Scotland the Brave

So our time away in Scotland, what a place to see!
Three nights in Edinburgh with so much to see, from the museums to the old buildings so many stories high, under ground tunnels and castles, then a five night tour around Scotland so, lets get started.

The first day and night we went to a pub highly recommended by a friend 'The barrel and Cask' a lovely horse shoe shaped bar with lots of good beer on. Great fun and met some good people!
Day 2, our first full day in Edinburgh, we spent the morning at the castle. There was so much to see and go through, one off the great things was the firing of the cannon at 1pm. Its a great tradition, started in 1861 to let nearby ships of the exact time.
We did  bit of geocaching in the afternoon and the History of Work Museum. The museum gave us so much insight into the buildings and the life style of those that lived there in it early days.
Day 3 we walked down the river and through a park, waiting for a National Trust house to open. We got to the Scottish Museum later that day and could recommend a full day or two to get around it all.

The Castle and City

The Castle dominates the landscape of Edinburgh. Built upon gigantic cliffs 80m high. It was built primarily as a fortress, it has been involved in plenty of battles and sieges, mostly between the Scottish and the English, changing hands time and time again.
Mary Queen of Scots was a prisoner at the Castle when she gave birth to her only son. He grew up to be King James VI of Scotland and James I of England, finally uniting the two countries.

The Forth Rail Bridge

On the way out of Edinburgh we stopped to view the Forth Rail Bridge. This well known landmark has been part of the view here since 1890, when it was opened by the Prince of Wales (not the current one). The bridge carried 50,000 trains in its first year. The construction began in 1883, and was hard work, 58 people died, 106 were seriously injured and 518 other accidents occured in the 7 years it took to build the bridge.



the tour around the highland..... 5 Days of fun

• Loch Ness
• Whisky Distillery
• Corrieschalloch Gorge
• A FULL day on the Isle of Skye!
• Eilean Donan Castle
• Glen Coe (to see our land)
• West Coast Scotland
• National Wallace Monument

Our trip around Scotland started at Loch Ness in search of Nessy, leaving the lowlands and heading to the highlands (the Picts country) our tour guide told us some amazing stories about the Scots and the English, myths, legends and truths. Hopefully we can pass some on through this blog.





At Loch Ness, in search of Nessie

And we found her at the Caledonian Canal, in Fort Augustus at the other end of Loch Ness. The Caledonian Canal was designed by Thomas Telford, it has 29 locks, 4 aqueducts and 10 bridges along the course of the canal.



The locks at Fort Augustus were great to see. B2 would have really liked to hire a boat and see them in operation.

Freezing our Faces Young

On the Isle of Skye we found the 'River of Youth', the story goes that a Giant from Ireland came over to fight the Giant of Skye and if he defeated her he would become the greatest of all giants. While they were fighting, the mountains and valleys of Skye were formed. Neither of them won the fight but they were both hurt. The fairies told the Giant of Skye that if she bathed in this stream it would heal her and keep her young and beautiful for seven years. So we all had to have a go and dunked our faces in, they were then frozen for the next 20 minutes with a brain freeze, ha ha ha, what fun.

The location for the Castle and village of Glenfinnan in the movie Highlander was filmed at  Eilean Donan Castle in 1986. One of many movies filmed there including James Bond - The World is not enough.

We stopped at the Fairy Glen, what a place, a lot of small hills, trees, rocks and little lochs. We were told no swearing, no whistling and no hands in pockets as the fairies don't like it and will punish you with 7 years bad luck.

There is a story about a Scot playing his bag pipes, the fairies liked it so they asked him to play at a wedding for them in fairy land, he had the choice to get paid or stay with them in Fairyland. He played at the wedding for 20 minutes and chose to get paid a come back to our world, to his family. The fairies told him it would never be the same, but he went back anyway and realised that the town had changed, his house had changed and his family was gone. His 20 minutes in Fairyland had been 200 years in our world.

                                               

And that is why you never mess around with the Fairies!

The scenery all over the Isle of Skye was amazing we went hiking and the wind was so strong it nearly blew us of the mountain.

The bridle falls on the Isle of Skye is lovely set of falls, once again blessed (or cursed) by the fairies. The myth says that if you drink from the falls you will have seven years of the good life in bed, so to speak.
Ha ha, some people will believe anything!

We took time to stop off at Glen Coe, close to the land of Lord and Lady Arden. What a place to see, with the mountain peaks curtained  by the cloud and mist floating around it's summit. Another dark place in Scottish history, February 13th, 1692, the massacre of Glen Coe. Thirty-eight MacDonalds from the Clan MacDonald of Glen Coe were killed by the guests who had accepted their hospitality, on the grounds that the MacDonalds hadn't been quick enough pledging their allegiance to the new monarchs William and Mary. Another forty women and children died of exposure after their homes were burned. Not a nice story at all.

Now that is one hairy coo!

There were so many cute little fishing villages, its hard to say which was our favourite. The pretty painted houses and boats moored in the harbour's.

A great bunch of people

We met an amazing bunch of people on our tour, it was great fun. We ate together and drank together with talks and laughter at the table. We can't wait to catch up with all of them soon.

Valentine to remember.

Well we know it's been months again since our last blog, it's been hard to keep it up with the packing to go to Aus and work so this will well be a short catch up.

The Lambs Inn

For Valentines Day this year we retreated away from the Lake District and ran off to the Cotswolds. We went to a pub, called the Lambs Inn for three nights. On arrival we had been up graded form the little room we had booked to one of their nicest rooms. I think B2 may have had something to do with it.




Blenheim Palace Maze was great fun! We ran around in the snow with dozens of children looking for the way out.





We relaxed a lot through the three days not doing as much running around as we normal do, but we did visit Blenheim Palace (Home to the 11th Duke and Duchess of Marlborough). Blenheim Palace is the birthplace of Sir Winston Churchill and was one of the attractions we definately needed more time to visit. We spent three quarters of the day there, and only managed to get around the palace its self and some very close gardens.

The Palace was created to celebrate victory over the French during the Wars of the Spanish Succession. In particular it was a gift to the First Duke of Marlborough. He was the military commander who skilfully led the Allied forces into battle on 13th August 1704 at Blindheim (Blenheim). After the Battle Marlborough personally received the surrender of Marshall Talland, leader of the French forces.

The Duke also ensured that the Palace became a monument to Queen Anne. It was the Queen and a grateful nation who granted to the Marlboroughs, the Manor of Woodstock and the promise of the funds needed to build such a house.

This is a water way in the Palace Grounds designed by 'Capability' Brown, helped the Palace gain its World Heritage Status.
This is the Grand Bridge over the water way, half covered by ice and lit by the sun set.

What a beautiful view!

At Blenheim there was a lovely Butterfly house to wonder through and enjoy the warmth and Beautiful colours of the flowers and the rare butterflies. It was great to be out of the winters cold for a few minutes. 

Old Tudor market house in one of the villages.

The rest of our time in the Cotswolds we toured around taking in the views and visiting the gorgeous little villages.

Another market square in the Cotswold dating back hundreds of years.
What amazing workmanship put into all their buildings to have them still standing today in near pristine condition.

The whole area was full of these classic Cotswold sand stone buildings. The pubs, houses, shops even bridges, everything was made of sandstone. It gave the villages that chocolate box look that the area is so well known for.

We loved it!

So from B1 and  B2 please enjoy.

A Getaway!

 We finally got a chance to have some holidays this month. It was cold and windy, relaxing and peaceful. We had some beautiful long leisurely walks in the fresh Welsh air.
It was very calm, just what we needed, and on one such walk we made friends with these woolly fellas here. A long horned welsh goat.
Aren't they great.

 We visited the walled town of Conwy. The castle was built in the 13th century for Edward I. The historic town centre  has an almost complete circuit of fortified walls, about 1.3 kms. They make up one of the best preserved medieval defence schemes in Europe. The castles also is very well preserved and you can easily see how the king and his entourage would have lived while in residence.
Also in this photo you can also see Thomas Telford's suspension bridge built in 1826 to replace the dangerous ferry crossing.

 We stayed in the Victorian Holiday Resort of Llandudno, and the feel and look of the town still seems very Victorian. Most of the tourist attractions were closed for the off season, which was fine with us we enjoyed exploring the town on foot. The pier offered nice evening walks, in summer the stores and eateries would be busy and open til late. It has the Old Pier Head Bar, a pub 1/2 a mile out to sea. (or for those of us working in new money, 0.8 kms, ha ha)

Llechwedd Slate Caverns is part of a living, working slate mine that has been active since 1836. They have been open to the public since 1972 but mining operations still take place today, just above ground instead of under.
We arrived in time for the last 2 tours of the day, plunging 500ft under the ground in Europe's Steepest mining cable railway. Terrifying!
Imagine entering the mines, aged 12 to begin your working life, with a life expectancy of just 52. That's 40 years, working 6 days a week, 12 hours a day, by the light of a candle- if you could afford one.
Put's things in some perspective.

 Snowdon is the highest mountain in Wales, it's summit is 1085 metres above sea level. The views are amazing and there are many paths to the summit, as well as the Snowdon Mountain railway, opened in 1896 which carries passengers the 7.6 km to the top and to our dismay closed  during the off season. So we began to hoof it to the top. On the way up, in true B's fashion we got waylaid at a cute little tea room. This meant unfortunately we didn't make it to the top before the weather closed in, another trip to Wales will need to be made.
Oh....did we mention this was a licensed tea-room, makes more sense now doesn't it.

This tiny red house is the smallest house in Britain. It has one room upstairs and one down. It measures 3 metres high and 1.8 metres wide and is officially the smallest house in the country. It is in the Guinness Book of Records and was once owned by a 6 ft fisherman named Robert Jones. The rooms were too small for him to stand up in and he was eventually forced to move out in 1900 when the council declared the house unfit for human habitation.
Talk about ducking through doors, uncomfortable.


We had a great time on our trip and Wales is definitely one of our favourite places to visit.

Until next time, B1 and B2.

An Aniversary

 So, it's cold in England, very cold, we think winter may have arrived. The beautiful colours on the trees have gone, the branches from each tree are now frostbitten every  morning. It's still beautiful but in a different way. I still say the best part of the UK is four amazing seasons.
But recently as most of you would know we had our first wedding anniversary. We decided it was time to get out of England. So considering one of the Bs is Passport-less we went to the closest independent country that doesn't require a passport. The 'Isle of Man' a country in its own right and has been for thousands years.

The Island has been inhabited since before 6500BC. The picture here is of Tynwald Hill. Tynwald is the island's parliament, it is an ancient institution. It's believed to have been founded 979AD, and who are we to argue. It is thought to be the oldest continuous parliament in the world. A ceremonial meeting is held on 'Tynwald Day' the Islands national day in July each year at this hill. 

We imagine it would be an amazing sight.

Because we visited the island in November, clearly not high tourist season most of the sights were closed  or closing for the off season. A blessing in disguise we think, with so much to see, if they had been open we wouldn't have relaxed as much as we needed to. The Laxey Wheel, shown here is the largest working Watermill in the world. It was built in 1854 to pump water from the mine shafts and was named Lady Isabella. 
This is one of many Victorian Inventions on the Isle of Man.

To say it was cold would be a massive understatement, massive.
The wind did not stop blowing, we were rugged up with scarf's, hats, jackets the works. But it didn't stop us from getting out in the parks and gardens and enjoying the unique island environment.
One thing that was amazing was all the old Viking burial sites and the myths and legends tied in to all parts of the island.

There are many ruins on the island. Castles, Abbeys, schools the lot and many of them have museums attached to help us understand the complex history.
It really was a great trip. This is a picture of Peel Castle and beach. The castle itself is on a separate island, It was important as a canter for Christianity, this was to survive the arrival of the 'pagan' Norse Vikings at the end of the 8th century. Ironically by the 11th century it became the ruling seat of the Norse Kingdom of Man and the Isles.

Of course it wasn't all sight-seeing and history, we had some pretty big celebrating to do. We ate out at the islands fanciest restaurants, drank some yummy champagne and generally enjoyed ourselves to the up-most.

Mmmm..Champagne..

Before all that celebrating and holiday, we were lucky enough to get invited to an authentic British Bonfire night. The tradition of Bonfire Night started when Guy Fawkes and 12 conspirators  hatched a plan to blow up the Houses of parliament. They were caught, tortured and executed. On that same night November 5th, 1605 bonfires were set alight to celebrate the safety of the King. Since then November 5th has become known as Bonfire Night. This particular bonfire night was to help celebrate the birthdays of two of our fantastic friends.

We can call them 'Miss M' and 'Lady C'. It was a great day, starting with a Robin Hood party in the day. With real bows and arrows.
Both B's were in their element, one with the camera and the other with the kids games.
Can you guess which one?
We then filled our tummy's with a great collection of foods, mulled wine and exciting treats.
We are lucky kids to have such good mates.

So with all this excitement starting to get us in the festive spirit we're looking forward to a White Christmas, fingers crossed.

We've started decorating, we had a Christmas Market at the Pub, and carol singing..........

But that's a story for another time!

Until then... B1 and B2

A glance back at the last few months

 One thing about the UK that you just have to love.
Its something that both us B's don't really get the full effect of in our home countries. That is a full four seasons each and every year, OK so summer might be brief and somewhat disappointing but it's there. Our favourite, mostly because its non-existent at home, is Autumn, and we've seen it like no where else in the Lakes. The colours on the trees are vibrant and varied, the sound of all the crumpled leaves under foot as you run and jump and kick them around is exactly as you would imagine. The only problem we have is that it all happens very quickly, blink and you'd miss it, we're running around camera in hand trying to capture all the changes in our landscape. It's great fun, even if it is getting a bit chilly.

 We were lucky enough to have Mum and Dad visit recently, over B2's birthday. We had a great time showing off all our favourite spots in the Lakes and even discovering a few new ones.
We stayed in one of the Cottages at the Masons Arms, it was entertaining, we had wind storms, blackouts and late night visits from 'happy' members of staff. Yes J we mean you!
We visited Beatrix Potters house, Cartmel Priory, which was amazing, lots of little villages and of course our favourite, Sizerge Castle.

We had a few days earlier this month to take a little road trip. We headed to Carlisle for a couple of days. We stopped on the way at Keswick to look at the stone circle and visit the Pencil Museum, yes pencil. More interesting than it sounds.
We visited the 900 year old Carlisle Castle. Carlisle has always been a fortress and was still occupied by soldiers until 1959. The history of the castle is amazing and really deserves more space than we're able to give it. Mary Queen of Scots was a prisoner in the Castle from May 1567. There are fantastic stone carvings on the castle walls done possibly by prisoners, bored soldiers or a resident priest, 1480's style Graffiti.

While in the north we also visited Hadrian's Wall and Housesteads Roman Fort. Hadrian's Wall is the most important monument built by the Romans in Britain. Its purpose was to separate the Romans and the Barbarians (which is what the Romans called people beyond their boundaries) It took over a decade to build and was the North West Frontier of the Roman empire for nearly 300 years. The Wall was not like a medieval town wall, built to protect a community, its was more like the Berlin Wall. It ran 73 miles across the country and was used as a demarcation line. Lines like this still exist, The Armistice Line between North and South Korea, The Blue Line between Lebanon and Israel and of course the Peace Walls separating Catholic and Protestant Neighbourhoods in many Irish cities.
Most of Hadrian's Wall is no longer visible, but along its length are many visible Roman sites. We're looking forward to walking the 80 Roman Miles along the wall when the weather starts to improve.

 We recently moved house, from the small village in the middle of nowhere, to this little cottage in the furthest reaches of nowhere. If you discount the fact that in reality we live in a car park, and just focus on the romance, we are surrounded by fields and woodland, with cows and sheep as our closest neighbours. It's very quiet and peaceful, with lots of new walking tracks to explore. We have a nice pub in walking distance (other than the obvious one), what's not to like.

 And with views like this to wake up to every morning, we think we've lucked out. We can't wait to watch the colours change from greens, to yellows and reds, then brown and eventually white. Yes we are expecting snow!

On one of our days out Geo-caching with Friend we came across Holker Hall. Another stately home now open to the public, there are so many of them around decorating the countryside. This particular house we spent time eating lunch and walking the park, we didn't go into the house (have to leave some things for another time). We found herds of deer, hundreds of them.
After admiring them for half an hour or so, we quickly realised, its game season and at only a few minutes from home these beautiful animals will probably be visiting a plate near us very soon!


And I'll leave you with that, until next time, B1 and B2.


Check this out!
http://uk.movember.com/mospace/1904548/

A Traditional Week

 Previously on one of our day trips we visited Coniston and the Ruskin Museum. Named after the 19th century art critic and social reformer. On a more recent day out we decided to visit Brantwood, Ruskins home on the shore of Coniston Water. On arrival at the house we were treated to a 20 minute video about John Ruskin, his philosophies and life. A lot more interesting than we were expecting.
He was it seems one of the most important people of the 19th century.

As well as being one of the most acclaimed art critics of his time, Ruskin was passionate about the plight of the poorer classes of Victorian England. He travelled the country lecturing  and spent his days writing letters to prominent industrialists and politicians. He recommended that the state should underwrite standards of service and production, with government training schools to promote education and health. Ideas such as minimum fixed wages, pensions for the elderly and destitute and government health care have since been incorporated into our everyday life, although not until long after Ruskins death
OK enough of the history lesson, we spent our day at Brantwood .wandering the house and gardens. Ruskin designed the house to take advantage of the beautiful lake views. His study, dining room and bedroom looked out to the lake at every possible angle.

 The gardens are also designed to use all the land had to offer to its full potential. There was an ice cave, in which ice was kept and distributed to the entire community.
The creek through the garden was dammed into a series of ponds to irrigate the land. Very clever and made a good mirror.
There were walking tracks, sculptures and different gardens all over the estate and we had a great time discovering them all.
If you would like to further study the life of John Ruskin, there is some interesting and less biased information to be found on Wikipedia. We thought some slightly inappropriate for publishing in a family friendly blog.

 This is the amazing view from the dining room and bedroom of Brantwood.

 This is Brantwoods  personal jetty, where the Gondola and ferry services dock. There was also a small man made harbour, built by Ruskin himself.
A man of many talents.

 One late night after our evening meal, B2 found a new house mate curling up in our garden. We named him Henry and tried to make friends. Not the most sociable of friends, we found out that when he wants to run he can run really fast.

We were also lucky enough to have a day off recently that coincided with the annual county show. Luckily our friends J and H also had the day off so it was a great group outing.
The Westmorland County Show has been held every year for the past 212 years. It was a very wet, windy and definitely muddy day. Our borrowed Wellingtons were definitely a necessity.
We watched the cows, pigs and sheep being judged and then sampled to losers in the food tent. Ha ha ha.
There was every type of tractor imaginable, quad bikes, hunting lectures and sheep dog demonstrations. We even watched a comedy sheep show and eventually found the beer tent. YAY.

All in all a great day out and a fun couple of weeks.
Hopefully the next few will be just as eventful.



This horse really knows how to jump, and it wasn't even the winner.






Until next time, B1 and B2

 When we first moved to the Lake District we went for a long walk in the hills behind our house. Long, mostly because we got lost, yes again. You may remember reading about it. During that long walk we found some curious tracks in the hills, curious at the time because it was dry, and they were deep? Recently we realised exactly what the were when we went Quad-biking with some friends from work. They were mini 4WD tracks!
 It was great fun, adrenaline pumping and very muddy.

 The following weekend we decided a bit of indoor excitement was in order, mostly due to the crazy English summer weather. eg. it was raining once again.
We visited our local bobbin mill. We say local because this once was a thriving industry in the Lakes and there were about 65,  in the district. This was due to the fast moving streams and abundance of coppice woods, as well as the demand from the Lancashire Cotton Mills. At Stott Park as well as at most of the other mills logs were placed on a peeling horse and the bark was hand peeled by children from the work houses, orphans mostly, peeling 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. The children were given no pay or education, only a roof over their heads and two meals a day. At the age of 12 the boys were 'allowed' to begin a five year apprenticeship. The mill was abandoned in 1971 when plastic bobbins became the norm. Until this time the mill functioned as it had for the previous 150 years. The only change being from water to steam power, and that is exactly how we saw it, working on steam. We could go on for pages, but lucky for you we won't.

 We also decided to visit Hill Top, Beatrix Potters former home. She left it to the National Trust with strict instructions as to how all her belonging were to be displayed. Its amazing, and seems as though the writer has just stepped out for a quick walk, you can see all the influences to her books throughout the house and village, including the Village Pub, The Tower Bank Arms. The pub featured as the small Inn in the Tale of Jemima Puddleduck.
The house was filled with not only Beatrix art, but also that of her brother Bertram, also an accomplished painter. Its disappointing we weren't able to take any photos inside we would have loved to show you all.                                                                                                                            

Having to drop our car in recently for its MOT, we decided to make a day of it. One of our flat mates came along for a day of Geo-caching. We ended up walking about 10 miles, yes we got lost again. We had lunch at an amazing little pub, goes to show you should never judge a book by its cover. Found 5 geo-caches, bringing us up to just under 100. Yes we know its geeky. In the pub the locals told us about the fairy stairs, a natural rock formation in the woodland nearby. Legend has it that if you can make it to the top with out touching the sides, you will see a fairy, we all failed. Oh yeah, and we saw deer!

Coming home during one of our split shifts, we and our before mentioned flat mate, decided to stop off and walk up Gummers How, its the best view of the lake around. Mainly so we could get an ice-cream on the way back down.
B2 decided to go geo-hunting and came back with this snake instead, scary.
B1 got charged by a hairy, giant cow, also scary.
The many wild life experiences we have had are amazing. But the ice-cream lady was no where to be seen when we arrived back at the bottom, which was very, very disappointing.

Until next time, B1 and B2.