what a day...

We decided to try to enjoy a little bit of the beautiful Scottish scenery yesterday.  We headed off to St Andrews, which is a pretty little university/golfing town.  Lots of history, but a little bit dull, so we only stayed a couple of hours before heading off to the big city lights of Dundee.  It was big, but dirty and slightly run down and not very nice.  We bought a few bits of clothing and had a cup of coffee before heading off to pay the final visits to the family.  Scotland really is a beautiful place.  There is a rugged dramatic quality to the scenery.  Practically every every bend in the road reveal some new breathtaking view.  I keep forgetting this when I am in England.  I am always amazed by the number of English people who have never been to Scotland, and yet rave about the scenery is this country or that country.  They don't know what they are missing.  The best bit is that this isn't the best bit of the country.  Try going a little further north, then you really will have your breath taken away.

The family were in good form.  I managed to collect lots of old photos from my parents, and some terrible stories about their feeding of me as a baby.  I've always had problems with eating and my weight.  It suddenly all becomes clear why this has been.  My mum breastfed me for the first couple of months before moving on to formula.  However, my dad didn't quite trust that I was getting enough and used to add a couple of extra scoops to my bottles, or a couple of crumbled Digestive biscuits to my bottle and a raw egg.  The best food stories involved feeding me huge bowls of custard and, on at least one occasion, six mashed up boiled eggs.  I'd bet anything that there was a bit of butter in there too.  I sat there smiling through their stories, but inside thinking, "you f**king bastards!"  I guess it was all well intentioned, but nevertheless...

I've put off writing about the terrible news that we received at the start of our day.  In someways it kind of set the tone for the rest of the day.  I must admit that when I think about it, I feel a little bit tearful.  We made friends with a lovely Canadian couple who were working in England for a while.  They were expecting a baby and were about a month ahead of us.  They had a beautiful baby boy last December, and returned to Canada to be with family.  They wrote to us yesterday to tell us that their little boy had died suddenly for no apparent reason.  As far as I am aware he wasn't even ill.  His little heart just stopped.  I've been thinking about them on and off since then, and I know Mrs McMuffin has too.  The news was made all the more shocking because I received two emails from them.  One was a joke and the other was telling me that their baby had died.  I don't know what else to say, it is just very, very scary.

We are still trying to enjoy some kind of holiday, so we have decided to take our time travelling back home.  Today we are off to visit the historic walled town of Berwick.  We were going to stay the night there, but after visiting St Andrews we have decided it would probably only be good for a couple of hours.  Then we are off to visit the Holy Isle of Lindisfarne.  You can only cross the causeway to the island at certain times of the day.  Hopefully we will not get stranded half way across.  It is all very exciting.  Apparently, it is quite safe.  500,000 people visit each year, and most of them survive the visit.

I'll let you know how we get on.