Scotland - Where Do I Start?

I'm back home from Authors Invade Scotland and 9 days traveling around this beautiful country. I have so much to share, but where do I start?

We started our trip with a valuable lesson learned...next year...yes, we are going back next year...with NOT flying through Heathrow. It has officially moved to the top of my "worst airport" list. The people are rude, the airport is disorganized, and they totally mishandled my suitcase resulting in a whole corner of my hard sider being crushed to the point it cannot be used for air travel again. Enough of that. The proper English breakfast I ate in the airport--however--was decent enough.

Scottish traffic jam

Our first stop as we journeyed from the airport in Glasgow was a village on the coast called Girvan. There we had our first Scottish meal. My choice was a steak pie with chips. It was very good, but there were many more meals to have throughout our trip that I can rave about. Such as haggis. Which I ate twice. Once as an appetizer at a lovely little pub near the Trossachs Woolen Mills and again at the Unicorn Cafe at Stirling Castle in the form of a roll with neeps and tatties.

Suns setting over Girvan

On this particular stop, we also got to feed the highland coos. Honey, the golden one, was particularly charming and would have loved to add her to our farm if I could have fit her in my suitcase.

I've fast forwarded to the middle of our trip and left out our very first full day which was spent exploring the bookshops in Wigtown. There, we were greeted by what I shall refer to as the Wigtown Welcoming Committee. Three lovely, seasoned ladies headed up by a wonderful wee woman by the name of Heather. Not like the common purple heather she said, but the white heather found higher up in The Highlands. Stay tuned for more news about "Uncommon Heather".

While there in Wigtown, I picked up a lot of ideas for the bookstore endeavor that two of my amazing fellow authors and I are working toward. Nothing like a small, cozy bookstore to welcome readers of all ages, right? Keep your eyes out for more information as we move forward making our dream come true.

I am going to sign off for now and will post more in the upcoming days...but here are some photos to keep you waiting for more!