We left for my parent's cottage that same evening after the dinner was finished.
This cottage was in the South-West of Holland, very close to water and in a tiny village. The cottage had been a laborour's cottage, that my parents had bought years ago, and had done it up really nicely at one time. They used it for frequent weekends away and holidays. To start with they paid someone to look after it but now supposedly they did it themselves.

It was one and a half hours drive from The Hague,so we arrived quite late. If you had seen the mess it was in, you would have been as appalled as we were on arrival. The family was in the habit of taking their whole menagerie of animals there. They owned 7 dogs, 12 cats and a monkey. To some of you this might sound nice; but we both can assure you it was not so. We were dead beat, so we decided to try and find the cleanest place possible and go to sleep first.

We woke up early and decided that there was no way we could stay in this mess, not even for a few days. There was cat pee and shit everywhere, also on the sleeping bags. The lounge had filthy dishes scattered around the tables. They were not only filthy, but some had rotting food on them. This was why our romantic-meant weekend started with loads of work to try and make the place habitable. The worst thing we found was a dead mouse with maggots crawling from a hole in his belly. After cleaning and tidying half a day, we decided that had to do. It was supposed to be OUR weekend to enjoy.

I can assure you that for years to come Robert thought I had been dragged up instead of brought up. Then I still tried to defend my family to a certain extent. Soon I understood. But most of my life had been different.

We went to the local shops to get all the supplies we needed, which was not that much. Then straight back to the cottage. Can't remember us going out anymore. We spent nearly all our time in bed and making love as often as we could. Occasionally we ate a bit and had a drink to celebrate our marriage.
It was great to be married and not having to travel up and down to go and see each other.

The long weekend passed quickly and afterwards we flew from Amsterdam to Aberdeen.
Work did not permit us to go and say bye to the family. Honestly, after this experience we had had enough of them for a while.

One final chapter to follow about the start we had in Scotland.