Our first main family gathering of the year was in March, for Auntie Catriona’s 80th birthday. Catriona lives in Greenock, but also owns a cottage on the isle of Jura, off the west coast of Scotland.
Jura was the regular holiday destination while I was growing up, and I introduced Dan to its delights fairly early on while we were going out. We’ve also brought friends there over the last few years, who have generally gone away sold on the whole experience.
So, you can imagine we were pleased to have a little slice of Jura available in Edinburgh – in fact, there was a whole birthday cake in the shape of Jura. Catriona was really pleased, and we had fun bidding for different sections of the island by name. However, we made sure that Catriona got to keep the Craighouse section, the main settlement on the island where the cottage is based.
We also had fun trying out the Italian restaurant in Juniper Green, which we returned to in May for the Boston Mackenzies’ visit. The owner handled the unveiling of the island with great respect!