Fiona Robertson

Silly Season is here…

Written By: Fiona - May• 17•12

It’s that time again, silly season. People come to Scotland on their holidays and forget to pack their brain. It’s obvious really, just incase they get lost, they attach themselves to the bumper of the car in front, even if they’re not actually planning on going in the same direction. Then you see a massive swerve, when they have seen a spectacular view (lots of them) or a hairy coo (lots of them too).

Or, the even more obvious, the HOLY CRAP, what’s that? Oh my, it’s a CORNER! What do I do…. OMG…. BRAKE!!!!!! So then the inevitable happens, when you want to overtake and your slot just happens to be in front of them, they are so polite to flash their lights at you. I would really like to think it was a *flash* you are fine to pull in, however we know differently, don’t we! It’s: LOOK AT THAT THUG OVERTAKING!!! Anyway, I don’t care, I’m out of there, giving a very polite wave and smile as I go. They can’t see the smile though, can they?!

All things considered, I wish people would have a basic grasp of the highway code. They don’t though and that’s a tad frustrating.

It happens every year up by us, you get the tourists suffering from road rage, only they don’t appreciate that it’s them that’s actually causing it!

I drove down the road to Edinburgh today. For a nano-second I thought that I would make every effort to drive at the speed limit all the way. Fat chance. By the time I got to Ewich, I was down to 35mph behind a camper van. Then there was the queue up to Glen Ogle…. does anyone fancy sneaking down Glen Ogle one night to chop down those darn trees, that are restricting the view, it’s not as much fun, now that they’ve all grown up that’s for sure!!

As well as all the traffic nose to tail, there were two wide loads in the road, the second one was huge!

Where on earth was that going?!

Anyway…. I was (surprisingly) well ahead of schedule so was bimbling down the motorway at 70 and all of a sudden there was a huge queue of traffic…. My thoughts were bloody hell, there must be a police car at the front…. Then in the next thought was, must be a funeral it’s going SO slowly…. Well, it wasn’t a police car… I gave myself a whack for being totally and unforgivably sarcastic and gave the hearse a nod as I zoomed past.

After all that, I parked up to have a coffee before the hair cut… Really Broughton High School pupils. You are a bunch of litter louts. What was worse were the amount of seagulls that were obviously used to lunch hour. I might also sound old fashioned, however how can their parents let them go to school dressed like that? Put some clothes on. Walking down the road in a pair of tights is not pretty! I felt a bit old at that point, and out numbered. Didn’t want a big scratch put along the side of the car if I had a rant about the littering.

In the meantime, back to driving. They have put new warning signs out locally. There’s an odd one at the Glendochart Caravan Park. It’s for falling rocks. Erm…. There’s trees, um…. A road, em…. more trees, but no cliffs or rocks in sight. How odd. Might have to get a photo of that one!

Here was me thinking my next blog was going to be about service. How wrong was I!

Posted in Personal Stuff , driving, Edinburgh, Tourists | 1 Comment »

Bikes. Without the engine.

Written By: Fiona - Mar• 08•12

Today is the second real ‘full’ day of our holidays. The first real day was spent recovering by the side of the pool and generally chilling. Followed by dinner out at Bayside Wharf.

Bayside Wharf is surprisingly like a mini theme village, all by the waterside and marginally ‘twee’. The main tourist season is about to start with Spring break at the end of this week. All hell is about to break loose apparently. I guess booking a table for dinner will be essential.

In the meantime, proper holiday, day 2. We decided that we would go and explore the beach. If we went by car, it would be a 5 minute drive from one end of the resort to the other. Walking? About 30 minutes. Sod that, let’s go and investigate the free bikes.

Off we go, about a 15 minute walk to collect the bikes. Getting a bike suitable for 1) my short legs and 2) being able to pedal / bend said legs proved to be challenging.

After 5 different bikes, hey presto! There we go.

Now, understand this…. Sandestin is pretty flat. These are not in the slightest high tech bikes. Go…. Pedal. Stop…. Pedal backward. There, simple. Then Ed gets all high tech on me… Shouting ‘keep peddling, even when you are going downhill’ had one or two weeeeeeeeee! moments for a wee 50m stretch of downhill out-of-control-ness. Quite exciting.

We made it to the beach. It’s a bit overcast today, so the beach looked a bit hazy, and you did get that feeling you would be burnt to a cinder. The red flag was flying… Choppy, choppy. The walk along the beach was tempting, however today was about the bikes. That would be enough insanity in itself.

We covered the other half of the resort. I managed not to kill myself, stuck to the really crazy roadways (psyco-paths) and when we were on the roads I remembered to ride on the right. Other bike users waved and said hi, which was altogether sociable.

They did however look marginally fitter than us though.

In the meantime my right knee was going ‘crunch’ my left ‘twang’…. but I stuck it out, ‘crunch…twang….crunch…twang’. Ed then decided it was time for bribery and corruption. Cocktail o’clock. Into the village for a well deserved piña colada.

Then I did admit to Ed that it maybe wasn’t such a smart move getting a wee bit much ‘first day sun’ on your bum and then the next day going out on bikes.

The rental was free for 4 hours, we managed 3 hours which wasn’t bad, considering the last time I was on a bike was about 2004 for 20 minutes and that didn’t go very well!

Ed asked, “how are you getting on?” still living at that point, I replied “I have burning legs and a sore arse!”

“That’s better than sore legs and a burning arse then!” gotta love Ed. however, to be fair, I don’t really know what was burning more.

I survived, go me. It’s ok though, I packed my Voltarol gel and am going for a wee swim in a minute. I am sure wine will also help.

Signing out from poolside.

Posted in Personal Stuff , Bikes, cocktails, Holiday | No Comments »

Holiday Time

Written By: Fiona - Mar• 07•12

Sandestin 2012

Remind me not to take responsibility for booking a holiday ever again.

The timings for this holiday were crucial, we had to see Sarah Millican at the Playhouse first. Then squeeze a 2 week holiday in before Easter.

There weren’t many options really, the alternative to my chosen (*read, crappy) route was direct to Newark from Schipol, so still going on a route that meant you were flying back the way you had already come. If you know what I mean.

Keeping things to Terminal 5 at Heathrow does have its advantages after all! Waggamama is one of them, the other is NOT being in Schipol where we know by previous experience things can go wrong too!!

Flight from Edinburgh to Heathrow was good, and did that thing I have never done, but always wanted to do, buy one of those raffle tickets for the shiny red Ferrari. I didn’t opt for the Ferrari though, I went for the ‘more tickets / less car’ option. Aston Martin, that will do nicely. Don’t worry, you will be the first to know if I win. (hmmm… what colour?!?!) really, a wee AM would sit alongside George quite nicely. Ed did point out that if I won, we would need to build another garage. Oh well!

Anyway, a wee brunch at Waggamamas was very tasty. Nothing like a good dod of red chilli to ‘get you going’ in the morning. As usual we had a wander into the ‘sexy & expensive’ shoe shops in T5, to realise that nope, nothing has changed, they still don’t fit my size 4 exceedingly wide feet! Still, it keeps Ed happy the fact we have looked!

I did have to ‘step away from the chocolate / book stores’ even though the temptation is there to pick up some Cadburys with the excuse of ‘have you TASTED Hershey’s?!’ managed to resist. Resisted the books too, however, that didn’t last long!

I hadn’t really liked to see how long any of the flights were. When we got on the Jumbo, I was gutted to hear 9 hours. Ed thought that I had said a 6 hour flight?! Hmmm… I couldn’t be bothered working out the maths regarding the time differences… Oh well, suck it up. Watch some films and do some quizzes. Have a snooze and generally pass the time. It was ok. Gluten free afternoon tea left a lot to be desired, however, I didn’t starve.

On arrival at Miami airport, the customs queue was so goddamned slow. Should have read a book. At this point I said to Ed to join queue #20, he chose 19. Should have listened. Actually, we should have stood in a queue each, then hopped across. Why didn’t I think of that logic last night?!

Collected bags, followed the yellow dots to drop them off again (giving Ed the chance to pack away the mini bottles of red wine procured on the flight). Then it was off to our next flight. Not. Flight to Pensacola cancelled. It really did remind me of our previous trip to Montana.

Damn you American Airlines.

We were given the option of flying to Tampa. Hotel. Flight first thing. Ed jumped at it. Then he asked the time of the flight. 7am. Bollocks to that. So we were booked into a hotel in Miami for the night. AA gave us some meal vouchers, conning $hites, what they ACTUALLY give you is one dinner voucher and one breakfast voucher. Might need a wee email rant for that one. We won’t fall for that one again! (!)

Anyway, better fed than dead, crash into bed and got a not too bad sleep, considering it was the noisiest hotel room they had!!

The next morning, nice and warm, breakfast done (managed to convince them that one voucher would do considering we only wanted a wee brekky) off in the shuttle. No wonder they want you to check in 2 hours before your flight. Dear god, what a performance to get through security!!

Starbucks & book shop… Knew it had to happen. Oddest thing I saw in the book shop was a poo diary, really. Boy, my triple shot Americano was darn good, I have to say.

Onto our puddle jumper of a plane. Toilet held together with sticky tape, however, as Ed said, look on the bright side that it’s the inside of the plane that’s held together with tape. Can’t argue with that logic. I have it on good authority (the captain of our puddle jumper) that it’s 14 degrees in Pensacola. Ffs, it’s warmer in Tyndrum.

As for the guy who tried to squash his too large case into the overhead locker… Idiot. You can see it in the picture of the plane… Really, mind you, that’s as long as I manage to work out how to add photo from phone! You would have to take a hack saw to it. Being such an idiot, the air hostess (only one on board) made him stick his large case under his seat – how on earth did he get that back out I wonder?!?!

It is however the start of our holiday, it may be 14 degrees, but hey, it AIN’T Tyndrum!!! Woop!

Good news, luggage turned up.
So did our Sunshine Shuttle driver.

There, that made up for what could have been a really dodgy journey!some pictures…