Man, That Is Very Good

We're home..tired, filthy, jetlagged, and home.

Seeya all in about 95 hours when we feel human again. It's 3AM to us right now..been up since 5 AM..me even earier due to upset gut. Little, and I mean less than 10 minutes sleep since then.Three flights in one day leaves brain and body exhausted.

Good to be home, more later..:)

posted by Unknown @ 7:39 PM 0 comments

Last batch of photos before we come home.

Well, this is it..hittin' the airport tomorrow, and once we get to London, we hit it hard as we beg Air Canada to let us on the London-Edmonton direct flight instead of the London-Calgary, Calgary-Edmonton run. We'll have Holly turnin' on the charm. I wanted to have a fake oxygen tube coming out of her diaper bad and rubber-banded to her her nostrils, figuring sick and cute outdoes just plain cute, but Allie won't go for it.

You'll notice in the photos that there is no Aberdeen..I had the good fortune to get a stomach bug the day before, and that killed the trip. I was quite looking forward to it, both seeing the ocean from up there, and the art museum that has the Waterhouse paintings. Another one for the "next time" file.

Today, however, was the perfect capping off of the trip by visiting Doune Castle, a Mecca of sorts to people like me, as it is where many scenes from Monty Python and the Holy Grail were filmed. I stood on the same stairs where John Cleese as Sir Galahad sliced and chopped his way through a mass of terrified wedding guests..it was awesome. Also stood on the upper wall from which Cleese again taunted the knights. I can't say it was on my lifelong list of things to do before I die, but once the opportunity presented itself, it shot right up there. "Fetchez la vache!" "Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelled of elderberries!" Classic. I was there.

After the castle, we wandered around Doune, and has a bite at a pub, which has the distinction of, food-wise, being terrible value for money, lovely inside, and having vegetable spring rolls created by someone who apparently has heard of spring rolls but has never actually had one. It had peas and corn in it. They were good..not great, and not even spring rolls, in my mind, but good. And not worth almost $9 after conversion! There were only two of them! They were big, but not that big. They's have to be, like, the size of jumbo corn dogs at the EX to be worth $4.50 each.

Rant over. I love the UK.

Finally got a photo of the William Wallace Monument in sunlight. We drive by it virtually every day, each time saying, we'll go there tomorrow, right? Never did. Next time.

Oh yeah, back to Doune..in the gift shop, they have a smattering of toys, Python books and videos, and such, but what made me chuckle (and I may have bought it if not for the coversion factor again..you almost get desensitized to dollars vs pounds after a while, and you have to remind yourself that £10.50 is $21 back home. They had taken a £7.50 toy catapult and rubber banded a £3.00 toy cow to it, sidways and ready for launch. Almost got me.

I forgot to post this one before-
We had to pay 20p to pee at the Glasgow train station.
Our day in Glasgow and Doune Castle are tied for the niciest, most relaxing times I had this trip.

And, if you don't have time to check the above link for all the photos, here's the group photo from the lodge that we just got from Steven, plus a few from the castle, and a Python shot for comparison. Look closely at the Python shot for the cow.

Look forward to seeing you all when we're back. Later, dudes!

posted by Unknown @ 12:41 PM 3 comments

The latest pics of Stirling, Stirling Castle, and some baby.

And here are the places we've been, including tomorrow's trip to Aberdeen.

posted by Unknown @ 6:04 AM 1 comments

More pics
More pics part 2

Well, what did we do the last few days? Went to Lochend Farm again for some more yummy soup, and the sun actually came out a bit for some pictures. We went to the Kingdom of Fife for the afternoon to do some shopping and see the sea. Kirkcaldy for shopping, Anstruther for award-winning fish and chips..apparently Camilla was in town a few weeks ago and sent her aide in to get some for her. Not sure if she had fish or oats. I guess they left her tied up outside.

Afterwards, into St. Andrews to see the ruins and the golf course.

Yesterday, we went into Stirling again for a few hours, toured the Old Town Jail, saw Argyll's House and had lunch at the Portcullis, at the base of the castle, but lunch took so long thanks to the busload of rude American septagenarians that arrived before we did, that we had to put off the actual castle for next time.

Went to Fiona and Grant's (Allie's cousin and husband) for a bbq, which was lovely.

Today..who knows?

posted by Unknown @ 4:29 AM 3 comments

New photos!

So, yeah, we had a great time at Ryvoan Lodge. So relaxing! Wish the weather had been nicer. When we arrived, we could see the Cairngorms, but by Saturday morning, they were gone, not to be seen again until Monday morning, when we were leaving. Managed to get some good pics, though, as the cloud lifted. The clouds are so low here!

The lodge was so cool! Out in the middle of nothing but farmland, it didn't look like much on the outside, but even peeking in the windows as we got the keys sorted out, it looked amazing. Such a modern interior, with wall-to-ceiling windows in the living room, in this plain looking lodge out in the middle of nowhere.

It was also great to spend the time with Anne and Les, and their boys Graham, Christopher and Steven and their respective ladies Emma, Nicola and Moira. They are a great bunch, and they were all so wonderful with Holly. We want them to all come live in Canada.

We had fun in Glasgow yesterday. It's not as historic a city as Edinburgh or Stirling, but still featured some interesting buildings, thus it was mostly a shopping/browsing trip for us. We did find the theatres and saw Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, as well.

It's raining again, and it will, off and on, it seems, until maybe Monday? We booked a train trip into Aberdeen for that day, where they have a Waterhouse gallery. We found out that if we had planned in advance, we could have taken the train into Alton Towers or elsewhere for cheap. But alas, with a week left in our trip, no deals to be had, nor do we really have the extra time now. Next trip...

Talk to y'all soon...

Update, we're going back to Lochend Farm for soup today! MMMMM!

posted by Unknown @ 3:10 AM 1 comments

Hey y'all, we had a nice weekend at Ryvoan Lodge, about two hours north of where we are. Nearest major thing to there was the ski resort town of Aviemore. Pics and more descriptions to follow.

Now, on yet another rainey day, Allie and I are off to Glasgow (solo!) as Anne watches the wee one for us for a few hours. We're taking the bus or train, not sure. Should be an adventure.

More later..bye for now!

posted by Unknown @ 3:24 AM 0 comments

Second bunch of photos.
We've been taking it slow these last few days. It has been cold and cloudy, but not much rain. So far this trip, on various day trips, we've been to Callendar, Striling (a few times) , Edinburgh, and Perth (to the Caithness Glass factory and showroom). This weekend is Ryvoan Lodge up north, next week should include some visits to castles, hopefully on sunnier days to get some good photos. We'll be going to Glasgow as well.

Alton Towers, as it turns out, is a lot farther away than I thought it was, so that part of the trip isn't going to happen. It's a long way to go just for me to go on rollercoasters, though Anne and Les were perfectly willing to take us there for that purpose. We'll be spending so much time in cars going to the other, local places, I can't justify strapping the kid into a car seat for 7 hours each way, plus dealing with Manchester traffic, which I had overlooked. We don't have the time to do it in 3 hour jaunts and stay overnight and sightsee at each stop. Maybe next time, when Holly is older and can have fun there as well.

posted by Unknown @ 7:11 AM 1 comments

First batch of photos for the trip.

posted by Unknown @ 11:57 AM 0 comments

We've been having a relaxing few days in and around Alva. In no particular order, we went into Stirling a couple of times for a few different things. The roads here are insane, and the mindset is, the narrower the roads, the faster you must go. More on that later.

What else..went out to Anne and Les' caravan at Shell Bay, it was chilly so we basically had tea, took the dogs for a walk, and headed to Fettykill Fox (a restaurant) for fish and chips. Before that, on the way out to the caravan, we stopped at a farm shop, Lochend Farm, for lunch..wow. Had a bacon and egg sandwich and the most delicious soup I've ever had. Allie and I had potato and pesto soup, while Anne had carrot and lentil, and hers looked and smelled as good as ours. What a gem out in the middle of nowhere. I will be looking up recipes when I get home.

Went walking around the neihbourhood today, through Alva's little "main street" of shops, and back through a graveyard. Took some photos, didn't want to stay too long due to feelings of an iminent uprising of the living dead. We went out through the top of the hill, as your garden variety zombies would have a harder time following us up there.

Weather looks nicer today than yesterday..looking forward to seeing and doing more.

Scottish fact of the day..elevators here are called lifts, and being arrested is called getting lifted.

posted by Unknown @ 5:03 AM 3 comments

We have arrived in Scotland! Holly did great on the flight, though I have decided that night flying sucks, and night flying with a child sucks longer and harder. It is making me reconsider my plan to take the Hol to Disneyland until she's older.

Holly slept some on the plane(s), Allie and I slept a lot less, but we made it through. Got in to Edinburgh around 3:30 PM, driven to Alva by 4:30PM, ate, and went to bed around 8:45PM. I was exhausted and thought that would be it for me til the morning, but I guess my internal clock was saying get the hell up at about 2:30 AM local time to all three of us.

I went back to bed shortly after, got up at 8AM, and here we are, planning our day and the rest of the trip.

We're doing great, hope all is well with you all, and I'll update again soon.

posted by Unknown @ 1:58 AM 5 comments

Time to get the Hell out of Dodge!

Will update when I can, here, or Facebook, or both if I have time.

If not, talk to y'all at the end of June!

posted by Unknown @ 1:21 PM 0 comments

This one was one of the highlights of last night's Spike and Mike Sick and Twisted show. Maybe the stuff isn't quite as funny as it used to be, or maybe I'm just older and don't find it as funny as I did last time (I know it was more than ten years ago..I don't think it was 15..somewhere in the middle, I guess).

Anyways..it was good..not great, but pretty funny at times. Lots of the head-shaking moments that I have come to expect.

"Oh, that little boy lookslike he's full of blood!" Wham! Splat! "Now take off your top and get killed by Greg Kinnear!"

posted by Unknown @ 7:17 AM 0 comments

The only thing I know for sure we're going to be doing while in Scotland is spending the weekend of the 15th (I think) at Ryvoan Lodge near Nethybridge. I like saying Nethybridge.

I also want to check out this theme park, Alton Towers. It is in England, not Scotland, but only about 4 hours from Glasgow, apparently, kind of in between Glasgow and London. I saw it on some travel show, and wouldn't have known about it otherwise. It has some wicked looking, world-class rollercoasters.

If we make it there, greta, if not, I'll survive, but I hope we can go. Other than that, I have no idea what's planned other than lots of family visiting, and that's OK by me.

posted by Unknown @ 6:05 PM 0 comments

Blogger is being a 'tard, not letting me upload photos right now. So, click here for the latest Facebook album.

posted by Unknown @ 5:09 PM 0 comments

Yeah, Facebook is pretty addcitive in the first week or so..then, after everyone has been added, it gets manageable.

About two days, 12 hours until we'll be on the plane, and maybe even in the air. Crazy. Hard to believe it is just about here. When you start a plan in November, it doesn't seem quite real, even after the tickets arrive. Now it seems very real, and panic starts to set in, as you hope you can get it all sorted out in time.

I'm also off work now, for the rest of June for the holiday, and for three weeks of July as I take a course at NAIT. Work is paying for it, paying me while I'm there, and paying someone else to take my place for three weeks as well. Can't complain about that too much.

Holly is 13 and 1/2 months old..the changes in the last little while are amazing.

In six months it will be December. Just in case you were wondering.

posted by Unknown @ 8:12 AM 0 comments