Highland Adventure Part IV (journey home)

Coming back through Fort William we took a gondola up to the top of one of the mountains in the Nevis mountain range. Here we had a view of Ben Nevis (the largest mountain in Britain) as well as the beautiful surrounding scenery.


At the top of this mountain in the winter is a ski hill, there was no snow yet. Some of the signs here boasted of clothing rentals for those not equipped with proper snow gear.
We hiked up to a viewpoint and I then took out my small bottle of Glenfiddich and had a wee nip to warm up because the wind was quite cold.


The rest of the trip was getting back down in the gondola overlooking crazy mountain bike trails and driving along the winding roads through Glencoe and Loch Lomond,


It was all really just a blur of country roads on the way back home. Below is a few highland cows grazing in a field.

Highland Adventure Part III

Driving back along Lock Ness, we stopped to see the sights of Urquart Castle. Going in to see the ruins was a bit pricey. All we really wanted was a cool picture. So we took this picture from the parking lot and walked around a bit. We didn't get to walk amongst the ruins, but we got to see them. With an entire day of walking around battlefields and standing stones, it was nice to stand back for a little bit.

I stuck my feet in the water as bait for Nessie. Ideally I would have been swimming but I forgot my wetsuit, then again I probably would have still been too frozen to put my face in the water for any length of time. As I waded out into the water I noticed a couple of hungry swans drifting over for a bite to eat. I yelled to Paul to get the bread out of the car so they wouldn't attack me (yes, it is common for a swan to attack). The most aggressive swan we named "Nessie".

Paul kept throwing the bread closer to me and I was afraid the swans would go for my toes. Can you tell I was a bit afraid at the moment my picture was getting taken with "Nessie".

This is how close the swan got to us... eek, it must get people around here to feed them quite often. It stood up and flapped it's wings at us as to indicate that it was hungry.

There's no sand on the banks of Loch Ness, Only various sizes of stones. The stones are slippery with algae which makes it hard to walk around while in the water. Even though it was much different than Okanagan Lake in many ways, I felt at home here. The legend of Nessie and the Legend of Ogopogo brought together as I (a local Okanagan girl) steps foot in Loch Ness. The home of Nessie, visited by someone from the home of Ogopogo.

Trip to the Highlands (part 2, Culloden)

A hop skip and a jump away from Clava Cairns is Culloden Battlefield, the last hand to hand battle that took place on British soil. The battle was between the the Jacobites and the English Government army. The young and inexperienced Bonnie Prince Charlie lead the Jacobites all night through the fog so they could ambush the English while they slept, but they got lost on the fog and ended up in Culloden. That morning the battle began and 700 Jacobites were killed in under the space of an hour. They were up against canons, grapeshot, mortar shells and musket fire as they charged at the government troops with their swords and targes. After the battle the government army killed the jacobite wounded who were hiding in a barn and they also killed some onlookers and curious highlanders who came to the battlefield afterwards because they wore highland clothing, it was hard to tell if they were in the battle or not.


Stone markers mark the places where the clans were buried, identified by their cap badge. Their cap badges didn't look like the kind of cap badges that we wear for pipe bands, etc today. they more looked like a very flattened coin with holes through it to sew it onto clothing. People started to visit Culloden quite soon after the battle and ever since has become a place of pilgrimage. Items that have been found on the battlefield are displayed in the visitor centre. There was everything from bayonets and various musket balls to lost buttons, coins and a small key to wind a watch.
The victorians loved coming to Culloden, they would pay their penny to enter the field and then maybe pay a little more so they could take something back with them (like a bone fragment, musket ball, or anything they could find).... "ugh, victorians" Culzean had to restore the ceiling from where they bored a hole straight through the neoclassical artwork painted on it to put up a gasolier.... and now I hear that they took bone fragments away from war graves.... It makes me cringe to think of how naive they were that they didn't think to preserve places for future generations. Which brings me to the topic of us and how much garbage we produce and how we should start being more "green" but I digress....
Here are some more photos of Culloden, a solemn place that marks the end of the clan system in Scotland, the battle that lasted under one hour and shook Scotland forever. I'll end my writing here so you can tour through my photos.

Trip up to the Highlands

So my parents have come out to Scotland and we've been taking them all sorts of places. I have always wanted to go to Inverness, so we planned out a few places to go to and brought ourselves a picnic. All of us woke up bright and early at 4:30 AM so we could fit everything we wanted to do into our schedule.
We arrived at Clava Cairns for the sunrise and walked among the cairns and standing stones in the beautiful little wooded area just off a country road close to Inverness. It was quite secluded, we had the area to ourselves for awhile and saw nobody but a man walking his dog as we were leaving. Many of the stones aligned with the rising sun like the one in the picture above and below.

Totally worth going in the morning, I was so excited! However, the stones are aligned to the setting sun as well. The cairns especially are lit up on the inside when the sun sets during the winter solstice.

This stone was my favorite..... or "stones" as it seems like it's two stones put together. We could get some really interesting pictures and I think that Clava Cairns deserves a blog of it's own and I'll blog about the rest of the adventure later.

You can see the large burial cairn in the background, there are three of them, two you can walk into because they have openings. The cairn in the middle doesn't have an entrance even though it has an open space in the middle (kind of like a doughnut)

Here's the first one showing the entrance.

This one was incorporated into the fence and another stone from this same circle is on the other side of the road.

How many times do you get the chance to take a picture of your own shadow this clear? I thought it was pretty darn cool.

This is going to be the front half of the sweater that I am currently knitting for my father-in-law. It's my first sweater and I'm not sure how it is going to turn out. Hopefully I have the gauge right. I think it might be a little bit too small, but that may just be because I am worrying about it. The front is going to have a zipper and it is also getting a garter stitch collar. There's three different fish on the back piece of the sweater, that should be interesting. Anyway, I will have it done for Christmas and if all goes well it will be a Christmas gift.
I have just completed a pattern for the kilt socks that I'm going to be making, I just have to knit one and see if it looks like what I want it to. I should have my mittens from the Llama wool I spun last year ready for winter. I'm using the Bella Mittens Twilight pattern from ravelry. I really need to catch up with the times and read that book or watch the movie. At least I finally read Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice. That book was a bit depressing but I still liked it because I liked the movie so much (how can't you not like a movie with Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise.... oh and..... not to mention the young Kirsten Dunst, I remember watching this movie again after watching Spiderman and I couldn't believe it was her).

In the Band

First of all I'd like to point out that my daughter took this picture. She loves taking pictures, in fact, she fought over it so she could take my picture, it's a good picture and her finger isn't even in the way.
Anyway, the pipe band I've just joined had a gig at Culzean, this was my first time playing in the band as well as the first time for a couple other tenor drummers. The day started off with a picnic in the park with another pipe band from the Isle of Arran. The kids enjoyed running around and playing with the other kids that were there.

We marched and played through the castle's ruined archway (which actually isn't a real ruined arch, it was built to be symbolic of the Kennedy family's long lineage when the castle itself was built) and walked along to the front doors of the castle where we played and waited for the other pipe band to get there. We took turns playing different tunes and then did some mass band playing in the fountain courtyard. There was quite a good turn out of spectators which was great. It was meant to rain today but thankfully it held off while we were there.





The above two pictures are taken from the fountain courtyard and the video is from right in front of the castle. I'm the tenor drummer in the green jacket, in fact, I am the only tenor drummer in the green jacket so it is hard to miss me.


And if anyone was wondering how Paul did in his race the other day I am glad to inform you that he did not push himself to the point of exhaustion and injury, he stopped when he realized that "nutrition stations" meant water, redbull type energy drinks and chocolate bars. When all he brought with him was a camelback full of water, he was going nowhere fast. Quick tip if your racing in Scotland.... bring your own electrolyte supplements, powerbars and gels.... relying on "supplied nutrition" is too risky. Paul didn't give up quickly though, he did run 22 miles, he said at some points it was so steep he was crawling up the hill in cow patties and sheep manure. He would also like to add that he slipped in a cow patty and that it was "good fun" he also fell into a number of puddles and sunk an unstable stepping stone thus soaking himself up to his ankles. Some of the course was through a thick overgrown forest full of nettles and thistles which "whipped him in the legs" as he ran through them.... oh but did I mention that he said it was "good fun".

Long Weekend

So it is the long weekend here in Ayrshire, it's only a local holiday and the horse races are on so it is quite busy in town. We can barely get into the Tesco parking lot due to all the traffic going to the races. Anyway, up top is a picture of Burns Square. The statue is of Robert Burns, it's right outside Blockbuster.
Paul is running his 44 mile race as I type this and I wish him all the best. I'll be sure to update on how he did, it rained a little yesterday so I assume that the running trail is a bit muddy.
Tomorrow I play in the pipe band here for the first time, we're having a picnic before we play so I hope the weather holds up.

Here is a bit of a meal that I made up for myself last week and decided to take a picture of because it's a couple of my very favorite foods. Local smoked salmon and brie cheese with Jacobs cream crackers. mmmm mmmmm good!