Travels with a Flat Hat

 Went on my first run here this morning. Considering it was the first one since my Covid I did okay. The run was along the loch, through the Forest, next to a golf course into the next town and back. The weather was breezy enough to swirl leaves in my path and the whole mood was very autumnal. Now that I am back the weather is acting upset with brooding gray clouds threatening to cry rain tears. As most of you know (thank you for all the messages). I turned 73 a coupe of days ago. To help celebrate that, Susi and I joined the local Park Run club on Saturday and we both did the 5K run. I have to say that the course here is a bit challenging as it is mostly up hill even though it is three loops. Well, technically, it really can’t be all uphill if it is a loop. The start goes up a bit and then there is a respectable down hill section. So, after the downhill there is a required uphill to do the return to the top. Now, I am not talking Mt. Everest here, but the steady (okay some of it w...

 It’s been a while since I updated our quest for a new day to day life here in Scotland mostly because, even though it has been exciting in many ways, it has also been tedious in others.  Our trip from Jill’s to our destination here in Kinross was fairly smooth and exciting in entering and leaving roundabouts. Not only was I driving on the right hand side of an unfamiliar Vauxhall Corsa, I have a disability of not knowing left from right. I did make a score of 100% in entering the circles but knowing which lane to be in to make the correct exit proved to be a frustrating and anxious couple of moments for me. Susi tried her best to push me in the right direction but telling me to go into the left or right lane just doesn’t mean much to my addled brain. Eventually though I got the hang of it and we made it safely at our bed and breakfast. The place is low key and the room we were given is comfortable enough although a bit small. The best part of the place is the young man who ru...

 Pforzheim to Gedney Susi and l are happily in the UK at our friend Jill Duffy’s house. We only had one misadventure getting here from Germany, which is a good average compared to the way our luck has gone previously.  Our good friends Juanita and Bill Harvin picked us up from Phorzheim on the night before we were to leave for the drive to the ferry in Rotterdam and that saved us the trouble of having  to get the airport early next morning . We had a pleasant drive to a nice restaurant in Esslingen where we had a delicious meal and pleasant conversation with both them and the restaurant owner. After the visit, they dropped us off at the airport where we picked up the car and drove back to Pforzheim to get a nice rest and do some final down scaling packing.  Alas, I inadvertently left Angela the gift of Covid. I guess she didn’t think she was at risk, since she had it before. Being the trooper that she is, she looked at it as an opportunity to get some time to rest be...

 Not  that it won’t happen, but every time we think we have the transportation from Germany to England figured out, we hit a road block.  We had everything setup except the ferry. Well, the rental cars didn’t help much either. I guess the problem with the cars was the left hand drive, right hand drive thing. I could not get any of the companies that would allow us to drop a EU auto off in the UK. So, we figured we could drop one car off, do a walk on to the ferry, and pick up another on the other side. Well, the ferries don’t allow walk ons. Some do allow bikes, so maybe we could get a bike and use it to get across. Nope, people with bikes aren’t allowed to take pets on board. Typing this takes only a few minutes, but we took hours running up and down blind allies with a new glimmer of hope each time only to hit the wall of frustration at the end.  Susi discovered that ferries in Rotterdam do allow walk ons to take a pet on board. That ferry goes to Hull and it is an...