Monday, August 31, 2009

Part-way home, sort of!

Where have I been, I hear you cry! Middle of bloody nowhere is the answer, for the most part at least! There are still parts of the civilised world where the hotels have no internet, you have to sleep in a single bed (first time since 2001) and its freezing cold in August.

I flew to Edinburgh, Scotland, Saturday August 15th, arriving the following morning. I was unable to check in to my hotel until the afternoon, but they did fortunately store my luggage. I changed into some clean clothes and wandered around Edinburgh for several hours, walking briskly and with purpose, so as not to appear as a tourist. The best part of my day was spent in the Botanical Gardens, which should be missed by none! Great great gardens.

I undertook some semblance of work for the next week, although since I didnt get to chose the sites, I didnt actually do that much work; the sites were mostly inappropriate. I spent the weekend with my parents strolling along the beach, taking afternoon tea and cake and hiking through the rolling hills of Northern England. The best thing about the entire trip was meeting Mrs Goudie and spending a peaceful afternoon alone with her talking the talk and looking at pictures of her family when it was young. We then spent a lovely evening at a wonderful fish restaurant called The Ship on the Shore, where David was so very kind as to buy us all dinner. Wonderful wonderful evening, probably helped by the fact that Dave and I polished of a bottle of delicious Rioja between the two of us, oh and the Clams appetiser, Haddock over stir-fry veggies and apple and rhubarb crumble with custard that I consumed, not to mention the amazing company! The only good meal that I ate in the U.K. was an out-standing one!

I left Edinburgh Thursday August 27th, departing my hotel room at 830am and arriving at a Sheraton in downtown Sacremento, California, twenty two hours later, exhausted yet unable to sleep more than a few hours. Thankfully the field chief was rather lenient on me as I was incapable of anything resembling work friday and he didnt even seem to mind that much that I woke him up at 530am in the morning. I mean, come on, I had laid there waiting to get him up for about 2 hours already!

This trip would be inconceivable should I not have been meeting my love, but here we are together in California, and they call this work! My trips are usually excruciatingly painful on the body, even a young one like mine! The hours tend to be over the 12 mark and I constantly long for my love; but here we are, together, sitting on a boat for 8 hours a day armed with nothing more than paper, pencil and a GPS, then strolling down to Paesanoes for a revitalising Sangria in the early evening. So usually I would be complaining like a trooper in my third week away from home, but Im sitting back (in my life jacket, of course) and enjoying the hot Californian sun on my face.

I do miss my boys, but I hear they are behaving themselves so much that even I would be proud of them! So to you my lovelies, Ill be home Saturday and I promise you a walk Monday morning!

2 comments:

  1. Your trip in California sounds wonderful!

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  2. Glad to hear from you. I've been missing you! I hope the rest of your trip goes smoothly. Maybe one of these days our schedules will line up and we'll get to speak in person again! :)

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