On holiday with a very smart phone...

If you would like to see nice photos of my short visit to Scotland in August, then head over to my daughter Evie's blog. The link is on your right. What follows is a different side of the holiday...

I knew Evie had this nice new phone...

As we left London there was a prolonged call to someone called Fiona. The tunnels didn't seem to cut the connection.

Then we got to Lancaster. 'I wonder what that river is called?' No reply but I could feel the increased level of concentration beside me. She looked up from the phone and announced 'its the River Lune'! Really?

We got to my cousin's house and the conversation was all about her son's forthcoming wedding. The hymns? The first one was All things bright and beautiful' - straightforward enough. The second was something like We vow to one another... would that be to the tune of I Vow to thee my country? We didn't know but the phone told us the answer ( which I can't remember now!)

Visiting my sister in Dunoon by ferry, I've always been confused about which loch is which - three of them branch off where the Clyde turns to flow to the south -no longer thanks to that phone! I know exactly which is Gare Loch, Loch Long and Holy Loch.

The next day was wet - again so we decided to stay in Glasgow. I took Evie to see some of my favourite places. One of them was the replica of Charles Rennie Mackintosh's house. It's attached to the Hunterian Art Gallery. She tried hard to get a guided tour of the house on her phone, but it didn't quite happen...

The next day it was much brighter so off to Loch Lomond we headed. I've had many a picnic on the bonny banks and I always knew there was at least one island... but now I know exactly which piece of land is Inchmurrin.

In bed at night I wanted to finish a chapter of my book. 'Thats OK, Mum, I'll just try my flag recognition app. while you do that.' I think she could recognise about 40 flags at that point. The World Cup had been a help. Shortly afterwards my chapter finished I switched off the light, forgetting she might still need it. Problem? Not at all, the torch on her phone was like a searchlight- brighter than all the lights in our room! And anyway she had moved on to do a maths game. ( I wish she'd had a phone like that when she was at school!)

On the way home it was cloudy and we couldn't see the sun. We wondered which direction we were travelling. Should have been south - to London? It turned out we were going east at that point, but we did get safely to London!

Thanks, Evie, for being such a good travelling companion and enriching the experience with your phone!