The next message ...

The next installment of my story picks up in August 2020, a little less than a month after I sent a message to the photographer whose work I admired. He had been posting a number of photos and I was watching with amazement and some amusement. His following was growing and looked to me like a part-time job to keep up with the comments. At that point in time, it appeared he was trying to respond to everyone. So I sent a second message and jokingly said it looked like he had a new "career" responding to the comments on his photos. And just to make sure he understood my humor I put in a winking emoji. By the way, his name is John. In responding back, John said, "Yes," the response really had grown and he was finding it difficult to reply to every comment as he always had previously. Somehow after that second message there was a third, fourth and then the count was lost. Our messages were primarily in regard to the photos he was taking, as I was doing research on the photos I took while we were traveling there. Many photos I took through the bus window and had no idea where we were when we were driving around Edinburgh. At that point he was going from Glasgow, where he lived, to Edinburgh at least once a week. I was so excited to see photo after photo pop-up that he would then describe the location and the subject matter. Slowly but surely I was identifying my own photographs. Ironically, because I have had the travel journal on hiatus for so long, those discoveries regarding Edinburgh have yet to be shared.

Here's the story of one such discovery. Our Scottish guide, Kevin, had mentioned the Grassmarket area several times during the brief drive around Edinburgh when we arrived near dusk on the first Tuesday of our journey. The name intrigued me so I was certainly looking forward to seeing it. Since nothing was ever officially announced of us being in the Grassmarket I didn't think we ever were. I was completely delighted to see John's photo post that looked very similar to the positioning of one of my photos and he described it as a view of The Castle from the Grassmarket! I was so excited. And I discovered that we probably drove through several times even though we didn't stop. Being someone who likes to research things himself, John appreciated my desire to do so and my enthusiasm. It was one of our first points of shared interest.

Although I'm a little exasperated with myself for not being more timely with continuing the travel journal, I'm alternately very excited about picking it up again. Embedding myself deep in those experiences always brings waves of great memories, warm feelings and like hardly any time has passed since we were there. A great thing to be able to say given the events of the past two years.

By September messages exchanged with John moved from once every few days to daily, to multiple each day. I think it easily happened because both John and I are very open people and we love to write and read. We also love to laugh and particularly dry humor. That has been incorporated from the beginning ranging from giggles to tears rolling down my cheeks, literally.

By September my curiosity to hear him speak had really grown. I knew he was going to have some type of Scottish accent, although he says I'm the one with the accent. So at one point I requested him to do a little video of someplace he'd like to show me and narrate so I could hear him talk. This is not something he likes to do but he graciously granted me my wish. I received a wonderful little video taken during September 2020 in Princes Street Gardens. He was near the Ross Fountain, autumnal foliage all around and The Castle in view on the huge volcanic rock hill behind. I had a ridiculous reaction to hearing him talk as I initially thought he sounded like Mrs. Doubtfire. Amazingly, I told him that. He was very gracious in his response, even though he didn't really think that he did. Later after I had heard him speak a lot more and I went back and watched Mrs. Doubtfire, I apologized for that comment. It was ridiculous because he does not sound like Mrs. Doubtfire!

What next? Coming soon!