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(Pictures still to come)

Following Dunblane, we went to Oban on the West coast of the Scottish highlands.  The place we stayed at was in Benderloch, a quaint B&B which the three of us sandwiched ourselves into.  Some of these places go a bit overboard on the ornaments (no room for your stuff!) but the hosts were lovely.  We have definitely declared ourselves as fans of the self-catering option, however if this isn’t an option (or doesn’t have wi-fi) a B&B is ok.

This one was actually rather nice with hairy coos in the paddock and a black Labrador called Dileas (pronounced Jillis, Gaelic for faithful). Sasha, being the animal lover she is, spent hours playing with the dog.  Oban was a great spot, we really enjoyed it there.

Did a bit of work, watched some of the Olympics and got out and about to avoid getting stir crazy in our wee room.

One thing that has been annoying though on our trip, is that some places don’t welcome children under 12!  We were all set to have some seafood at a restaurant on the harbour, but they had a little sign that said children under 12 welcome for lunch only. Rude!  We thought of saying Sash was small for her age, but then decided they shouldn’t get our custom anyway.

The last evening we went to a brilliant little restaurant called the Juicy Roast Café in Oban.  Fabulous, Sash is still raving about the potato croquettes.  And the roast was very nice too (and the Spanish red wine, aaahh…)

The beach wasn’t far so plenty of walks were had.  Still very weird trampling over stones on the beach - crunch, crunch!

We visited Glencoe and have to agree with Mel Gibson….Awesome!!  Beautiful spot.  We stopped on the way back for a coffee at a place that does indoor rock climbing and even has a section that is like a giant freezer for climbing a glacier.

On the way back to the car, we suffered our first migee attack – what a funny sight the three of us slapping ourselves as we ran and quickly tried jumping back into the car, trying to avoid them following!  We still can’t believe that such tiny wee blighters could bite with such ferocity.

We headed back towards Dundee (to drop the rental car back – story to follow!), see Beryl and Keith again (stay at Beryl’s B&B, we dubbed it – thanks a lot Beryl, nice views, great hospitality and super fast wi-fi).

A highlight for Lois was visiting Anstruther again, this time on a sunny day.  We all took a walk along the Billiness and Lois revisited her childhood (Anstruther is where her parents lived and her mum and Beryl grew up) where she sometimes visited for holidays.  Beautiful little fishing village. Had fish ‘n chips and white pudding at the “Wee Chippie” and then Lois made a declaration (borrowed from her mum’s repetoire)  - “I’m making a pledge…no more fatty, greasy foods!”

Lois and Sasha had a pretend kip and a wash of face in Granny’s Basin, a rock that was split and looked like a bed and a basin with water in it. (Many hours were spent here, clambering over the rocks by Val and Beryl in their youth).  We all had a good go climbing over the rocks too.

Finally it was time to drop the car back.  Up until this time the car had given us a bit of grief, but hadn’t actually broken down on us completely.  Well, we think somehow we were looked after, but our time was clearly running out. Having had the car for 6 weeks, on the last day, it starts stalling every time we stop – at traffic lights, roundabouts etc.  It stalled outside the car rental place at the lights, we turned the corner and it conked out where we stopped!  Not a moment too soon, we all thought.  We were lucky to get the upgrade to the big car (as we wouldn’t have fitted everything in a small vehicle, but gee… it handled like a bus and behaved like a petulant child.  Sorry SSangYong Kyron, you don’t get our vote.

Amazingly enough, we are all getting along very well and only occasionally get short tempered with each other, mainly when our lodgings resemble a shoe box.  We are all natural introverts so a little bit of space is a nice thing, when we can get it.

Sash is doing well with her schoolwork, is writing lots of her own stories and loves her computer.   Often her wireless connection works better than the other two – much to her glee!

As for her parents, much more swotting on the foreign languages is required!  (We all had a laugh at the B&B as there was a Spanish couple there who didn’t speak any English and we didn’t speak any Spanish.  It was a hoot trying to communicate at breakfast with our little phrasebook which is geared towards finding the station and the toilets!)

So with fondness, we farewell Bonnie Scotland.  She treated us well (despite the rainy weather) and we felt connected back to our original homeland. It was nice for Sasha to see where we were born too.  Fabulous memories created.

Time to head south to lend some support to the Emirates Western Force boys (www.rugbywa.com.au) who were playing the Newcastle Falcons in Newcastle.

We arrived at the hotel and had dinner with the boys and staff.  The next day we saw Hadrian’s Wall (a highlight for Sasha – seeing horses and foals galloping around vast paddocks, which left her pining).  Got some photos for a horse web site we are helping Sasha to build as a project.  Visited the Newcastle town centre …lots of shops!

We went along to the game and cheered on the Force, who won 25-15 against the Falcons.  Sasha enjoyed meeting some of the players.  She later asked me what one of the sizeable props wants to be “when he grows up” - hilarious!

We arrived at our next week long stint at self-catering accommodation in Dunblane, near Stirling in Scotland.   Lovely spot, on the racing river.

View from the apartment window :

There’s a lovely group of ducks and one fluffy duckling.  Sasha has adopted them and we are now calling her “duck girl”. She shoos away the rooks and the ducks follow her everywhere and let her get close.

Good spot to do some work here. We have wireless broadband here, so can all connect simultaneously.  Sasha has been doing maths with Mum.  Ed and Lois have also been doing a bit of ‘schoolwork’.  We have all been assigned languages:

Lois – French and Japanese
Ed – Spanish and Portuguese
Sasha – Italian

As you can imagine, it is a bit of a crash course, but we are having fun testing each other and doing round robins: “Bonjour, Bonjourno….”   (Well, at least we will be able to say hello…)

We haven’t stayed in many boutique hotels yet, but some things remind us of Fawlty Towers, in fact the BBC show often rates a frequent mention on TripAdvisor.com (we use Trip Advisor to help choose accommodation sometimes, or to check if we have chosen something really dodgy.) We watched the episode where Basil says “Manuel! - you have too much butter on those trays.” And Manuel says “no, no, no, it’s….uno, dos, tres.”  Sash thinks this is just hilarious and we now hear her say it a dozen times a day!

Speaking of TV, most of it is rubbish (we couldn’t believe that the UK power grid needs to buy additional electricity because everyone switches on their kettles all at the same time of night, when EastEnders finishes!).  And the Olympic coverage is all about Great Britain – funny that.

But we do love Dragons Den, where people have to pitch their businesses to venture capitalists. Cool!  Ed’s fave Top Gear is a must watch, Long Way Round and Beryl put us onto Francesco’s Venice and Mediterranean voyage. (Mum…you will just adore him. ?  )

Whilst in Dunblane, near Stirling, we visited the Falkirk Wheel – incredible engineering feat (clever Scots   ? ) – it’s the only rotating boat lift in the world.  The tour guide and driver, Fiona was just great.  We have been blessed with some excellent commentators /guides – obviously passionate about what they are demonstrating, great sense of humour and love the “patter” and interacting with the people.

Stirling Castle was another highlight, the guide there would yell “Bam, Bam, Bam!” at the top of his voice, when telling the history of the castle and the assault by attacking cannons.   We all got to have a go too…and scared a few people around us in the process.

Lois went off to meet Susie who runs the Performance Lifestyle program at the Scottish Institute of Sport in Stirling, while Ed and Sasha had lunch at the William Wallace Hotel.   Afterwards, Sash checked out the running track at the Institute.

“What’s the soup of the day?” has become a favourite catch cry.  When we are oot ‘n aboot, the best thing to have is soup. Cheap, tasty (usually), hearty and low cal (except the creamy ones).   It has now become a game to see who can guess what the soup of the day is.   Lentil and scotch broth are firm favourites!

Edinburgh – Family, Friends and the Fringe

Back to Edinburgh, to meet up with Lois’ Aunt & Uncle (Barbara and Peter) and cousin

Jim and his daughter Emily. Had a great Chinese Banquet at Jimmy Chung’s next to the station and coffee in town. It was lovely to catch up and for Sasha and Emily to meet for the first time, holding hands as they walked along the busy Edinburgh streets.

We also had a lovely dinner out with Phillip, Lois’s cousin on her mum’s side.

At the Fringe, there was something for all. We walked along the Royal Mile and saw lots of strange sights…with actors, dancers, street performers all enticing passersby to go to their shows.

Sasha and I did a Bollywood dance workshop and had a great time. Ed’s pick was Two Drummers Drumming and was a fun show. He was given a badge with “Proud to be a Drummer” – and of course, bought the requisite T-shirt. Out in the lobby of the Bongo Club we bumped into Vali from Perth, a dance instructor. In town, we also saw a few of the rugby boys from the Western Force who were up for the day in Edinburgh.

One of the highlights this time in Edinburgh was the B&B we stayed out. Craigevar had fast wifi which was welcome, and a gorgeous little garden complete with fairies and goblins. Sasha loved playing in there, rain or shine (and we had a bit of both)

Addendum to Oops in Ullapool

We climbed up Ullapool Hill together which was terrific – great views from the top and the climb got our hearts pumping.

On our last few days Lois climbed it a few more times from the village and Ed took the path up from the village and met some of the local midgee population on the way!

We took the “wee mad road” to Lochinver, which turned out to be just as described in the Best of Scotland book. And the wee mad road in a big 4×4 was something else. It was narrow, winding and undulating. Note to selves: do not serve child baked beans on toast prior to such trip ? (enough said!).

Oops in Ullapool

Well, firstly, we had no accommodation secured. And it’s peak holiday season here.  But we ended up landing a brilliant little self-catering place on the top of Ullapool hill.  It was not “on the market” – really cheap (well, for Ullapool, at peak season!) and has the most amazing views of Loch Broom, lovely garden and Sash has her own ensuite.  And it is a great walk down to Ullapool (and a bit of a struggle uphill on the way back!)

We headed to Tesco’s for our shopping on Sunday.  Having filled up the trolley with healthy offerings (and some evil macaroni pies…mmmmm) Ed was busily checking out the beers and Lois was sussing out the labels on the wine bottles in one of the aisles.  That’s something that we are not used to here – alcohol for sale in a supermarket.  However…we were spotted by the store manager and told that you couldn’t buy alcohol on Sunday until after 12.30pm. “It’s Scottish law” he declared (“bl…dy Aussies”, he surely thought).  Lois replied, “but we weren’t planning to drink it ‘til after then!”  Slightly red faced we returned the produce to the shelves, seeing as it was only 10am.  Oops.

We went to the Falls of Shin www.fallsofshin.co.uk and checked out the touristy gift shop and café there owned by Al Fayed (of Harrods and Dodi Fayed’s dad fame).  There was a Madame Tussaud’s wax model of him resplendent in his kilt with his hound at his side.  Weird (and so modest, don’t you think?)  Sasha couldn’t believe it – this is her first sight of Madame Tussaud’s handiwork (well, her workers’ handiwork) and she kept saying “wow…it’s so real looking!”.  (Can’t wait to take her to the wax museum in London.)

We had our flask of coffee at the bbq area listening to the bagpipes version of “Local Hero” blaring out of the speakers.  Funnily enough, wherever we go lately each of us at different times thinks we are hearing bagpipes…even when there aren’t any at all (first sign of Scottish madness??)

We took a walk down to the salmon leap and hooray – the salmon were leaping.  Amazing! Gee, what some creatures will do for procreation!

The next day (yes, we did return later that evening to Tescos for the Czech beer and Australian SSB…nice) we went for a drive south to Gairloch.  Just lovely and the girls clambered on the rocks en route at Altbea and dangled their tootsies in the lovely cool water.

However, our hire car didn’t like all the ups and downs of the Highlands – the auto transmission kept getting stuck in 3rd gear.  Not fun, with all those hills to accelerate up and cars to overtake.  So the trip back was a long one.  Did stop and see some funny sheep though (they were running free all over the place, including the roadside), and Sasha enjoyed running around in this beautiful place we stopped at to let the car cool down.

Laptop Nomad Haven Found

We found a brilliant place to hang out for a wee while in Ullapool  – The Ceilidh Place.  Just perfect for us, it has great lattes (we are pushing it to get a “skinny flat white” in these parts), free wi-fi for an hour (hooray!) and a great bookshop – small but fantastic selection.  Oh, and it’s also a pub and eatery.  Great atmosphere and they make the best carrot cake ever. Here’s a pic of Sasha with Mum, having a maths lesson.  Bit o’work, Bit o’ play…..