Holidays

High Tea in Edinburgh is sure to be a bit special - more so than Glasgow if I am being honest - Edinburgh is just that bit more of a 'dainty' city than Glasgow is. The Botanic Gardens aren't all that far from the Zoo, and it is reasonably sheltered in its location, so doesn't get the winds as much as the likes of the castle etc. The Zoo is HUGE - a couple of times I have spent a day trekking around there, and still have not been able to see the whole thing in a day.

The Tattoo is simply an amazing spectacle, and one that is likely to stay with you forever more - be warned though, being nearer the sea, the wind can be quite keen and a bit chilly at times, especially in the evenings - don't forget, there is no such thing as bad weather in Scotland, just the wrong clothes!

Things to try:

Tablet (a bit like a hard fudge, very sweet, and a Scottish favourite)

Soor Plooms - green hard boiled sweets (candies) that have a sort of sourish flavour.

Moffat Toffee - you might find this in some parts of Edinburgh, and another one that is a bit sour a but sweet and yet you will find yourself going back for more!

Red Kola - a red, fizzy drink - lovely!

Scotch Pie - a savoury, lightly spiced mutton pie in a lovely pastry case;

Macaroni Pie - same pie case as the Scotch pie, but has Macaroni Cheese for a filling, topped with grated cheese; really tasty

Tattie Scone - a flat scone made from potatoes, usually had fried alongside sausage, eggs, bacon, black pudding and fruit pudding for a hearty breakfast (to be fair, have this for breakfast and it will see you through the day!)

Fruit pudding - round, suet type pudding slice that has a very light savoury spicing and sultanas, and is fried for breakfast (I miss this and Scotch pies more than anything else!)

Tunnocks - teacakes, caramel log, snowballs - any of their stuff really. All sweet, all lovely, great with a cuppa.

If you like beers, try Belhaven (brewed just south of Edinburgh), or Tennants (brewed in Glasgow) as well as the likes of Innes & Gunn (Edinburgh) or BrewDog (not sure where their brewery is, but their beer is lovely)

 

We're just back from a one week visit to France. Started in Paris then toured up through Normandy - and back.

The arrival at Paris airport was amazing. No other planes in (early afternoon), through border control in less than two minutes, had to wait for the officers to finish their chat, a quick glimpse at our passports without even flipping through them and a wave of a hand (we weren't allowed to go through the automatic passport readers as they were only for the French!), waited 15 minutes for our baggage, straight through customs and our taxi and driver were waiting for us. From plane to driving out of the airport in under 30 minutes.

Coming through the airport to fly home was a different matter! The airport was so busy that our taxi had to queue up to get parked. Once inside the terminal it was utter chaos . Virtually no staff anywhere, but enough to point people in different directions. We had to do all the work ourselves.

We had to go to a machine, print our boarding passes, then print our luggage labels, then to the baggage drop where we weighed our cases and printed and attached our receipts to our boarding passes (still no staff around except just pointing you to queues). Mrs Shiney asked me whether there was going to be a pilot on board the plane or would we have to fly it ourselves!

Then we went through security. We're used to it so had our jackets off and any electronic equipment or metal already put in our carry-on bag. Unfortunately we were behind 30 Japanese schoolchildren who were heading for the same plane as us . They were all stopped, told to put their phones in the box to go through the x-ray machine (you'd have thought they were being asked to chop their hand off and didn't want to let go of them ), take their shoes and belts off etc.

At least, security saw the chaos occurring and closed off that channel and moved every one else to other channels.

Then we were through to the departure lounge. I looked at the control board and noticed that we would be departing through Gate 36 although the labels we had recently printed said Gate 32 - so we sat halfway between the two. As we were there nice and early we had taken a sandwich and some fruit with us (as well as books), which was fortunate as there were massive queues at the food outlets.

Eventually Gate 36 lit up with a sign saying our flight would depart from there at 15.55 with boarding at 15.25. At 15.24 the 30 children (very noisy!) started queuing and then other people got behind them. At 15.50 the departure sign changed to 16.30 but the boarding sign didn't change. So everyone still stood there. At 16.10 the boarding sign changed to 16.30 and the departure sign changed to 16.50. Then an official came out and told everyone in the queue to go and sit down .

Five minutes later a girl sat at the desk and announced in French that boarding was now starting. She didn't announce it in any other language but I had, fortunately understood what she was saying (seven years of French at school had finally come in handy! ).

Once again we had to check ourselves through to boarding on a machine that read our boarding card. So we were the first on the plane and I was able to easily put our carry-on in the compartment overhead. It turned out that the last few people to board had nowhere to put their carry-ons and they then had to be checked into the hold.

Warning:- this is a much more common thing nowadays as they cram more people on each plane with not enough overhead space for bags. Here in the UK they quite often ask, or tell, people when going through boarding that they will have to check in their bags.

Maybe I'll mention the holiday later

 

@HarryS I don't really know. I only know that leaving Paris this time was a pain that was aggravated by the number of people trying to travel.

We travel quite a lot and tend to take things in our stride. Just plan to arrive at least four hours before your flight. Apart from UK airports we've been through nine foreign airports in the last two years (some not in the Shengen area) and not had much problem anywhere.

The easiest one to travel through was Paro airport


and this is the town of Paro




The next easiest was Funchal airport.

 

I've been to the lovely island of Madeira about 25 times in the last 55 years and watched it change. It's a completely different political set up but a wonderful place with lovely people.

 

The Queen of Scotland looks exactly like the Queen of England

 

Same colour clothes, both smiling