UK Trip--a few preliminary remarks

So. Due to popular demand (voiced to me by multiple people in person, if not on this blog), I'm gonna start "reporting" on the mid-August vacation Ed and I took to the United Kingdom. We'd been planning this trip for over a year, and it was my Christmas present from Ed last year. So by the time we actually got to go, I was as excited as Snickers when it's time to leave for her Sunday walk and the dumb humans can't find the leash. Getting to go to London and Scotland really swung my verge, if you will. ;o)

A few preliminary remarks about the vacation, or "holiday," as they say in the UK: This was the first real vacation that Ed and I have had since my parents took us to Ireland five years ago. Yeah, we've had a few trips to Oklahoma since then, and we've taken "mini-vays" (mini-vacations = day trips or weekend trips) to various places, but nothing like a real, frolicking, get-away-from-everything, see-something-totally-new, get-into-another-world kind of vacation. The trips to the States are never vacations because they're more "business" than pleasure. And four of my trips to the States have been for family medical emergencies or deaths. All in all, it would be nice to take a trip to the States that actually involved anything like a vacation!

Also, this was the very first vacation Ed and I have been on together, just the two of us, since our honeymoon (almost nine years ago!). So we've been rather overdue for something like this!

And a few prelims about my vacation "blopgost": It's gonna be a lot, it's gonna take me some time to finish writing it, and I seriously doubt that most of you will want to read all of it. However, I'll be posting it piece by piece, so maybe that'll keep it from being too overwhelming. ;o)