We left home on a snowy (4 inches!) Nov. 15 to head to Manchester. The plane was delayed, as we suspected it would be, but we landed Friday morning around 10:30, and loaded up a bus that wasn't really big enough to handle all of us and our equipment. So we plodded on to a grand hotel near Crewe to join the TCTC Group band in concert that night.
The next day we headed on to Gateshead for the Brass in Concert. Another amazing hotel and a beautiful view of Newcastle across the river. The band fared poorly, chiefly because they took the advice of a consultant from England and simply played all the wrong music. Their show was just not entertaining.
We left the next day for the Huddersfield area where again we performed in tandem with their band, Meltham and Meltham Mills, in a beautiful and ancient church. The next day we left for Edinburgh, a 5-hour trip that took us 9 1/2 hours.
Jack and I spent a cold and rainy day touring Edinburgh Castle, and riding the sightseeing bus. The castle is huge ... HUGE ... and set upon a huge volcanic mount. Everything is up and down, and without my CBD capsules (they didn't arrive before we left), everything is painful. We paused to rest at The White Hart, the oldest pub in Edinburgh where Coleridge, Wordsworth, and others of the Romantic era met. it was not at all touristy, and I had a mulled wine.
But Thanksgiving dinner was held as a banquet in Dalhousie Castle, a relatively small castle-cum-venue. We were properly piped in by the house steward, and served turkey roulade, dauphinoise potatoes, stewed roots, baby brussels, and cornbread cake. The soup was carrot with coriander -- delicious!
Amid all of this, it hasn't sunk in that I have breast cancer. I had one moment of sadness when I realized I'll probably lose my hair, just when it's looking so luxuriant. I suppose I have time to let it all hit me between now and Christmas.
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