I just had to say a last goodbye to my cove at Loch Voile, and made a quick sketch, as I wanted to do a painting on getting home.
The flight home was as usual, tedious, with a long wait of nine hours at Dubai. If you have a wait of ten hours and more, you are conveyed to a hotel for the night, but my luck was not that good.
Home was again quite daunting, as Haarlem had a lot of  creepy crawlies, and other eight legged horrors, almost as big as my hand sometimes, that moved in the moment I moved out! So on opening the door, it was no surprise to find umpteen of this spiders, luckily harmless, watching me with a jaundiced eye or two, from between their satiny but sticky webs, hanging from the rafters! A wee bitty creepy, but that was just the way it was, and I just put my luggage down before starting to clean my bedroom. I can live with a lot of strange and weird things, but a huge rainspider watching me lying in my bed, always looking ready to jump on me, was just not very comfy, so to have some sleep after the sleepless night on the plain, it had to be done.
The summer went quite quickly, and I was strong and healthy after a few months, and when Tony mailed me to ask whether I wanted to come back, I was all too ready to say yes. Well, I thought that as he had gotten the other chef when I got ill, I would not have the running of the kitchen on my shoulders, and also I would only do dinner when he was off.
So, with my childrens's moans and groans about my health and other things still fresh in my ears, I again boarded the Emmirates plane. Luckily I had only about an hour to wait before boarding the plane to Glasgow, From where I would find my own way to the hotel. To me it was a waste for Tony, and my previous employers to fetch me, as it took a big chunk out of their time, and they already so pressed for time.
I had a shocking surprise waiting for me at the hotel. Jo, Tony's wife, had run off with the chef, and the poor man was in quite a state of shock, and rage. So shattered was my hope of having a nice, easy season, as I was in charge of the kitchen yet again.
But I also found that Tony had employed a very unsavoury woman, whom nobody would employ, and this woman was all cheeky self importance, trying to teach me how to run the kitchen. I was a bitty shaken, as that kitchen was in a state of filth, and I had to start the next morning early to try and clean up a bit, before I would even try to attempt some baking and cooking!
I could just watch my little Panda from the window, raring to put back the battery, and take to the wee winding roads that I so loved!