I’ll take the high road

JUNE 30 2012

We collected a car from Heathrow and headed North to Scotland. Well the best laid plans. All went well until a couple of hours up the road when we stopped to buy coffee. Yep had to empty out the whole car to find my wallet. UHHH an OMG moment. Looking back. Arrived at the car hire company at Heathrow. You can choose whatever car you would like. We packed stuff into the front of a VW. Theory – similar car to home so driving would be easy. Great theory – went to the boot and realised the boot was really tiny and it was petrol rather than diesel. Swapped to a  Hyundai I30 – great choice – absolutely fantastic car to drive – of course when we changed cars my wallet was left in the front pocket – Al thought I grabbed and I thought he had it.

Frenetic phone calls to hire company and they were largely unhelpful. In the end spoke to a really nice young woman at Heathrow who said she would look at the CTV footage – we knew the car had been hired straight after us. Eventually, they worked it out that my wallet had gone as far South as possible and we were far North. A phone call to my great friend Tony who called the man that had my wallet who promised he would send it to Tony BUT  it hasn’t turned up so I assume it probably won’t now. Thank goodness I always carry two credit cards in different wallets.

We eventually got going again. Up the M1 on a Friday night isn’t for the faint hearted. We sat in traffic for about 6 hours and only moved ten miles – I was cheery but Alex not happy as his very uncool mother sang ‘I’ll take the high road and you’ll take the low road and I’ll be in Scotland before thee’ loudly and over and over again.

We arrived in York and decided to stop for dinner at a great Italian restaurant in a beautiful Guild Hall – I had eaten there before and had enjoyed it heaps. Re-stoked we headed further North. Up past the Angel of the North – Alex snored loudly and drowned out my singing!

We finally arrived into Edinburgh at 2.00am (some 12 hours or more after we left – it should take 6 hours plus). Thank goodness I had bought my GPS as it just made it all so so easy. Well we arrived at the totally sublime Chester Residence in the new town in Edinburgh. Gorgeous street,  lined with Georgian manors. The wonderful Mark carried bags and got us settled into our apartment. He was so chirpy at 2.00am in the morning and said we weren’t last in – apparently a family from Hong Kong was also trying to get up the M1.

Well the apartment was indescribably wonderful. We had the whole floor of a Georgian townhouse. It was almost as big as my house. Fantastic huge lounge room, bedroom, bathroom and kitchen with state of the art appliances – got to play with the stove etc that Clare has in her new kitchen. Boy we slept soundly.