I can not believe that I have managed to trick this amazing woman into staying married to me for seventeen years.
in a pub, in portree
We have returned to Castle Wheaton. Here’s a story about a different castle.
Driving on the left side of the road was nerve wracking as hell. The roads in Scotland seem to be much more narrow than the roads I’m used to, and Anne kept telling me that I was veering close to the left shoulder, almost letting the wheels go off the road.
It took me nearly two full days of driving, but I did get used to it, and I even figured out the proper way to navigate a roundabout, which was not the victory it may sound like, because it was the final roundabout I used before we returned the rental car.
Scotland was the most beautiful place I’ve been that wasn’t in the South Pacific. The highlands were just breathtaking, and for some reason we got perfectly clear skies and sunshine the whole time we were there. The thing I wasn’t prepared for at all, though, was how dark it got at night. There weren’t any streetlights. Now, Americans, let me be clear: I don’t mean that there weren’t a lot of streetlights, or that the streetlights were dim. I mean that there were literally zero streetlights. When we drove back to the house we were staying in after dinner in Portree one night, I could only see as far as my car’s headlights, which wasn’t even 30 feet, before the darkness swallowed up the light.
Hello from Birmingham
No, not the one in Alabama. The one in England.
We took 8 hours of trains yesterday, from Scotland, to get here for Destination Star Trek, the only Trek convention I’m appearing at this year.
It was an amazing and beautiful ride, and it made me wish that America had a train system that was even half as useful and relevant to where people actually travel as the British Rail System is (I don’t know if it’s supposed to be capitalized, but it earned it, so there.)
We are now in a hotel, and I said to Anne this morning that it feels anticlimactic to be here. After several days in the Scottish Highlands, sleeping in cottages, and driving down tiny sheep roads to get from place to place, it just feels … plain. It’s nothing against the hotel or anything, but if you have an opportunity to travel, even though hotels are familiar and predictable, I highly recommend giving the alternative a try.
I’m going to miss Scotland. In fact, I already miss Scotland. It was so beautiful, and it was such a wonderful experience for me, I feel like I recovered a lot of HP and Mana that I didn’t know had been depleted. I’ll have more pictures to share and more words to write about it once I’ve properly processed and reflected upon the time we spent there.
Hello from Scotland
Anne and I have spent two days in the HIghlands, and we love it here. We will return someday, when we can spend more time and do more things.
I took about 5000000000000 pictures, but the Internet is slow and wonky where I am, so I can’t upload them at full resolution. Here’s a few of them, resized:
This is Urquhart Castle, which is on the shore of Loch Ness. That ruined tower has been ruined longer than my country has existed.
That’s Loch Ness, as seen through an ancient window in the castle.
This is Eilean Donan, which is famous for being in many movies including Highlander. I’d list the others, but there can be only one.
We didn’t go into this one, but we did have tea in their little restaurant and it was awesome.
There really are sheep everywhere in the Highlands, and no matter how much I try to befriend them, they aren’t having it. I’m kind of glad they always run away when I get about 30 feet from them, though, because there aren’t many things in the world as funny as watching sheep run, with their stupid little legs.
My incredibly small sample size of about a dozen people indicates that everyone here is incredibly kind, and they don’t make fun of my accent.
One year ago, I rebooted my life. Has it worked?
Just about one year ago, I took an honest look at myself and I didn’t like what I saw. I needed to reset a lot of habits, make some significant changes to the way I approached just about everything in my life, and keep working at it, even when it was hard.
I can’t even believe that it’s already been a year, and that it’s only been a year, because time feels like that when you’re 44, I guess.
Here are the things I decided to address:
- Drink less beer.
- Read more (and Reddit does not count as reading).
- Write more.
- Watch more movies.
- Get better sleep.
- Eat better food.
- Exercise more.
Some of these things have been easier than others, and from month to month (and even day to day) what happens to be easy and what happens to be hard are constantly changing. I know that’s an obvious thing, but I say it because we can forget that, and consequently be unfairly rough on ourselves when we don’t live up to our expectations.
I know a lot of you who are reading this have been doing reboots of your own, and I want you to know that, no matter where you are in your personal journey, I am super proud of you. I’m not the boss of you or anything, but I give you permission to be proud of yourself. Go you!!
So let’s dive in here and see how things are going: