1830 is dinner, and we are able to choose from the menu. I choose the Mediterranean tart for an appetizer which is a quiche in a small pie crust upon a dandelion salad. My main course was a steak and ale pie: - a filo crust over pot roast cooked with ale. Peas, carrots and roasted potatoes complemented the meal. They have small glasses in Scotland. Maybe a half glass at most and we're all thirsty. The bubble at the bottom of the glassware must be their trademark. I made a comment how I smell cigarette smoke and that I hear the beeping of an insulin pump.
Not long after Heather leaves for the WC, the fire alarm sounds. Mary is just behind me with the others as we make our way to the exit. No one wants to leave the dining room at first, much less stand in the drizzle, so people bottleneck at the doorway.I ignore the crowd. Deborah and I make our way across the street. From inside a dry doorway, we watch the action. I don't know where the others were. They were right behind me . The fire trucks park in front of the hotel.
We get the all clear. As I return to the table, I teased Heather that the alarm started after she went to the WC. She said it must have been the cigarette smoke that I smelled but no one else did. Someone mentions that this hotel had two alarms last time there was CIE tour and that maybe someone left something on. I said that if one of us return to our room and find it soaking wet, that the person was the cause of the alarm. My dessert was glazed Bosch Pears. Nothing spectacular. We head back to the room to crash. Mary and I went to bed around nine. The bed is only a double. There is no linen only a duvane which is too warm for me, but I don't care. We've been up for 34 hours.
