1 EAGLETON NOTES: I'm Home

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Sunday 23 September 2012

I'm Home

It's been a long journey.  I've been away over four weeks (but a few days less than the five I anticipated) and driven the best part of 5000 miles or 8000 kilometres.   I haven't done all that I intended to do - I couldn't see my Goddaughter nor her Mum which was a huge minus - but time and things conspired against me at the end.  It's been a wonderful time being part of the extended family of one of my oldest friends who arranged the holiday and brought six people from four countries around the world together in a large and beautiful Tuscan villa  to celebrate her 70th Birthday.  

The journey home took a week.  Mo (friend from Canada who's birthday it was) and Di (her sister in law) and I travelled back to Di's beautiful and restful house near Merseyside in the trusty Nighthawk via The Leaning Tower of Pisa (Di had never seen it), the Cinque Terre (and satisfy Mo's desire to walk between two of the five towns), Albiano near Lucca (to see my dear friends Peter and Sandie from Callander who have a house there) and Antibes (to satisfy my desire to see my son Gaz in situ in his life as Chief Engineer on a super-yacht.

Then I drove up to the Scottish Borders to visit friends in their new home before bringing a friend, Anna, up from Bishopbriggs to stay on Lewis for a few days.  It's been a good journey.  

There have been the occasional hiccups  for example when one hotel booking disappeared into the ether and when our rooms were double allocated in another hotel.  The most irritating problem for me was internet access.  For the most part lack of time meant I wouldn't have been posting much but in Antibes the hotel's internet server provider went down and thereafter in France I couldn't get internet access even on my phone to set up a wireless hot spot for my laptop.  I couldn't link to Di's wifi and after that I managed to answer a few emails but catching up with friends precluded anything more.

So this morning I woke to my old familiar view just before the sun rose across The Minch over the mountains of the Scottish Mainland:





I know that many of you will have seen it all before but to me it was just wonderful to see 'my' view again and to be able to share it with you.

Hopefully I'll manage to catch up over the next few weeks with all the posts of the holiday as well as catching up with all of my friends in Blogland. 

18 comments:

  1. What fabulous photos! Does it make you wonder why you went away? :o)

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    1. Thanks Carol. Sometimes I just long for a summer at home in the Hebrides. Then I think of all my friends that I want to see and catch up with. I'm always torn but I'm thankful that I have the opportunity to be torn.

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  2. Glad to see you back safe and sound.

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    1. Thanks Adrian. Hopefully back for a while until the end of October and my next 'adventure'.

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  3. It must be so good to wake up to that view again, it's easy to see how you don't get tired of it.

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    1. You've no idea how good it is Pauline. I love being away with friends but I also love my Hebridean home.

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  4. Welcome back home, Graham! Isn't that one of the really nice things about travelling - coming home? At least it is for me :-)

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    1. Thanks Meike. It certainly is. Now I have the opportunity to review and re-live my experiences as I post about them. I shall now also go back and compare the places you visited recently and put them into context.

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  5. Glad you have ventured forth, had a great time, and returned safely.
    38 days to enjoy it I see :) Looks lovely too.

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    1. Thanks Fi. Yes. It's not long until I'm back in my other home.

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  6. Wonderful photos, but for some reason I thought you were going back to N..Zealand...?

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    1. Not for another 36 days Frances. I want to savour my Hebridean life for a bit now.

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  7. I'm glad to see that you're back home. I was just wondering whether to start making enquiries as it seemed you'd disappeared off the "map"... Enjoy your sea view until you go flying off again! (In 38 days, I just checked your sidebar! You don't give neither yourself nor us much chance of getting tired of that view.)

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    1. No Monica and it's changed so many times in the last few days. We've had huge seas and high winds and beautiful moments. It's been typically Hebridean.

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  8. Welcome Home. How many sleeps before you're off to NZ???

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  9. So happy that you have made it back "home" safely. What an incredible journey you had, and I enjoyed it every step of the way. I know you have lots of photos to post, so I'll be here waiting patiently for you to do so.
    Welcome home!!!

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    1. Thanks Virginia. I'm hoping to catch up today and see where you are as well and how your holiday went/is going.

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