Letter from Iona - #12

Hello All:

We gave our notice this week. Very exciting times!! Our last work day is September 24th and then we travel to Fife on September 25th.

This week has been pretty mundane with lots of work time. However, we did have fun last week at the Abbey when we went to visit Tim. Dan got to play a beaut of a violin and Katie sang with Tim playing. It was a great time and the acoustics were incredible. Then, Dan got talked into coming to the choir rehearsal on Thursday evening. He then stayed for the service and ended up in the choir for that. It was really cool because almost everyone of the 30 people in the choir speak English (even though they are from all over the world!) and they sang a Sanctus and Benedictus by John L. Bell that was dedicated to the master of music, Tim. He is an incredible musician with an obvious passion for what he does. He is currently studying his PhD at Cambridge at the tender age of 25! His specialty seems to be improv and he is amazing at it!

Today, we went for a walk to find the elusive Loch. It was going well until Mother Nature decided to unleash her wrath on the island of Iona and it rained down in torrents. So, once again, we found ourselves climbing in the wet. But, it was quite fun and we did find the loch. (See attached pics). We were going to continue on to find the Marble Quarry as well, but the rain reminded Dan of how much he had to pee, so we had to turn around. Just leaves us another adventure for another (hopefully more sunny) day.

We're quite excited to leave the island as the weather is getting more unstable each day with more rain than sun:( It also gets dark quite early now compared to when we first came, and most nights Katie ends up walking home in the dark. There's only one streetlight on the whole island, so it is muchly appreciated when Dan comes to meet her with a torch (flashlight), which happens very often.

Anyway, we wanted to send out a huge welcome back to Dan's parents who have just returned from visiting Dan's sister on the West Coast. And also, hello to Katie's Mom and Dad who are currently on a Caribbean cruise with Princess Cruises....don't worry, they missed the hurricane!:)

So, that's it....be sure to look at the pics this week....there two awesome ones of the tide when it's in and the tide when it's out....and yes, that is the exact same location!