With multiple alarms buzzing & ringing, it was another 5am start to our day. We should be getting used to them by now, but no, it's still hard to drag yourself out of bed at that time of day despite the excitement of a trip ahead. We are getting more proficient in airport, having everything on hand for check in and everything tucked away for security screening - David didn't even get the usual 'you have been picked at random' for a second search - so there was a heap of time for Maria to browse the Duty Free stores.

We were on Norwegian Airlines to Edinburgh via Oslo and despite being a low fare airline, there was free Wifi on board. After a few emails and a quick browse through Facebook, we were flying over Scotland above some patchy cloud with the sun streaming in the window - could there really be sun in Scotland in March? David's Mum and Dad were picking us up from the airport and as we headed for the car we were reaching for our sunglasses - it was sunny in Scotland!!
It was only an hour's drive to Melrose but we stopped en-route at the Carfraemill Hotel for some lunch. They even had a special Scottish produce menu, Maria was going to get her first taste of Scotland. Maybe the tales of deep frying pizza and ice cream had her a little worried but she did venture enough to take the Stornoway Black Pudding hoping it would not be served battered and straight from the deep fat fryer (which it wasn't and the meal was superb).

We had a lazy afternoon chatting before the 'bar' opened at 5pm and David got to taste some Tennants Lager after quite a few years. David's Mum said that we were going to have pizza for dinner and Maria started to get nervous, she didn't feel she was ready to taste a deep fried pizza...it was only heated up in the oven though. Contrary to popular belief, not everything is deep fried in Scotland, only the best things ;)