Scottish Holiday II - rain stopped play (temporarily)

found this Peanuts cartoon and it's hard not to feel like this sometimes! we were on the Isle of Mull looking at the weather forecast and it seemed like everywhere in the UK apart from where we were was sunny. so, partly due to the miserable weather and partly to save a bit of cash, we gave up on our idea of taking another ferry out to the islands of Coll and Tiree and we headed instead up to Skye which neither of us had visited before. it's supposed to be really beautiful - that is if you can see anything through the low cloud and drizzle. after staying one night in a very creepy, deserted, hostel (complete with creepy warden and NO other guests) that reminded me of a movie set for some sort of 'I know what you did last summer' type of horror movie, we checked into a hotel where we holed up for 24 hours till the rain passed.
then we decided to cut our lossed and head down to Edinburgh where we have some very good friends and where the festival was in full swing. Our friend Wendy Ball put us up for 5 nights and almost singlehandedly salvaged our very soggy holiday.
by this time the weather had changed for the better and we had some really good sunny days. we saw a great comedian - Demetri Martin - (pictured above): anyone that makes a joke about a guy who paints icons for agnostics is ok with me. you can find some quotes here (if you like Steven Wright you will like Demetri).
With the good weather we even managed a day on the beach on Saturday. the East Lothian coast west of Edinburgh has some great beaches. Pip and I even donned the wetsuits and braved the scottish sea.
after spending some time with our good friends Kenny and Bridget Macaulay and their kids we headed back to Oxford via my parents in N Wales and got back home today. altogether we'd driven 1700 miles.