.

We asked if we could eat something nearby. She sent us to the local square where an Indian restaurant was. This was also a hotel. The restaurant was hopelessly decorated, tasteless. The food was okay, not spectacular but fine. The temperature dropped under zero that night! Can you believe it in May, -2C!!

The next morning after our delicious breakfast we drove to Nairn, this is near Inverness and then to Inverness. When San saw something nice to take a photo, I pulled over, wherever it was. After Inverness, we went to Fort Augustus and the I remembered a lovely soap factory in Fort Williams, we were afraid it would be already closed, but apparently it didn’t close at 5pm but at 5:30pm. We were lucky. We could pee there!

Then we found a restaurant in a tiny village near our glamping site. Food was brilliant. A lovely young woman from Ukraine served us. She spoke with sadness in her voice about her home country. She fled when the war started and ended up in this tiny village somewhere in the middle of Scotland. Our glamping site was hard to find, but we found it. It was a little wooden shed, but with everything in it. It was nice!

 Thursday was the day we were going to Etive Road, better known as Skyfall Road, you know this from the last James Bond film. It’s a narrow country road straight through the Scottish Highlands. It’s totally isolated: there’s nothing there but nature!

 Thursday night we slept in a hotel, a beautiful specious room and a big double bed.

The bathroom was designed for elderly people with extra handles etc. We went to Balloch and had a nice walk close to an old castle. We had evening dinner at a busy pub.

When we were back in the hotel room we took a shower, first me and then Sanneke. Sanneke pulled a string in the bathroom, thinking it was for ventilation or something. I was in bed already, had my ears out, then I don’t hear much. Ayo was barking loudly; it turned out someone was at our door. We didn’t trust it at first. Then I heard something about alarm, I then thought my car alarm went off. Nope, it wasn’t that either, it was the bathroom alarm. Sanneke had pulled an alarm. This lady was asking if we (old) ladies were alright? Hahaha, never a dull moment with Sanneke!

On Friday we drove to Stirling, the city where a lot of history happened, not only for William Wallace end 13^thcentury, also history for our son Jack. He lived there for four years. He did his bachelor in Stirling and met Ailsa. They lived at the same floor, shared the same kitchen and fell in love.  I showed Sanneke the university site, which is beautiful. First, we went to the castle and because I had Ayo with me, I couldn’t get in, and I had seen it years ago. Therefore, Sanneke went in alone to see it, and I waited in the gardens of the castle, well more at the cemetery of the castle.

We walked up to see William Wallace monument and from there you had a clear view of the University of Stirling.

We slowly headed back to Edinburgh. Got some groceries and cooked for Rob and ourselves. Always nice to cook your own meal.

Saturday was the BIG Day, Sanneke’s birthday! She turned 70 and wanted to celebrate it with us at a Spanish restaurant that evening. Our table was in a corner with a big group of people and lots of little crying children. We could hardly hear each other. We asked for a better quieter table, that worked so much better.

During the day we 'organised' the Tartan Parade especially for her birthday! It was colourful and amazing!

Sunday morning Sanneke left back home again after a wonderful week together and exploring beautiful Scotland!

On Sunday we played a bit of golf together before a new week started again.

On Friday evening Monique and CJ arrived from the Netherlands. Monique is a high school friend, and CJ is a Heineken colleague of Rob.

We went to Glasgow to see the match Celtic F.C-Hearts of Midlothian F.C. So, Glasgow versus Edinburgh. I brought Ayo to Aga on Friday, so he was covered for the day. We left after breakfast around 09:30 and parked the car in Glasgow near the pub/restaurant that we booked at 15:15. We walked through the city center and had a drink at a pub somewhere.  I expected many fans in the city already but there weren’t many.

We were all four dressed in green, but our hearts were for Hearts! We quickly had a hotdog and a burger before the stadium. There were so many fans, but only green fans so Celtic fans. We were behind the goal, on the side, near the small part where Hearts fans were sitting.  They were with 700 supporters to roughly 60.000 Celtic supporters.

Celtic Park Stadion is the biggest in Scotland.

When it was about to begin, they started singing all kind of songs including ‘You Never Walk Alone’. I thought they only sang this at Anfield Stadium, Liverpool. It was so intense

Every time Celtic did something good or scored a goal, we celebrated like everyone around us, with jumping and cheering. Believe me, you don’t want to come in a fight with these big guys there! For a long time, it looked like Hearts were doing fine, but in the end, Celtic scored two goals and with 3-1 they won the match, winner of Scotland’s League.

We stayed a bit to see them with the trophy before we headed to the pub.

In the city there wasn’t much of a cheering crowd, streets were quiet and empty. The pub was quiet too; I thought it would have been busier.

We drove back around 5pm and picked up Ayo on the way home. CJ and Monique had a quick walk through the city. We had a wonderful evening and 36 hours together, always fun having them over!

Rob and I played 15 holes on Sunday, which was lovely!

Friday 22nd was Noa's last day at Hilton Prague, a new adventure was about to start. Robin came over with our car to help her packing and to store all her belongings at Robin's house.

They had a fun weekend, it was above the 30C degrees,they also went for a massage somewhere, which was great! Noa stayed 5 days at Robin before she officially moved to Vienna. June 1st she started her new job in Vienna.

Noa knows Vienna so well. She lived there from 2014-2016 and still has a best friend from high school years, Isabella.

Isabella lives also in Vienna; she studied medicine in Cambridge but came back to Vienna.

Noa found a lovely apartment in the Servitenviertel, 15 minutes from her office, a lovely Dachgeschosswohnung, with other words in English, an attic, and very spacious one.

Soon she’ll be moving in. Photos below show her new appartment but with the previous tenant's belongings.

The last 2 weeks of May, Rob was travelling twice to the Netherlands. First for Heineken;

he left on Sundaynight to go to York for a Board meeting, from there on Tuesdaymorning he took the train to London and in the evening back home to Edinburgh. On Wednesday evening he flew to Amsterdam and back on Friday evening. In Amsterdam he stayed in Amsterdam North (NDSM) and he needed to get the ferry behind Amsterdam Central Trainstation to his hotel .

On Thursdaynight he had dinner with Jack in Amsterdam.

The weekend afterwards he had a reunion from highschool in the Netherlands. When he was at highschool Rob together with a group of about 10 others lead summerschool camps for the Hugo de Groot School. These camps were basically cycle about 70 kilometers from Rotterdam to a youth hostel with children from the lower classes. It was organised in those days by his favorite teacher Liesbeth. The reunion was in Kruiningergors on a holiday house camp area. In typical Rob style he had not read how to get there and basically spend about an hour finding it. When he finally decided to call Liesbeth she told him he should know since he had been there many times in the past. Rob was sure that he had not…. Until when he arrived Liesbeth showed him all kind of photobooks with his pictures in it in front of the same house 40+ years ago. It was great to see everybody again after more than 40 years. Basically he summarised that we all were much older and wiser but that we were also still the same. However he was not sure that if he would have met any of them in the street somewhere, he would have recognised them. Not all had been able to come but Liesbeth, Nico, Danny, Femke, Hans, Inge and Eric were there and it was really nice to catch up memories and talk about what has happened with ourselves but also with everybody from our highschool years. Photobooks were great to look at because with same group he had also been one summer on a trip to Annecy as well as some weeks hiking in the mountains in Switzerland. In the evening he drove home to have dinner with Jack and Ailsa at the Waterfront at the lake between Leiden and Zoeterwoude.He came home safe and sound with many stories and great memories.

Recently we had a wildfire at Arthur’s Seat one night, it started with a bit of smoke, but soon we could see the flames, and it spread quickly. We slept with the curtains open, just to see what was happening.

 Golf is still our hobby together, it's wonderful to play together and be in the out and open.

What also happened in May was the big hoilday trip of Anna and Hugo to Indonesia. They've seen so many beautiful things. Also scary things, when they were in the rainforest in Borneo, or with the Komodo varanen/dragons! I'm going to share a few lovely photos.

Last but not least: I'm ending the blog with beautiful images of our private park and garden.

Stay safe everyone!