In Which We Revisit Our Childhood

What an emotional rollercoaster today has been!
We started our day in Dunoon by going to visit important places from when we were here as kids. First stop: the Tourist Info office, where we were supposed to ask for a Mrs. Martin, to find out where the old B&B that we stayed in is located. Mrs. Martin wasn't there, but the woman who WAS there called her husband, who had lived in Dunoon all his life, and he knew exactly where it was. With our directions in hand, we headed off to find the school we went to. It was just as I remembered it! Took pictures, and then JoDee and I walked the route to the house, while Paul and Bob followed us in the car. We had a bit of trouble finding the house (walked past it to begin with), but found it eventually. Houses are named here, rather than numbered, and our house was named Kirkhill. It's right next to a church, which matched some photos I had with me that I had taken with what must have been the first camera I ever owned. I made JoDee pose in the same position as the photo I had, and took her picture. We did a little trespassing down the side of the house lot so we could peer into the back garden, again, pretty much as we remembered it. We wandered around the neighborhood a little bit, while the guys waited patiently for us, and then took off to find the B&B. It's now a private residence, somewhat under construction. Again, we trespassed so we could take a few photos, and then headed out of Dunoon, very happy with our little pilgrimage.

We drove around Loch Lomond, which was beautiful. Stopped in Balloch for lunch, because JoDee had read on the internet that this particular pub had wi-fi, and we thought we could upload blog stuff and check email. Alas, that was not to be. Our waitress thought wi-fi meant radio, and even her inquiries to the management yielded no joy. That's OK--I'm still writing as it happens, the stuff will just be posted later....

Onward, ever onward, we trekked. We had a firm date at 4pm to watch the England/Portugal World Cup match. Since we were pretty sure we couldn't make it to our final destination by then, we agreed we would stop at a pub wherever we were in time to watch the match. Of course, we thought we'd be back in England by then. Instead, we ended up in Edinburgh, and struggled to find a pub with a decent TV, decent reception, and room for us. We found one, but it appears that most Scottish people have the same motto: "Anybody but England". They hate England so much that they'd rather have ANYone else win than England. The pub full of Scots took pleasure in giving Paul a hard time, including many attempts to sing the Portugal national anthem. When the game went into overtime, and ended tied at zero, it was time for penalty kicks. Portugal won with penalty kicks, and it was rather unpleasant in the pub. Paul was despondent, JoDee was equally depressed, and we made as quick a getaway as possible. It should be noted, however, that a few of the guys in the pub came up to Paul, shook his hand and said nice things to him.

We drove on, our destination Chillingham Castle, the haunted castle in which we were staying the night. Arrived about 8:30pm, and were shown to our suite, the Grey Apartment. This castle was built in 1298, and looks very medieval. It's furnished with antiques, and has tons of atmosphere. JoDee and I looked through this book in which guests are to record their "supernatural experiences", and managed to spook ourselves a little, so we put it away. Too many stories about cold spots, feeling watched, "orbs" of light in the rooms, etc. In tomorrow's blog, I will report on our night...