Don't get me wrong, it was lovely to come back to some lovely texts from friends and I could not have survived indefinitely - it would have given me a weird form of virtual cabin fever - but it was one less thing to worry about for the week. I didn't feel the need to constantly check my phone and it just went towards helping to relax, which is what we all needed.
The only time the lack of signal stressed me out was over the first weekend when I had ordered some flowers to be delivered to a friend. They were lost in transit and it was an absolute nightmare trying to sort them out with angry emails. Once that was out the way, the lack of digital communication with distant humans did not bother me one bit!
We had a perfect Scottish holiday despite the horrendous weather. We managed to do plenty of fresh, healthy exercise, rest, read and had some brilliant days out too. I think the best way to do this is to go through each day individually as we crammed so much into the week!
Friday 31st July
We travelled down to the Trossachs, stopping off for lunch and a mooch at Gretna Green - cue your one liners now ladies and gents - my ring finger is empty! Gretna was a little over half way there so it broke the journey up nicely.
We arrived at the Trossachs at about 3.30pm, unpacked our bags and then went for a little explore around the castle. Mum and I have been about 3, maybe 4 times before to Tigh Mor Castle and so already knew where everything was. Other than a lick of paint and decor everything looked much the same. Last time I was there, I was only ten years old! Mum went back to the room once we had sussed everything out and picked up some information leaflets and then Nigel, Sam and I went for an explore in the rain down to the Loch that sits opposite the castle.
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| Down by the Loch - it rained so much that on the last day these boats, the jetty and this grass was all underwater. |
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| Sam and I, in the rain by the Loch |
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| Tigh Mor Castle |
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| Stand-up zipwire. This little play area was there last time I visited Scotland. |
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| BANZAI! |
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| King of the Castle |
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| The statue of a big stag. we kept our distance the first time we saw this last time we came to Scotland. We thought it was real. The stag is a memorial to Sir Walter Scott. |
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| The boys on the jetty. |
We relaxed in the apartment on the first night and my Gran had cooked everyone a lovely lasagne, and made me some Hanna food for us all to enjoy after our journey.
Saturday 1st August
I got up at 7am, dressed and went down to the pool for a nice quiet early morning swim. I always do this with my Gran when on holiday and so even though I didn't have her as a swimming partner I still enjoyed it - you can't beat an early swim! Mum heard me get up and followed me down to the pool after about ten minutes, though she just sat at the side and watched.
Once I'd got out the pool, showered and dried my hair, everyone had breakfast and then we drove down to Loch Katrine. We had a rare moment of dry weather for an hour or so and the sun even came out for a few brief periods and so we went for a little walk around the Loch. At one point we decided to venture off road and Sam, taking the lead, stood calf deep in some mud after we'd just told my Mum (who was reluctant to proceed off road) to 'have some sense of adventure'.
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| This was Sam AFTER he'd tried to rinse himself down a bit in some deep puddles. I had to semi-clean him up with tissues before we got back in the car which got some amusing comments from passers-by. |
In the afternoon we called at Kilmahog Woollen Mill (you know I love a good woollen mill!) where I bought a lovely red tartan blanket and a blue tartan poncho. Then we went on to drop Nigel and Sam off at Deanstone's Distillery for a whisky tour whilst Mum and I headed into Callendar for a mooch. When we were in Callendar we saw an actual all year round Christmas shop - in August! It even played Christmas songs inside!
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| Here they are on maybe their third or fourth whisky? |
We had another night in the apartment watching some television and resting.
Sunday 2nd August
Nigel's birthday! Happy Birthday Nigel! We had a present and card opening session in the morning, showered, dressed, had breakfast and then headed out to the Bridge of Allan Highland Games! It was absolutely tipping it down and so muddy but we all had a great time anyway. My poor little car was feeling a little worse for wear after slugging through the muddy field and on the way out I had to meet everyone outside the field because, it had further sunk into the mud whilst it had been parked and we didn't feel it could cope with the extra weight of five people! Luckily, I managed to drive it out the field without getting stuck (unlike other vehicles with drivers less skilled than my wonderful self... ahem.)
I think we all enjoyed watching the wrestling the most. The youngest wrestlers were maybe only five or six years old but were really impressive! They all showed really great sportsmanship, even at their age and they had the crowd gripped despite other grown up events like running and shot put going on around them. There was a girl who was maybe 11 years old and she was throwing boys, even bigger than she was, down to the ground like bags of rice. She was probably shorter and a similar build to me, nobody could believe it and all the crowd were cheering her on. We also saw plenty of bagpipers (including a bagpiping group all the way from Malaysia), highland dancers and track cyclists who were sludging through the mud at top speed on slim-tyred track bikes!). I had my hair braided and everyone else tried and enjoyed haggis (Sam had, had it before and already had a taste for it!). We had a play on some raffles and tombola's (Sam won me a Capri-Sun from the scouts - he was hoping for a bottle of something a bit stronger) and Sam treated Nigel to a wee snifter for his birthday from the whisky stand. Despite the rain, we all really enjoyed the event! We didn't stay all day as we were getting a bit tired and cold from the fresh air (we aren't as hardy as the Scottish, I know!).
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| Scottish bagpipers |
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| Malaysian bagpipers |
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| Having my hair braided and significantly increasing in average age of their customers |
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| The wrestling kids |
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| Smoking some fish - this looked and smelled really good! |
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| My poor trench-foot at the end of the day! |
We had a bit of a rest when we got home and then got ourselves smartened up for Nigel's birthday meal at the onsite bistro - Bistro Scott's. We all had a lovely meal, everyone (not me of course!) had haggis for their main and whilst we TRIED our best to keep Nigel's birthday a secret as he didn't want fuss (that first part about trying our best was a lie) the chef brought him out some ice-cream with a sparkler in it! Nigel introduced Sam to the Rusty Nail (1 shot Famous Grouse Whisky, 1 shot Drambuie and a piece of ice) and we headed back (Nigel and Sam being even more toasty that they had been the previous day at the distillery!)
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| My finished hair braid before we headed out for Nigel's meal |
Monday 3rd August
My favourite day! Sam and I went to Edinburgh! Edinburgh was about 1 hour and 30 minutes from where we were staying - whilst we were out and on 'quieter' internet periods (i.e - the early hours of the morning!) we had to plan our car parking and book our events to fit in around one another. We found a car park on the outskirts of the city centre and booked our first event - Edinburgh Dungeons - for 11.30am.
I was a little unsure of what to expect with the dungeons as I'd never done any of them before. We have the Blackpool Dungeons near us and we've passed London Dungeons a few times but I've never got round to doing them. When we arrived, we had quite a steep, dark journey down many steps before we got to the admissions booth. We first had a fun photo-shoot before joining our group tour to head into the Dungeons. It was such a brilliant experience and now I really want to do another Dungeon tour! I bet London Dungeons are fantastic. All the actors and actresses played their parts really well and were both scary and funny. First we met a courtroom judge who tried several members of our groups for hilarious crimes. Then we met the torturer who 'demonstrated' his devices on another member of our group. The torturer lead us onto a boat trip into the cave of Sawny Bean and his incestuous family of cannibals (definitely the scariest one - it made me scream twice!). After Sawny Bean had been killed off (#spoilers!) we were taught about Jack the Ripper by a 'teacher' (prostitute!) when we suddenly caught a very brief but frightening glimpse of Jack who murdered our poor teacher! Then we had a rocky encounter with Burke and Hare the grave robbers (not for those 'suffering with pregnancy' or back problems - or for that matter, those who are wearing backpacks and decide to perch precariously on the edge of their designated seat). After that we witnessed the plague and were sprayed (refreshingly, it's so hot in the dungeons!) with 'wee'. The next part was my favourite as we were told the story of 'The Green Lady'. This part was so brilliantly put together and was really frightening and thrilling! If you aren't a fan of Woman in Black, then you probably won't like this.
Finally we were taken to the Hang-man's drop ride which Sam went on but I just watched because I had my feed on and I don't really like taking it on and off once it's up and running on my back and certainly didn't fancy fumbling around with it in the extreme darkness!
We then got a chance to view our pictures from the beginning as well as Sam's picture from the last ride. We decided to buy two of them from the beginning and here they are:
Yes - I look disturbing on that last one. After we bought our pictures, we waited for the lift to take us back up to the ground floor level and browsed the gift shop. At the beginning of the tour we bought a programme, newspaper and bracelet for £4 and this got us 10% off in the gift shop. Sam didn't see anything he fancied but I love souvenir t-shirts and so I bought a 'Why be plagued?' t-shirt.
We were in the Dungeon and gift shop about an hour and a half and afterwards we headed to Costa for a brew, and Sam had his favourite Costa chicken wrap. When we came out the Dungeons we noticed the big wheel and decided it would be fun to go on it while we were there. So after Costa we headed on down to it. Suddenly it looked a whole lot bigger and I felt a bit ill (Something you should know about me - I struggle with heights!) so we headed off to do some shopping instead whilst I was feeling a bit annoyed at myself for being a baby. We enjoyed a good bit of retail therapy - Sam bought some shirts for when he starts his teacher training and I bought a t-shirt/dress (actually a men's t-shirt but it looks nice as a dress) and some new waterproof walking shoes (I've had my current ones 11 years, and although they've served me well, they aren't waterproof).
We had a bit of an explore of Edinbugh and walked up to Edinburgh Castle before I decided the day wouldn't be complete unless I rode the wheel! We paid £16 for three rotations - which I thought was a bit steep! and waited in the queue. Once we got in the carriage I started to feel a bit sick and terrified but I was not going to back down! The first rotation was the worst and once that was out the way I started to get used it it, though I was still shaking life a leaf! I was over the moon though, and it was probably my favourite part of the day because I was so proud of myself!
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| Before we even set off, when I was saying something like 'I feel sick, I don't like it' |
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| Sam before we set off looking happy enough |
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| On the way back down on the first rotation, feeling dead proud of myself, and dead pleased that we were going in the right direction - down! |
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| Sam took this one of the view from outside the cage. |
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| I took this one on my final rotation when my hands weren't shaking so violently that I couldn't pick up my phone. I was determined to capture just what I was actually looking at and how high it really looked from up there! |
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| How big the wheel was! |
Sam went to this place last year for a whisky tasting experience on a stag do and liked the look of the menu and so he vowed to come back when we went to Edinburgh. It was a little (a lot) on the expensive side but the food was REALLY good and so I'm going to say the food did live up to the prices. I had lamb and Sam had a steak with whisky sauce.
After we'd finished our evening meal it was about 8.30pm and so we headed off back to the car. We paid our ticket and made our way out of the car park. We had to wait a little while though because some idiot teenagers had decided to climb the scafolding outside the car park and knocked down a plank of wood which nearly hit a poor lady on the head from a considerable height. These nob'eds cost three blue lightening fire-engines to come out to them which meant we couldn't get out the narrow roads for a short time.
Once we managed to get past we called to get some petrol and then headed home after a very long and wonderful day!
Tuesday 4th August
Unfortunately after enjoying a wonderful meal, I spent the night lead on the bathroom floor donating my expensive meal to the toilet. Me and Sam had planned to go swimming in the morning and so, although I was tired, I decided it might make me feel better since swimming is rather relaxing, I really enjoy it and also, Sam never voluntarily gets up at 7am and I wasn't going to let the opportunity fly by. We had a lovely quiet swim in the pool, showered and then headed back to the room to get ready for a group walk that we had booked onto. We met down in the main reception with our lovely guide - Arthur - before we headed out in the cars to the start of the walk. There was just me, Nigel and Sam and two other adults with three children, so including Arthur there was 9 of us.
It was raining quite a bit throughout the walk and it was a really steep walk up the hill but we all really enjoyed it. Arthur stopped every 10 minutes or so to tell us about different things on the walk such as plants or views and we found it really interesting. At one point he picked some sweet cloves from the ground for us to try. The first half of the walk was mostly up hill but with lots of breaks to listen to Arthur we all managed it and the view from the top was amazing! In total we did 4.5 miles on the walk. We were all very tired (and wet) afterwards!
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| Me (black coat) and Nigel (blue coat) trekking up the hill |
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| Near the top, still on our way up, looking down to Loch Venachar |
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| Lovely little stream going down the hill |
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| Nigel on our way back down |
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| Very near the top, on our way back down |
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| Myself and Sam near the top again on our way down. |
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| At a view point on our way back down - I thought this looked very Jurassic! |
I was still feeling really sick and in quite a bit of pain and so, as we had nothing planned for the afternoon I drugged myself up and fell asleep in the lovely armchair (that I'm now missing terribly!) before climbing into bed for the afternoon.
Later in the evening we headed off to fun at the Ceilidh night in the family room at the Castle. The Ceilidh night was taken by a really friendly and energetic Scotsman called Gregor accompanied by Roger who played the bagpipes and accordion. Gregor sung some Scottish songs and we were given the lyrics to the chorus which we all joined in with and then he taught us some different dances which everyone had fun with. The last one was really hard and resulted in flinging each other round and running into each other and generally 'doing it wrong'. Just before it finished Gregor finally had us getting into the swing of it and doing it right, so it wasn't a complete failure. Gregor also read us some Scottish poems by Sir Walter Scott and then taught us how to PROPERLY sing Auld Lang Syne. It was generally a very Scottish and entertaining night :) After everyone had gone a few people were still left and Gregor gave us a really interesting talk on how bagpipes work (and how expensive they are!)
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| Sam and I ready for Ceilidh Night! |
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| Mum and Nigel ready to go! |
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| Roger on the bagpipes |
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| Gregor and Roger giving us a song |
Wednesday 5th August
Mum and Nigel headed out to Sterling for the day to try and find somewhere that would fix Nigel's broken work phone. Me and Sam had a complete day of rest! I had a nice soak in the bath with a Lush bath bomb that Sam's sister Emily and Lee (her husband) bought me for my birthday (bath was a bit cold because the hot water had run out, but it was still lovely and relaxing!) and then Sam and I watched some Blue Planet - we had packed the box set for a DVD day, and Wednesday was that day! We spent the rest of the day reading our books and watching television - I finished Gone Girl, Sam read Gone Girl and I read Woman in Black and Frankenstein for my holiday books!
In the evening Sam and I went out to a lovely, absolutely adorable little country inn called The Byre Inn. There were books and games on every table - we played pairs, chess and trivial pursuit throughout the night, and chatted with/distracted the lovely owner (I think?), Morven. I so recommend this place if you are ever in the area, they cater for absolutely everything, just let them know before you arrive. They made me this lovely mango sorbet, and even though I didn't manage to eat too much of it (enormous portion!) they put it in a tub for me to take back with me - it was really tasty! We both had very tasty food while we were there and just had a really nice night.
Thursday 6th August
Thursday was our last full day in Scotland. Sam and I got up and showered and then took the bikes out for a spin. We cycled down to Loch Katrine (the hardest part of the cycle) and then we cycled about 8 miles out round the Loch and 8 miles back again. I really struggled to begin with, I'm not sure why but I always really struggle when I first go out on a cycle. I get a really sore raspy chest - I don't really get it when I do any other exercise! When we got down to the loch I had to throw my bike down and lie on a bench. I knew it would get better and I would get used to it if we kept going though so after a short break I got back on the bike and we carried on around the hilly loch. It was a really nice bike ride once we got going and the weather stayed fine for it too which was a bonus. We were recommended a little off road path by some fellow cyclists and so we decided to take the scenic route down this way which was very pretty if not a little bit nettley. There was one big hill that, we managed to cycle up and Sam braved it down on Nigel's bike but I opted to shuffle down it because it was so steep and as it was thin gravel/dry sandy mud I knew my bike wouldn't cope too well on it because the tyres don't have too much grip on them. That was the only time I got off my bike to push it! I was really proud of myself. I think we both had a very successful trip.
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| Before setting off to the loch |
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| Part way round the loch - well on our way! |
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| The view before we turned back |
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| On our little off-road path |
When we arrived back at the Loch entrance we decided to lock the bikes up and go out on the steam boat which was due to leave shortly. We nipped into the shop and bought a few presents and I also bought a knitted hat (you know, in the middle of August). I didn't have a jacket with me, but luckily there was a really warm inside area at the bottom of the boat where we could look out little port holes. We spent some time on deck before getting a brew in the on-board cafe and heading down into the bottom of the boat. We braved the outside of the boat again on the way back and sat at the front. On the way back to port the cabin sheltered us from the wind and it was really warm sat out - even for me!
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| On the deck as we set off |
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| Watching from the little port holes below deck |
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| On deck, keeping warm by the steam chimneys |
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| Sat up front in the sunshine |
Once back in port we cycled back to the castle and chilled out with some television and reading. We spent the rest of the night getting on with our packing and loading bits into the car ready for our journey home the following day.
Friday 7th August
Home time! We had to vacate our room by 9.30am and so we loaded the last bits into the car and away we went. We stopped off again at Kilmahog woollen mill where the highland cows were out and being very friendly. We bought a few more bits from the shop before heading home. We stopped off at our favourite services - Westmorland Farm Services - on the way back for a bite to eat and a cup of tea and then continued our journey back to Southport. I dropped Sam off in Southpot before heading home and getting my bags unpacked.
Once everything was put away, I headed out to meet Becca and Irwin to sit outside on the green and listen to the first night of the proms... and that is going to be my next post! This has taken me about 5 hours to write and so, I will leave it here.
I have tomorrow off work for renal clinic, so I will update on how that goes and then I am back to work on Tuesday. I have had a lovely 11 days off work but I am feeling refreshed to go back again! :)
Lots of love to everyone.
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