October 3--Edinburgh to Stirling

For years, I have had this small love affair with Stirling.

I watched a series on PBS, probably when I was in my 20s about a number of battles that happened in and around the Island of Great Britain, one of them being "The Battle of Stirling Bridge"  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Stirling_Bridge

Years later, a great movie is produced, called Braveheart--bringing the War of Independence to light.  And made the story more popular.

So, Kent and I rented a car today and we headed to Stirling.  The driving on the wrong side of the road was super stressful for me.  Kent took most of it in stride.   I was his navigator and he was my chauffeur.

There were notices posted that we were to be expecting heavy rain, but we didn't see much of it until we left Stirling.

Stirling Castle.  One of my most favourite things in life.

Robert the Bruce, welcomes you to Stirling Castle

The William Wallace Memorial as seen from Stirling Castle

I want to go on record for saying that I don't think William Wallace wanted a gigantic phallic  symbol memorial.  In fact, I think he'd hate this.

I loved the castle, I loved the city, I hated the driving, I hated the weather we had to drive home in, but if you ever wanted to see what your marriage was made of, do this.

As I was navigating, I said, in this round about, take the right.  Kent went left.  We re-entered the round about and instead of going straight through, Kent went left again.  We re-re-entered the round about and finally took the right exit.

At that point, I was tired, irritated that Kent was "not listening", or second guessing me.

  I decided to stop navigating.  I. Am. Done.

We went around a corner and there is a sign, the next round about had 7 exits.

So I pulled up my socks and started navigating again.  Not the first left, but the second left is ours for the M9.

And back on track.

I realized, although Kent has this exterior that almost always looks the same, frustrated, mad, happy, all the same. 

So, I wasn't thinking about how stressed he might have been driving on the wrong side of the road, shifting with his left hand....

It was a temporary bump in our day, we got through it, we are better for it--we've learned to get over those humps, faster and without saying or doing something that will not inflict pain on the other.

We dropped off the car, caught the bus back to our place in Edinburgh, and went to the Red Squirrel.

The Red Squirrel is a cute little pub, we sat down, our waitress being from Vancouver, the family behind us was from Hamilton felt like there was a whole Canadian Quarter.

The Red squirrel in life is a little squirrel that is going extinct.  Another one of those "useless" pieces of information that I have gleaned over the years.  The Grey Squirrel has crossed Hadrian's Wall and is taking over the Red Squirrel.

So at the Red Squirrel Pub, we had a burger that the proceeds go to helping save the Red Squirrel.  All-in-all a good day.