But Why Were You There in the First Place?

 is a question you might be asking, after learning of the problems we had with getting back to Orkney in my previous post. 

Well the main reason was this 

Son No 2's M.A. Graduation which took place at Paisley Abbey, and unlike his B.A. one which was held in late spring, this one was a 'proper' graduation with people getting bumped on the head by the Chancellor, and being presented with a certificate in front of their proud Mums, Dads and other family members. It was fab. I was sorry there wasn't a piper - UHI have a piper - but there you go. The organist managed to murder Highland Cathedral while we were taking our seats, and we were played out to Walton's Crown Imperial which I thought tasteless. But that's nitpicking. Afterwards there was a reception with fizz, tea, coffee and little cakes. Since I can now partake of little cakes, I did. Several of them in fact. The mini lemon cheesecakes were particularly nice. 

Obviously we stayed on a couple of days more; in Glasgow we had a celebratory dinner out with son no 2, some quite restrained shopping (licorice fudge at Tyger, plus a pair of new black boots for me, to replace the two pairs of black shoes that have gone to shoe heaven recently), and coffee and cake with K from Scottish Opera. On Thursday we visited a small town called Lanark which is south east of Glasgow, then continued on to East Lothian where we had arranged to meet my friend V for lunch. V has made sundry appearances in these blog entries as I meet up with her and another friend D quite often when I visit the Central Belt, and she has recently undergone a quite serious operation. Much more serious than just having your gall bladder out anyway. She seemed to be recovering very well, but I wanted to see for myself. We had a very nice cafe lunch and then visited a lovely shop next door, which was basically Scandi decor. Again I was very restrained, it was the sort of place you could spend a mint in if you were that way inclined, but all I bought was a small Scandinavian gnome to give to the lovely L who does my nails, and who has a bit of a thing for gnomes. I handed it over on Friday when I had my nails done for our forthcoming trip abroad. Of which more later.