Normal service has been resumed

Weather watch - 19-20 degrees and glorious.


It's been a strange day.

Firstly we had the prospect of having to be out of the apartment by 10am and the girls all wanting to be the last one to get up and use the bathroom.

Following on from this they were all in bad moods and not being overly helpful.  One of them actually got so disrespectful that they suffered the sanction of losing not one, not two but three weeks pocket money.

Add in the drama from home via Blackberry Messenger that one of the girls friends went missing and frantic phone messages from my Mum that she couldn't get in to feed the cat as she didn't have the Chubb lock key (animal lovers rest easy - all is now well thanks to a locksmith and no actual pets were harmed in the writing of this blogpost) and the morning was starting out a bit stressy.

Then the taxi driver who turned up to take us to Dawn's parents (via the Hertz car rental depot) couldn't fit all of us plus luggage in his cab.  This was particularly annoying as I had specifically asked for a large cab that would take 6 passengers and 6 cases.  However, try as he might he could not fit the cases in and try as we might we could not persuade him to take us and leave the children to fend for themselves (joking - but very tempting at the time).  So we did the only decent thing and let him take the children plus the luggage to David and Moira's (Dawn's parents) place and we made our own way on foot to the Hertz depot.

Having produced my "Paid in full" receipt for the Ford Mondeo plus insurance excess waiver and additional driver, I was told that I had only REQUESTED the additional driver, not paid for it (why would I do that?) and the waiver was only valid via the booking agent Travel Jigsaw so if we did have a problem we would have to pay the full excess to Hertz of £750 and then claim it back.  Oh joy.

The agent took us to our car and having booked a Mondeo, I was perhaps foolishly expecting to see a Mondeo.  Not a Nissan Qashqai.  "They're very similar" the agent said.  Well, they have an engine, 4 wheels and... that's about it.  There is no way that size-wise they are similar.

We also had a built in Sat Nav that gave us helpful directions, such as "You will bear right soon" and "Try and make a U turn" when we were going along a dual carriageway.  The wing mirrors had lives of their own and every time the car stopped they folded in and needed to be manually pushed back out again.

And all this before 11:30 in the morning.

Still, we managed to spread the kids and the luggage across both ours and David's car and set off for Polmaily Steading.  Glorious weather  dispelled the myth that the Highlands is always wet in August and the further north we went, the more dramatic and beautiful the scenery became.

Travelling is pretty tiring and by the time our errant Sat Nav had taken us to the wrong place where we were cornered for 10 minutes by a lone dog who must have thought we were a herd of sheep, we were pretty darn tired.

But our work was not done as we still had to do shopping, cooking and washing and sadly the childrens behaviour did not particularly improve; they have even driven Dawn's brother to drink for the first time in three years, so I sense a difficult week ahead.

And to cap it all, the jewel in the crown.  Someone has apparently found Nessie and has published pictures that appear in todays press apparently showing absolute proof that the Loch Ness Monster exists.  Was there a head in this picture?  No.  Were there any signs of fins or teeth?  No.  Did it look like an upturned rowing boat floating in the Loch?  A bit.

Loch Ness monster found?

I'm not giving up hope.

Last day in Easter Rd

Weather Watch - 18 degrees, Sunny but with a hulking great shower that drenched us as we walked down the Royal Mile at about 3 o'clock.

Tomorrow we're off to Loch Ness so today we took in a bit more of the festival, but only after trying to do some shopping.  I say trying because although we did manage to get a new holdall for Megan, I needed to get an iPad adapter for my camera memory card that isn't the standard SD type.  FAIL!  Couldn't get one anywhere.  We also tried to get Tom Daley's book for Madeline.  FAIL!  WH Smith didn't stock it or had run out and the only other bookshop Dawn knew about had closed down.  I needed some deodorant. FAIL!  Ok, I forgot.

But whilst we were trying we did stumble across some Harnessed Trampolines that managed to extract a  fiver for three minutes bouncing PER CHILD.  I'm in the wrong business.

The kids have been remarkably well behaved today for the most part but I'm not sure if it was the threat of me sitting on them or them spending the day with Dawn's parents that bought them into line.

After grabbing a McDonalds for lunch we made our way to Pleasance Courtyard for the first of 2 shows that appeared to be the most suitable for the whole family.  The first one featured Dave McNeill in his Canoe Ride 3000 which was just mental.  A one man show, quite clever and funny in parts but just too weird for the children to get.  Somehow, the idea of a man from Nottingham paddling in a paper canoe all the way to China and changing communism for ever all because someone called David Chang urinated through his letterbox at 1:00am two weeks ago passed them by.  Reading that description you may well agree and I guess you just had to be there.

The next show that we wanted to see was sold out but we settled on "Sheeps - Dancing with Lisa" that was a sketch show as random as the title suggests.  Neither dancing nor Lisa played any part but this was actually pretty funny and the girls enjoyed it.

After going to Dawn's parents for dinner we came back and packed, ready for our early start tomorrow as we head to Polmaily Steading on Loch Ness. I'll get my snorkel and flippers there I think.

Chalk and Cheese

Weather watch - Sunny, 18 degrees.

Before we get going, the internet connection in this flat makes the old dial-up speeds look like Usain Bolt.  Hopefully when we get to Loch Ness it will be quicker as there are lots of photos I could add and it just keeps crashing.

Anyway, the person who coined the phrase "It's as different as chalk and cheese" clearly hadn't sampled Lidl's mild cheddar (Thank you, thank you, I'm here all week).  But it has definitely been a "Chalk and Cheese" day.

My body clock refused to switch to holiday mode and there I was, 7:00am, wide awake, while everyone else was piling up the Z's. Another trip to the ScotMid (Co-Op) topped up on the provisions and I then discovered that there was actually nowhere to sit in the apartment. Anna and Izzy were on the sofa beds and, not wanting to wake them, I stayed in the kitchen drinking tea and reading the paper until they surfaced about 10:00am.

Dawn was brought up in Edinburgh but for me and the other kids it was our first taste of The Fringe.  It doesn't start properly until tomorrow but there were a lot of preview shows on and the place was generally pretty darn busy.  I also dicovered what a stunningly beautiful city Edinburgh is.

A cursory look through the Fringe brochure saw us find a show we wanted to go to, "AAA batteries required" at 2:05pm in The Meadow Bar in Buccleuch Street (the pronunciation of which made me sound as though I had something stuck in my throat).   We didn't have that much time to get into town but we made it (via checking out a three piece band, The Dark Jokes who were excellent) and it was mainly a hit.  The compere/MC picked on Mads pretty much straight away and was much funnier than the two main acts to be honest, so they were a bit chalk and cheese.

From there it was a mad panic to get to a show Dawn had blagged some free tickets for, Four Screws Loose in #screwtheworld at the Bosco theatre in the Assembly, George Square.  That was another chalk and cheese show, with some very, very funny laugh out loud stuff to some really random "not sure what that was all about" sketches.

Fast food was grabbed by the Assembly in the food huts and then we attempted to take the kids to a nice restaurant, The Sept, which was probably a mistake.  For some reason the prospect of decent, properly prepared food doesn't flick their switches and they generally misbehave.  They weren't too bad to be fair, but by this time we had had quite a lot of chalk and cheese behaviour which is just so darn tiring.  One of them had to be banished outside to calm down during the meal.

The tension between them got more and more evident as the day progressed and several strops were thrown.  It was all probably a combination of attention seeking, over sensitivity, bullying and just basic sibling rivalry but it got very stressful, so much so that they will be given an ultimatum tomorrow that any such behaviour repeated will result in a quick cab ride to Granny's where they can stay for the day.

The strops even put the final event of the day - the Underground City of the Dead tour - in doubt as it got to a point where we just threatened to go home.  But they wanted to do it and it did have the effect of frighenting the hell out of them which automatically had a calming effect.  Unfortunately, poor Dawn went flying on a slippery paving slab on the way to the underground vaults grazing her arm and knee.

Tomorrow we will go back to the Fringe to catch some more shows before heading up to Loch Ness on Saturday where the hunt for Nessie will begin!

Patience

Having so many children between us is certainly a test and there are many saints who would have cracked under the pressure long ago.
Today we travelled to Edinburgh for our holiday. Whilst we were running around doing all the last minute things expected of us, the girls weren't exactly putting themselves out to help.  One of them decided to unpack their case completely and re-pack it in a different order and the others simply sat about saying they'd done stuff but actually hadn't.

The car journey to the airport was actually a doddle ("Are we nearly there?" wasn't uttered until 10 minutes outside Stansted) but I have no idea what was in one of the girls minds when she got on the car park - airport shuttle bus and promptly stood there not letting anyone else on until shouted at by a bemused driver.

The first actual fight took place on that very journey when two of them had to be separated and the two South Africans we were talking to who had missed their original flight to Venice due to Ryanair's incompetence suddenly had more sympathy for us than we did for them.  ("Are those all your children?  Wow."  Then stunned silence.)

Was Stansted Duty Free shopping area ready for us, I wondered?  One bottle of Auchentoshan from World of Whiskies later and we then descended on the cosmetics section to buy our holiday smellies.

So off to the plane and Sleazy-Jet were our carriers today who, I have to say, were better than Ryanair.  The Speedy Boarding supplement allowed us to sit together in 2 banks of 3 seats (questionable benefit to be honest) but amazingly alongside me there was a young family with a baby who was being breast fed during take off.  The constant yak and chatter from behind coupled with the cries of the baby made me thankful this was a short domestic flight and no sooner had we got to our maximum altitude over Leeds than we began our descent.  I think the book Dawn was reading was quite appropriate - 

It was a brilliant flight actually and we made our way to baggage reclaim where Madeline decided to try and stand or sit on the moving baggage belt whilst Anna and Izzy pretended the luggage trolleys were chariots as they whizzed between the waiting passengers.  To compound the situation,  as we opened Megan's case to check it was definitely hers the zip broke, rendering it useless and meaning a new one needed to be purchased before the next leg of the journey at the weekend.  

The weather was actually ok although it was clear that the rain hadn't been long gone and we were treated to the most amazing rainbow over Edinburgh.  The photo doesn't really do it justice.

The cab journey from the airport to our rented apartment in Easter Rd was like being at a pop concert as the girls repeatedly sang along with EVERY song on the radio but after what seemed an age we arrived  Thank heaven.  Annetta the owner met us at the door and we hauled our cases up the three flights of stairs to Apartment 4, our home for the next three days.

Dawn's parents David and Moira came to see us and after a chat during which Anna asked "Is Scotland in England?" we then went for a brilliant Indian just 3 doors away at the Rivage.  It was pretty spectacular actually and provided a good end to a somewhat stressful day. We got back and everyone went to bed relatively early.  I think the kids had tired themselves out with excitement and we were just downright exhausted.

Tomorrow we will let them loose in Edinburgh.  Help.

The holiday begins...

Last year we went to an all inclusive holiday on the Costa Dorada.  The kids loved it and it was a nice rest, but this year we felt we needed something just a bit different with more variety. Dawn's parents still live in Edinburgh and she tries to get to spend at least a week a year with them, so this summer we thought we would go to Scotland for our annual holiday.

Edinburgh

The reaction I get from people when I tell them this is mixed.  Some people, those outdoor types or people who know Scotland, go "Wow!  Lovely!".

Others, who would expect a summer holiday to be in sunnier climes, simply go "Oh!" and then are seemingly speechless.

Personally, I have to say that initially I would have preferred to have some guaranteed sun as opposed to guaranteed rain and looking at the weather forecast we certainly won't need to spend any money on sunblock.  But the whole trip has grown on me and I am really now looking forward to it.  A car journey lasting more than 40 minutes with the 4 kids in the back is an absolute non starter as the "Are we there yet?" comments start before we have even left Leigh-on-Sea, making Stansted the only airport that has direct flights to Edinburgh within viable reach before blood will be drawn.

It'll be busy, busy, busy once in Edinburgh as there seems to be quite a lot to fit in for a supposed restful holiday - family and friend visits, Ghost walks, Arthur's Seat and the Castle - but for me the real rest starts this Saturday when we go up to the big house we have rented for the week at Polmaily Steading, right on Loch Ness.

Polmaily Steading, near Drumnadrochit

I'm really not sure that I will be joining everyone on the horse riding as I think the RSPCA would be involved if I tried to get on a horse and I am also praying I am too big for a kayak as that isn't something that has ever appealed to me, even when I was younger, fitter, thinner and ever so much lighter. But aside from that, a few fresh walks and perhaps a visit to a distillery will allow me to recharge the batteries.

Loch Ness

My Aunt and Uncle visited the area when I was a mere pup back in the mid 1960's and bought me a souvenir back with "Nessie" on it.  That sparked an interest in Dinosaurs that I had until I was in my early teens and so this trip will sort of fulfill a childhood dream.  I'm not planning on actually entering the water with diving equipment you understand but I will be taking the boat trip around the loch, weather permitting, just in case Nessie makes an appearance.  The kids are all looking forward to that as well and I can always threaten to throw them in unless they behave.

Nessie?

After our week in the Highlands we come back to Edinburgh for a few days, taking in some of the Fringe, before flying back home on Tuesday 14th.

So, as I'm writing this on Tuesday evening, July 31st 2012, the bags are packed, The Macallan 10 year old single malt has been opened and I am completely out of work mode.  The kids are excited and haven't settled at all - it's a good job it's not an early departure then as we don't leave until tomorrow lunchtime - so I think we can say the holiday has already begun.

I hope to update the blog daily with photos and experiences, please feel free to comment and share.