Here’s the best of the best: tire fixed, , full gas tank, late afternoon sunlight, strange oldies/pop selections on BBC Cumbria radio, windows down, back roads, green fields, stone farmhouses, chocolate cookies, slight adrenaline buzz as we try to beat the clock from Kendal to Edinburgh. ETA: 6 pm.

ETA of tour participants: most have already arrived and are at the hotel, ready to begin our itinerary in the morning. Four to pick up at the airport tomorrow, 9 am. All is well. We arrive in time for dinner and the next installment of “Britain’s Best Sticky Toffee Pudding”.

The Parliament House Hotel, which I adore, unfortunately does not rate well.

Cake: 3 , out of a possible 5

Toffee sauce: 1, penalized for woefully insufficient quantity

Dairy Addition: 2, ice cream fine but not enough of it

Final Score: 2

Think I’ll post a separate entry with judging criteria as soon as the tour is through and I am at the housesit.

We dropped ourselves into our Edinburgh beds and slept, slept, slept. Well, I slept. Heather insisted on waiting up to meet her daughter’s boyfriend for a late night drink as soon as he finished his shift. 10:15 pm. But since he’s about to move all her daughter’s stuff over to their new apartment without the help of said daughter, it was an understandable gesture. Also, she’s eight years younger than I am. She doesn’t need sleep (or revel in it) the way I do.

I love you, Parliament House Hotel bed. You get a 4.5 out of 5. You could teach that sticky toffee pudding a thing or two…

Guess what? That’s all I’ve gotten down in the last hour of trying to write. Also, I was interrupted by two participants wanting to know about the schedule tomorrow, our driver (he’s great – more on him later), a passel of dressed-to-the-nines Rotarians gathering for a banquet, and Heather, retuning from the nearby AMAZING bookstore in time for our evening tutorial offering on the workshop we had yesterday.

Sigh.

A lot is going on.

Yesterday I managed to at least load the pictures for days 1 and 2 of the tour. However, I couldn’t get wifi in my room. Without it, I have to write from the lobby or bar a the hotel. You can see how successful those efforts are…

So, how about if I leave the pics and sign off? I’ll write about them as soon as I’m able. In the meantime, you’ll get to see a bit of what’s been going on.

Bon soir, mes amies!

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