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Thursday, 6 September 2012

Kayla & Vanessa's Visit: Days 10 - 13

10. 
On Monday morning, we headed out to Burntisland, a small town in southern Fife, to watch their Highland games. 

These guys went so fast, even on grass!
:)
Throwing the weight.
We were behind the "safety" net, which wasn't all that comforting.
Plus, it made taking pictures more difficult.
The Highland dancers
The Hammer Toss
The Pipe Band
People were just about to start a race when the band walked onto the field.
It put a halt to events on the track for a while.
The Caber Toss
The point is to have the log go end over end and land in a perfect 12 o'clock position
from where the person who tossed it is standing.
11.
On Tuesday, we decided to go shopping in Dundee.
However, after a brief stroll through the mall, we found we didn't actually feel like going clothes shopping.
So we went to Groucho's. :)
This is probably my favourite place in Dundee.
It has rows and rows of used CDs, old vinyl records, DVDs, and more.
We bought some Muse, Radiohead, Simon & Garfunkel, and Disney!


12.
We had planned to go to Glamis Castle on Wednesday.
So, bright and early we put on our shoes and coats and put up our umbrellas to brave the walk down to the bus stop in the village in the pouring rain.
Let me emphasize the pouringness of this rain.
The heavens opened and the rain came down.
It came down fiercely, like a child throwing a tantrum.
Every now and then the wind would howl, swishing the rain about us, making our umbrellas ineffectual.
By the time we reached the stop, we were soaked.
Our shoes squelched.
Our coats had barely stopped the sideways rain.
Every single layer of clothing we had on was wet.

SO, we trudged back up the hill, not bothering with umbrellas this time.
We quickly dried ourselves, changed, put on the kettle and built a fire.
We didn't budge for the rest of the afternoon.
It was lovely :)



Meanwhile, the fox was on the prowl.
We were happily submerged into our books and tea and/or hot chocolate.
The dogs were sleeping blissfully in the nice dry kitchen, giving me blank stares from their beds when I urged them to go outside for a minute "just in case."
So, no one noticed when the fox climbed over the six foot wire fence 
and killed all ten of the poor chickens.
He must have made several trips back and forth over that fence, because he took most of them away.
There was barely trace.
No signs of digging, no open gates.
Only a few feathers in the wire of the just slightly crumpled fence.
Dun dun dun DUH.
Mr. Fox, I hope you enjoyed those chickens. 
They were your last from Holly Cottage!
(The fence now has electric wire to protect the new chickens.)

13.
Thursday was Kayla and Vanessa's last full day in Scotland.
We headed to St. Andrews for some afternoon tea and to look for nice wool blankets.

Afternoon Tea at the Golf Course Hotel on the Scores.

Hehe :)

The lovely view from the Hotel window.
It was wonderful to have you here, Kayla and Vanessa! 
I'm so glad that we could explore some of the UK together and that you will know what I'm talking about when I get home again.
Miss you!

Friday, 31 August 2012

Kayla & Vanessa's Visit: Days 7-9

7.

Friday morning, we rushed out of the hostel and purchased a tube pass for the day.
We only had so many hours to see all the famous London sights!
Could we do it?
Well, that remained to be seen... 

Outside our hostel.
It was a really really nice hostel.
The only downside was that it was so far away from the city center.
First stop, Baker Street.
Yes folks, that is 221B!
The lovely Regent's Park.
Canada geese! 

Kayla's awesome heel-clicking-in-mid-air.

I've never seen so many herons in one place before.
There were about ten, just sitting in the grass, people-watching.
Ducklings!
They were so cute and fluffy!
Mr. Sherlock Holmes himself, outside the Baker Street Tube station.
The Marble Arch
Horse-back riding in Hyde Park.
All of a sudden, these gentlemen came through the Wellington Arch
while we were resting our feet for a moment.
It just so happened that when we went by Buckingham Palace,
the guard was changing.
We had to elbow our way through the crowds to see anything.
Buck Palace.
The iconic London Eye.
The even more iconic Big Ben -
with Kayla and Vanessa in front of it, making a cool picture simply awesome.
A statue of Mr. Winston Churchill
And Mr. Oliver Cromwell outside the Parliament buildings.
Westminster Abbey

The Tower Bridge, as seen from London Bridge.
The Tower of London.
Somehow, I thought it would be more... towery and tall.
After London Bridge, we had to book it back to our hostel, pick up our luggage, and race to the train station to head to Edinburgh.
We made the train. Just.

See? The impressive Edinburgh Castle from our hostel window.
That ugly stadium thing in front of it is where they have the Military Tattoo.
It's "temporary," believe it or not.
Now that the Tattoo is over, they can start taking it down so that they can start putting it up again for next year.
8.

The Writers' Museum
Exhibits for Burns, Stevenson, and Scott.
There were things like letters and original notes for manuscripts.
They even had yucky things like locks of hair :s 
Vanessa on a tour bus.
Typical Georgian style buildings that make up "new" Edinburgh.

Behind this rather unassuming shopfront...
...is this.
It made me SO HAPPY.
St. Giles High Kirk
(again)
Clarinda's Tearoom
It's very cute inside with lace table clothes and oodles of china plates on the walls.
Palace of the Holyrood
Arthur's Seat, overlooking the city.

On guard!
I LOVE Kayla's boots.
Courtyard in Holyrood
Ruins of Holyrood Abbey

Scottish Parliament Buildings
Somehow, it seems rather out of place with all the old buildings around it.
Us on a bus tour.
Jekyll & Hyde cafe!
We stayed in the Avengers room at Castle Rock Hostel.
These were our beds:

Me
Vanessa
Kayla
9.

Sunday morning, we went to St. Columba's Free Church of Scotland just down the street from the Castle Rock Hostel.
Vanessa wasn't feeling well, so she went back to the hostel and Kayla and I went back to Clarinda's for lunch.


Princes Street gardens
Kayla and I spent some time in the Scottish National Gallery after lunch.
There were some pretty impressive paintings there!
We spent quite a lot of time in the Italian/Renaissance section.
Goodbye, Castle Rock!
On our way back to Balmullo.