Hi.  My name is Linda and this blog is about an adventure my cousin, Anne, and I are starting in a few weeks.  She is  of Scottish descent on her father’s side and loves Scotland.  She even thinks she was born in the wrong country.  We have visited Scotland quite a few times in the past eight years; sometimes for one week and sometimes for three weeks at a time.  Time for another trip.

To follow this blog, refer to the blocks on the right.  Every post is numbered consecutively.  You can follow in order or use it to go back and reread a post.  There is also a calendar at the bottom,  You can choose a month and a post date from there.

This has been in the planning stages since about January 2018 and we are now counting down the days till we leave.   It has been quite a experience getting this far.  I’ve been retired since 2012, and when Anne finally decided to retire this year,  she mentioned that she wanted to go to Scotland for longer this time, maybe three months.  I’m usually up for just about anything, especially anything about travel.  So, of course, I said “OK.  Let’s do it.”

We started to look into the details.  We couldn’t afford to live in hotels for three months.  And besides, that wouldn’t be giving us the “hands on” approach that we wanted.  We had pretty simple criteria:  A Presbyterian Church (for me), a Catholic Church (for Anne) and a library.  I was also hoping for a grocery store of some kind, and maybe an ice cream shop.  Of course, for Anne,  there had to be at least one pub. 

Anne found a possible solution on AirBnB.

After looking at several places, we finally settled on a small cottage in the town of Cullen.  Cullen is on the east coast of Scotland, north west of Aberdeen, on the Moray Firth, which leads to the North Sea.  It is a town of 1327 people; 1329 once we get there.  Our plan was to leave early October for three months, returning sometime in December.

I know what you’re thinking

      “Scotland?

                                                   On the North Sea? 

                                                                                                                   In the winter?”

I know this because I was thinking the same thing.  But there’s a good  reason for the timing.   We’ll be sharing that reason in the next post.  You’ll see exactly what went into the decision.

Plan to join us on our adventure.  This is my first post on my first blog.  I  welcome your comments and suggestions.   And thank you for visiting.

See you later,

Linda