| SCOTLAND VACATION 2004 May 18 - May 30, 2004 JOURNAL ENTRY 8 entry begun on May 23rd, 2004 at 19:35 Kelso Time After dinner our first night in Kelso we walked around and did some window shopping (most places had already closed for the evening), saw the Kelso Abbey, and walked back to the car to head back to Mick's house. We had a cup of coffee and brought out the gifts we had brought, and then wrapped the ones that were for the "kids" (my second and third cousins, or Mick's sons and their wives and children). We ended up talking until it was two in the morning. We weren't dead tired yet, but it was time to get to bed so we could get up at a decent time on Saturday. Saturday we got up just before eight. Breakfast was toast with a variety of jellies, tea and coffee, orange juice, cereal with milk, and fruit. After a nice meal in the kitchen, we got ready for the day. I deleted a ton of spam from my inbox, and Ginger and Mick checked their e-mail. I caught up a bit with my travel journal, and then off we went for some shopping in the places around Kelso. We stopped at a lookout point that looked over the city, and took some pictures. We eventually made our way around to the house Mick lived in when I last stayed with him, which was also Sir Walter Scott's childhood home. Around the way from that, there was a walkway past, if I remember properly, St. Andrews Church, leading down to a lookout at the river with a grand view of the old bridge of Kelso (which was the prototype for the London Bridge (a nifty little Arizona connection, eh?)). We went into a candy shop to see if I could get some Turkish Delights, but they were not only out, their supplier's factory had burned down so there was no likelihood of me being able to get any in while I was there. We stopped in another store called W.H. Smith so that I could see about getting some of their great lined paper. In Britain, their wider-ruled paper is like College ruled in America, and they have one called narrow ruled in Britain that is just nuts. Almost 60 lines to a page, perfect for my teeny handwriting style. After a few more shops, it was time to meet with the family at the Waggon Inn for lunch. Mick's son David was there with his wife Julie (their daughter was ill and being sat by her grandmother). After hugs and handshakes we all sat down and chatted a bit. Shortly thereafter Mike (Mick's other son) came in with is wife Isla and their two girls. We had a terrific meal in a food sense and in terms of the wonderful conversation. We all got along famously, and though it had been fifteen years since I'd even spoken to Mike or David and neither Ginger nor I had met their families, by the end of lunch I felt as though we had all known each other for years. The meal I had was Cajun chicken with rice, because I was curious what it would be like to have the Scottish version of it. David actually got chicken fajitas, and I liked them much better than I have any fajitas you can get in Arizona, including the ones I used to serve with pride at On The Border. After the meal we all joined up again back at Mick's house, where we gave the little girls the toys and books we brought for them, and let their parents distribute the candy we brought as they saw fit. I don't think most of them left until after four, which still seemed early and disappointing. Adding so many people to my heart in that powerful a way and in such a short time was… unexpected, unique, and terrific. We rested a bit after everyone had gone, then began talking about what we wanted to do for dinner. It was eventually decided that this would be the night we would try authentic Kelso Chinese take-away. Mick was who went to get it while we prepared a bit for his return. He came back about twenty minutes later with a sack or two filled with all sorts of delectables. We had lemon chicken, an egg and corn chowder soup, spare ribs, and some prawn and mushroom thing (which I did not partake in, being a bit of a fungus hater). There were some interesting puffed crisps, which were yummy and made a great noise when dipped into the soup. The whole thing fed the three of us and then some, so it was one of the cheaper meals we had done this vacation, at just under £20 for the lot of us. After dinner Ginger and I walked around the neighborhood for about an hour, which we got lots of snaps of. We went by the racing course, the stables, the golf course, the ice rink, and one of the two petrol stations in town. After we came back with sat up with Mick talking again, but got to be shortly before midnight instead of staying up until less reasonable hours. IMAGES FROM JOURNAL ENTRY 8 ---> |