On a Friday Five About Vacations

1) Where did you go, and what did you do, on your last vacation trip?

My last vacation trip was, depends a bit on one's definition of vacation and also of home.

The last time I vacated my home was either over Christmas when my family went to our cottage in the Borders or the summer when we went to my Dad's house in Orkney.

Does the cottage in the Borders count as home?

At Christmas we played board games and watched films on television and explored the Borders with trips to Berwick-upon-Tweed. The most memorable thing was walking along the coast from St Abbs and seeing seal cubs on the beach. My son cried with joy.

In Orkney we spent lots of time at the beach and walking round Stone Age and Iron Age archaeology. Orkney has some lovely beaches.

2) How often do you take trips for pleasure?

About once a season, either a weekend away somewhere or a longer holiday.

3) How much vacation time do you take each year?

I have about 30 days of paid holiday and I use all of it.

4) Are you satisfied/happy with the amount of time off you can take?

It's okay - it's an acceptable but not overly generious amount of time and I'd like more time off.

5) What would be your ideal or dream vacation if money and time were no object?

I quite like the idea of driving across the USA with one or two my best friends, or taking a canal boat from Inverness to the Med but probably going out to Australia to spend a long time with my brothers out there.

On a Near Perfect Days of Cricket and Other Sporting Disasters

This weekend has been a weekend of sporting highs and lows.

On Friday I attended the rugby club end of season Coaches BBQ and Drinks and had drinks and BBQ with my fellow coaches. I got home at midnight having had a lovely time and really enjoyed the company. Feeling very positive about the club.

Saturday - The Captain had his first association football competitive match - a mini-tournament of 4-a-side games away against one of the other local primaries. Sadly, they got cuffed. Of the 20 or so match that they played between them they won one of them.

My barbequed bacon sandwiches were well received and provided some morale boost during a difficult Saturday morning.

MLW had a concert in Roslyn Chapel on Saturday. Through a series of errors I mistook BB's having a nap for her being asleep on the sofa and went to bed myself at about 9pm. I thus missed MLW returning home trailing clouds of musical glory.

In amongst all of this my sister, brother-in-law and niece arrived, followed by my daughter, and then my sister etc left to spend a week in our cottage.

On Sunday my dad and I had a birthday trip to the cricket to watch the One Day International between England and Scotland at the Grange. It was a near perfect day of cricket. A lovely sunny day, Dad and I set off with a picnic and a sense of anticipation. The Grange looked beautiful and I reminded myself why I'm not sad to no longer be a member by recounting some of the tales of the shenanigans to Dad as we strolled round to our seats (at Deep Extra Cover seen from the Pavillion End.) Scotland batted first with a brisk and consistent run rate of 7.4. The first came off 13 overs, the second after 26. Calum MacLeod made 140 and Scotland finished on 371 for 4. The highest score by any non-Test playing nation in an ODI.


England would need their highest ever run chase to win. England's innings started very briskly with Bairstow on his own scoring at about 7 an over. He made a very fast 105 off 59 balls. Once he was out the run rate slowed and slowed until the total run rate just dipped below Scotland's for the first time in about the 42 over. In addition England had lost 7 wickets. Ali and his partners prudently farmed singles to get themselves to the 45th over needing about 8.5 an over with three wickets in hand. A tense and close finish was in prospect. Scotland won with the last ball of the penultimate over, bowling England out for 365 and their first win over England.

The sun shone, the beer was cold, the pork pie my father brought was superbly peppery. So many records were set and milestones achieved that I can't remember them all. In fact I'm pretty certain that three of them happened at the same time with the same ball - but it was a glorious day of cricket, with over 700 runs, 14 wickets, a tight finale and a famous and historic and genuinely important victory for the hosts.

Home from board games with BB and MLW before I watched the first half of Scotland vs Canada. So far Scotland are winning.