4th Sept - Sisterly love in Dundee

Well, it's been a week since we last wrote. We've spent the week in Dundee, Scotland with my sister, her husband and her new daughter Kali (only 8 months old). I haven't seen my sister in about 3 yrs but it feels like old times.

Kali - aged 8 months

Dundee is the fourth largest city in Scotland and has an unusual mix of University students, lecturers, artists and factory workers. My brother-in-law is a doctor (MD) and most of their friends are doctors and scientists. One of his MD friends has 5 doctors in the family out of 6 people (2 parents, 4 kids). There are 3 MD's and two PhD's in the same family. At the same time, Dundee is apparently the town with the highest level of teenage pregnancy in UK so interesting mix.

The house we are staying in was built in the 1780's and is quite spectacular. My sister is staying in the 'drivers' apartment whilst my brother-in-law's grandmother stays in the main house. It's pretty amazing as her husband was a very well repected artist and the house is full of his artwork, her artwork and their son's artwork. There is a wonderful mix of new (1960's onwards) and very old architecture in Dundee, which we also noticed in Edinburgh and London.

Tam and Vera (Theo's grandmother)

The reason for our travels here was to spend time with my sister and also meet my new niece. She is a lovely and happy child, very calm, hasn't really cried in the week we've been here and I think it's down to my sister's very positive attitude.

Feeding the ducks

We have done a bit of shopping (favourite past time of ours) and seen Dunkeld and Perth (each about 45 mins away). We went to the Fife coast which has lots of fishing villages yesterday and apparently Anstruther has the best Fish & Chips in Scotland (the best we've had in the UK so far but nothing compared to our local Greek fish & Chip shops in OZ). The other fishing villages -Crail and Pittenweem are also nice.

Theo (Rebecca's husband) & Tam

Dunkeld cathedral

Pittenweem

Some of the best fish'n'chips in Scotland

Generally we've been hanging around the house and spending time with the other half of the family we never see (and also meeting all of their friends). We've enjoyed meeting their friends and sampling 'the best' restaurants in Dundee. I have to say Melbourne is really spoilt for choice of cuisine, quality of food presentation and value for money (those back home - do appreciate it).