Couldn't follow her adventure like I did last time! Congrats Mom and Dad!!!!

I'm hosting a dinner party, tonight, so I've been dashing between the kitchen and live feed.

Camera angle wasn't so good for the viewers, but it looks like the baby landed right in front of the staff, which is wonderful.

I'll tell you, I take joy where ever I can, anymore. And watching a threatened species increase, even by just one, is definitely joyful.

My husband came in and we worked on our itinerary for our trip to the UK. So far we've covered Scotland.

Perhaps I'm biased, but I think it is the most beautiful part of the UK. Conwy Castle, in the north, is beyond impressive and Llandudno (also north) is a nice, Victorian era holiday town. A trip up the Great Orme gives one a grand view.

I do love Scotland, too. Edinburgh is wonderful and the north of Scotland is pretty spectacular. I took a cruise on Loch Ness. Definitely recommended (if it hasn't been turned into a tourist trap. It wasn't, at all, when I was there.)

In fact we're visiting the village near Aberyswyth where my great grandfather was born, Llanfihangel y Creuddyn.

We start by taking the Queen Elizabeth out of Fort Lauderdale, stopping at New York, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and Iceland. It goes on to Scotland, Dublin, and Southampton.

Right now we're planning to get off the ship in Greenock, drive around the north coast of Scotland, visiting the Orkneys, Hadrian's Wall then into Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. Then I have three days of needlework classes and a one week tour which ends in London. We'll spend six days in London, then drive to Wales and if we have time, we'll go out to Cornwall and Land's End.

Right now we're thinking of signing up for another tour that is two weeks long that travels through the Lake District up to Edinburgh, then back down to London. It ends in London the day before we get on a ship at Southampton that sails to St. Maarten, St. Thomas, Puerto Rico, and Haiti before returning to Fort Lauderdale.

This will be over two months in the UK and four weeks total at sea!

We are planning to go to Tarbet and take the ferry across to Inversnaid, maybe spend the night at the hotel and a day in the RSPB reserve there.

This will be our trip of a lifetime!

That spoiled me for every other holiday.

I've been to the UK about 8 times and traveled all around. I'd get a rail pass and just take off to see any place that sparked my fancy. That's not to say there aren't even more places I still haven't had the time to visit. The history absolutely overwhelms me.

But a lot of the bird watching sites are not really close to the stations. These days I am not able to walk terribly far so being able to drive to provided car parks will help a lot. I'm getting my back fused in two weeks and hopefully that will help my mobility but I won't have a lot of time before we leave to get in shape for long walks.

Besides, with clothes for three months, needlework stuff, and camera equipment, our luggage will be out of control!

Paddington (or maybe it was Victoria) had a service where you could check your bag, for a very reasonable fee. I would check the big bag and stuff everything I needed into a smaller one. When I took my cruise, they sent me a packet of information, and it included that 'formal dress' was expected for dinner, and they recommended 3 cocktail dresses and one gown, for the Captain's Cocktail Party. I couldn't afford much (I was a petty officer in the Navy) so I made all of my cruise clothes. I definitely didn't need any of them when I was in the UK, so being able to check that bag was a salvation.

I definitely developed a knack for train travel, but I was much younger, then. Not sure I'd be up to that kind of adventure, now!