My time in Scotland flew by so fast that I was on my way back to Africa before I was actually ready. I worked really hard, but this year I had taken my one-man tent with, and had some wonderful nights up a mountain, or somewhere down in a glen or beside a loch. I always managed to find a camping spot that was just right for me, with a stream, and trees, and for companions sometimes a herd of hairy Highland cows or a few sheep.
The feeling of not having to look over my shoulder all the time was unbelievable, as at home I was nowadays scared to go down to my own river alone for fear of being attacked.
My favourite spots for camping was either Loch Voile, where I had discovered a tiny tucked away cove, and which I promptly named Christina's Cove', or at Glen Lyon, where I had to climb down the mountain to get to my favourite stream. There was also a spot at Loch Vanacher, near Aberfoil on the Trossachs Trail, where I went quite a lot, as it was not difficult to get to.
But, sad as it is, I had to get back home to see to my responsibilites, and after visiting again with my sister Lida in Pretoria and then stayed at Irma's for two days, I finally worked up the courage to go back to Haarlem! I nearly turned on my heels and ran back to civilization on entering my house, where the spiders had a field day in fabricating their webs, as these were quite unpenatrable, and the smell of some unknown and hiding creatures in my roof and under the furniture, mixed with the creosote smell that had still not completely subsided, made my nose twitch, and I had to run for my medicine box containing my life saving allergex to stop the sneezing fit that suddenly came over me. Seeing the layers of dust, and hundreds of dead bugs on the floor, and thinking of the clean and dustfree hotel I had left for this, the magnitude of what I have really done, dawned on me, making me feel a bitty feverish! And SCARED!
But I did recuperate from both the sneezing and the terrible lameness that was leaving my body quite unable to respond to the urgent commands from my brain, and I bravely made my way to the inside of this beasty infected palace of mine.
As the bedroom that I had draped the cloths in to stop the rainspiders looking down on the dreaming me, maybe contemplating taking a wee bite of dinner from my body, looked at this stage like the best proposition to get ready for me to sleep, I invaded the sanctity of said beasts, who had seven months of unmolested peace, with the long handled feather duster, and they scuttled away to the other rooms where they could hide in the thatch!
I was up with the birds next morning, and sat at Irma's veranda watching the sun throw its first tentative beams across the mountains, as if first to take stock of the barren landscape, where many years ago huge forests  stood, and even further back, according to the scientists, fishes swam around in the ocean that once covered this piece of the earth.
I was covered in red, swollen bites, I think from the smaller spiders that had taken refuge under the bed to get away from the feather duster, and who felt like a bit of revenge for my desturbing their peaceful existence.
I was waiting for Irma who were bringing Hendrix back, as my car were too loaded with all kinds of DIY stuff, to accomomdate the boy, who had apparently made Irma's life very uncomfortable, as he turned out to be a real Houdini, who could escape from anything!
Irma was feeling a bitty down, as she had bought a brand new gas stove for her kitchen after having put a lot of work into first renovating it, and then one morning Ronalee phoned with the shocking news that her kitchen walls had collapsed! The brand new stove got in the way of the huge stone chimney, and was now a very lopsided affair, but after some adjustments, it worked again, but shame, it would always be lopsided! In the photo Irma sat lamenting over her broken stove, as the kitchen had already been built up again while I was away!