What Is And What Should Never Be

On March 16th I cancelled all my appointments for the rest of the week (because the government wasn't doing it yet so I had to take matters into my own hands) and caught the bus home from Queensferry. Now its 139 days later if I counted right and I haven't been back to Queensferry or even on a bus since then. The furthest I've been is Corstorphine Hill which we walked the five miles to and then back.  Stuff started to get cancelled pretty immediately after I got home that day in March the UK went into lockdown. At first it was like you can go out for groceries once/week and for exercise once/day. Now we're in Phase 3 of easing restrictions which means shops and restaurants and museums can open with safety measures in place. You can sit outside and be out of your house for any amount of time and even meet up to 15 other people from five different households (physically distanced) and travel too. We sort of all know the phases of lockdown we collectively went through--the...

How did I never post about our trip last June to France and Germany? This was our first trip outside the UK together and when I originally tried to plan it for the previous summer, doing so just felt so complicated. I felt less sure about the logistics of getting around and mostly I couldn't figure out how to narrow down everything I wanted to show Craig or see myself. Fortunately, as always, I worked it all out perfectly. We rented a car to get from Frankfurt to Colmar which ended up being a really nice drive and not at all complicated until sorting out the parking situation as described by the AirBnB owner. Apparently there's free street parking in certain very random places and apparently we did find one of those places, down the way and around a couple corners, though I went back to check on whether the car had been booted a number of times. And then we were in charming Colmar and aside from me being very cranky about everything for whatever number of reasons (...

Hey - come visit me! It is really fun and I love to plan trips. Last July, my mom, and her aunt and cousin were a bit spontaneous and ventured over. This was a very laid back trip. The highlights have to be our day trip to the Kelpies, Loch Lomond, and Stirling Castle. I also dragged us to the Botanic Gardens which is one of my favorites, and my mom took us to North Berwick which is one of her favorites. We also gorged ourselves on Afternoon Tea. My first! Later that month our friend Steve stopped by. Steve is tied for most visits from a non-family member, so you all have some catching up to do. I'd sent my parents off on a no-phone/no-map adventure to Cramond Island one time when I had to work, but this was my first time there. It's worth visiting. Even on a drizzly day, I loved it. It's fun because you have to go at low tide to get to and from the island. Then the island feels like you're in some adventure book (if you have a fun childis...