A Good Morning in the Highlands

I was the first up on Sunday morning. It was nice to be a guest in somebody else's house where I wasn't compelled to start doing a thousand jobs. As it looked as though nobody else was going to be up soon, I got my shoes on and quietly sneaked out of the cottage.

In addition to the house where we were all staying, there is another little stone cottage on the property that can't be touched by any improvements. It is of great architectural interest (something about the way the beams are put in) so it sits there being all picturesque and home to birds and wee beasties. There is also a stone byer (where the cows used to be kept) with adorable stone steps and a babbling burn for added gorgeousness.

I heard geese earlier while still half asleep in my bed. When I got to the shore Loch Tummel, the geese had already gone. The sunshine more than made up for the lack of geese. It was a glorious morning. Nearby Schiehallion whose name loosely translates from Gaelic as fairy hill of the Caledonians was still partially obscured by a bit of cloud. It was a breathtaking view just the same.

On the shore were a few small remnants of the feast from the night before. A sailboat's keel was found on the shore. Isn't anybody missing this? We stuck it deep into the pebbles and thought it made great sculpture. Henry Moore really doesn't have anything to worry about.

The morning progressed. People got up and were wandering about the dewy garden with mugs of coffee. Blackcurrants were found at the very bottom of the garden and they needed immediate picking! There were also some really good gooseberries (shown above), raspberries and a few unripe blueberries.
I ended up taking about 3 kilos of ripe blackcurrants home. They are all in a pot on my stove as I type this waiting to be turned into jam. I better hurry up before they start to ferment!
When at home, it was such a tedious task to pick blackcurrants. It really is so much more fun to pick berries with your friends. It almost makes me want to plant some new blackcurrant bushes. . . .

My Heart's in the Highlands

My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here,
My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer -
A-chasing the wild deer, and following the roe;
My heart's in the Highlands, wherever I go.

Robert Burns (local lad)

My dear friend Chameleon invited my family and I to join her and her family where they are staying for two weeks in a delightful cottage on the shores of Loch Tummel. Young George and I were able to get away and visit them briefly this weekend. I would have dearly loved to stay longer and soak in the stunning landscapes and go for those wonderful walks that were about to take place this morning just as we were leaving to come back down to the lowlands. Sadly The Man of the Place wasn't able to join us. As I didn't see much of him last weekend either and I was keen to get back home to him.

George had never been this far north before. It was a shame then that the first part of our trip up was shrouded in cloud and mist. Pretty though the clouds were, they were hiding some beautiful scenery.Because we were only there for a short time, George and I had to start horsing around almost immediately upon our arrival. There was a rope swing! Lorna showed us the proper procedure for the rope swing and George showed us that as ever, he was game for a bit of fun!I didn't go on the rope swing. I was terrified that the rope would snap when I was suspended over rocks and I'd need to be airlifted out of the glen.We then went down to the loch were there were benches, fire pits, fishing equipment and amongst the pebbles were shards of old pottery that needed to be collected and judged. If the pieces of old crockery were pretty enough, they were hauled up to the house to be included in some grand mosaic to be created at a later date.

As a grand barbecue was going to be happening on this little bit of pebbly shore, we had to get the fire started early.I got the barbecue started and George got the campfire started. There was one fire to cook over and one fire to keep away the midges! George hauled three loads of logs down to the beach in the wheelbarrow so that the campfire would stay fed.Other supplies came down the lumpy path in the wheelbarrow as well. Then we had to wait for the fire to mature before starting. Reading The Perthshire Advertiser kills some time. It is an informative and amusing little publication.

We put the drinks into the loch to keep them cold. You can't get more Scottish than a photo of Irn Bru chilling in a Scottish loch!
The Hungarian likes a bit of pork steak with his mustard!
As day turned slowly to evening, the weather improved. It improved so much so that we were able to see the beautiful show of heather on the other side of Loch Tummel and a rainbow appeared. It raised our spirits just that little bit more!

That night, after shouting hello to the campfires across the dark loch and then listening to the sounds of the night (owls and unidentified growls) we all went indoors to bowls of candy and a huge game of knock out whist!I should have been a croupier!

Blogger Rescue

Though unplanned, the meeting of two bloggers was a delightful change to what would otherwise have been a very ordinary weekend of domestic tasks.

My friend Claude of Blogging in Paris and her friend Catherine were planning to do a tour of Hadrian's Wall and the north east of England. I knew they were coming over and had a rough idea of where they'd be during their visit and was hoping we'd get to meet up at some point.

I had e-mailed Claude just before she left Paris to remind her to contact me when she got to our shores because I was so keen to see her smiling face again. She called me and gave me her mobile phone (cell phone) number and we said that we'd meet up at some point.

I rang Claude on Friday evening because I was so excited about the prospect of our meeting up again. I'm glad I did. It turned out that they had been delighted with Whitby and that section of England but were NOT pleased with the accomodation they had just landed in near Haydon Bridge. Haydon Bridge is only about an hour's drive from our place and I said that the two women should leave there first thing in the morning and come over to us. The place must have been pretty bad because they actually agreed to this.

I met Claude and Catherine on a very rainy Saturday morning. Instead of going back to my house we went for coffee and on to Lindisfarne!

Sadly, due to a malfunction with the camera's storage card, I have lost ALL the photos I took over the weekend.

There were photos from Lindisfarne, nearby Bamburgh Castle, the delights of the village cream tea on Sunday and a nearby Tibetan Buddist Monestary. On Monday we went to Culzean Castle in South Ayrshire. I am gutted. I can only wait until Claude returns to Paris and I can call upon her to share her photos of our time together with me.

The Man of the Place was up in Oban diving which meant I really didn't have much on over last weekend. I was so happy that I made that phone call.

I Do This More Often Than Most People

I stub my toes.

I have been stubbing my toes my entire life. It happens when I am barefooted, naturally. It is not that I am without shoes and socks a great deal of the time, it is just that . . . well I can't seem to navigate my feet as well as other people.

I have broken the middle toe on my right foot a couple of times. Yesterday evening while making up the bed in the guest bedroom, I stubbed the middle toe of my left foot. I think it's broken.

At first I though perhaps it was just bruised. I didn't even look at the toe very carefully when I went to bed. In the wee hours of the morning I was woken up by a pain from the stubbed toe. That wasn't a good sign. Toes shouldn't wake people up, even when they've been given a good knock. I got up, found the first aid kit, put some cotton between the stubbed toe and the next non-stubbed toe (see photo above) and went back to bed.

The only thing one can do for a broken toe is to tape it to the next one and try not to stub it again until it is healed up. So that is what I'm doing.

I was walking around today with my tennis shoes on and that wasn't really a problem. My toe ached a bit and if I did something silly like take a giant step to pick to some especially lovely wild raspberries, my toe protested.

It is the end of a long day and the shoes are off. I am conscious that this toe is aching, swollen and not happy. I'm keeping an eye on the colour. I'll go to the doctor if anything further or really odd happens but for now, I just have to tough it out.

See? Good colours, huh? This photo was taken this morning as I hobbled about looking for the surgical tape that I put away somewhere in the house.

The Dives

We dragged all our diving gear with us. With four people in the car and three of them being divers, there was very little extra room. So little room in fact that there was no space to bring back more than a few bottles of wine. We have to re-think this for next time.

We all learned to dive in the Mediterranean so diving in this sea wasn't a new experience, but we have never been diving in the French section of the sea. French regulations for diving are just a bit different to Spanish and Greek rules for diving what is essentially the same water. We all had to have medical certificates that had been signed by a real doctor and the certificates had to be less than 12 months old. With a little bit of organisation, I got all our medical certificates for the trip. The convenient thing was that Gordon, though not our son has been our neighbour his entire life and we share the same family doctor. All the signed certificates went into the bag of important documents along with our proof of diving qualifications and passports, insurance etc. . . . .
There are a number of good dive centres along this bit of coast. We chose one in Argeles sur Mer called Divemania. They were very friendly and professional. If we ever get back to that part of France, I would not hesitate to dive with them again and if you ask me about which dive centre I would recommend in that part of the world, I would recommend these guys. The Man of the Place got to dive a WWII German submarine!
Diving is the only sport where you get to regularly strap a knife to your leg. How butch is The Man of the Place?

The center has a big RIB (rigid inflatable boat) that is employed to get divers to the dive sites. On the last dive of the holiday, the sea was up and the rides to and from our dive sites was better than a roller coaster ride! We had to hang on to keep from getting bounced out! When boat rides are as rough as that, I am usually the first one to puke over the side but these rides were fun! I have learned that if conditions are choppy, the best thing for me to do is to keep my face into the wind and my eye on the horizon. That's what I did and I had a blast!
Gordon and George after a dive.

For me, diving is all about the sea life. I saw a number of nudibranch which thrilled me. I love the brightly coloured animals. Sadly, I am not very good with the new camera and most of my nudibranch photos are too blurred to use.

Here are a couple that were good enough to not delete: This is an old favourite, Spotted Doris. The Spotted Doris were impressively large in this area of the sea.
Here is a very large and beautiful yellow nudibranch that I have never seen before. I thought I had a field guide to marine life of the Mediterranean, but it seems I don't. I have two for the Red Sea and one for the water around Great Britain, but none for the Med. This must be remedied!

The highlight of our diving was a seahorse! I have never seen one before. Lucky Gordon got to see this beautiful creature on his try dive!

In addition to the lovely seahorse, I got to have an interaction with an octopus! Sorry the camera work was shaky. I guess I'll never make it as an underwater cameraman for any BBC Wildlife shows. As gentle as this octopus seemed, I didn't want my hand anywhere near his beak.

Here is Henry doing the dance.

Our young man.

Yours truly.

Oh, This Isn't So Bad

When I was just a kid I didn't know how my life would turn out. I had though about all the things that might happen and then none of it did. I have ridden through some real crud and made some terrible decisions but then some unexpected and fabulous things have happened as well. I must say that I am quite pleased the way things are turning out (knocks on wood). 46 doesn't suck as bad as they said it would. It is kind of nice really.

Just to cheer you guy up who are at work when you could be outside enjoying this lovely summer sun, here is a picture of me in about 1979.These first two photos were damaged in a fire but were deemed by me not to be damaged enough to throw out. I'm glad I've still got them.

Here is me earlier this month.
Middle boy Sean who spends some of his valuable time as a bartender as he works his way through higher education has been making me very yummy margaritas. I'm well on my way to having a lovely day.

Day Trip to Andorra

We set aside an entire day for a trip to Andorra.

To get to this this tiny landlocked principality one has to drive high up into the Pyrenees on roads like intestines!The mountain roads are full on with lots of warnings of falling rock and loose rock containing nets.I had to take this photo through the car windscreen, so please excuse the quality. I wanted to document the rock nets. Some of the nets had been doing their job and contained substantial chunks of the mountain! Little rail tunnel along side the road.

Beautiful rail bridge/viaduct.

Eventually we got up past the tree line and it was at this point we took a couple of available short cuts through tunnels.
Tunnel entrance.
Coming out the other side into . . . . alpine meadows!
It is all very beautiful up here. Andorra seems to have the same sort of look about it as the photographs I've seen of Switzerland. This is where we had our picnic lunch. There were two mating pairs of gray wagtails at this particular spot. It was just so clean and clear! I wish I could tell you how fresh and invigorating the air smelled!
There are lots of ski chalets and ski resorts. Everybody seemed to be busy cleaning and repairing skiing related things in preparation for the next busy season. They were doing that or walking around being exempt from taxes.The fuel was the lowest we'd seen on our holiday so we filled up while we were there.

We got stopped by customs going back into France and asked if we had purchased any tobacco or alcohol while in Andorra. We said "No, none at all." and we were waved off (dismissed) to go on our merry way.

We went there through some beautiful mountain scenery and scary twisty roads. We discovered that Andorra is stunningly beautiful in the summer. Most visitors will never know this as the bulk of Andorra's tourists show up in the winter.

I thought I had seen some small fields of tobacco and I was right!!! It turns out that the meagre 2% of Andorran soil that can be cultivated. A portion of that 2% is where tobacco is grown. Who'd a thought?