Goodbye to Iona, a long day of travel, and the most unusual accommodation of the trip.

Last night, as pictured above, we had a Ceilidh Communion service, which is one that, like a Ceilidh, invites the telling of stories and the sharing of song.   Around a single table we hear stories of the week, stories from scripture, and the story of Jesus feeding us all.   We shared a loaf of Abbey bread (and, by the way, I got the recipe) although people brought our piece to us, and placed it in our hands with gloved hands and masked faces.  At the end of the service, everybody went outside and stood in the deepening twilight for a few minutes before heading to bed.   Because the night service at the Abbey is at 9 PM, when we are done we are ready for bed, especially when we need to be packed and ready for breakfast at 7:30 in the morning. 

LIkewise with the morning service.  After wishing each other well in our travel, or in our preparation for the next group of residents during our morning prayer, we all exited, with our hand luggage, from the main entrance of the church, and continued on, all of us, to the ferry dock. We said our goodbyes to the program team and the team of volunteers and staff who fed us, prepared for us, helped us worship, and enabled our time in community (and whom we occasionally worked beside.). The we piled on the ferry and as the ferry left the staff, volunteers, musicians, everyone, waved and did waves, bowed and basically with incredible enthusiasm, sent us on our way.

The ferry left at 8:50 AM, actually it left 20 minutes late, which meant that the train from Oban that most of us wanted to take, left without us, which is resulting in a very long - very long - travel day.   Ferry from Oban to Fionnphort only about 15 minutes.  Bus, Fionnphort to Craignature - 1 hour 45 minutes.   Ferry from Craignature (on the Isle of Mull) - 45 minutes.   Then a two hour break since I was going to be taking the 2:41 PM train insetead of the 12:15 train (I made this when I got my main meal for the day, since travel will be tight when dinner time comes.). Then ScotRail to Glasgow (3 hours), another train to Haymarket (1 hour) and finally a bus to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival Camping area.  

Because, yes, the Fringe Festival is on and the price of hotel rooms is through the roof.  When this accommodation came up on Booking.com, with furnished tents at a quarter the cost of a hotel, within spitting distance of the airport (and Ihave a 7 AM flight), I said Heck Yes!   Particularly since bedding was included.

Except it isn’t.  I got an email on Thursday letting me know that because of Covid, they were not providing sleeping bags and would I please bring my own. 

Oops.

Needless to say this stressed me out a little bit, but thanks to the peace of Iona, I was able to trust that I would work this out.   And during that 2 hour break in Oban, I found an outfitting warehouse store that had a kids sleeping bag on clearance, cheap, and the largest size should be big enough for 5’ 4” me.   

So my brothers’ kids will likely get an extra sleeping bag purple with butterflies, and I will sleep cozy tonight with it, and a pillow of dirty clothes.   

Traveling is always about figuring things out, dealing with the bumps in the road, and making it all happen.    

Now, THIS train is running 10 minutes late, and I have only 25 minutes between trains, so I need to fold up my keyboard, pack my stuff up, and be ready to jump off the train the minute we get to the Glasgow station.  So I can get to the campground before 9.