Update on Where and When

We will all meet in the Beardmore Hotel and Conference Centre at 6 p.m on 15 July. We will have a Meet and Greet in a meeting room there which will be announced on the entrance board at Reception. I will be around from mid afternoon to meet you as well. The Meet and Greet will be a chance for you all to meet me and for me to meet you and for any of you who do not already know each other to get aquainted. I will give a brief introduction about our plans for the next few days and then we will have dinner together. Glasgow airport is a short taxi ride from the Beardmore Hotel which is one of the reasons that it has been chosen. As many flights from America arrive early in the morning, I will arrange with the hotel for your bags to be looked after if a room is not immediately available. Rooms in Scotland are normally available from 2 p.m. I would like details of your arrival and departure flights so that if possible I can co-ordinate transport. The tour ends after breakfast on Monday 27 July on the outskirts of Edinburgh (last hotel to be confirmed). I will let you know details of the hotel in next few days. There is an excellent train service between Edinburgh and Glasgow. What will the weather be like in July? July is our summer time which can mean temps from around 56 degrees F to 76 degrees F. The temperature is most likely to be in the mid to high 60s F. The layered approach to clothes is best at anytime in Scotland. July can also give us a lot of rain therefore an umbrella and a rain jacket are essential items. Every year seems to be different. We have just suffered our worst winter in 20 years and it is still continuing having started in October. We are therefore hopeful that we will have a hot and sunny summer! Being Scottish, we have to be optimistic. I am hopeful that with the exchange rate now being in your favour that the final cost may be a little lower than the estimate. The final price will be confirmed by end of first week in March.

Dumfries of Robert Burns

Steve and I travelled to England to visit our family in Yorkshire and further south to visit friends near London. On the way we stopped at Dumfries in the rain to visit the Station Hotel. We liked the Manager who gave me a personal tour round the hotel, which has good sized bedrooms and a nice restuarant and lounge area. It really is beside the station where you can take trains north to Glasgow, west to Stranraer or south to Carlisle. From here you can also walk into town. It is a very nice small town with a good range of shops and steeped in history. After the hotel we visited the Globe Inn which was built in 1610 and was a favourite haunt of Burns. The first Burns Supper was held here in 1819. I have arranged for us to tour the Inn and have an informal Burns Supper including haggis, neeps (turnips) and potatoes accompanied with poems of Burns including "to a Haggis". We will also enjoy accordian music and more. The manager of the Globe Inn is a Burns enthusiast as are the other staff members of the Globe. She would like to have Burns Supper at the Globe every week during this Homecoming Year and is looking forward to welcoming the Clan MacDuff. Anyone who would like to recite a Burns poem or sing a Burns song will be warmly welcomed, but it is not compulsory!