Heading to the UK

Follow along for a behind the scenes travel photos and book inspiration.

Bagpipers tuning their pipes is a cacophonous soundtrack to this post as I sit in Griffith Park on the last Los Angeles rehearsal of City of Angels Pipe Band before they depart for Scotland. Our family leaves tonight, and we’ll have four days in Northumberland before we meet the rest of the band in Glasgow on the 8^th.

This trip is one we’ve been looking forward to since Logan first joined the band two years ago, and we’ve been actively planning it for a year. I’ve booked student dorm rooms for the band and all its guests, coaches to travel to Stirling Castle for the full band to play for 30 minutes in their gardens, and also to use as a dressing and instrument case storage at Glasgow Green, and a gig for a mini band to play at WorldCon, the World Sci-fi/Fantasy convention that hosts the Hugo Awards. I’ve ordered towels, toilet paper, and a coffee press from Amazon.co.uk to be waiting at the Amazon locker next to our dorms, and booked tickets for the Pre-World’s Concert, the World Pipe Band Championships, and the Piping Live Masters’ Solo competitions. And yet, despite all that organizing and booking and scheduling, my favorite way to travel is very similar to the way I write books – with a foundational idea of where I’m going and how I’ll get there, but open to new ideas, pivots, and unexpected inspiration as they rise up along the way.

And because most of my stories have been set in the UK, and at least some of what we’re planning to see and do will be research or inspiration for my writing, I thought I’d share some of our plans with you in case you’d like to follow along with my Instagram stories, which is where I’ll post most of my photos.

We land in Glasgow on Sunday night and will immediately pick up a rental car, because last time I was in the UK I couldn’t get everywhere I wanted to go with the train and a taxi. I’ve never driven on the other side of the road, but with Ed’s navigation, I think I’ll do okay as we head south and east to Chillingham Castle. We’re renting a two bedroom apartment inside this apparently haunted castle for four nights, and will base all our Northumberland journeys from there. Logan is thrilled to be staying in the Medieval fortress, and has already been given permission to practice his bagpipes on the grounds, and although I’m not at all thrilled to be staying in a haunted place (I’m a giant chicken), I’m delighted that the price to sleep all of us in a castle is less than the cost of the equivalent number of beds in hotels.

Cragside Manor – the first electrified private home in the UK, and the setting for part of Ringo’s second book – is our only real plan for Monday. It’s the place I couldn’t get to last time, so I refuse to miss it now. I feel like it fits perfectly with Ringo’s anachronistic knowledge of electricity and technology, and it’s apparently in a gorgeous park-like setting as it was built out by Lord Armstrong of munitions fame to be his hunting lodge. Our only other plan is to make it back to Chillingham in time to actually tour the public spaces of the castle before Logan’s online piping lesson with his private instructor.

Hopefully Sunday’s journey and late bedtime result in no jet lag, because our rough plan for Tuesday involves an early morning crossing of the causeway to Lindisfarne to see the castle and the priory before racing the tide to get back to Bamburgh Castle, which was the inspiration behind Uhtred’s “Bebbenburg” home in The Last Kingdom (an EXCELLENT show on Netflix). Bamburgh is for Ed, and Lindisfarne is for Logan, but I was happy to have the excuse to get a family membership to the National Trust to cover entrance into both Cragside and Lindisfarne Castle.

Wednesday we have plans to see some universities with Medieval European History degrees for Logan, and we also get to visit with friends in Newcastle, so I anticipate a long, fun day, and Thursday we’re heading back up to Glasgow to meet with the rest of the band as they stagger in on their various flights.

The eleven days we spend in Glasgow will be work days. The band will rehearse three hours a day, and they have several gigs and high profile performances to give before their World Championship competition. Ed will be filming them, and I’ll be facilitating places to rehearse when it rains (I have a line on an electric car charging station), and where to buy umbrellas and kilt hangers.

This is the first time City of Angels Pipe Band will compete at the World Pipe Band Championships, and they’ll go up against 21 of the best grade 3B bands in the world. They’re set to play at 12:34pm on Saturday, August 17th, and have exactly one chance to bring their very best music to Glasgow Green. “One Time Out” has been their refrain at rehearsal, with each strike in, run through, and cut off. Every minute of rehearsal, every bit of planning, and every ounce of energy that goes into preparing for their “one time out” five minute MSR (March, Strathspey, Reel) is not enough to guarantee success, but it is the foundation. Preparation is the platform on which they will stand, but just like my favorite bits of travel and writing, it may ultimately be in the unexpected inspiration where magic is found.