Today, after a breakfast of three instant coffees for wake-up stimulation and a bacon roll, we were ready to pick up Allan and Marian in the afternoon for the true beginning of our adventure. I must digress and discuss a bacon roll. This just might be the perfect breakfast. Three or so pieces of fried English bacon are placed on a soft roll called a bap. However, since bacon apparently does not have the requisite amount of fat for Scottish folk, butter is spread onto the roll. Real butter. This is a delightful way to begin the day!

After Jane took us into the center of Glasgow, George Square, to get our Heritage passes, we stopped at a Sainsbury Supermarket to get food for breakfast (and dinner tonight if A&M are not able to stay awake for a dinner at a restaurant after their flight from LA). Jane and Ian called a friend of theirs who used to be a chef in Stirling (where we are staying) and gave us the name of a restaurant he recommended. We booked for 7:00 pm (or 19:00 as it is called here).

We will spend the first week at the Coach House in Stirling. Ann and I drove out to the house before picking up A&M to see it and drop off the food we bought. This is a one-year-old purpose built self-catering house. It is located halfway between Glasgow and Edinburgh about twenty minutes north of their midpoint. With German and Mary not able to make the trip, the house is VERY roomy. Our house is very well appointed – just outstanding - great job finding it, Ann. What we have is a four bedroom, three-bath house, a large lounge with three leather sofas and a 42 inch plasma TV, huge kitchen, dining area, and an upstairs lounge with another TV. The house is located on a working farm, Cowden Farm. Gavin, the owner was harvesting wheat with a small combine as we arrived. Linzi, his wife, was the person Ann has been corresponding with by email for the past six months. We find ourselves surrounded on all four sides with fields of ripe, golden wheat. Off the motorway, then off a minor road, we take a single-track road for about a mile through rural fields to the house. As isolated as we are here, we are less than 5 minutes from the motorway. Stirling Castle, located on a high outcropping of volcanic rock just past a hill outside our door, dominates our valley.

After driving back to Glasgow Airport, we picked up Allan and Marian right on schedule. Showing them the house, we all decided we could live here for more than a week.

Dinner was at the recommended restaurant, Hermann’s, one block from Stirling Castle in a 17th century manor house. Although the meal for the four of us was very nice – white table clothes, etc, four fish entrees, three glasses of wine (I was driving) and one dessert totaled $170. Ouch. I do not think this will be a regular event on our tour. Although a surcharge might have been added for us being loud Americans. Yes, the locals stared at our laughing – a lot. I would have been embarrassed but we, as Americans, do have a stereotype to maintain, don’t we?