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07/25/06 - Ellemford, Scotland (photo album for first 2 weeks in Scotland) Getting settled in to our latest home exchange |
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On Sunday afternoon, we made it to the Edinburgh airport and reached our final destination of Ellemford with no mishaps. For the next month, we have a home exchange with an older Scottish couple, Clare and Conor, who live just over an hour south of Edinburgh in the relatively uninhabited Scottish Borders region of Scotland. They have an apartment in the city that they use mostly as an office and they live in a big, old house in Ellemford that has a farmhouse sort of feel but that used to be an inn in its previous life. The house, called Ellem Old Inn, is on a quaint, winding country lane and we have numerous sheep and cows for neighbors (but not at the house, thankfully!).
Upon our arrival in Edinburgh, we were met by Clare's daughter, Gemma, at the apartment and picked up their car, which the Scots are letting us drive. Scott did an admirable job driving Conor and Clare's manual transmission car on the left side of the road with jetlag on the hour-long drive from Edinburgh to their house in the countryside. Upon our arrival in Ellemford, we were exhausted. Finally time to relax! Luckily, Clare and Conor had left us a tasty ginger chicken casserole. With the little energy we had left, we ate some dinner and explored the house a bit, before hitting the sack. We have spent our first 2 days settling in to life in the Scottish countryside - shopping for groceries 30 minutes away in a coastal town just over the border in England, figuring out where everything is and how things work in the house, like how the toilets flush and how the heaters work (their main source of heat is a real fireplace, but we haven't attempted that yet!) - it's warm and sunny outside but a bit chilly inside the old stone house for these Mexican folk. Conor and Clare have a somewhat extensive garden, and they have invited us to take as much as we wish. What they didn't mention was how we were to recognize all the fruits and vegetables they have offered - we feel like such city-slickers! We'll figure it out...somehow.
Today, we went for a short hike on the Southern Upland Way, a well-known trail that passes near the house, then came back for some lunch and a pleasant afternoon of reading in the garden - still fighting that jetlag! Now it's time for wine and cheese, before we start making dinner... |
Caroline at Ellem Old Inn
Our kitchen
Scott checks out the phone booth in the middle of nowhere
A visit to the beach at Berwick-Upon-Tweed, 30 minutes away in England
Beautiful countryside on a hike right from our house
Caroline's fresh picks from the garden! Yellow raspberries & sugar snap peas |
