Category: Uncategorised

Today, 28th of May, we have officially entered phase 1 of the four phase routemap out of lockdown in Scotland. You can view all four phases here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-framework-decision-making-scotlands-route-map-through-out-crisis/pages/4/

Phase 1

We are set to move to Phase 1 following the 28 May end-of-cycle review of the COVID-19 regulations, if the evidence supports that. In Phase 1, the virus would not be fully contained. There is a continued risk of overwhelming NHS capacity without significant restrictions remaining in place. To progress to Phase 1, R must have been below 1 for at least 2 weeks and the number of infectious cases starting to decline. There should also be a sustained reduction in new infections, hospital admissions, ICU admissions, deaths (WHO Criterion 1). Test and Protect capacity will be ramped up, with staff being recruited and digital systems being designed.

During Phase 1 a number of changes to the rules would be made – potentially over more than one review cycle (after 28 May, the next review cycle concludes on 18 June). Some of these changes would be to guidance and some to regulations. In addition, a number of public services that had either been paused or scaled back because of the crisis would now be resumed or expanded. The rules set out in the previous (Lockdown) phase apply except as set out below.

Seeing family and friends: We are planning in this phase to change regulations to permit people to use public outdoor spaces for recreational purposes, for example to sit in a public space. We are also planning for one household to meet up with another household outdoors, in small numbers, including in gardens, but with physical distancing required.

Getting around: Consistent with the reopening of workplaces set out in this phase, where home working is not possible businesses and organisations are encouraged to manage travel demand through staggered start times and flexible working patterns. 

You will also be permitted to travel short distances for outdoor leisure and exercise but advice to stay within a short distance of your local community and travel by walk, wheel and cycle where possible. 

International border health measures are set to be introduced. 

Schools, childcare and other educational settings: We are planning in this phase to change guidance so that staff can return to schools and for an increased number of children to access critical childcare provision including the re-opening of child minding services and fully outdoor nursery provision. We are planning to make support available to pupils at key transition points, e.g. those due to start P1 or S1 where possible. 

Working or running a business: In this phase we are planning for remote working to remain the default position for those who can. 

For those workplaces that are reopening, employers should encourage staggered start times and flexible working.

We are also planning for outdoor workplaces to resume with physical distancing measures in place once guidance is agreed. 

We are also planning for the construction sector to implement the first two phases in its restart plan with a decision to move to ‘phase 2’ of the construction sector’s plan only after consulting with government to ensure it is safe to do so and in line with public health advice.

Preparing for the safe reopening of the housing market.

Workplaces resuming in the following phases can undertake preparatory work on physical distancing and hygiene measures in this phase. 

Shopping, eating and drinking out: In this phase we are planning the gradual opening of drive through food outlets as well as the re-opening of garden centres and plant nurseries with physical distancing. Associated cafes (e.g. in garden centres) should not reopen at this stage except for take away. 

Sport, culture and leisure activities: In this phase we are planning to allow unrestricted outdoors exercise adhering to distancing measures and non-contact outdoor activities in the local area – such as golf, hiking, canoeing, outdoor swimming, angling – consistent with the wider rules and guidance applicable to any activity in this phase. 

Community and public services We are planning the gradual resumption of key support services in the community. We are expecting to restart face-to-face Children’s Hearings and for there to be greater direct contact for social work and support services with at risk groups and families, and for there to be access to respite/day care to support unpaid carers and for families with a disabled family member. All of these would involve appropriate physical distancing and hygiene measures.

We are planning for the opening of Household Waste Recycling Centres.

Court and tribunal buildings open, with limited business and public access.

Gatherings and occasions: In this phase we are expecting no public gatherings except for meetings of two households and then only outdoors and with physical distancing.

Health and Social Care: In this phase we expect to begin the safe restart of NHSservices, covering primary, and community services including mental health. 

We are also planning on retaining COVID-free GP services and planning a further scale up of digital consultations. 

We expect to roll out the NHS Pharmacy First Scotland service in community pharmacies and increased care offered at emergency dental hubs as practices prepare to open. We will also restart, where possible, urgent electives previously paused. And there will be a resumption of IVF treatment following the approval of Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority.

There will be an increase provision of emergency eyecare in the community. 

We will consider the introduction of designated visitors to care homes.

The Test and Protect system will be available across the country.

Travel

Travel is still very much restricted. Our associates at Starfish Taxis operate a pre-booked social distant taxi service and you can find more here: https://www.starfish-taxis.com/

Relating to taxis the following rules apply (https://www.transport.gov.scot/coronavirus-covid-19/transport-transition-plan/advice-on-how-to-travel-safely/?utm_campaign=579482_FindBusinessSupport%20-%20COVID-19%20-%20Updates%2052&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Scottish%20Enterprise&dm_i=4X7B,CF4Q,3LI84R,1E9M8,1#section-63887):

Taxis and Private Hire vehicles

Plan your journey

It is important that you plan your journey. Taxi and Private Hire Vehicle operators may have put in place new measures to help with physical distancing. You should check what new measures apply. You may wish to confirm payment arrangements to avoid, if possible, cash transactions.

We recommend before starting your journey you wash or sanitise your hands.

On your journey

At taxi ranks you should try to keep a 2 metre distance from others. If you come within 2 metres of others, you should avoid physical contact and keep the time you spend within 2 metres of others as short as possible.

You should wear a face covering when using a taxi or private hire vehicle as a consideration to your driver. The wearing of a face covering for very young children or those with particular conditions is not appropriate. See further guidance on face-covering.

You should also be aware of the surfaces, like door handles, you or others touch.

Be considerate to your driver by taking all your belongings and rubbish when leaving the vehicle.

Completing your journey

When finishing your journey, you should deposit any of your used tissues or rubbish in bins. We recommend you wash or sanitise your hands (and children’s hands if you are travelling with them) as soon as possible.

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Private cars and other vehicles

Plan your journey

It is important that you plan your journey and check the latest travel advice on your route via trafficscotland.

Try to stay as local as possible to your home unless you are traveling for work purposes. Routes may be different as local authorities make changes to enable physical distancing on pavements and cycle routes.

On your journey

Good ventilation particularly by keeping the car windows open and facing away from fellow passengers may help to reduce the risk of transmission.

You should be aware of the surfaces within your vehicle that you or others touch. If the vehicle is your responsibility you should clean regularly areas such as the steering wheel and door handles.

When driving, you should anticipate more pedestrians and cyclists than usual, especially at peak times of day. You should allow other road users to maintain physical distancing by, for example, giving cyclists room for a 2 metre separation at traffic lights.

You should limit the time you spend at garages, petrol stations and motorway services. You should keep a 2 metre distance from others and pay by contactless methods, if possible.

You should wash or sanitise your hands before your journey and if you are the driver you should encourage passengers to do likewise.

Completing your journey

When finishing your journey, we recommend you wash or sanitise your hands as soon as possible and ensure that keys or fobs are also cleaned regularly.

For those of you who have been on a tour with me in the past you will have heard this story in at least a short version. As I find myself with extra time on my hands (Time I intend to spend in more positive ways then filling out forms to apply for support) I shall tell a story why there is a tour guide in Scotland with a German accent.

This takes me back to 1993 when I was studying Political Science at the University of Marburg when realising that I needed a year abroad for completing my masters.

I had taken Latin in School and thankfully English was compulsory. I had been travelling to the US during an unforgetteable holiday with my late dad and I had been to London several times and to Bournemouth.

I owned a horse, Mirko a Trakehner stallion, whom I had purchased when I turned eighteen. He needed to come and as I matter of fact we kept together till 2017 when he died aged 31.

Bringing a horse to the US was something unaffordable so my choice of study was limited to the UK. When my UCAS form arrived it coincidently had as many spaces as there were Universities in Scotland. So, I entered all Scottish Universities and I had never been anywhere near Scotland.

I was offered a space at Stirling University and qualified for an Erasmus grant (In the days the EU seemed a good idea even in Great Britain).

Prior to departure my boyfriend and I had been given another horse, Justus an 11 year old Hessian gelding (who stayed with me till 2011 when he died aged 30). To bring any horses to the UK you needed a health certificate, pedigree papers, a vaccination document and an address in the UK.

By that time we did not know where we would stay but as an address (stables/fields) for the horses was required we decided one evening to drive over to Scotland to sort that out. So we boiled some coffee, put it in a flask and off we went.

This was a perfect way of testing our new car. When Justus arrived in our lives it became apparent that neither my car (an old Mercedes) nor my boyfriend’s car (a slightly younger Audi 100) could tow a trailer with two horses. So we ventured out and bought an 18 year old Volvo 244 DL. Just in front of our house in the village we lived in was a parking area when we had purchased the Volvo we populated 50% of the parking in a traffic light manner: red Audi, yellow Mercedes and green Volvo.

Driving to Scotland involved using the Calais Dover ferry, which was easy. I had been to the dentist for a root treatment which sadly was not done properly so I spent the entire journey in agony and eating out of my own free will McDonald ‘s soggy burgers.

In the light of that we somehow found ourselves in North Wales on some country road utterly lost. We stopped at a petrol station and raised eyebrows when we asked which of the two directions possible would take us to Scotland.

In the process we did some unwanted sightseeing of Liverpool and Machester. We loved the Beatles so it could have been worse.

When approaching the borders my heart sank at the view of these barren mountains with no trees and I really did start to ask myself: ” what had I done?”

For those of you who have been driving to Scotland you will know it does get so much better then barren mountains.

Somewhere in a country lane close to Stirling we pulled over utterly exhausted to sleep a few hours only to be woken by a gentleman with a gun. My heart was pounding but the guy was rather friendly and had a lovely Labrador and was simply wondering what we were doing there. He had a smile in his face once we had managed to explain…

We had some odd encounters queueing at the bank and when it was finally our turn we had forgotten the English word for bank account. So we tried to explain ourselves: We would like to open something we can use to put money in and take it back out. The baffled bank assistance kept asking: “Would you like to exchange foreign currency?”. We eventually got there. Finding a place for the horses was dead easy. Never ever has it been so easy since. We managed to rent a field at the local vet in Bridge of Allan, a wee town close to Stirling and even closer to the University.

I needed to get back to hand in my final essay but we thought we would try to find a flat. We bought some newspapers and did not get very far and when bypassing a building society and not really knowing what that was we entered and asked and the somewhat bemused staff pointed us towards the Link House Association in Falkirk. We calculated that we could make it there before they closed and arrived about 20 mins before 5 pm. The gentleman who invited us in happened to be the manager and had some German connections. We signed a contract for a flat in the beautiful Riverside in Stirling for £83 per month. We had not seen it and we did not have time to do so because we needed to head south to catch the ferry at Dover.

Some weeks later and after the visit of the state vet to create the health certificate for the horses (which was valid 48 hours) we were ready to set off. By the time we had loaded all our belongings into the car and the horses into the trailer there was less then 5 cm space below the tow bar. So we decided to leave some boxes behind.

We set off on a 32 hour journey. The tow bar only once touched ground when driving onto the ferry. The horses were checked and watered every two hours, had hay adlib and we walked them somewhere on a dirt track after we had left London behind. We did take a few hours nap but had not anticipated that the car was so fully loaded that you could not even lower the front seats. and as the horses kept eating in the back the entire coantraption moved like ship on sea.

At the end of it we turned the horses out into their new field. They had a roll and a run around and appeared to be very fresh and happy in comparison to us.

It was way too late to pick up the keys for our flat so we decided to drive to 34 James Street to at least have a look at the building. When pulling up in front of it with the green Volvo, red trailer and German number plates a couple walked by and asked what we were doing there. So we explained. It turned out they were our neighbours so we asked if anyone would mind if we crashed out in the car. They said it would be fine and went into their house. We got changed and decided to walk into town for a pint before going to sleep in the car.

When walking across the bridge over the railway a car stopped beside us . It was our new neighbour who was having our Volvo keys in his hands. We had left them on the driver’s door. He invited us into his car, took us to his local pub, we all had a pint and he invited us to stay in his guest room.

I have never felt more welcome anywhere and this explains my love for Scotland!

The last time I reported Covid 19 deaths in Scotland on this blog we had six. This was back on the 5th of March 2020. Back then I was hopeful that despite the epidemic we might look ahead to a good summer with amazing customers.

Today 2007 people in Scotland have sadly died and everybody is still coping with lockdown. The good news the cases are decreasing!

But even if this trend continuous we will not go back to where we were before Corona took over all our lives.

I attended a zoom meeting “Economic Update with Royal Bank of Scotland” this morning and this has clearly strengthened me in my believe that it will be very unlikely Scotland can welcome international visitor in 2020 or if there will be any it will remain very limited.

While our vehicles remain grounded our minds can still dream and be creative.

As lives will be different I would like to welcome you to start thinking about visiting Scotland perhaps in 2021 or later. Do get in touch and raise all your safety concerns with me and I will aim to reassure you where I can.

I have never required a deposit for booking and I will not do so in future so if you wish to make plans now you can by using the form below and if you book you can always cancel without any costs:

CONTACT US

The fascination Scotland is simply explained by her amazing variety of landscapes.

Have a wee flavour of them in the video below.

Everybody’s travel plans have come to a halt in view of the current pandemic. As we cannot go we can still dream and maybe even plan a trip in the not so distant future.

People often ask me: “What is your favourite place in Scotland?” I have never been able to answer. There are too many breath-taking places and there is such a variety of different landscapes. The same is true for the flavour of whisky. There are about 125 operating distilleries in Scotland divided into three main regions: Highlands, Lowlands and Island. However, my all time favourite of them all is Bunnahabhain Moine from the Isle of Isla. I have never had a Bunnahabhain I did not enjoy and to top this I have never had any whisky from Isla I did not like. Isla has about 3000 inhabitants, is roughly 25 km long and has NINE (!!!) whisky distilleries.

Let me take you there with this video below:

As the world still suffers from Covid-19 I thought I would use my time to showcase Scotland virtually until such time when we all can stop dreaming of going places and actually start planning our next trip. In the meantime please enjoy this wee video:

When I started as a tour guide I had the amazing help of a “matured” real Scot who immediatly lit up my interest in Scottish history. About six months into providing bespoke tours I bought a “big” book on Scottish castles convinced that by that time I had visited a fair few. I was so wrong. Scotland has more then 2500 castles, many of them can be visited because they are either under the wing of the Historic Environment Scotland or the National Trust or are open to the public but still in private ownership such as Holyrood Palace, Glamis Castle or Blair Atholl for instance.

As it is, sadly, impossible to visit due to Covid-19 at the moment I have created a “wee” video below to showcase a few selected castles:

This lockdown affects everybody and puts a strain on many people’s mental health not to mention the physical health of people infected with Covid-19

I miss travelling Scotland myself as this is the busiest period for my business in normal times. This is the first of hopefully many invitations for visit Scotland virtually.

Please enjoy St Andrews today. This drone footage was filmed by Tim Snoeks

Also you could take a relaxing view of Kinlochleven below:

It is an amazing three weeks ago since I last wrote an article for this blog.

Many unfortunate souls have meanwhile died of Corona virus and an army of health workers have worked unbelievably hard to fight this disease. We need to be so grateful to them and also to all the people working in supermarkets and loigistics for keeping us supplied.

I have meanwhile been once to Edinburgh station with a student finally being allowed to return home. Our cars are sanitised before and after each use, we have installed a temporary partion in our 8 seaters and use and supply hand sanitizer.

Me and my partner helped another student moving house (not charging and obviously adhering to social distancing) and assisted a gentlemen in replenishing his supplies of -well alcohol mainly plus one loaf of bread.

That summarizes our commercial activities of the last three weeks in a month which usually marks the beginning of our busy season and brings us back into black figures after winter and taxi tests of all the the vehicles.

So what on earth did I fill my spare time with? Well, the weather has been gorgeous and we live in the middle of nowhere…

Any of you who have met me will have heard sooner or later that I enjoy horse riding and yes, that is what I have done pretty much every day.

I know the general BHS advice is not to ride as you may fall off and then use A&E unnecessarily. I assure you if I had any worries I would probably not entertain these guys. I know something unexpected could happen always but I can equally just fall over my own feet.

However, my horsey family did not always agree with me:

They all did, however, provide me with hours of fun. Ridden:

… and driven:

Like many others, self- employed or working in industries which had to shut down I also spent some time researching grants, applying for jobs and for the first in my life for Universal Credit. I found the latter very embarrassing but have to admit that whoever I spoke to in the process people were so helpful, understanding and friendly that I was truly overwhelmed.

Back to the joys of life since there was not much else to do and also despite the financial worries (which I cannot change) the entire thing begins to feel like a summer holiday in primary school, especially with this amazing weather.

Did I mention I love food and subsequently cooking. So we have been eating and sleeping and eating….

If you eat a lot you need to train a lot and I can not recommend highly enough https://www.heart-space.yoga. They have a fabulous space in an old church in Dundee but during the lockdown their classes are available online and you have no idea how much this has contributed to my mental and physical health. If you have not yet do try them! Below you see that I am not the only one enjoying Heartspace’s online classes:

The cats… We originally had four of those creatures and three of them (all boys, all neutered) dissapeared last year between August and September. Initially we very much hoped they would return as one of them did that the year previous. They did not and I felt sorry for our lonesome female cat Phantom so through Whinnybank Cat Sanctuary we got the truly gorgeous Boris who, however, does not (yet) get on with our Phantom. Social distancing with cats…

So, how are all of you keeping? Leave me a comment and I shall leave you with a few more images…