Brian’s Trip to Scotland and Iceland
From Mudpuppy SMR:
Recently our family – minus our daughter away at college – returned to Scotland to visit friends and reacquaint our youngest with her birthplace. We moved from Scotland two years ago, and I have been pining for it. We are Americans, but Scotland is the home of my heart.
We traveled from Calgary to Glasgow via Iceland, and decided that it was unlikely that we’d be there again, so stopped for a few days. Here you can see Brian admiring an Icelandic Viking:
Here’s Brian admiring an Icelandic ship:
Brian enjoyed his brief stay in Iceland, particularly the aurora borealis on our last evening. He said they were the most beautiful he’d ever seen, white, red, blue & green. He also said that it really sucked that I could not manage to get a decent photo of him enjoying them.
Once we arrived in Glasgow we were off to Aberdeenshire, to visit our old friends. Brian accompanied us to Aberdeen to visit favourite restaurants and shops and to stock up on our little one’s much-beloved M&S Percy Pigs. We brought home over 10 pounds worth. Here is Brian in the cemetery surrounding a beautiful cathedral in downtown Aberdeen:
And trying to place a call in an iconic Red Phone Box in a tiny village named Monymusk:
We stayed a while with friends, then it was off to warmer Scottish climes and Hadrian’s Wall and the Lake District in England. Here is Brian loving one of my favourite Scottish villages, Pitlochry:
Brian loved the Birks of Aberfeldy, as well as his chat with Robert Burns:
Last, but not least, here is a photo of Brian surveying the view from Stirling Castle:
We’re back in Canada now, but only for a few more weeks. Soon our little family will move again, to Texas this time. Brian is pretty certain that he won’t see any friends or relatives down there, but he is desperate to visit the Grand Canyon and Galveston, New Orleans, New Mexico, and much much more. He’ll check in with you again post-move when he has new stories & photos to share. Until then, keep sharing the Mudflats love.
Brian & SMR
April 5th, 2010 at 11:42 am
Sounds like you all had a great trip. Don’t pig out on the Percys all at once!
April 6th, 2010 at 6:30 pm
WHAT? Moving again?!?!?
April 17th, 2010 at 6:09 pm
Wow… those are great pictures. It always amazes me how Brian is a fixture all over the world!
May 1st, 2010 at 4:12 pm
SMR, sounds as if you had a marvellous time. Hope you managed to get a copy of the book there.
May 6th, 2010 at 12:36 pm
Hello from Texas! We’re now in our warm new digs.
Still have lots of Percy Pigs, it’s amazing how much those things weigh. They are pretty strictly doled out. And, yes, moving again! And yes, I picked up a copy of the new Larsson book in Iceland. My mum phoned me a while back asking if I had the third one - ha! it was snapped up by a friend in Scotland! Now my husband, who didn’t start reading the books until after our trip, is frantically awaiting the US release of the 3rd book. That copy we’ll keep.
Best wishes everyone! No photos yet of our new home, we have a spectacular yard & pool for Brian to enjoy, but I am buried under boxes that need unpacking.
October 29th, 2010 at 12:54 pm
I loved reading this, having just been in England, Ireland and briefly in Scotland. My husband, son and I agree that we’d like to see more of Scotland. We stayed in Perthshire at the every edge of the Birnam Woods (ghosts of MacBeth). We also visited the Lake District (we were there 4 nights/5 days - the longest part of our trip). I am a Wordsworthian so this was for me. Thanks for sharing your trip with us. I hope you feel good about living in Texas. Which part will you live in? My daughter is in Austin and she loves Austin!
July 3rd, 2011 at 10:40 am
Hi daisydem. I get back here so infrequently that I inadvertently missed a chance to respond to your comment. Sorry!
We lived outside of Houston. It was one year that lasted a thousand years in many ways. Austin I could have done. We’re now in Denver where we hope to be for a very long time. I love it!
There is so much to see in Scotland, Wales & Ireland that we could spend years criss-crossing and never see all that we’d like to. When we lived there we were off on long weekend or week-long trips all of the time and saw only a fraction of all that we’d wanted to see. Scotland is absolutely the home of my heart. If you are planning a trip back to the UK and plan to spend a bit of it in Scotland PM me and I’ll give you some ideas about our favorite trips there. We are still very connected to our friends there, so depending on your interests I could find a few that could point you in some very good directions.