New friends.

What an awesome day. A twelve hour tour of Scotland, on a bus, with complete strangers, who have become friends. Tasneem and her husband helped with making my day so special. They sat with me on the Loch Ness cruise where we searched for the infamous monster:

We had Steven guiding us throughout the day.  Keeping the busload of us on schedule. He told us stories, usually ending in death for someone, seems like back in the day, they took great pleasure in torture.  He told us the rules: 5 minutes late, Steven’s angry face. Ten minutes late, no angry face……no bus!

His accent was funny at times, one in particular, the way he pronounced ‘fourth’ always sounded like ‘fart’. Also, took awhile to get use to ‘highland cows’ which was ‘highly coos’ that always made us chuckle.  He was a sheep farmer in one of his previous employs. So randomly while we were driving, he would yell ‘sheep!’ Perfect guide!

Steven surprised me by leading the bus of new friends (prompted by Tasneem and her husband) in a lovely rendition of ‘happy birthday’!

Highly coo–named Hamish!

 

We had amazing views of the highlands and lowlands.

Snow capped mountains, the highest peaks in Great Britain. Highlands!

This in the same stop as the snowy mountains in the distance.

And sheep, oh how I missed the sheep!

My FAVORITE story today……

Our first stop…in Pitlochry (pronounced Pit lock ree) I stopped to chat with a couple who were out walking their rather large dog (sorry no pic, but picture a very large white poodle with longish shaggy hair). I asked if I could say hello to the dog and asked the husband what his name is, he tells me ‘Seiko’. He continued, ‘you know, like the watch……he was supposed to be a ‘watch-dog’, but likely all he watches is time go by!

Conversations with locals in Scotland or Ireland, you just never know what your gonna hear, but you gotta do it!

Thank you all for thinking of me on my birthday, I feel I’ve shared a very special one with all of you!