Our yearly trips to Scotland can involve lots of repetition of places we like, but this year involved difference because we had to dial back on some of our ambitious sightseeing due to the health of our main (only) driver. I am not on the insurance of the bigger car so it’s pointless to say I could drive it but it’s also manual which would mean gear changes jerking my recovering husband around more than he would be comfortable with.

We took a long trip to the zoo after the children requested it and that was a learning experience as the zoo takes in lots of animals that are in a bad way around the world. It had also lost animals in a fire but there was a rebuilding which meant that there were many colonies to look at from lemurs to prairie dogs to penguins.

A visit to St Andrew’s unintentionally had a meeting with an unofficial Dalek…

We also made trips around the Fife Coast stopping off at St Monan’s, Cupar, Pittenweem and St Andrews.

We had a chance to go to my favourite beach at Lunan Bay where it was too cold to swim but we met lots of dogs…