This year, Chris and I spent the entire month of March in Scotland celebrating two great events. My husband wanted to be back in the land of his birth, on the day of his birth. In 1958, he made his grand entrance into the world on March 19 in the maternity hospital in Bellshill, near Glasgow. This year marked his 65th birthday. All month long we celebrated that momentous event as well as our 38th wedding anniversary.

In my next two blog posts, I’ll share highlights of our 33-day trip. This first story covers three weeks in London and Inverness.  Next month you’ll journey with us through Aberdeen, Edinburgh, and Glasgow.

I have one complaint about vacations: planning can be stressful! It takes a huge amount of preparation to be gone from home for a month. I worried about the itinerary. How would we fit in all the sights we hoped to see and the loved ones we wanted to visit? And in the back of my mind lurks a nagging question. Will I ever get to go back to Nigeria?

By the time I sank into my seat on British Airways and clicked the seatbelt shut, I was plumb tuckered out.

After arriving in London, we checked into the Marriott Hanbury Manor, a historic hotel northeast of London near the town of Ware. For five days we stayed there so I could acclimate to the time change and the cold weather–and recover from the 10 1/2-hour overnight plane ride.

The Fun Begins

We took a day trip to the Isle of Wight off the southern tip of England to visit Roselyn MacDonald, a friend who also attended Hillcrest (my high school in Nigeria). After a three-hour drive and a thirty-minute ferry ride, we arrived at Roselyn’s home in Sandown. She served us a delicious homemade, gluten-free chicken stew, while we reminisced about our teenage years and caught up on recent family news.  Afterward, we strolled along the Sandown waterfront and nipped into charity shops for treasures.

Back in Ware the next day, we walked to The Sea Tree for gluten-free fish & chips, calamari rings, and the UK specialty of deep-fried sausage. In California, we don’t get as many gluten-free options, and I ate far too much but savored every morsel.

Next, Chris and I flew to Inverness, the capital of the Scottish Highlands, and settled into our self-catering cottage in Drumnadrochit near Loch Ness. Rain, snow, and sleet welcomed us over the next few days, but we dressed warmly, and the sun shone through every day.

On Sunday, we met up with friends at Inverness Baptist Church. Several years ago, I searched social media for authors in Scotland. There on Twitter, I met Barbara Henderson and discovered that she and her husband Rob served on the worship team at their church.

Barbara writes historical and eco-fiction for 8-12-year-olds. You can find her on Facebook here.

Adding to My Collection of Memories

During our previous trips, Barbara introduced us to Andy and Cathy Golder, Alex and Isabel Kelso, and Pauline Mackay–other church friends and fellow writers. Chris and I enjoyed having tea with these new friends. I didn’t quite get pictures with everyone but I’ll take more next year when we return, God willing.

On our second night there we enjoyed a concert at Eden Court Theatre with The Three Amigos, country folk singers from Ireland. After the intermission, I found a secluded corner of the lobby, plugged in my phone charger, and joined a Zoom call. It was the bimonthly reconnect for alumni of Kent Academy, my boarding school in Nigeria. I chatted for over an hour with old friends including my brother Mark in Kingsburg, California. Again, I had such a surreal feeling. Here I was in my husband’s homeland talking with friends from my childhood homeland, in the middle of vacationing on the other side of the world from my current home.

On March 16, we celebrated our 38th Anniversary at The White House in Inverness. I ordered their gluten-free fish and chips, but I can’t have potatoes so quite happily replaced the chips (French fries) with an extra haddock fillet. Chris dubbed my dinner “fish & fish.”

Adding to My Collection of Friends

On our last day in the Scottish Highlands, I had a special meet-up with yet another writer I befriended on social media, Merryn Glover. Her parents were missionary doctors in the Himalayas, and we have boarding school life in common. Now back in Scotland, Merryn has published several books and is the writer in residence for the Cairngorms National Parks Trust.

Merryn’s first was a novel based on her childhood in India. Before our meeting, I bought the book so I could get to know her. When I stepped into the Old Post Office Cafe in Kincraig, I recognized her immediately. We hugged and sat at a table.

We only had an hour and a half to visit since Chris and I had to get back to pack up the cottage and head south the next day.

Without any small talk, I dove right in. “I just read your first book, Merryn: A House Called Askival. Even though it’s a novel, many events mirrored my traumatic memories. It was so triggering; I couldn’t read it thoroughly–could only skim.”

I stirred my tea. “The choking loneliness at boarding school. Estrangement from your parents. Leaving the country abruptly.”

Merryn patted my hand. “Did you read the part at the end where she returned to her home in the Himalayas? When she took communion with her father?”

I shook my head.

“You have to read that bit.”

I slowly took a sip of my tea. “Yes, I’ll make time to do that. It might help me process my memories of my childhood in Nigeria.”

Even though I haven’t been back to my childhood home since 1981, I’m thankful that God provides many connections with my homeland in unexpected ways and through unlikely meetups with strangers!

Coming Next

In my next post, I’ll share about visits with family and friends in Uddingston, Musselburgh, Falkirk, East Kilbride, and Aberdeen.

For more of my background at a boarding school, click here.