Not to be Rude, But ...

Our niece, Emily, came for a two-week visit recently. As a special outing for Gillian, Emily and me, I purchased a 'Superbreak' - an overnight trip that included train tickets to London, one night's stay in an awesome hotel in Kensington Gardens, and tickets to see 'Wicked' at the Apollo Theatre.

Seriously, this was an awesome trip. Emily had never been on a train before, and she was really excited to be going to London. As were Gillian and I. We love a girls' trip away together, not to mention London and a show.

So we get to Paddington Station and walk to our hotel. We change clothes and spruce up for our night on the town. We take the Tube downtown to the theatre district. We find a place to eat dinner before the show - Italian, per Emily's choice. We walk around a bit, take some photos, and enjoy the city on a beautiful summer's day.




Finally, it's time to go into the theatre. We have really good seats - in the stalls, row S, in the center. We are four seats in. I sat closest to the aisle.

Next to me were two couples. The boyfriend sat next to me, and we proceeded to play "Who gets the armrest?" for the first half of Act I.

I have not seen 'Wicked,' but I have been told it's a fabulous show, and I had already bought the soundtrack so I could learn some of the music before we went to see it.

Finally, the show begins. The orchestra sounds great. The opening number is fabulous. The actors are fantastic. The voices - AMAZING. I'm not easily impressed, but this show was great.

And that's when I heard, coming from the man sitting right next to me, singing. Singing along. Not in tune, either. This man knew every single lyric to every single song in this show.

First of all, that's great. I'm really happy that he loves this show so much that he has all the numbers memorized. That means he must have seen this show numerous times, I'm guessing. He knew the timing, the nuance, everything.

But seriously, I paid good money to see this show - to hear this show sung by paid actors. So first, I started with the sly looks that said, Are you kidding me? Can you please shut it?
He pretty much ignored me.
I wondered about his girlfriend who sat on the other side of him. Did she notice? Of course - how could she not? Did she care? She didn't seem to. How embarrassing. I was embarrassed for both of them.

When my sly looks didn't work I started in with the more dirty looks. Not totally dirty, but dirty enough that he should get it. My 'Please stop singing along with the music looks.' My 'I paid good money for these seats and would like to hear the actors singing - not you' looks.

That didn't work. So then, after a while, I did the big sigh. The 'Oh my gosh I cannot believe you are persisting in singing along - off tune - when people are giving you dirty looks' sigh.

The sigh did it. He actually got up and left the theatre. It was kind of weird, actually. But I sat back with a smile on my face and enjoyed the entire armrest for the rest of Act I.

At intermission he was back.

But this being England, and he being English, he acted like there was nothing wrong. So when we all had to pass by them as we went to buy ice cream and use the bathroom during intermission he was perfectly pleasant.

And for Act II, the girlfriend sat next to me - he sat in the aisle seat. And guess what? He continued singing. I couldn't believe it.
But this time, the girlfriend gave him a look. A look that said, 'You are seriously embarrassing me and you need to stop.'

And he did. Aaahhh.

Afterwards Emily and I discussed this situation. We decided several things. First of all, truly, how rude. Secondly, I would be mighty suspicious of a date who knew all the lyrics to the show 'Wicked', not that there's anything wrong with that ...

And thirdly, singing along with the lyrics at a show is definitely break-up-able material.

But let me say, what a fantastic show. I would see it over and over again if I could. And I would NEVER sing along. In public. Only at home with my giant brown earphones.

The Scotland Irvings

When Uncle Shannon heard we were going to Scotland, he e-mailed me to give me the scoop on the family tower, Bonshaw Tower, and thought we might be able to find it.

These particular ancestral Irvings live near Dumfries, which is actually where we stayed our first night in Scotland. However, I did not know this at the time, so we made our way back there on the drive home.

Uncle Shannon had given me the town name and street names, but we didn't know exactly where it was.

The village itself was essentially one street with a pub on it and a few houses scattered here and there. That was it. Only two other roads even came near this street. So we started exploring.

And came upon this:

In case you can't read the tiny writing, it says, "Bonshaw Tower, Private."

Patrick and Joshua headed through the stone gate and up the private drive to see if we could get a glimpse. He came across several houses and a man working in one of the gardens. Patrick explained to him why we were there, and the man told Patrick that we should drive up to the house and that it would be fine to go on up. AND, there are still Irvings living there. Clara Irving, to be exact.

So we did! Here is Bonshaw Tower:


To the left of the tower is a huge manor house that looks to be about the same age as the tower. We didn't get a photo of it, but it was big and beautiful.

No one appeared to be home, so we took another photo and went on our way.

And Finally

Our last full day in Scotland was all Patrick's doing. I am usually the one who plans our days on these trips as I like to see all that we possibly can. Patrick wanted to contribute to our plans on this particular day, so off we went.

The other days we spent in the Highlands we explored mostly to the east of Inverness. This was due, mainly, to the fact that most of the historic properties near us were to the east. But Patrick wanted to see more of the western Highlands, and I'm so glad he did!

We started out going northwest and stopped at a National Nature Reserve called Corrieshalloch Gorge. After a short hike to the gorge there is a suspension bridge you can walk over. May I please say, terrifying?
I didn't want to walk over, but Patrick insisted that I did. And I guess I'm glad I did, but I really could have lived the rest of my life without doing so. It certainly was beautiful.







After this little adventure we got back in the car and made our way to a little coastal town called Ullapool. It was a really quaint little town. We had lunch here and did some exploring. This is a ferry port, as well, and the kids had fun watching the boats whilst Patrick tried to teach them to skip rocks on the water.





On our way back home, we stopped at .... Lael Forest! We HAD to stop here - for obvious reasons. We didn't hike or anything - we just stopped to take photos. It is a beautiful little forest, just like our little Lael.



The rest of the drive back was just beautiful. We kept having to stop to take more photos. I have never been anywhere quite like the Scottish Highlands. I'm so thankful we were able to experience their beauty.




It was definitely a full day - as evidenced by our sweet little boy when we got home:

Still Trying to Keep Up

I'm really trying to finish up this Scotland trip on my blog - sorry for the delay! We have been pretty busy around here, but it is slowing down for the next couple of weeks until our big trip to Colorado on the 4th.

So the 5th day in Scotland we made for Culloden Battlefield. There is a terrific visitors' center there in which we were able to read all about the history of this battle before we explored the actual battlefield. They have a room with a video reenactment of the battle which plays on all four walls. That was pretty cool. And there were displays of weapons from the time which were available to handle, as well as dress-up clothes for the kids.

The battle itself took place in April, 1746 and lasted only one hour. 1,200 men died in that short period of time. It was the Jacobite army fighting this war - trying to reclaim the British throne from the Hanoverians for a Stuart king. It was a bloody battle, and the last to be fought on British soil.

For years a farmer owned this property. He placed some headstones around the property to honor the fallen soldiers from different Scottish clans.






The day before, when we visited Spynie Palace, we met a very chatty Scotsman who was full of insider information regarding where we should visit with the children. His recommendation was a small village right on the coast that had a 7-mile long sandy beach. We decided to find this little enclave and enjoy some 'play' time. So off we went to Finehorn. The kids had a great time getting sopping wet in the water and filthy dirty in the sand. Gillian met a friend there - a dog who loved watching her dig. He kept waiting for a treat to come up out of that hole! He was a funny dog.

More on Scotland

Day Four became our Scottish Heritage day. Since we pay a yearly membership fee to be members of English Heritage, we are entitled to enter Scottish Heritage sites for free. So, first stop, Elgin Cathedral. This cathedral used to sit the bishop who served in this part of Scotland, and it dates back to the 13th century. The cathedral was only in use for three centuries, as it became disused during the reformation in the 1500s. It is a fantastic piece of medieval architecture, and we were able to climb one of the towers all the way to the top!


Next stop, Spynie Palace. This was the home of the Bishop from Elgin. Apparently, back in the day, the bishops collected quite a tithe from everyone. His palace was more posh than the king's, and the king would often come to vacation at the bishop's palace.


I don't really have any photos of our next stop. We went to Dallas Dhu Historic Distillery and took a tour. This distillery was built in 1898 (not so old) to produce malt whiskey for the Glasgow 'Roderick Dhu' blend.
The distillery is no longer in use. The last whiskey produced is 26 years old. It is now very expensive and gets more and more expensive as each year passes. Patrick was able to sample a blend that had the original Roderick Dhu in it.

I have no pictures of the distillery, but while we were there a cable broke on one of the roofs which triggered the fire alarm. A local fire team was dispatched to make sure all was safe for us to continue our tour.
I have to say that these historic days are my absolute favorite. I love learning the history behind the places we visit. So this day counts as one of my favorite during our stay in Scotland.