Day 1 - Boldly going North

“Holiday!” I shouted as I leapt from my mattress onto skit’s slumbering form. The alarm had just gone off at 8am and I had been awake for the past five minutes just waiting for its permission to act. Skit woke somewhere between the “hol” and the “day” as I landed on top of her.

I think I woke her more suddenly than she was used to.

I hopped, skipped and jumped downstairs, knocking on biped’s door as I went. “Go away!” she grouched or something equally rude and unnecessary. I sweetly enquired whether she wanted any coffee (yes) and then proceeded to probably make her the worst coffee she has ever had (but I never drink instant coffee so have no idea how to make it).

I made myself tea and then spent the next hour fussing with the wireless and attempting to send ezmail (or rather yuku mail… I still haven’t adjusted) to the Hobblings we were to meet in Edinburgh. Skit’s adapter for the phone socket was bust and the wireless only lasted a few minutes at a time, just enough to not be successful in my task. I did manage to send a quick missive to Mike though just to pass on mobile telephone numbers and also the responsibility of organising something.

Meanwhile, skit made us delicious bacon sandwiches. There is always bacon, chez skit.

Biped made one quick trip to the Post Office for an Amazon delivery of Gossip Girl dvds and a stop at the local shop for car supplies. And then we were off, not too late in the morning indeed.

However, we did not get very far very fast because a quick stop at Halfords was required.

But then we were off.

We were off to the sounds of skit’s mix CDs, my ISIHAC CDs and Whedonesque musicals (sung along to well by skit, poorly by me). The car journeys took up much of the holiday (thanks, skit, for driving) but I will skip over them with that description.

Except for a brief stop at a service station to grab lunch, our first real port of call was the Lake District. Skit was aiming for Keswick where she and biped and Narrisch had been. Indeed, much of the journey into the Lake District was accompanied by my two companions talking about where they had been or where they had (foolishly) cycled. The other parts were spent playing I-Spy.

Skit received a text message as she entered one of the villages in the Lake District. It was from Em, apparently drunk and wanting to phone. I let biped attempt to compose the reply but unsuccessfully so, so I took over and let Em know that there was a Hobbling Holiday in progress. Em phoned and we three talked to her (skit dangerously so as she was driving but she was going rather slow at the time and the only risk was that that increased her chances of being seen). I think Em thought me a wee bit crazy but I am just not used to talking on the phone so was struggling for things to say.

The phone call came to an end and we continued in the skitmobile in an attempt to find somewhere nice for an afternoon tea. We passed a posh hotel as there was no free parking and came to a tiny village (or hamlet?) called Grange. To get into it, we had to pass over two single-lane bridges. Once there, we went straight to a quaint tea shop by the river. We took a table outside and glared at people until we could move to a table closer to the river bank. Biped and skit ordered cream teas and I got cake with my tea. It was all terribly civilised… Until skit got an utterly incomprehensible voicemail from Q which was followed by a call from her. Again, my side of the conversation was pure nonsense (breaking out of the flow of conversation to cheerfully proclaim that the sun had just come out followed by a lengthy explanation of why that was rare and worth mentioning for the UK in August) and it was probably highly disruptive to the other patrons. But anyway.

After the tea, we used the toilets and skimmed stones on the river for a while. At least, skit skimmed them. Biped and I kind of just plopped them. After a while of tutelage, skit managed to get us both making the stones skip a little but we were nowhere near the level of five or six jump proficiency of the dawg.

Back in the car and on the road again. A text message from Mike said that he expected we were in Scotland by then. Alas, no.

The journey was as described above but to the soundtrack of Scottish music and with the observations as we crossed the border that 1) there was no welcome to Scotland (or indeed congratulations you have left England as I half expected the Scots to put up) sign and 2) biped was fast asleep in the back. I had some fun taking photos of her (as did skit, driving be damned) and then took a feather I had collected from outside skit’s house and tickled biped with it. She leapt to attention to my great amusement later explaining that she thought she was being licked by a snake. Later, skit was to wake the kraken by “accidentally” turning the sound up on her music stereo instead of down when a loud track came up.

It amused.

Another observation when we were in Scotland was that people were not expected to know which side of the road to drive on. Signs instructed motorists to drive on the left despite us not being at a port.

It was dusk by the time we got to the castle. The skitmobile struggled up the steep lane covered in gravel as skit feared for the paintwork. The view as we arrived at the castle was fantastic. We could see out over the Firth of Forth and the city of Edinburgh. Delighted, we went inside the castle’s reception room. The castle itself was unique in my castle experience. I am used to the Norman castles that litter the south-east. This Scottish castle was more of a fort. Indeed, apart from being painted white, it put me in mind of bobfort (plus, unlike bobfort, it isn’t the home to a waterslide fun park or pit of doom). The reception room was kind of bare of the softer side of life but the cold stones were covered with thick material, rugs and tapestries. The owners appeared and greeted us (we used our real names which sounds most bizarre with biped) and skit slipped into a slight Scottish accent and idiom.

The lord of the castle was quite a talker, regaling us with tales of battles and bloodshed (the history of the castle was made slightly amusing by being central to the Battle of Pinkie- narf!) but we managed to extricate ourselves. We jumped back into the (rather ripe) skitmobile and headed to Asda where we put shame to Supermarket Sweep contestants with the speed of our shop.

Back in the castle, or more accurately the renovated barn next to the castle but that sounds less grand so I will call it the castle, truth be damned, biped and I set to making bangers and mash while skit took a well deserved rest on the sofa. Having failed to find HIGNFY, I believe I forced Run Lola Run on the poor dawg but at 10 this was changed to QI. In all Hobbling holidays, I believe I have somewhat dictated what goes on the box but I think I am only permitted to do so because of my Massively Good Taste.

Then, there was sleep to be had. Biped got the grown-up’s bed (as per usual- you know, I am beginning to think that the sound of sawing wood we heard in Harlem was actually biped sawing wood (the evil futon possibly) because I have not heard her snore since. It was all a big con to ensure she got proper beds in the future) while skit and I got the kiddies’ beds. They were short and narrow but then again, so are we. I am of course used to a double bed so there were a couple of dubious moments during the night when I woke to find myself just about to go over the edge, but we all need a bit of danger in our lives…