Renshaw's Chronicles: Chronicles Part X

I mentioned lots of overseas holidays in the 1990's in my last blog posting, so I'd better start with some photo memories of some of them - not necessarily in date order:

Having done Disney World, Florida a few times, we felt we should try the relatively new Euro Disney, Paris experience:

Not half as much fun as Florida we thought - the staff didn't seem to have the same jolly demeanour as their colleagues in USA - and it certainly wasn't anywhere near as warm.

The next one was when we stayed in SW France and drove over the mountains in to Spain one day:

The following two were taken on a holiday in the Algarve:

That was in Jo's Big Hair days.

In 1997 Jo and I bought our first Marriott timeshare on a trip to Southern Spain to celebrate our Silver Wedding Anniversary. Our first proper trip to Marriott Marbella came one Easter when Lottie joined Jo, Ross and I. This photo brings back happy memories:

I think this was also the holiday when we drove up to the hills and visited stunning Ronda, of which we still have a poster framed in our bedroom.

In the mid-90's with the "kids" getting up a bit - Lucy in her 20's, Gary almost there too, Kelly in her stroppy, grungy mid-teenager years and even Ross now a teenager - Jo and I went on a couple of golfing holidays with some of my football friends from Banchory and some friends of theirs too. Our first trip was to the Algarve and here's an end of holiday, blurry photograph with us all wearing identical ties that the girls had bought us at a market in Albufeira, I think:

I'm in the middle of the back row of the boys' photo and Jo is wearing blue denim, standing 4th from the left, between Diane Grant and Joan McWhinnie.

This group holiday was arranged every two years and carried on for a while in to the current millennium, but we only ever went on one more of these holidays - to Costa del Sol. After that, it was boys' only golf holidays for me. Jo didn't enjoy waiting by the pool all day for me to come back from golf, so the couples holidays became a bit of a no-no for her. Some of the Ladies golfed and some didn't.

Earlier in the decade - 1993, I think - we used my boss' timeshare in Hollywood, Florida and exchanged the 2 Xmas/New Year weeks there with 2 weeks at different locations in Malta, through Interval International, the exchange company:

The latter picture was taken at the set where they had filmed Popeye, starring Robin Williams.

Through my work, I had got to know one of the skippers from Orkney, Angus Sinclair. He was top dog on the island as he had the largest freezer trawler there, but had partly funded it with help from Orkney Islands Council and Highlands and Islands Enterprise, plus a couple of Danish banks. Our company - then Scofish International Ltd. - had also lent some money to the operation (soon to be converted into shares). Financially, the vessel struggled for a while and I began to get heavily involved in regular meetings with all the parties who were exposed, at various locations - Copenhagen, Kirkwall, Inverness and, occasionally, Aberdeen. Before long, I, myself, became a quasi employee earning commission from each landing.

I got friendly with Angus and his cousin, Councillor Dr. John Brown, who had taken over as Chairman of the company, and soon Jo was invited to join me on trips to Orkney on the occasion of the AGM, usually held to coincide with the Orkney Folk Festival. Jo still tells the tale of staying up virtually all night - it barely got dark - and then having to catch a morning flight back to Aberdeen, after an evening of lovely food and lots of booze at places we can't now remember.

On one of our earlier trips to Florida, we had met up with a work colleague of mine, Jim Cowie and his family. That was our first experience of dining at a teppanyaki table when we went to one of the Benihana restaurants. The Cowies stayed in Wick, so one time, rather than fly up to Orkney to see Angus Sinclair, Jo, Ross and I drove all the way up the East coast, via Wick, and caught the ferry across the Pentland Firth, with a couple of pit stops on the way. The first was Culloden: