UK Diary, Entry 1

Travel, Arrival in Manchester, Day 1 in Edinburgh

Hey everyone, from Edinburgh in Scotland! I write to you with a cup of tea from the apartment we rented in this city using Vrbo (an equivalent to AirBnB). All eight Dallmans are in the heart of the downtown, touristy, vibrant part of Edinburgh. Our place is a short walk to Edinburgh Castle, which we will visit today. We are safe and sound, and decently rested. Hopefully jet-lag won’t take too much of a toll.

Firstly, I wanted to acknowledge that 1 September always brings the eccelesiastical New Year, according to the most ancient rendering in Holy Church of that. Here is an image received in an email, I believe, from Legacy Icons (which is a great provider of holy icons, by the way!).

.So, happy year 7533!

We are kicking off the new year in style, I do have to say. Our time here will be nearly a whole month! After Edinburgh, our home bases will be, in sequence, London, Shropshire in the West Midlands of England, then Northampton. There will be many day trips, sites both secular and holy will be visited, and for me, and probably all my family members in the their own way, the great aim is to unplug. It has been 16 months since I had any time away from my parish. And with everything that has been happening at my parish, especially this summer with the rectory remodeling and the move of my family into the rectory (which is amazing), time away is most appreciated. “Unplugging” is one way of putting it. “Grounding” perhaps is another. I have a black t-shirt that I brought which has the word “grounded” on it, so we will go with that aspiration for this time.

Also, I wanted to mention that I recently was notified by Substack that I have passed the 1,000 Subscribers threshold. Thanks to each one of you! As a thank-you, today’s diary entry will be free for all to read. After this entry, most will be available only to paid-subscribers. To my many beloved free subscribers, if you are able to become a paid subscriber, you will be able to read all of my UK Diary 2024 entries, along with the other content I provide that available to paid subscribers.

Back to the diary.

Our travel began when Hannah and I were finally able to tie up the many loose ends we had at home and parish. A lot of my work on that was doing preparations so that the priest we have in my stead is all set up. But there were a hundred more things, mostly small but significant in their own way. Meeting with the rectory remodeling contractor, for example, to take care of final details as he wraps up his remodeling work. This also was an opportunity to introduce to him to another project at our church, our “St Anne’s Garden” sensory garden, and to see if he would be interested in doing construction work for that.

Another was preparing my sourdough mother (aka “starter”) for this vacation. She (yes, “she,” for she after all is a mother) is 39 years old and originated in Tuscany, Italy. She is where all my sourdough bread comes from. Three and a half weeks away from her would be too long unless I prepared her for this vacation. We wouldn’t want to lose her!

Firstly, I dehydrated a portion of her. This makes the mother (which is normally moist like pancake batter) look something like store-bought yeast from the grocery store. I spread her on parchment paper and let her dry

:And when she dried, she became flaky and I put the flakes into a jar

:Now she can be frozen and also can travel. I did both, putting a portion of this in the freezer at home, and a portion in a plastic, food-safe container for travel. I put a portion of the moist, hydrated mother in another container, and put both in my travel bag for the UK trip.

Last night before bed, I fed her with water and flour (got the flour from a local Sainbury’s shop). I went to bed hoping she would rejuvenate having been fed. Good news is that she did! Here she is this morning:

O what bubbles of glory! In sourdough land, bubbles mean life. These are good bubbles, and I will feed her today several times to bring her fully to life. Then I will be able to make my sourdough bread here in the UK!

Anyway, after tying up the loose ends, we headed to Orlando International Airport. Our airline was Aer Lingus. Here is an action shot:

Here is the family while waiting to check in:

Check in, security, and actually everything in the airport went well. Boarding the flight was painless, and the eight Dallmans had two rows in the center aisle next to each other. The eight hour flight was uneventful. Martin watched a lot of Curious George videos, Marla watched a Harry Potter film, Oona watched episodes of Friends. Wee Hilda was a dream for the whole flight, snuggling up with Hannah and sometimes pressing the seat monitor to see what happens. Izzi was playing some game with Twyla using each’s seat monitor. I did some reading, and once broke down to play Tetris on the seat monitor. Like a champ!

We touched down in Manchester, England around 6:30 am local time (which was 1:30 am Florida). We deplaned without trouble, got our bags and got through customs easily (meeting with a live agent this time, instead of a machine like Twyla and I did last September). After a long walk through the Manchester airport, we got to the train platform, boarded and headed to Edinburgh, changing trains in Preston.

(Brief break to pour a second cup of English Breakfast tea.)

Upon arriving in Edinburgh, we had about 2.5 hours to kill before we could check into our apartment. We found our way to the Royal Mile part of town. It is a bustling, touristy district and it was just what the doctor ordered.

We found a bench and camped out with all our luggage, and proceeded to do a lot of people watching. This guy was playing bagpipes near us:

We found a cafe that served a variety of Cornish pasties (no, not pastries friend: I am talking cornish pasties). Some of us poked around in shops, window shopping. There were plenty of narrow streets (each called a “close”). One of which had this tantalizing view:

When it was time to make our way to the apartment, we struggled slightly because the city is so hilly that I, the GPS navigator, was unaware of roads that went under roads. But the walk there was lovely, seeing new parts of the city, passing within eyeshot of Edinburgh Castle.

We found our flat, and pretty much bunked for the night, all of us very tired from jet-lag. I took this photograph outside of our kitchen window:

Daylight has broken now (I started writing when it was still dark, about 5 am). Today we go to Edinburgh Castle, as I said. That and any other adventure I will chronicle in my next entry. God bless you!