Another excursion

At the weekend HD and I went on a little jaunt to the Highlands. We started off with lunch at Fort William before heading off for Ben Nevis, the original plan being that he would walk up it and I would sit in the bar at the bottom and do lots of work (that I had brought with me). About 20 minutes after dropping him off at the bottom of the mountain however he phoned to say that he didn’t seem to have his walking legs with him, so he made his way to the bar and after a quick rest we decided to head back to Glen Coe to have a more gentle explore around somewhere a bit less strenuous. So we went to the Visitors’ Centre at Glen Coe and did a very gentle and short walk round there, and then decided to go to Oban. Neither of us had been there before, and had no idea what it was like, but it turned out to be rather pretty. HD thought as we walked into town from the car park that it reminded him a bit of Whitby, and once we got to the harbour I thought it reminded me a bit of Stornoway. We took a walk up to McCaig’s tower, where there are fabulous views over the town and across to the island of Kerrera (and beyond that to the mountains of the Isle of Mull). What a sweet place, I liked it a lot. Photos are here.

Stirling

Yesterday HD and I had a day out in Stirling – despite living here 3.5 years I’d never been there (except accidentally, when I missed a turning on the way to Edinburgh so had to drive a slightly more scenic route) (that was the only time HD had been there too). The castle is said to be as impressive as Edinburgh Castle, so we went to find out.

On the way to the castle, we walked past the wonderfully named Church of the Holy Rude. This is where James VI was crowned, and John Knox preached there. There are some more details of the history of the church here.

From there we went on to the castle, which (like Edinburgh) does have a very impressive location on top of a sheer rock. This second picture also shows another view from the castle walls.

It wasn’t the cheapest day out in the world, but we got lots for our money, including a very entertaining tour of the castle, and another tour of Argyll’s Lodgings just down the hill. Here are a selection of photos – firstly one of HD on the castle walls, then from the Castle’s Great Hall (I’m really pleased with that one), then one of the Chapel Royal (where James VI was baptised) and Argyll’s Lodgings. By the time we got there my camera batteries died, so there are no photos from inside the house, although I did scrounge some batteries from HD later so there are a few more view photos to come:

Just outside the castle was this very bizarre tree. I thought at first this was a nest of some description, but when we looked closer it appeared to be very alive and growing, so I wonder if it was some weird aberration as the result of an infection or something?

The weather (which had been a bit miserable all day) brightened up just as we were leaving (typical!), and it made all the difference. Here’s a view from the castle over towards the William Wallace monument:

The next two are of some of the stonework on the gate of Argyll’s Lodging, and of the Tolbooth and unicorn statue (which is apparently where the town authorities would make announcements) in the Old Town:

Finally, this isn’t the greatest picture because of the reflections from the inside of the train, but was such a strange experience I had to include it. On the train on the way back we were getting the usual Scotland “all four seasons in one day”, and as a result saw several rainbows. This one was so bright and close – I could even see the end (though not the pot of gold sadly!), but the really strange thing was that as the train was hurtling forward, the rainbow was following along with it. I’ve never seen anything like it, it was just bizarre!

Only in Scotland (well, and Norway)…

Reason #8793 why I love Scotland.

Culzean

Last weekend HD and I took off for the afternoon to Culzean Castle, on the west coast. This is a national Trust place, with a castle and considerable country park and gardens and whatnot. We didn’t get there till a couple of hours before closing time, so limited ourselves to a walk round the Walled Garden, and then wandering round the Swan Pond (it was more like a lake, but Tchaikovsky got there first so it has been demoted) towards the cliffs, where we did a very civilised clifftop walk with great views. It was a bit blowy and not that warm, but it was lovely and sunny and we got very clear views out to Ailsa Craig (an uninhabited island now owned by the RSPB), Isle of Arran, and the Cumbraes. We took a quick look at the outside of the castle (and, importantly, found the little room – it had been too cold and blustery and there were too many other people around to go down the behind-a-bush route), then discovered the coffee shop was closing, so didn’t get a cup of tea at the end of the walk, sadly. I thought it was lovely – the sort of place you could take parents and oldies for a visit

Here are a few pictures:

On the way back home we drove along a stretch of coast road which includes a really odd feature known as “Electric Brae”. We didn’t try this trick ourselves, but did pass someone else doing it and it is the strangest sight – basically it’s a natural optical illusion, where the road really looks like it’s going uphill when actually it’s going downhill, so if you park your car without the brake on and let it roll, it looks like it’s rolling uphill. It’s very hard to explain, but having seen it, even just briefly in passing, I couldn’t believe how Uphill it looked like it was rolling. Very bizarre!

Anyway, Culzean – worth a visit. I haven’t been very good at bagging Scottish castles (less effort than bagging Munros). After 2 and a half years, it’s my 3rd (and I didn’t even go inside).

Honeymoon

I’ve been meaning for ages to put up some pictures from our honeymoon, but have only just got round to putting my pictures on flickr. Hopefully though this will give you a good taste of the beautiful Outer Hebrides, somewhere I’d definitely love to go back to. If you click on any of the pictures you should be able to see them bigger.

We only caught the ferry by the skin of our teeth on New Year’s Eve, but catch it we did, and we were blessed with a really calm crossing (having heard all sorts of tales of doom and woe as to the usual state of choppiness of the Minch, the stretch of sea between Skye and the mainland, and the Outer Hebridean islands. After just over an hour and a half, we were rewarded with a lovely sunset over Harris, our eventual destination:

We saw in the new year very quietly – just us and Jools Holland on the telly at the cottage. We had a lie in on New Year’s Day, but I wanted to get out and about, so we drove to a remote beach on north-west Harris, and did a (scary) walk up some steep hills to get a view out over the Atlantic (next stop, America) and the small uninhabited island of Scarp. Here are some pics of that, including proof that we were both there!

Once we’d reached the point where we took those photos of each other, although it wasn’t at the planned end of the walk, we decided that as the light was beginning to fade we’d better head back to the car. It was just as scary on the way back, and I found myself thinking as I clambered over rocks and tried not to look down at the sea that it would be just typical for me to manage this scary climby bit and then fall over on a flat bit at the bottom. And lo it came to pass, that in a field of grass about 200 yards from the car, I slipped on wet grass and rolled over in true comedy fall stylee, felt my knee twist, and that was that. Eventually I did manage to get up, and using both walking poles was able to hobble back to the car, but that evening it really hurt and I was in tears by bedtime. So the next day saw us heading off to A&E in Stornoway on Lewis (which although it is known as the Isle of Lewis, just like Harris is the Isle of Harris, they are actually attached to each other). Before we left though I took a picture of the view out of the kitchen window, something I did every morning so that we could see the various changing weather and colours and whatnot. Anyway, this first picture is our lovely view.

Next up is the end result of the A&E trip. It transpired that I had torn my knee ligaments – which would explain the pain anyway! I was very embarrassed thinking about my medical history, which mainly consists of comedy falls and damage to various bits of my left leg (broken foot, torn knee ligaments, torn ankle ligaments, dislocated knee, and torn left shoulder ligaments just for a bit of variety once). If it wasn’t so far past the sell-by date I think I’d take it back and ask for a refund and a new leg, as it is definitely getting beyond a joke! This was just what we needed at the start of honeymoon! (this is the closest you’re ever going to get of a bedroom shot by the way!):

The bandage was meant to be on for a week, but after 2 days it was driving me mad (and was also not really compressing the knee like it was supposed to) so I took it off. I’m such a bad patient.

I took some pictures out and about near the cottage. The first is a picture of the cottage (which was gorgeous, 5-star self-catering, all mod-cons (including jacuzzi and dishwasher), and even the ironing board cover was tasteful!), and the second is of some of our neighbours. I think they’re young Highland cattle (aka hairy coos), too young yet to have the trademark scary horns. Then the third one is of the end of the path past our cottage – we were able to walk (or in my case hobble) about a quarter of a mile, and were rewarded with lovely views out towards the island of Taransay, which was used by the BBC in the millennium year for the reality show “Castaway” if anyone remembers that:

As well as exploring Harris we spent quite a bit of time on Lewis as well. Harris has much more dramatic scenery, it’s quite mountainous and rocky (in fact it has virtually no trees) with amazing sandy beaches on the west coast. Lewis is more bleak and less hilly, with large parts of it covered in peat moors (in fact we had a peat burning fire in the cottage which meant we were always lovely and toasty warm). Probably the most famous historical site on Lewis is the Calanais standing stones, which are older than Stonehenge. Most of these pictures are of the main standing stones, but a mile or so away from this site are two smaller stone circles, so the last two are from Calanais 3 – I’m particularly pleased with the last one:

Another famous historical site on Lewis is the Carloway broch, which is a Bronze (I think, could be Iron) Age dwelling place which has been remarkably well preserved, and which apparently had people living in it as late as the 18th century!

Not far from there is a well-preserved Blackhouse Village, which has small stone and thatched cottages that were until fairly recently inhabited and preserved the old island way of life (one of them is now a youth hostel), and a Norse kiln and mill:

We travelled up the north-west coast of Lewis to its most northerly point, the Butt of Lewis – here are a couple of pictures of the Butt of Lewis lighthouse and the rocks the lighthouse is warning sailors about. We didn’t stay here long though – it was far too cold!

By this point in the honeymoon it was the weekend again – if I remember correctly the Saturday we didn’t do much as it was raining lots (one of only two days we had to stay indoors due to the weather, mostly it just rained overnight and wasn’t too bad at all during the days). On the Sunday I found a little church on Harris, but I won’t say much because I Mystery Worshipped it – when the report comes out I shall make sure to link to it! Then in the afternoon I got out my pastels, for the first time in about 2 years (yikes!), and sat in the garden of the cottage and drew the view. I’ve included a picture I took before starting the drawing (the weather and colours kept changing even in the hour that I was doing the picture, so the end result is a kind of composite of the various weather and light conditions). By the time I got to the point that I was ready to do the boat, the wind had blown it so that it was facing me head rather than side on (or whatever the correct nautical term is) so I had to make it up and you can see that it isn’t entirely accurate when compared to the photo. But overall I’m quite pleased with it, especially as this is the first drawing I’ve ever done at A4 size (usually I do A5) and so I was pleased that it wasn’t disastrous!

Next up is a view of our cottage from the main road, which gives you a great idea of the location. If you can see a cluster of 3 white cottages to the left of the picture, ours is the furthest right of the three. Then the other picture here is of a view of one of the large, beautiful sandy Harris beaches from a viewpoint a few miles away, which will give you an idea of the type of scenery we were surrounded by:

A bit further into that drive I was blinded by the sun whilst in the middle of a rain shower, and my first thought was “where’s the rainbow?” As you can see, we found it (this is again looking over to Taransay, but from further south in Harris):

We watched the rainbow fade (whilst eating our cheese sandwiches – very romantic!) and I took some arty shots of us and the beach:

Here’s a final view over towards Taransay, and then a shot of a 16th (I think) century church on the south of Harris, St Clement’s Rodel:

The next day we headed back down the coast road towards Scarista Beach, which consistently appears in “Top 10 beaches in the world” lists. Just before we got there, I managed to get a shot of an older hairy coo (and was glad I was a bit of a distance away, I wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of those horns!). Once we got to Scarista we flew HD’s power kite which was fun (once I’d figured out how to not make it crash to the ground at enormous speed). I also included a picture of our trusty car here (more on that later):

Towards the end of the honeymoon I got up, opened the blind in the kitchen to take my daily picture of the view, and found a rainbow greeting me. So I rushed out in my dressing gown (much to the bemusement of the workmen at the next cottage – it was *very* cold and windy!) and took some pictures. And then the next picture is from our last day, when we were in Stornoway and visited the Lewis war memorial:

The final two pictures are of our last morning – we took the walk along the loch path for a final time, and also up to the main road to have a last look over the loch and the cottage:

On the way back we had the treat of being tannoyed on the ferry, arranged by Smudgie whose brother is a CalMac Ferries Captain (he wasn’t the captain on our particular ferry, but he did get a mention – the tannoy message congratulated HD and I, wished us a happy honeymoon, and then gave congragulations from Captain Smudgiebrother). Again the ferry crossing was remarkably smooth and unchoppy (for which I am very grateful, I hate choppy ferry crossings), and we arrived at the ferry port on Skye and prepared to drive home.

Unfortunately, once we were back on the mainland and had been driving for a while, the temperature gauge on the car suddenly lit up. This was not good for lots of reasons, not least among them the fact that although we were on the mainland on a main road, it was a mainland main road in the middle of nowhere and it was very cold and very dark. HD managed to pull us into a layby on the other side of the road, and on lifting the bonnet we found lots of steam and not much water. A very amusing call to the AA later (the guy first asked me if the A87 had a street name to help him find us, and then when he’d found the rough area on the map asked me if I could see a large loch. I had to explain that as it was pitch black I couldn’t see anything at all, and going by visual cues wasn’t going to help us much!) we were eventually found by the AA contractor, but then it transpired that my membership only entitled us to be taken to the nearest AA garage and not home. So HD phoned the RAC (of whom I hadn’t realised he was still a member), and the same AA man turned out to also be an RAC contractor, so in the end it was his garage that took us the remaining 130 miles home, with the car on the back of the lorry. It turned out that it was a serious problem (the head gasket had gone), and as the car was not worth much (I bought it for £350 over 5 years ago, and although I had to get it patched up every so often I think I can say I got my money’s worth from it) we had to get it scrapped, and last week it was finally taken away to the great garage in the sky. So it was a bit of a dramatic end to the honeymoon, and is a bit of a pain as we are now carless which means we can’t reach the storage place very easily and the stuff we need to take to the recycling is building up in the kitchen because we can’t get to the tip.

But – not to end this on a gloomy note – Harris and Lewis were amazing, the honeymoon was great despite comedy falls and car deaths, and I’d go back there again with no hesitation. A very fab start to married life

Clucking hell!

Over at Marmite on Toast, Lemly waxes lyrical about the state of the Welsh media. Which reminded me that I meant to blog about yesterday’s Scottish media. Yesterday morning, the first morning that I woke up in my own bed for the last several months, and the news on the radio was full of the news of a lorry that had overturned on the A80, resulting in its cargo of live chickens running all over the road. So, of course, both on the radio, and in yesterday’s evening papers and today’s morning papers, you can just imagine the punning going on. Why did the chicken cross the road? Foul play. Clucking hell! etc etc.

It’s good to be back.

In other news, it’s nearly 3 o’clock and I don’t seem to have done very much work. I wonder how that happened?

In other other news, dear World Health Organisation, if you are going to put out a report which is not only featured all over the media but is also relevant to my PhD, please put it on your website, thanks awfully.

Scottish election

I got notification this morning that they’re allowing me a postal vote for the upcoming election (which is good, as I leave Glasgow 2 days before the election). The only trouble is, I haven’t the first clue who to vote for. Based on the responses to my garden letter, top of the pops are the LibDems (who wrote back with a very good second response) and the Greens, but the Greens are pro-independence (I don’t think I am) and the LibDems up here seem to want to just do deals with whoever’s in power and piggyback on them, which rather gives the impression of them being more opportunistic instead of principled. Which I suppose is as good a summary as any of modern politics, but I’d like my vote to be a bit more meaningful – at least to me (I doubt any of the politicians are losing much sleep over the meanings and principles of my vote, they’re only after it for its numerical value).

Too bad I don’t live in the People’s Republic of Telegraph Hill any longer. That was the best council ward in Lewisham, we always got the protest vote candidates in locally, and the local MP although Labour was sensible and often defied the whips to vote with her conscience rather than toe the party line. It was really easy to vote there, but here it’s a minefield – mediocrity vs no-hopers vs smug bigwigs, what a choice!

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside

Well obviously, as it’s mid-November in Scotland and we’ve seen our first snow (well, a few flakes anyhow), the beach was the *obvious* place to take my friend who was up staying from London. So here am I on the beach at Ayr, standing to attention:

The island in the background is the Isle of Arran (also sometimes known as “Scotland in miniature”), and you might possibly (if you look at the big photo in Flickr) be able to see the snow on Arran’s mountains. I really want to go to Arran. Well, I really want to go to lots of places, but that’s quite high on the list. The trouble is, lots of places are quite high on the list. I suppose I can’t ever complain that I’ve got nowhere to go.

After the briefest of walks on the beach (it was very cold!) the rest of the day was spent checking out coffee shops, including at the visitor centre at Culzean Castle, before returning home to eat the Hugest Curry in the World. Sadly the Castle itself and its Walled Garden, which I really wanted to see, closed for the winter at the end of October, but I will definitely go and check it out next year. We also went to a christening this morning. And we talked and talked and talked all weekend, it was great. Must do that again sometime.

Scottish cuisine – occasional series

#4 – Tunnock’s Tea Cakes

This is a locally produced food by a family-owned business, which is nothing to do with a teacake as understood by most Brits (sweetish bread with dried fruit, good to eat toasted at the end of long country walks). According to wikipedia it’s most like the NZ Mallowpuff, not that I’ve ever had one of those. I expected to hate it but actually it was rather nice in a cheap 1970s memory-bringing-back sort of way. I’m sure I never did have any in the 70s, but they are just the sort of thing we’d have had after tea on a Saturday afternoon as a treat. Lovely. Not to mention kinda psychedelic.

Storm

An amazing storm in western Scotland yesterday evening. Of course, seeing as I’m usually safely back at home working hard (*cough*) by early evening, the weather-powers-that-be had to wait until I was just outside Glasgow coming home from my Romanian lesson for the storm to break. Standing on a deserted railway platform getting wet and watching the lightning was amazing (if a bit scary), and then at the other end I swear the heavens waited for the precise moment I got out of the train to open. I only have about a 30 second walk from the station to the Stately Pile, and I got in looking like someone had poured a bucket of water over me from a great height. Incredible stuff. It even did an encore a couple of hours later.