Santa Marinella & Scotland

A couple of weeks ago, I finally managed to visit my friend Jackie and her husband and little boy. They live in a lovely seaside town about one hour north of Rome. Kev stayed home because he needed to work on his doctorate (but I don't think he did). I had a lovely time on the train, reading my book and looking at the beautiful scenery. The sun was shining and it was a great day. I was able to spend half the day with Jackie. Conor made fantastic pizzas - they just kept on coming...pizza after pizza after pizza. We had wine and strawberries and coffee frappes. We sat on their marvellous terrazza, and we went for a walk to the beach. It was the most relaxing day that I've had in ages. I think Kev would say the same.



Me and Jackie - a couple of blocks from her appartment




Last weekend Kev and I went to Scotland to participate in an Emmanuel Community Weekend. Community Weekends occur once a month, all over the world, where ever the Community exits. But because there are so few Community members in Scotland, this was the first one in eleven years. Kev and I went along to help out and to support an ex-student of the ESM as she made her first step into the Community (the step of 'welcome and discernment').

We left home on Friday morning at about 7:45am for an 11am flight, which should have had us at the airport with plenty of time to spare, but ooohhhhhh nooooooooo. We took the metro to the main train station where we needed to take a bus to take us to the smaller of the two Roman airports. We booked the bus, just to be sure. There was already a bus waiting there but it was going to the main airport. We waited and waited and waited but our bus never arrived, so after about 45 minutes everyone on the other bus was asked to get off and take their luggage from underneath so that it could be used for our trip. They were mightily annoyed! I felt so bad for them. We got on the bus and began our journey. There was a traffic jam and we were already extrememly late so the driver began taking short cuts down streets that have probably never taken buses before. He was going way too fast too. I think we almost died about two or three times.

We made it to the airport just in time, which was a relief because Ryan Air are very particular about the closing time for each flight. They are without a doubt, the worst airline in the world. They don't have seat allocations. So, first on best seat. For this reason, the wait at the airport is not a comfortable experience of sitting down and reading or chatting, but standing in line so that you can try and get two seats next to eachother. After standing in line for a long time, there was an announcement saying that there was a meeting so flights would be delayed for the next two hours. We decided to take a seat. We waited for an hour and a half. We got separate seats on the flight.

The weekend in Dundee was great. Dundee is a small town north of Edinburgh. It is quite pretty really. There were about 20 participants on the weekend, which was a good number. Kev and I gave the talks. We also had an appointment with the local bishop to discuss the possibility of having parish missions in his diocese in the future.

The days were sunny with blue sky (which we were told is very rare) but it was really really cold. I am glad that I brought my big puffy winter coat. It was freezing at night so I slept with many layers on, and my beanie pulled right down over my face.

We didn't have a lot of free time, but Kev and I managed to get to a pub and have one of the local beers. We also went for a stroll on the last night to have dinner together and to take some photos to prove that we were in Scotland.


Kev in Scotland - clearly not Italy!!!

We went to bed pretty early because we had to get up at 3:30am the following day. One of the locals picked us up at 3:50am and drove us to the airport for our 6:15am flight. Luckily the airport was open (many of the airports were closed due the the volcano ash still floating around). We made it back to Rome safe and sound but extremely tired. We went straight to work for the rest of the day.

That was yesterday and we are still tired. It is nice to be warm again!