Great and good morning. The flu is ancient history and I’m back on my game. Coffee tastes good again and it’s even spiked with a little Hickory flavoring – although I really wouldn’t mind if a wee dram of uisge beatha (Gaelic for ‘water of life’ aka Scotch whisky) were added to the brew.

I won’t bore you with all the travel details. Just know that it was very special to walk through Westminster Abbey and see the Coronation Chair, as well as not only the tombs of the likes of Elizabeth the First and King Richard the Second. But also to see names such as Geoffrey Chaucer and Rudyard Kipling engraved on the tombs. All of us even took a moment of silence at the grave of the Unknown Warrior and a statute dedicated to the Innocent Victims of war, which are located inside the Abbey. We even managed to get our pictures taken with one of the guards at Buckingham Palace.

Once we learned to layer multiple layers of clothing appropriately, Scotland became a beautiful and great place. Adrianne, Marcia, and I saw the big city of Edinburgh and used our little B&B; as home base to spread out to see an array of nearby small towns and fishing villages. We walked through the homes and old palaces of such luminaries as Rob Roy, King Richard the Bruce, and Sir William Wallace (the original Braveheart rather then the Mel Gibson version). Had lunch at St. Andrews, the birthplace of golf – does it get any better? Did a tour of the home of John Knox. Grandpa Kik would have been proud as the three of us played ‘fly on the wall’ and listened to little old John blast the six foot tall Mary Queen of Scots as the “whore of Scotland”.

Marcia celebrated her ongoing 39th with a fine meal at a small French bistro in the shadows of the Royal Yacht Britannia. She begged for the French cooking part since it would appear that 90% of all restaurants in the UK are currently of Indian or Pakistani origin. Walking into any one of them the faint smells of curry would hit you and that place’s owner, invariably named something such as ‘Pakesh’ or ‘Waheed’, would warmly greet you – Marcia couldn’t take it anymore.

Jason asked Adrianne to find out what Scots really wore under those heavy kilts. This is a project that she worked on very diligently throughout our short stay. She claims success in her quest, but, this will be a secret that will stay with her. As with all of these ventures the finish comes too quickly, all to soon we were home bound (click here for a picture of the happy faces).

At home the excitement has started. With a bit of warm weather our ace construction team got a great jump-start on the building of our planned garage and deck. In four days the retaining wall and footers are in and most of the supplies are on site. Exciting times. Have a great week

Cheers,

Dirk