Passports at the Ready, Holiday First Phase: Sunshine In Leith !

It’s always the same.  As you prepare to move off – passports and boarding passes in hand, suitcases zipped up - you turn round and survey the results of all the recent hard work: garden trim, house spick and span – and you think it may be nice to stay home and enjoy it in this state!  But no – off we go, snacks in cellophane.  Why is in-flight food such an assault on the olfactory system? The smells emanating from the on-board microwaves certainly do not entice.

Britannia wears a light cloud cover, but the temperatures are comfortable, the cooler, damper atmosphere feels refreshing to us, having faced constant dry heat for so long. We drive up north and, as always, I feel a wee heart flutter as we cross the border into Scotland.

We’re using a GPS and our lady adviser is a stalwart, leading us seamlessly to our destination. So, okay – there is a camera on board, charting your route but here is the riddle: in the case of unpredictable eventualities, how can she respond so efficiently? Is there a recording for every possible alternative route all nicely pre-recorded? How can that be?  Or is there a gigantic GPS control tower with millions of nicely-spoken, unflappable females, watching each driver’s every manoeuvre, responding like slightly tetchy kindergarten teachers whenever an off-course move is made? I am genuinely puzzled by the workings of it. 

                                             

We are staying at furnished accommodation in Leith; off-season we’re paying 89 pounds per night for a 2-bedroom (one en-suite) flat, bathroom and kitchen-cum-lounge cooking equipment, cutlery, crockery, linen, all in - exceptional value for money! We manage to get spectacular views thrown in as well. Prices can quadruple in festival time.

                                

                                                 

 

One highlight there was our visit to the Royal Yacht Britannia. In 1976 I was lucky enough to see her in Montreal as the Queen arrived for the Olympic Games there. I still remember my sense of pride and being in awe as I watched this gleaming, elegant vessel sail into port. Now I was going to see her from the inside. The two extremes impressed me: the grandeur of the dining room where heads of state had attended official functions and the slightly shabby, unassuming simplicity of the royal private quarters.

                                            

 In the summers in Knapdale we would watch this proud vessel cruise up the west coast, carrying the Queen on holiday to Balmoral. On their way, they passed Duart Castle on the Isle of Mull, home to the then Lord and Lady Maclean of Duart.  The Chief of the Clan Maclean, and the Queen’s Lord Chamberlain, would wave welcomes and set off fireworks to honour the royal presence in these waters, and the Britannia and Frigate, going slowly past,   would reciprocate!                                                                                                                                       (Many thanks to Susan Campbell, of Duart, Mull  for offering her first-hand account of this lovely local tradition.)         

It was interesting to see so many photographs of such cruises, the Queen looking relaxed and happy. Apparently on such trips protocol was suspended and the crew-members were addressed on first-name terms, in keeping with the holiday tenor. How petty and tragic that funds were not released to refurbish this great, floating ambassador and that she was decommissioned in 1997.

The other highlight was meeting up with friends, Margaret and Bill, from Aberdeen University days. In keeping with our maritime theme, we reminisced how Margaret and I had celebrated graduating by chartering a yacht with my brother and a friend and sailing round the isles of the Inner Hebrides. Now this yacht had a Ford Poplar stand-by engine which they claimed could blow up after 20 minutes’ use  – so not at all in the Britannia league! There’s a great story of my poor friend feeling quite sea-sick, a feeling which did not abate when she saw, at relatively close quarters, what is the third-largest whirlpool in the world, Corryvrechan.  She remembers Ali grabbing her by the hair and roughly turning her leeward to avoid undesired er …….blow-back!

                                            

 And just as the Proclaimers sang, we did have some beautiful Sunshine in Leith, but an east wind that would freeze your nose off! Here we are enjoying a fine meal at the Lochfyne Restaurant – an appropriate venue as Tarbert, Lochfyne was literally our next port of call.