Holiday in Scotland continued

The next day was my birthday and we planned to do some more site seeing but had no real plan. I walked into the bathroom and returned to a beautiful pair of shoes and a set of perfumes from my travel buddy. I tried the shoes on in my towel and did modelling which just cracked Bukky up! 

Smiles for the new year

Yo Peace, positivity all the way...

For fallen heroes in Arran

Aren't they cute!

It was all about me today!

Happy Birthday to me!

Brodick is not so big so we went to a museum, a cheese shop and an aromatic shop. Bukky has no real love for cheese so was eager to get out of there but I on the other tasted quite a bit before settling for what I wanted. We spent more time in the aromatic shop picking out scented candles, bath salts and home diffusers.

Look at that sign! On the ferry there was an area for dogs. And from walking around, it seemed like everyone on the Island had a dog!

Responding to birthday greetings

Bukky took me out to dinner, I loved the food but didn’t quite get the place, there was something I couldn’t place my finger on.

Duck, potatoes, red cabbage and a gratin on the side...yummy!

Anyway, after dinner, I was slightly in a hurry to leave and although I was super pleased about the food, I almost felt like we could have stayed in, ordered something and had a party for two. Bukky understood so we tried to see if another place we saw had a better ambience as there was a sign that 
there would be live music. But the live music was not our idea of live music so we went to the room, chatted away then I fell asleep at some point. 

We woke up to a grey day but it was alright as we were leaving. The ferry was to leave Brodick at 11am so we had breakfast, bid the person at Dunvegan farewell and walked to the station. I wasn’t in very high spirits and Bukky kept asking if I missed her already because that was our last full day together. Maybe I did!

When we got back to Edinburgh, we did a bit of shopping before we went home.

Fraser, our host, prepared a Scottish dish for us – haggis, with mashed potatoes and mashed turnips.

Haggis, fresh out of the pot. See the steam?

The full dish

He put on some records and we had a mini birthday party for me, I even danced on his table! It was fun.

There I was dancing on the table and goofing and Fraser look so collected and ready for the snapshot!

Digging it!

Fun night, last night at Fraser's

He went all out, he made a Scottish dessert too – cranachan! That was his first attempt so he didn’t quite get it, but we were pleased with the effort.

Dessert - cranachan

Last moment before she heads to the airport while I get on the train

We left the next morning. Bukky headed back to the US while I went on to Coventry to see my sister. My friend, Dolly came in from Nottingham same evening with her daughter. We had a fun night out, good food, laughter and generally catching up. It was such a short visit but it was totally worth it. 
They left the next morning. I had two more days with my sister. I had a few things to do so I must have been a bit of a bother to her, hahahahaha, but I also was her personal cook. She was quite pleased.

Dolly and I

My boo

Dolly's favourite photo

Dinner

My beautiful sister

Sister sister

That's her Uni

 My next stop was to see my god mother in Leicester. I hadn’t seen her in two years so we were excited. This woman right here has been a part of our lives from the year after I was born. She moved to Nigeria, then my family moved to England and she was generally part of the family. When my mother went to deliver my younger sister, of course my parents left my brother and I in her care. She is a god mother to my older brother, me and my younger sister. But she basically stands in for all of us as our oyibo mother. My family and hers have remained in touch and over the years, we’ve met her extended family especially as my sisters and I have spent Christmas with her. Christmas in their family is quite similar to ours, I digress. Anyway, this amazing woman is Nigerian in some ways as English as she is!

Catching up

We walked the dog, Jaya

She has a fascination for deers

Jaya

You know how parents 'dash' their children money, she still does that. I was protesting this time, just like the last but she never backs down. She always asks what her role as god mother is! It was amazing to spend two days with her and her husband. I’ve also been thinking more about meditation and her husband teaches mindfulness, they both do actually. He has written books about this subject so she gave them to me and he signed them, whoop whoop! Check out their website here

I spent my last days in London catching up with a few friends. One came in from Ascot and another from Reading to see me. I was quite excited as my friend from Reading (we go way back to Uni days) blew me away with the birthday present he got me. And the one who came in from Ascot is an avid reader of my writing, he follows me on twitter and we had exchanged a few e-mails on writing before our meeting. We had quite a bit to talk about when we met. I have such amazing people in my life though!

Eddie came in from Ascot, from twitter to reality!

I'm not sure how he managed to stay suspended!

It ws super cool to meet Eddie!

Afolabi came from Reading, thank you again Xx

Oxford street, there's always a crowd! Always busy.

And I had to say hello to Mandela at Parliament square

This was my amazing host in London. Unfortunately, we didn't take a proper photo. This was her leaving for work.

Big Ben

A few people reached out to me to start a travel club, but I understand that times are hard so we haven't done anything yet. How about we start discussions again? 

My sisters succeeded in getting me to join Instagram after resisting for so long! Feel free to follow me @belletammya.

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