Thursday, July 7th, 2011
After a lot of worry over the weight of our
luggage…it was all for nothing. We
flew from London to Edinburgh on BMI and the weight allowances for each of us
is 20 kg in addition to one carry on.
I know many people have had issues with discounted airlines but
things went smoothly for us on British Midland.
The flight went well until we were about to land - and
I mean we were waiting for the wheels to touch the ground - when all of a
sudden the pilot gunned the engines & put the aircraft into a steep
climb! It seems the aircraft ahead
of us hit a bird and protocol is that the airport personnel check the runway for
remnants….so we circled and got a nice tour of Edinburgh before landing
smoothly.
We rented our car with Auto Europe (prepaid) and
were upgraded to a Ford Titanium…. the challenge – driving on the left side of
the road and shifting a standard with your left hand!
And so it began, the nail biting and dashboard clutching - I
think it is even more difficult being a passenger at times like this. I don’t believe there is anyone I would
trust more than Dan to drive me around in a foreign country, but I needed a little time to have faith in him – especially in the roundabouts! All I could think of was “keep
left!” After a while we did settle
in to the rhythm of the driving but camera guy still had a problem with his perspective
on the passenger side of the car.
We were always on the very edge of the road – awfully close to parked
cars or the ditch. I know he was trying to
maintain room in the middle of the road but really….
After being told to please stop screaming every
time he got close to the edge, I developed this technique that we agreed on
(actually I am not really sure Dan agreed, but he seemed to be ok with it and
even got a laugh once in a while).
I would say “Beep!” when he
moved towards the edge and “BEEP BEEP BEEP” at a slightly higher frequency when getting dangerously over
– remember there are no shoulders on these roads. Or very few.
After a spectacular two hour drive north, we settled in at Polmaily, our bed and breakfast
for the next four nights, outside the town of Drumnadrochit- pronounced
Droom-na-drock-it. This is right
at Loch Ness and no we didn’t see Nessie- I tried talking to her and begging
her to come out but she didn’t co-operate….
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