Scottish: hi my participant number is f c five two p one

Scottish: hi my participant number is f c five two dash p two

Scottish: when was the last time that you visited st andrews

Scottish: not that long ago actually it was probably around a year ago or maybe less it was around about christmas time actually when i think about it just before christmas i absolutely love st andrews i try and go at least twice a year do you remember we used to go when we were younger with mom and dad

Scottish: that's right i've got really fond memories of going there for holidays when we were younger the beach over there is amazing do you play golf there

Scottish: no i don't play golf anymore i used to when i was younger it's a very good course though and whenever you go out there there's all sorts of people from all different countries that travel far and wide to play there

Scottish: that's right it's world famous isn't it what's the name of it again

Scottish: the old course

Scottish: the old course sure

Scottish: it's lovely

Scottish: i assume it's been there for a long time then

Scottish: yes i believe it's been there for for some time yeah but it's it's got a lot of heritage surrounding it um i believe it's been there for nearly five hundred years at least

Scottish: wow

Scottish: yeah since the beginning of golf i believe that's that's potentially where golf started in a lot of people's eyes

Scottish: that's amazing there's so many lovely golf courses around there's some really lovely ones up in dunbar i don't play golf myself but we've visited these places and i'm sure it was dunbar there was a beautiful golf course right on the water absolutely stunning and like you say there was a lot of people from a lot of different countries that have traveled over specifically just to play golf at that particular course

Scottish: dunbar's a lovely place a lovely part of the world i love the east coast berwick et cetera berwick upon tweed north berwick all these places are lovely

Scottish: they really are i i've been there north berwick i don't think i've been to berwick upon tweed but north berwick certainly is absolutely beautiful as well it's not too far away from where i live either so it's quite nice to even just go away for a day trip

Scottish: absolutely it's it seems a lot further than where it is though

Scottish: mm hmm i agree because i believe it's not that far from england

Scottish: no no it's the way the way the the country is shaped effectively that england comes up further on the right hand side and as a result it's right next to berwick upon tweed which is in england

Scottish: that's amazing really isn't it

Scottish: yeah it's all these things that you don't realize i love all parts of scotland i love the north of scotland do you go there much

Scottish: well yes i went away last year we did the north coast five hundred so we visited lots of different places there not as many as the last time when we did it though uh we didn't feel the need to visit other places again although beautiful but with wee one probably a bit too remote for what we need but absolutely beautiful

Scottish: is it a bit too much for robson

Scottish: well the he's good at traveling the traveling isn't the the hard bit it's just more the remoteness you know when you've got a little one and you need something from a shop or whatever or children can be unpredictable sometimes so their needs

Scottish: oh absolutely

Scottish: their needs can be great and you need to sort of have things available to you and certain places when there isn't things around for quite a while it does make things a bit difficult although beautiful scenery and lots of things to do historically but with a child a young child not as many to be fair but really nice to enjoy as as an adult like john o' groats for instance that's beautiful up there but once you're there there's not very much in the way of things to do per se beautiful beach beautiful scenery but again it's away up at the very very very top of scotland so it is just quite far from other places

Scottish: yeah just a wee bit too far away it's a place i've never been lived in scotland my whole life i've never been to john o' groats somewhere that i think it'd be quite interesting to see you've been (())

Scottish: oh absolutely it is you know we traveled from there back home we did it all in the one go and that was a long journey i'm sure it was about six or seven hours by the time we got home considering we'd made so many stops on the way gradually traveling up but certainly going from there back home it was a very long journey so i wouldn't recommend it for a day trip but definitely worth going to see

Scottish: no it's certainly not somewhere i would go for a day trip but i would love to be able to travel there and and just visit it and say that i've been there's a lot of people that go from john o' groats all the way down to the bottom of england to say they've went from one end of britain to the other i think that would be a great trip

Scottish: oh absolutely i i've seen people before that were doing the north coast five hundred and they were cycling they were cycling it amazing what people can do when they really test their endurance but certainly

Scottish: oh absolutely

Scottish: i'm not sure if it is something i would be able to do to to cycle it all because the terrain is difficult you know even in a car it's tricky

Scottish: oh absolutely it's it's um it's getting a lot busier up there though like i've i've heard stories that um you you're traveling along and and there's there's lots of different cars parked at the side of the road et cetera

Scottish: well that's it when we did it before it wasn't that popular it was only just a new thing but since then it's gained a lot of attention so again lots of people travel from all over the world to come and see and quite rightfully so because scotland should be shown off like that it is absolutely exquisite some of the places you wouldn't even think it was in scotland and we're really really lucky and blessed to have that in our own country but in terms of the locals i'm not sure how they feel about it the extra traffic and pollution although in a way it's probably good for passing trade

Scottish: well absolutely the people that work up there and people that have businesses up there will be cashing in big time which really now i think it's it's i think it's absolutely great that they're they're they're getting um attention that they deserve

Scottish: well that's it these little towns unlike scotland and edinburgh and other big places other big cities they have a lot of tourism coming and going whereas these little towns they don't so i guess in a way it would be beneficial although i'm not sure if the older generation would see it that way

Scottish: well perhaps not perhaps not they a lot of the time prefer a quiet life however it's bringing more money to these little places and it's it's boosting the economy in general uh the north coast five hundred is is is a lot is an unbelievable thing for for scotland to have achieved and for them to be able to offer it to people that are gonna come and visit here is is is just blowing in my mind

Scottish: definitely is there's a lot of different things that you can do there as well in terms of the traveling you know you can have you can travel and camp you can travel in a camper van you can stay in the local hotels or bbs which are usually very full so i reckon if you were going to do anything like that you would need to book it well in advance i don't think you could just turn up and expect to have availability

Scottish: oh no no way certainly during the summer um being able to to to secure any accommodation up near the north coast five hundred during the summer would be almost impossible unless you booked well well well in advance i think

Scottish: definitely there's not very many of them as well because these little towns are small they don't have big hotels and it's usually just small bbs or airbnbs they're very popular nowadays so perhaps maybe more things like that that are self catering set up but people don't tend to stay in the same place for a very long time so it's probably quite suitable for the hosts and for the people who use them

Scottish: yeah i think so i think you might be right with the airbnb idea uh i think you might find that people who have larger houses up there and perhaps renting out a room or two and and and making a bit of money out of it i don't see why not either as long as they're quite happy to do that and the people are happy to stay there then you know it works for everybody i guess

Scottish: definitely i've stayed in a few really nice airbnbs over the years and it seems to be really really popular now

Scottish: oh really whereabouts

Scottish: um i stayed in one in edinburgh just last year with my friends that was really nice and it had an access to an outdoor space as well it was uh

Scottish: sounds very okay sounds very good

Scottish: it was more of a upstairs downstairs flat i would say you know it had access to downstairs and upstairs and it was it was really really nice i'm trying to remember what area it was in now of edinburgh but that was lovely and quite reasonable obviously when you look at it as a whole but when it was split up between six people it worked out very reasonable for the weekend as opposed to what you would pay for a hotel

Scottish: absolutely i can imagine and edinburgh is absolutely lovely anyway like a lot of the houses over there are are are second to none the architecture in edinburgh i absolutely love it

Scottish: edinburgh really is a lovely place especially at christmas time i always think it's such a lovely to be

Scottish: oh absolutely and i believe being from glasgow you're you're almost quite biased towards glasgow however personally i prefer edinburgh i would say i feel there's a there's a better uh a better vibe over there uh there's a lot more relaxed atmosphere over there than than in glasgow what about yourself

Scottish: i do really like edinburgh i love glasgow as well don't get me wrong but more recently when i've been into the city center it's it's changed there's a lot of shops and buildings that are unoccupied and for some reason it just gives off a bit of a kind of messy a messy feel to it i'm not entirely sure why um when i'd been in just recently it it had been a while since i'd been in to be fair but i just felt like it had changed a lot and i remember it to be a place that was really buzzing with a lot of things happening i just felt it was a bit stagnant you know there wasn't very many shops that i could see that i i would've went into and i think you know you just wonder how these shops can sustain i mean i'm not saying that my opinion is over everyone else's but it's just certain shops you just wonder how they they can still be going after covid and it's strange isn't it

Scottish: yeah i think there's a lot of um regeneration going on though and i think they're trying to improve the place generally 'cause it has become you're right it has become quite stagnant i think they're trying to improve the place and and regenerate the city center seems to be an emphasis on food outlets and and bars et cetera but uh i don't know if the developers are are looking at it and seeing that's maybe the way to go nowadays um they've certainly pedestrianized a lot of the city center as well uh more than it it used to be anyway like at the top of sauchiehall street et cetera um and that that's primarily bars and restaurants up there

Scottish: well that's right and i know that they were making more access for the cycle lanes and things up there which i did notice when i was in the city center just and it was maybe a couple of weeks ago now but i did notice a lot more people on bikes cycling down sauchiehall street where the shops were and and around all the people which i thought was just sort of encouraging the wrong things in my opinion having a little one that sort of adds to the sort of stress of the day really when you're and trying to get some shopping and then someone's coming d down the street hurtling round on a bike doesn't really make for much enjoyment when you when you've got a little one who's wanting to just walk by themselves <laugh> as you can imagine

Scottish: yeah absolutely and you need to have eyes in the back of your head for these these things as well

Scottish: well absolutely in in a normal or instance cyclists aren't really allowed on the pavement so there should be a bit of information out there for the city center and the shopping areas that people shouldn't be on their bikes because it's not just the young children it's the elderly as well

Scottish: yeah and the issue is as well it needs to be more defined the the what's pedestrianized and what's for for cyclists um you obviously have cycle lanes popping up all over the city now which to be fair i think is great it encourages people to be healthier and reduces emissions however in pedestrianizing sorry pedestrianized areas such as glasgow city center you need to have it more defined so you don't have cyclists you know flying around pedestrians et cetera

Scottish: well definitely not because most people who are in there in the city center they're in there to use the shops they're not thinking about someone coming past them on a bike so i guess it's just down to common sense again the people on the bikes should be taking care but i could count at least three people going far too fast down the slope of sauchiehall street which didn't sit very well with me but certainly it's a good thing that they are bringing in more more access for cyclists where they are supposed to be cycling because it's really going to help with the overall current climate crisis what do you think about all that

Scottish: the climate crisis

Scottish: yep

Scottish: i think i think the world is definitely going in the right direction in terms of um education on the climate crisis i think educating is only part of it though and you need to actually ensure that action is being put into it um i think cop twenty six was was a relative success i think that in reality politicians do understand the the grave nature of of the impact of global warming now and there seems to be an emphasis on ensuring that um targets can be met targets are absolutely everything now um and that can be reducing emissions uh that's that are that are uh imposing low emission zones in city centers to encourage people to to to use public transport which again yesterday i was just driving along and i seen that bus in front of me and it was a an electric bus so if people were taking electric buses and trains et cetera into the city center the emissions are getting cut completely almost from certainly from that person's journey anyway um and there's an emphasis obviously on uh phasing out diesel and petrol cars eventually in this country so i think most governments' hearts are in the right place when it comes to to global warming but people individually need to take action even just recycling et cetera it all needs to be done um and and and hopefully hopefully things can be reversed but um there's a lot of argument which i'm not massively aware of um so i can't comment comment on it massively um but there's a lot of argument that it's big business that really need to change their their ways what about yourself

Scottish: yes i completely agree with that there's a lot of factories producing a lot of harmful chemicals into the atmosphere so that certainly is something that needs to be looked at but yes as you say it's down to everybody to play their part now and i think certainly as you say about the education it's about educating the younger generation in how to look after our country and you know our environment in a way that it's going to have a knock on effect for the future years because i think sometimes with all the plastic production and all these things certainly when we were younger there was no such thing as recycling so there's and that's probably been going on for a very long time so i think

Scottish: no no i if if there was anything like recycling when we were younger it was in a very small level

Scottish: mm hmm and then you wonder how long that's been going on for prior to us all the plastic production and all the other things that have been produced and just discarded these things don't break down they're not biodegradable so you do wonder then how how long it will take for these things to you know how long it'll take for the world to get on top of all that before then they move on to the next lot but it's really good that they're bringing out a lot more biodegradable packaging all these different things that can be recycled easily and you're seeing it a lot more now where it's being enforced where things are being recycled and made into new things so therefore even i am amazed at the things that can be made out of recycled plastic or glass things like that and

Scottish: yeah absolutely

Scottish: for younger people to start realizing that now they'll be in the (()) so they won't know any different when it comes to them growing up and teaching their children so hopefully by then it it will really really help but yes as you say every it's down to every person as an individual to make that change little we'll get there little by little hopefully

Scottish: yeah

Scottish: i'm hopeful

Scottish: yeah it's it's it's a tough one though because not everybody's willing to actually do it which which makes a uh an issue um but as as you said it's it's all about educating the younger generation and and making sure that they're under no illusions as to what is the right thing to do