Our Scottish holiday: who needs heat when you have deer, seals and Spanish beer?

't Was lovely.

• We started off in a Center Parks in Belgium, just the five of us in the woods and the tropical swimming pool. Well, when I say the five of us, of course I mean the five of us plus half of reproductive Flanders. Then we went to see some family in England, all of whom we took with us to holiday in Scotland for another week.
• The children were uber-mega-excited to finally be in Scotland. They are half Scottish but with most of their family living in England and Belgium we hadn't actually made it there in seven years.
• We stayed in a hunting lodge on a working farm near Stranraer (in South West Scotland), with walking trails to a private beach, leading past a tiny loch and fields full of cows and bunnies. There were partridges and pheasants everywhere. We saw deer as well, and seals near the beach. The lodge itself was right next to a tiny dilapidated castle, overgrown with wildflowers. I don't think the location could have been much more perfect. (Well, I suppose it could have had an internet connection, but that would be childish of me to mention.)
• Scottish food is too addictive. The white bread, the bacon rolls, the pork sausages, the fish and chips, not to mention the chocolate brownies and the carrot cake. I was in a decidedly crappy mood yesterday when I tried to get back to a diet which includes the odd bit of - you know - fibre and vegetables.
• The drink was decidedly not Scottish. I'm not much of a whisky drinker, and the in-laws had kindly brought most of their (non-Scottish) wine cellar. We contributed a few cases of Spanish beer. Mmmm. I'm planning on cutting out the alcohol as well as the white carbs. Soon. Maybe this Thursday. Or Friday. (No, actually, we're having two separate parties at the weekend. Make it Monday.)
  
  

  

  So many kinds of wrong

• The weather was amazing. We had a teensy wee bit of rain and wore our coats most days (well, this was Scotland after all) but we were outside every day, the kids swam in the Irish sea (with the aforementioned seals looking on) and Charlie even got sunburned one day (I couldn't look at his red little face without crying out in a most theatrical and Mediterranean fashion. Maybe it was the influence of all that San Miguel.) It's funny because in the comments on my quick hello before setting off, the Scottish residents couldn't quite agree if the weather over there was in actual fact totally crap or exceedingly lovely. Ours was lovely, but it may be a West Coast - East Coast thing.

The damage:

• two kilos, of which I promptly lost two pounds yesterday by simply not eating all the pies. And not having any more beer. Isn't it cunning the way I gain weight in kilos, but then lose it in pounds? Makes the gain sound so much smaller and the loss far more substantial.
• 708 unread posts in my reader. (I may be some time - please bear with me.)