But I thought I'd update what I've been up to for the past three weekends. On 2nd November, the Chaplaincy organized a trip to the fishing villages along the eastern coast, culminating at the birthplace of golf; St. Andrews. In one of the fishing village, I managed to taste the best fish and chips ever after visiting the museum of Scottish fishing. In St. Andrews, besides visiting the oldest golf course in the world, there is the beach - a long stretch of sandy beach (of course, it does not compare to the Maldives, Phuket etc...but not having seen a "real" beach for so many months, it's a treat.)
Then, my friend, Jenni, invited me to her place in Dundee last weekend. She and her husband John were so kind to host me and will be hosting me again for the Christmas-New Year vacation when Natascha is coming over. They live in this cute little place - not sure what to call it, but it is a house that is divided into four, each with a fourth of the grounds/garden. Since John's stroke, they built an extension to their part of the house and so, I had the upper bedroom all to myself. They also have this cute little dog, Gemma, who is even friendlier than Copper (San Diego Chris's dog who passed away last year.). While I was there, she would sit either on my lap or beside me (and keeping me warm).
Jenni and John took me to a place near Abernethy, the wee village of Aviemore if I'm not wrong, for lunch on Saturday where John used to flyfish. The river was definitely good for whitewater rafting! We then headed for the Spittal of Glenshee (where there is a skiing resort) - to find some snow for me. Unfortunately, the weather's too warm for it (ironically). But the view was breathtaking...(no, unfortunately we didn't stop to take photos.) I'm just sorry that John wasn't feeling well with all the twists and turns of the road.
By the time we got back at their house, I hurried to make dinner for them - made improvised chicken rice, after which we watched Merlin on TV. Wow! It's been over two months since I last watched TV. After John retired, Jenni and I watched two episodes of Lois and Clark from season 2. (LOL! I'm hoping that we can do a LnC marathon next time with Natascha and hopefully Chris {from Scotland} - a mini FoLCfest.) One lovely thing about Jenni is that I definitely felt no age gap between us - I guess the FoLC and fanfic writing gave us a point to start from but we found quite a number of other interest in common like history. Jenni is very knowledgable in British and Scottish history - hmm...another history buff, like me.
After chatting all the way till midnight, I found an interesting book in the bedroom called "The Time Traveler's Wife" by Audrey Niffeneger. Well, predictably, I spent three hours reading it - beautifully written and very engaging (though quite disorientating due to the jumps in time). On Sunday, it was a lazy Remembrance day where we spent the morning watching the previous' night's telecast of Remembrance day celebration in Royal Albert Hall. Wow! It was very moving and John and Jenni helped me to understand some of traditions. (John served in the Army military band when he was young.)
After lunch, Jenni and I went to visit a museum in Dundee - the historic ship that ventured to the Antartic twice, the second voyage a fatal one. It wasn't a big ship so it was quite surprising that it managed to survive the first voyage. Gemma went with us, getting quite giddy with being outdoors. Really, she is sooooooo cute. Anyway, I had a great time in Dundee, all thanks to Jenni and John.
And today, I went on another Haggis highland trip - this time, it's to Loch Lomond and the Campbell country. I'll load up the pictures from St. Andrew's trip and Loch Lomond trips soon. But here's some pictures of Gemma and Jenni.
Cheers,
Sid
LOOK AT THAT WAGGING TAIL!
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