We're all going on a Scottish holiday...

Well where did that time go? It's the 18th February which means we're off on our jaunt to Scotland tomorrow. We're still frantically packing bags which is a bit of a worry as we're heading off at around 6am in the morning!

We're actually starting off so early so we can go and visit some good friends in Liverpool on the way. It should make for a busy, tiring but really lovely and exciting day.

This holiday will be our first week-long holiday in 3 years and our first cottage break ever so it's really exctiting but a bit daunting too as we don't quite know what to pack! We've decided to go for the philosophy of 'as much stuff as we can fit in our small car'.

Funnily enough I tweeted about this very issue and 'unique cottages' replied with a list of things to pack for a cottage break, which was really nice and helpful. What was strange though is that we've actually booked with Unique Cottages! We're making sure we don't forget our potato peeler or toothbrush...

Other than pack the one big thing left for us to do is to make our mix cd's. For every big occasion or road trip we always make the effort to make mix cd's and this trip is no exception. Having taking an emergency trip to Tesco we're now geared up with our laptops, music collections and recordable CDs. I'll post some of the track listings later...

Right well we'd better go and finish so we can get as much sleep as possible. Hope to update you whilst we're away but we've heard the mobile reception is limited/non-existent so we might have to handwrite our updates and post them when we get back. How old skool?!

Getting ready...

In less than a month's time we will be making the long journey up to Scotland for a week's relaxing escape in a very sweet looking little cottage near Lockerbie.

Inspired by a suggestion from Unique Cottages (through which we booked our trip), we will be blogging throughout our week long rural retreat with details and pictures of the cottage, the local landscape (which looks to be stunning) and our day trips. I'm sure there'll be plenty of book reviews too...

Ever being the organiser (well, Emma is) we're already getting started on mix tapes for the journey, shopping lists, recipe ideas, day trip plans and asking for recommendations for reading materials (do you have any?!)!

The cottage appears to have a lovely little kitchen and dining room so we're thinking of using the time to undertake a Masterchef style challenge with each of us taking on the cooking duties on alternative meals and days with different geographical themes. Nial's already a great cook but Emma still has a lot to learn so it should be rather interesting... We will post details of each of these cooking attempts so you can judge them for yourselves!

It's our first cottage break and we're really looking forward to it. I hope you enjoy reading about it too. Who knows it might inspire you to have your own rural retreat?