At the end of July all of the schools had finished for the summer holidays and The Bloke was working out his remaining annual leave for the year before it resets in September. As an IT Tech he doesn’t get the same amount of holidays as the teaching staff and has to be savvy when he takes days off, so it made sense for him to take his two remaining weeks at a point where he would also get an additional few days with the Bank Holiday at the end of August. 

We started discussing the potential of going away on holiday – the last proper holiday we had was a week in New York in 2018 and we were both in desperate need of a break. Over the last year or two it has become a regular conversation, but every time we have actively looked for somewhere to go something seemingly happens that then becomes the priority, and after that particular crisis is resolved we then find ourselves back into the daily life and work routine. 

The following day, as if the universe was listening, I found a gorgeous (and more importantly, affordable) little cottage in the tiny village of Johnshaven in Scotland that was available when The Bloke was going to be off work.

Johnshaven has a happy place in our hearts – we got engaged while staying there in 2016, and we visited again in 2018 – and we were beyond lucky that this particular cottage (which is normally fully booked throughout peak season) just so happened to have a space at the time when we needed it. 

I booked it immediately and sent off notice of annual leave to all my clients – it was only three weeks away but they are all fine with me taking whatever days I want as long as the work is done and approved in advance.

Having done the 8-10 hour drive several times before, we decided to do things a little differently. There were a few things that I wanted to see on the way up to Johnshaven, so we decided to split the journey into two parts – instead of setting off on the Saturday morning and doing a very quick whistle-stop visit to some of the other locations on the way up, we would drive up to Falkirk the day before to see The Kelpies and Blackness Castle, stay overnight, then would do a little detour to visit Doune Castle the next day. That meant we could spend some time exploring attractions that are on our Bucket List, and The Bloke didn’t have the pressure of having to do a monster drive all in one go. 

The next few weeks were spent planning, getting my workload approved and scheduled, and before we knew it we had packed and were on the road at 5.30am… 

Have you been on holiday this year? Where did you go? Let me know in the comments below!