Friday: Cardinal Fang ... the comfy chair!

Slightly warmer overnight, only down as low as 2 degrees and the wind was blowing onto the side of the van without a vent, so no draft. What a huge difference those 2 degrees make!

Forecast for today is mixed but our handy Orkney walks book has a nice 6.5 mile walk from the campsite to the top of a local hill, with an optional extension to take in a Neolithic cairn. Who could resist!

It was still bitingly cold in the wind so layers were called for: base layer, T-shirt, lightweight fleece jumper, heavyweight fleece gillet and raincoat accompanied by hat, gloves and neck buff. It's just 2 days from May, for goodness sake.

Now this walk is not a round trip but an up and back, and the up bit is UP, it starts with a gentle uphill section and doesn't have a level or downhill section until the summit is reached, some 3 miles, 1000' climb later.

A hard slog. Taking a wrong path and climbing 150' in just under half a mile, then having to backtrack, find the correct path and reclimb didn't do a lot for muscles or morale either! Still we flushed a Mountain Hare (and a second one on the way back down),  and that may just have been a short-eared owl. We also passed two sheep with lambs that could only have been born this morning, one still with placenta attached. We had to hurry past as we were a source of distress but used binoculars to watch from a safe distance as the lambs tried to struggle to their feet whilst mother was fussing over them and cleaning them. Fascinating!

Onwards and upwards. Just shy of the summit the road forked, an easy metalled road to the top and a hillside footpath round to the cairn. Believing the cairn to be just around the corner, we opted for the footpath which was very obviously the road less traveled.

Today's blog title? There has been some mention of "comfort zone" a few days ago. Well, today's walk took Liz so far out of her comfort zone that even if Torquemada himself has been putting the question to her it would have been barely less discomforting. Already fairly weary after a long slog we soon discovered the path, whilst clearly visible had deteriorated into an unstable peaty scrabble from tussock to tussock. Liz hates uneven downhill stretches and has a permanent fear of tumble or twisted ankle. The path continued to deteriorate and no sign of cairn as we slowed to a place Liz judged to be safe (which to be honest was only marginally slower than the pace I would have been comfortable with). After getting on for a mile we spotted a market post but no that wasn't the cairn, however it was just visible just another treacherous 200m ahead

To be fair, what a reward. A 5000 year old Neolithic cairn with a ladder to lower yourself inside and a torch provided. Just us two solitary figures on a lonely landscape and a 5000 year old cairn. Real Howard Carter stuff!

Backtracking uphill was much easier and safer than the descent and we made the marker post in minutes. Here the path forked with an alternate route down. It looked worse than the path we'd just been on but Liz assured me it was her preferred choice. Good choice! After just 50m or so it improved and after about half a mile it turned into a nice, even track leading gently off the hill, down to a main road and 2m walk back into Kirkwall.

Walking along a busy road is weird here, drivers don't just pull out to avoid you, they will slow right down if there is any oncoming traffic and then pull right over to the other carriageway as they pass you. One car pulled so far over I thought he might lose his wheels in the verge opposite. If the walkers, like us, have stopped and got as close to the verge as possible, or stepped into it when sensible then these extravagant manoeuvres are generally accompanied by a cheery "Thank You" wave also.

That's about it for today. It was a strenuous walk, just under 9 miles but with 1053' feet of climb and some pretty uneasy terrain. A doddle for proper walkers but a stretch for us, particularly Liz who ticked off the 25000 step mark on her wrist pedometer (OK, so we had to walk 100m out of the campsite and back tonight, just to complete the job).

Over the seas

Orkney today!

And a nice looking day too. Bright blue skies as we look up from our beds through the roof light. Bright blue skies that is, made out of focus by the ice that has formed on the roof light overnight. I thought it seemed cold.

To start the day, a minor drama; I'm always paranoid about dropping the screw cap off the loo emptying tube down the chemical disposal point, so take great care, as I did this morning. What I didn't take such great care of was the screw cap off the bottle of loo fluid. Trying to tighten it back in the bottle it slipped from my grasp, bounced once and plopped in the recently cleaned and recharged loo holding tank. Now access is via a hole too small to insert a hand and just too deep to reach with pliers. Anyway the cap had unobligingly dropped rim downwards making plier grasping all that much more difficult. What was needed was a couple of long sticks to chopstick the cap and with delicate, surgeon like precision lift it out. Where are all the junior doctors when you need one? Eventually a combination of plastic serving spoon and handle end of a fish slice captured the recalcitrant little beggar. All the time during the operation great care had to be taken to ensure the uncapped loo fluid bottle remained upright, a spill would do the campsite's neat grass no good at all.

Every day a different challenge!

Before we head off to the ferry terminal a couple of local sites. Firstly Dunnet Head, the most northerly point on the UK mainland. A 3 mile walk or about 6 by road; time being pressing we took the second option. So we've seen the most northerly UK lighthouse (Muckle Flugga) and now the one at Dunnet Head, its mainland equivalent. Very peaceful standing watching the seabirds and we were rewarded with a sighting of a hen harrier on the drive back.

The only problem was, in our concentration on finding the Dunnet Head turning we drove straight past the Rose Rock gin distillery. After driving some way to John O'Groats we realised our error so decided to swap the visit with a visit to the Queen Mum's Castle Of Mey. Well would have done but discovered the Castle Of Mey doesn't open until May!

Back then to the distillery, a tasting of two rather nice gins and a very distinctive vodka (lest anyone should be worried about drink driving, I hasten to add these were mere sips). The favourite of the two gins duly purchased (the stronger Naval Strength) we set off again.

An aside, despite the van now holding  6 bottles of single malt, whilst we enjoy whisky we rarely drink it. A bottle generally lasts several months so our horde will last six times several months. Gin is about the only spirit I regularly drink with a G&T often/generally partaken as a pre-Sunday-dinner aperitif. This Naval Strength will be the "special occasions" gin.

Sadly the meanderings meant no time to visit the intriguing  Commonwealth War graves for Scapa Flow with huge marble or granite memorials sticking up like giant dolly pegs. Another time perhaps.

Nearly a plan B scenario. Despite dropping by the ferry office on the way past last night and apparently booking our crossing, there was no reference of it. I did hear the woman we spoke with remark to the next customer that she was having a bad day, apparently we became part of it. Fortunately the ferry wasn't full so our impromptu booking was accepted. The trip from Gills Bay (a couple of miles from JOG) to St Margaret's Hope is the shortest of the crossings, taking a mere 60 minutes. Scrabster to Stromness is two and a quarter hours and Aberdeen to Kirkwall is six hours with the return overnight journey even longer. The Gills Bay one is definitely easiest!

Despite the sunny blue sky the wind was still forceful (and cold) and the sea was described as "Moderate". A little chop for 10 minutes as we crossed the open water but once in the lee of the islands it was like a millpond for the rest of the journey. Liz and I spent the entire journey above deck watching the wildlife. I won the " spot the first puffin" prize sighting 2 on the wing. Great Northern Divers were a new species for me too.

An easy crossing and disembarkation and a gentle drive across the islands to Kirkwall where we are camped at the leisure centre campsite, our camping entitling us to a free swim in their nice looking pool. Now there's something to do on a rainy afternoon. Taking advantage of this rare break in the weather we just dumped the van and headed the 10 minute walk into town. All those ceramic poppies that adorned The Tower Of London are currently decorating one wall of St Magnus Cathedral.

  Nice to get a glimpse. Also nice to see a bar in town has live local Folk music on  a Thursday evening. Time to stop writing and get ready to go out again.

The end of the road

A quick explore of the site. Not much has changed since the 60 staff worked here in the eighties, still the open round metal conduit terminated in metal light switches, the short with a little spherical blob on the end of a tiny shaft. And it is warmer here, not so much wind but still very cold air temperatures.

Liz is cooking today. Another stew slow cooked in our insulated hay box style cooker, it will slowly cook whilst we travel. Ah, problem. It was so cold in the van overnight the olive oil has solidified! Each day a different challenge. Fortunately the meat has enough natural fat that we don't need to perform the metamorphosis back to liquid.

Onward, but first a local stop, the Clyneish distillery, it's on our doorstep so it would be rude to pass it by. As we pull into the car park a heavy flurry of snow breaks out and so we trudge to the distillery through the snow, wrapped in our topcoats, hats and gloves. Is there a more typical Scottish scene than that? If this were a Victorian novel we'd open the door to be welcomed by genial hosts, invited to warm ourselves by the roasting fire and be offered a revitalising dram. Well apart from the open fire bit, that's a pretty accurate scene. Guess what, yep - another bottle of malt, Clyneish 14 yr old is added to the van's collection.

Onward, this time as far as Wick, the weather abating enough to allow a quick tour of the town where Alexander Bain, inventor of the electric telegraph and electric clock hailed from. A blue plague and Wetherspoons pub commemorate him. We read the plague but gave the pub a miss choosing to move on to out of town shopping at the large Tescos.

People may know my dislike of supermarkets but today pragmatism overcame principles. We needed somewhere to eat cheaply, and somewhere to shelter from the showers. By showers I mean some of the heaviest, most brutal hail we've ever seen. It would have hurt being out in them. Tescos was warm and dry, had nice toilets (always a consideration when we are traveling in the van) and free internet.

Onwards, next stop John O'Groats. Now it's been a while since we have been to Lands End but my memory was of expensive parking and exploitation. I'm sure that these days it is far, far worse. JOG, by contrast, was totally the opposite. Free parking, little shops that sold useful stuff as well as the obligatory tourist tat. So much so that we bought our nephew's birthday present there. I mentioned the contrast to one of the shop keepers and she was very hopeful JOG would stay unexploited, let's hope so too.

Onwards, Dunnet Bay, the end of the line (the Traveling Wilbury's are running through my brain as I type). A nice campsite with a view across the bay to Dunnet Head, the most northerly point of the mainland. A nice walk tomorrow but given the weather we'll probably drive. And anyway we've a ferry to catch. Oh, and did I mention the gin distillery we past a mile back?

Tuesday - Dah-di-dah-dah

The wind is coming in from Greenland. That means, here on Speyside, it passes over the high Grampians (such as Ben Nevis) driving it upwards to become even colder and forcing it to deposit it's moisture as hail or snow. Going further north means a less uplifted airstream which should be slightly warmer and less precipitous.

North it is then!

Stop one is planned for Inverness, indeed the original agenda had us stopping a couple of nights there but our brief supermarket stop in the howling wind and driving sleet/hail suggests we are not far enough north yet.

I get ahead of myself, just before Inverness we pass the site of the battle of Culloden, so a quick diversion to the National Trust Of Scotland's museum. No, museum is the wrong word, it is an interpretation of the battle and by far the best of such we've ever seen. The background and prelude to the battle is shown via a twisting corridor, with Jacobite philosophy and activities in one wall and loyalist on the other. Just reading either wall gives one side's timeline and zig-zagging between the two gives a measure/counter-measure account of the run up to the final battle. There's also a huge horizontal interactive LCD display stepping through the key movements like some high-tech board war game.

The display culminates in a room with each of the 4 walls one huge video screen renacting the battle with you stood in the midst of the turmoil and carnage (it does have suitable content warnings on the doors). It's loud, gory, the life-size images are close up and it's just a little bit scary! Excellent.

Then there is the option of a tour of the battlefield (in this weather, you've got to be joking), a couple of curators explaining the weaponry and medicine of the day and another of those lovely large horizontal LCDs, this one running through the movements on the field during the battle. The curators were interesting. I saw a flintlock musket being dry fired (a flash in the pan) before getting to appreciate just how damn heavy they were.

They believe they have a fairly accurate picture of how the battle must have gone from extensive archeology a few years ago. From the clustering of flattened musket balls to indicate where lines came under fire to the clustering of buttons and buckles torn off in the hand-to-hand melees. Must have been an interesting piece of forensics.

On north then to the small town of Brora, famous for a distillery which closed in the 80s and recently reopened as Clyneish. The original whisky fetches very serious money these days. Brora ought be famous for the Y Station here but of course, a source of intercepts for Bletchley Park and then latterly GCHQ is never going to be a major highlight in the tourist books. The station closed in 1986 and was used by a local furniture mover as storage but when he retired a couple of years ago he was left with an interesting historic property without use, so has recently turned it into a campsite. When I say recently we are it's first visitors! So I'm sitting typing this inside the military barbed wire enclosure that once intercepted U-boat signals and sent them on to Bletchley. A pity the aerials aren't still up.

Now we've come further North the accents have softened and the people seemed much friendlier. Everyone we meet in our way out to the pub for dinner last night went out of their way to say "Hullo" and Ian the campsite owner brought us a small gift for being his first customers. A nice touch

Monday - a taste of Scotland

As a local poet once put it "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley. The idea behind choosing this campsite was a lovely walk along the bank of the Spey to the distillery at the far end of Aberlour, cross the river and back on the other side, taking in The Macallan distillery en route, after 6 or so weary miles we could then cross again to bide a wee while in the inn at Craigellachie before the final 2 mile stroll back to the campsite.

An early alarm was set to ensure arrival at the Aberlour Distillery in time for the 10am tour. Ah but this is Scotland, the weather is what determines the day, not the plans of us humble humans. Heavy rain, snow, and pounding hail helped decide an alternate plan, all this before we'd even got out of bed!

Plan B, drive the 5 miles to Dufftown to visit the Glenfiddich distillery and then back the other way to Glen Grant. Plan C, head towards Dufftown but get waylaid by the Speyside Cooperage. Yep, a working cooperage where they make, but mostly repair barrels. Got to be interesting, right? Dead right! This is very much a skilled manual task. Machines are few and have dedicated jobs but most of the work is done by hand: stripping the hoops off the defective barrel, selecting appropriate replacement staves, planing to fit, rehooping, re-liding and sealing. Did you know barrels are sealed with reed? Yep, they just dry reeds and stuff them around the lid edge to seal, amazing! It's a hive of activity and the large195l barrels are moved with consummate ease. The activity is enhanced by the fact that all the coopers are on piece work, getting paid per barrel. Those blokes work hard, bloody hard!

Before the floor show the cooperage has an interesting orientation video. It shows the processes involved in making barrels. Interesting enough but it was the first smellyvision video we'd seen. At various points during the film (e.g. the felling of the American white oak trees, or the charcoaling of the barrel interiors) appropriate odours would fill the tiny auditorium. And during the charring scenes an intense halogen heater above the screen would provide a sudden burst of heat. Nicely done!

No time now to visit Glenfiddich if we are to be back at Aberlour for the 2pm tour, so a quick drive past and then U-turn to the Glen Grant distillery. We enter alongside a Canadian couple and none of us have come for the tour, just a look at the distillery and shop. The assistant is a little unhelpful at first and then mellows and offers us a free tasting. So we get a brief history lecture and try two different expressions. I mention we will probably buy a different one so she offers a third tasting of this. I'm glad I'd done my homework because this third one was exactly what I had hoped and we did indeed purchase a bottle. Liz did well out of this because I only drank half of my tastings to make sure I stayed well within the Scottish driving limit (which is much less than in England and Wales). Still the goal was to taste with a view to buy, and even small tasting was enough

On now to Aberlour for the 2pm tour. It wouldn't possible be fully booked out of season. Oh yes it would! Rats, it seemed a good tour. Still we got a tasting of the expression I was interested in and did buy a bottle. I wasn't so worried as Aberlour whisky is commonplace and Waitrose stock the 10, 12 year old as well the the A 'bundah which is what we bought.

No tour meant an early afternoon with weather unsuitable for walking (blizzard conditions during part of the drive this morning). Still the Walker shortbread factory is literally just up the road at the other end of Aberlour.

Plan D, some a**hole in a huge motorhome has decided his behemoth vehicle is suitable to visit tourist attractions and to hell with taking up 50% of the car park (it didn't actually take up that much space but blocked access to that, much particularly for larger cars or small vans like ourselves). Inconsiderate prat!

Still there's another shortbread factory (Deans) a few miles away so why not take a scenic route and enjoy the journey. The sun was shining and the sky was blue. We'd got at least another 10 minutes before the next snow or hail blizzard (and it was spot on time!). Now I should have guessed that biscuit factories would sell seconds. We left armed with a couple of different types of shortbread, some cheese oatcakes, all a fraction of shop prices.

Where now? It's 4pm, we head back to the Walker shortbread factory where our haul is even more shortbread, oat and honey biscuits and oatcakes (again big bags of seconds)

So 3 bottles of single malt (the cooperage sell a 10 year old single malt but it is a closely guarded secret who distills it for them), and enough biscuits to last a good few weeks' dunkings, along with enough oatcakes to keep the next month or so's cheese purchases company.

A taste of Scotland indeed!

An aside - Weather

The van has a huge skylight. It is positioned so that lying abed you get a view of a decent chunk of the sky, ideal for weather watching or star gazing.

So as we listened to the rain hammering on the roof we drew back the skylight's blind to a 100% dark grey sky and heavy rain. Within 5 minutes the sky had darkened even further but the rain had stopped, only to be replaced by a light flurry of snow. A moment or two later this morphed into a heavy hailstorm with ice blodges coalescing on the skylight. When this seemed at its heaviest a tiny blue chink appeared in the vast greyness, the haul ceased as quickly as it started and slowly the blue patch widened it's presence across the sky, populating itself with light, fluffy, white clouds. Then the sun came out! Rays of warmth flooded the van for a few brief moments before, like some civil war battle,  the greys chased the blues off the field. A prelude to another sharp hail shower.

We're up and dressed now but this cycle of Scottish weather keeps repeating itself as we busy with breakfast.

Sunday, Highland and Ospreys

Plan was to go up to Aberdeen today but we've had more than enough retail therapy so decided to give the granite city a miss and head inland to the Cairngorm National Park.

But first things first, it's Sunday, and Sunday means Car Boot. A quick trip into Stonehaven before breakfast to inspect a dozen motley stalls in the market square and return empty handed to our Shredded Wheat. Well the walk was a bracing start to the day!

Proper Scotland. At last! A main A road which is single track with passing places, pine forest, snow still on the mountain tops, mountain pass roads so high that snow was in the verges. Real Scotland.

The day started on the road to Ballater, heading towards Braemar, two places associated strongly with Queen Victoria. Just after Ballater we took the road leading to The Lecht,  at 644m (2113') the second highest pass in Scotland. No surprise then that we ended up at Tomintoul, Scotland's highest village. Stunning scenery, ski lifts at the summit of The Lecht but really only enough snow for snowmen and snowball fights.

Dropping down into Speyside we detoured off to the RSPB site at Loch Garten in search of osprey. And there she was, about 100m away on a low tree branch, just down from her pole top nest. The site is good, lots of binoculars to use, several telescopes trained in the nest and bird(s) when around. No red squirrel or crested tit sightings for us though. But the osprey will do

Back up the Spey valley where we meet The Malt Whisky Trail and follow it to our campsite at Aberlour. About a mile across the river The Macallan distillery turns barley and Spey water into liquid gold. A mile down the road the Aberlour distillery does similar, as does Glenfiddich about 4 miles away, nestling next to its neighbour The Balvenie. The same for mile distance to the north two more neighbours Glenrothes and Glen Grant also  breathe life into the water of life.

Time for the first dram of our trip now, perhaps.

Saturday, hurry up and eat your ice cream

Before it freezes!!

Let's get this over with now. There will be a recurrent theme in today's entry featuring the cold. It is cold, the wind is very cold, it is unpleasantly cold. And before you think this is some neish southerner whinging about the Scottish weather, bear in mind this neish southerner has visited Shetland, The Falkland Islands and Svalbard, so does actually know a thing or two about cold winds. Did I mention it is cold here?

The cold start to the morning was exacerbated by the fact we'd parked the van so the side with the fridge vent faced to the north. This meant the bitter north wind, along with the rain it was driving was forcing its way into the van through the vent and the draught inside the van was only a point or two lower on the Beaufort Scale. Easily fixed, thinks I, pop out, uncouple the electrics, take off the insulating windscreen cover so I can see to run the van off the pitch, turn it round , and drive it back on in the other direction. Easy indeed until the driving wind turns into a snow blizzard which lasts exactly the amount of time I need to complete the task and then abates the instant I return wet and cold back to the van. Grrr!!!!.

Now sensible people, noting a strong, biting wind might decide against a  bracing cliff top walk. Nobody's ever accused Liz and I of being sensible. Multiple layers, new raincoats, waterproof over-trousers, an unfounded sense of optimism were all donned and off we set for Dunnottar castle 3 miles along the coast, once the next snow flurry had stopped, of course.

The first part of the walk took us through Stonehaven town itself. Many people have the clichéd view of dour Scots, probably modeled on Private Walker in Dad's Army. Well I  can reveal a little know secret, Walker's relatives all live in Stonehaven and have jobs as shop assistants!

The walk then leaves Stonehaven and climbs steeply for the 2 mile walk along the exposed cliff top. The wind may be cold but it's only moderately strong. We know this because the lady in the town's Tourist Information informs us she has checked, the castle is open today. In really high winds it closes as it is too dangerous.

Actually with appropriate clothing the walk is bracing but not too cold and the waterproofs and jacket with hood protect well against the nasty snow squalls. Now I mentioned stereotypes. Scots may be seen as dour, but Geordies are probably seen as the opposite. And so it is no surprise that half way round the walk on a bracing cliff edge, that the Newcastle chappy I nodded "Hello" to on the way to the toilet block earlier this morning, should stop and engage us in conversation for a good 15 minutes. So typically British, two couples standing in a bitter howling gale atop an isolated cliff, swapping notes about campsites.

Anyway we didn't pay the entrance money to the castle but carried on round and back through a delightful woodland dell, making a 6.6 mile walk in total. Although given the amount of climb, fighting against the wind and snow it felt nearer 10.

A reward was in order so dinner at the Marine Hotel. OK, so we were always going to go here, it's the brewery tap for the 6°North brewery which is the only Scottish brewery specialising in Belgian beers (it's name coming from Stonehaven being 6 degrees north of Brussels). The beer was excellent as the food. Definitely restaurant not pub, in style, quality and prices but really good.

Remember the title of this entry. Walking back asking the prom in the ever more biting wind we spotted a sign for award winning ice creams. Got to be done and no danger of melting if we didn't eat quickly.

Back to the van early tonight. Too cold to do much else. Not sure about tomorrow's plans. The lady in the tourist information suggested our plan to stop at a campsite high in the Cairngorm's might be interesting, indeed we might have an interesting drive just trying to get there!

Did I mention it was coooold?

Friday - I do like to be beside the seaside

Visitors (yes, visitors) to the van reduced blogging time yesterday so a double dose today - here's part 1

Friday: Glenrothes to Stonehaven, via Perth, Dundee, Arbroath, Montrose, an outdoor clothing factory shop and a phone box library. Stop one, the Keela outdoor factory shop in Glenrothes. A proper factory shop, the sort you have to ring a bell to get someone to open the door because serving customers is not their prime role. Lots of sale items and some at crazy bargain prices, we bought base layer tops each and I picked up another pair of trousers, all in the crazy price range.

Then on to the small village of Kinnesswood which hosts the only phone box library in Scotland that Liz has been able to find. Books appropriately swapped .
Next plan is to nip round the larger cities of Perth and Dundee to go and eat Arbroath Smokies in Arbroath itself. But it's just too cold, so a quick walk round town and pop into a charity shop to buy a couple of mugs so we can offer tonight's guests a cuppa. We travel so light that we just realised we don't even have the facilities to offer basic hospitality. Fortunately the Sally Ann shop has two nice matching mugs.

Since we didn't stop long in Arbroath we're ahead of schedule and do a similar whistle stop tour of Montrose. Highlight there was the 10 minute conversation in the car park with a lady who liked the van and wanted to know more. That happens a lot!

The coastal route has been pleasant enough but, to be honest we're glad to get to Stonehaven campsite late afternoon and chill for a little while before our guests arrive. Guests being Bob and Jackie from just north of Aberdeen who are contemplating a Romahome but had never seen one in the flesh. Well when we set this up they hadn't, but in the 4 weeks we've been in the road they did go to view, with intention of purchasing a van a little way a way. They, probably wisely, backed off when they realised it had suffered collision damage and the fibreglass had been repaired  So they thought it would be worthwhile coming and seeing us and how we were managing in the van, what changes we'd made etc. I do hope that got value out of the visit, particularly since Bob arrived and presented us with a packet of locally made shortbread. A very generous gesture I thought, but then from behind his back he flourished a bottle of single malt, distilled in their home village. Very generous indeed! They were lovely people and it looks like Jackie had already fallen in love with the cute charm of the Romahome and I think Bob was impressed with the tardis nature of the van. After their generous gifts I really do hope we were able to help in their decision process. Buying a van is generally the second most expensive thing in your life and is consequently quite a tough decision.

And after all that they didn't want a cuppa, so our new guest mugs are still unused!

Thursday - meeting the Provost!!

Today's plan has always been simple: walk from the campsite to Glenrothes, wander around for a bit, go to the Kingdom Of Fife Beer Festival, stagger home.

Walking to town was nice, it's two miles or so from the campsite and some horribly busy roads. Fortunately if you wander through the housing estate opposite and have the right map you can find a cycle/foot path that is scenic much of the way. Well, cowslips and orange tip butterflies, what more scenic signs of spring do you need?

OK I'm going out on a limb here but I suspect very few residents would disagree with me when I say Glenrothes is BORING! It was a new town, built in the late 1940s. And built around a huge undercover shopping centre. Boring! Still one corner of the centre is the Rothes halls entertainment centre where they do seem to get some very good acts to lighten up the town's inhabitants boring lives.

Lest you think I'm being unfair, try shopping in Glenrothes. See if you can succeed where we failed and detect a sparkle of life in the eyes of the bored shop assistants. Oh, Milton Keynes, we yearn for your excitement.

And so to the Beer Festival, 45 beers, half local and 25 ciders, a few of which were Scottish. It was good. Very good! Even more so when we discovered the locals would merely nod with disaffected boredom until we made the effort to engage them in conversation when they would suddenly open up and become really very interesting and enthusiastic about Fife and it's beers.

We spotted a local dignitary with quite low key gold chain regalia and assumed he was town mayor. No, he came over and sat down with us, introducing himself as the Provost of the (entire) Kingdom Of Fife! Now
you don't get that at every beer festival.

A few halves later and it's back to the van for a cuppa.

Night, night.

Wednesday, a new van, perhaps?

Travelling day today. On into the peninsula of Fife. It's not too far from Stirling to Glenrothes (where we are spending the next two nights) so we have decided to go the scenic route along the coastline of the Forth estuary (the Firth of Forth). This means taking in sights we've already seen a week or so ago, but now from a different perspective

I've looked at Bass Rock from both sides now,
And still somehow, it's Bass Rock's illusions I recall,
I really don't know Bass Rock, at all.

Not really much to say of the journey, usual pleasant seaside backdrops, charming little villages with quaint harbours, particularly the area known as the East Neuk of Fife. You know, we could be in Cornwall for all the scenery helps. One unusual feature we spotted was the windmill just off the beach at St Monans. It was used to pump sea water into salt pans to make salt. First time I've heard of a windmill being used for such a purpose.

Anyway the main focus of this trip was the seaside town of Anstruther. Home of the famous Anstruther Fish Bar (my battered Haddock was good but nothing special, Mum has locally smoked Haddock and very good indeed). No Monty Python jokes here, we did that yesterday.

The other reason for visiting Anstruther was to visit East Neuk Campervans. They make a van that we were very interested in when we bought the Romahome but couldn't get to see one at the time as they did have any close enough for us to view. A good job too, perhaps. It would have been a very tough choice, they are quite a bit more expensive than our current van but have more space and facilities. A very nicely thought out van conversion. So much so that after our tour of a couple of van's we sat for a few minutes in our own van contemplating the pros and cons as to whether they would be the obvious next step when we trade the Romahome in.

Now nestled down in Glenrothes campsite but our warden made the mistake of telling us there is a good pub in the village, just a short walk away. And the sun is still out, too good to miss. I suppose I should mention it has been a gloriously sunny day today with us stripping down to T-shirts this afternoon. Mind you we were ruddy freezing breakfast time in Stirling with the van neatly in 100% shade!

Tuesday - ADYAC (AAD) (AABT)

Another day, yet another castle (and a distillery) (and a brewery too)

To begin at the beginning, as Dylan once wrote. The bus pricing just didn't make sense so we decided to drive the few miles up to Doune/Deanston (same place really, just either side of the river Teith) in the van and be very careful about drink driving.

In December 2014 Scotland changed its drink driving limits. The rest of the UK has a limit of 80mg per 100ml of blood but Scotland now has the lower limit of 50mg. I'd risk drinking a pint and a half, maybe two pints in England but here in Scotland a pint is perilously close to the limit, if not over, depending on beer strength and physiological circumstances. A conviction in Scotland carries a mandatory 12 month ban, so, I believe, the crazy circumstance could occur where I was under the English alcohol limit, but convicted under the lower Scottish limit and banned from driving anywhere in the UK.

So off to the distillery, via a minor diversion into the town of Callander where our tourist book informs us of a good baker. Correct. Not only that but there is a nice outdoor shop where Liz manages to buy the handbag she's been looking for.

The distillery at Deanston is fairly new. It originally opened the eighties, reusing the buildings from an 19th century wool mill. In the early nineties demand for whisky dropped so it closed, only to reopen a few years later. It's a small distillery with 80% production going into blended brands so its single malt expressions are not particularly common. The tour itself was surprisingly intimate. Everything was in the open, and health and safety was only nodded at. I suspect few of the big name distilleries would allow such up close and potentially personal contact with the very hot distillation flasks. The process is as you would expect, steep barley in hot water to convert starches into sugars. Add yeast to turn sugar into alcohol (6%). Distill wort to extract the alcohol at higher levels (80%). Store in barrels to allow barrel flavours to make the whisky taste and then after many years dilute down to bottle strength (46%).

The principle is simple. The immense variation in flavour comes from many factors. Is the barley roasted with or without peat? (Deanston is without). Is the water used peaty, flinty, hard, soft ?(Deanston is soft flowing over granite). What shape are the distillery kettles, much of the alcohol doesn't distill right off but refluxes back into the kettle. The way the kettle is shaped influences how the reflux characteristics (and thus the characteristics of the final whisky) develop. What about the barrels and how it is stored and for how long? All important factors in subtly influencing the final whisky expression.

Something we didn't know. Deanston like most/all whisky distilleries uses bourbon barrels. I didn't know it was illegal in the US to reuse bourbon barrels, so once-used barrels are shipped over to Scotland by the thousands. Each one is used maybe twice to hold whisky, then it is scraped clean, re-charcoaled inside and filled with bourbon here in the UK, so it can then be reused for whisky later. Same applies to sherry casks from Jerez.

Interestingly quality control over the grinding of the barley is done manually. 100gms are taken out into a box with a sieve, this is shaken exactly 40 times and then inspected. The ground grain is now in three separate states, each shaken into their own section of the sieve box: husk 20%, ground grain 70%, flour 10%. If the gryst passes this visual inspection it is then ready to go into the mash tun to have its starches turned into sugar.

Final tasting, Liz has a ticket for two tastings, just one for me (I was driving, remember). The 12 year old was soft, fruity, apples and toffee; the younger virgin cask (I did taste Liz's 2nd dram) harsher, less rounded and vanilla oak replaced the fruitiness of the 12 year old. There, you all knew I could talk bollocks!

Oh, one last thing, the outside of this distillery is nothing to look at but it has nice internals, photogenic coppers and a wonderfully vaulted roof warehouse, No wonder, then, that Ken Loach chose it as the site to do the internal distillery shots for "Angel's Share". We spotted his signature on one of the bonded barrels along with the rest of the cast. Discussing this with our guide, apparently one of her colleague workers got roped into one of the scenes, something he still gets teased about today.

OK, distillery done, off now to Swamp Castle/Castle Leoch  (depending whether you are a Monty Python or Outlander fan). It's about a mile or so walk along the river from the distillery but since it's on the way home we decide to drive. Mistake! The tiny town of Doune is having some road works done necessitating a road closure. The closed road is maybe 50m but the detour involves at least 12 miles including a section of motorway! I'm glad I didn't have that second dram. Not only that you now approach the castle from the wrong direction and have an horrible retrousse bend to negotiate that even out little van can't make in one go.

The castle? You'll know it, Holy Grail was set here, it's in Outlander, it's iconic.

Doune Castle

The castle itself has been pretty much left since the 16th century apart from some Victorian wood panel renovations. The stone stairs are well worn with time and need care in places, Interestingly there seems to be no set route around the castle but the admission fee includes an audio tour narrated by none other than Terry Jones - including optional bits including scenes from the film. Just to bring the tour up to date there some new sections narrated by one of the Outlander cast.

Pity we weren't here in 1984, when Monty Python shot the Holy Grail film they persuaded tourists to the castle to don period costume and appear as extras. Apparently the scene where Sir Lancelot fights two guards on the steps it is the same student visitor playing both guards. Her was happy to folp over the stairs onto some padded barrels below. Ah, the magic of Hollywood!

OK, a few jokes about farting in your general direction (especially after meeting a french student in one of the rooms) and time to go back via The Bridge Of Allan where there is a small brew-pub. Several hours have elapsed since my single dram, I chose a not too strong beer so should be OK for the 3 or 4 miles back to the campsite. But I do buy a couple of carry outs of his stronger beers - we'll not need to go out tomorrow night!

Monday, another day, another castle

Stirling this time.

Firstly let's cover some other themes of this holiday. Weather, lying in bed at 7 am this morning listening to the light rain in the van roof, promoted thoughts of "here we go again". But actually it turned out to be a sunny day much of the time. Mind you, the strong, biting wind hasn't really abated, and being on high exposed castle battlements doesn't help!

The other theme/moan is bus pricing and lack of being able to sort it out. Easy we think, today we'll get a couple of returns from the campsite into Stirling bus station and sort out tomorrow's trip once we get there. Theory good, practice not quite so. Arrive at bus station, walk up to information desk, explain that tomorrow we want a bus from the campsite into town and then another into Doune, oh and we want return tickets. The lady at the information desk (yes, the BUS STATION INFORMATION DESK) said she couldn't help, try speaking to the driver in the morning. OK, wander out and find a bus inspector guy and put the same riddle to him. Oh you could probably get a 3-5 zone day card at £10.50 but it might be cheaper just to get two separate individual returns campsite-bus station, bus station-Doune. He didn't know, we'd have to ask in the bus! I didn't like to point out the flaw that we could only enquire on the second bus after we'd already bought the return on the first bus, this making a day card an unlikely option. One last try, the tourist information office. Oh no, says they, we wouldn't know anything about that, you'll have to ask at the bus station. Oh they didn't help, well I'm sure the driver can help when you get the bus tomorrow!

A few days ago I emailed enquiries@bususers.org and asked if there was any sensible way we could determine pricing, zone information, and day cards. No reply yet; they are obviously out looking for a bus driver to tell them!

Anyway, fuelled with righteous angst we made the long climb out of town towards the castle. And long climb it was too. Stirling Castle is interesting as much of it is new renovation, the idea being rather than some mothballed drab old ruin why not present the visitor with a view of what it might have been like. So newly frescoed walls, a facsimile ceiling of the famous Stirling wooden heads, a coffee shop in the grand banqueting hall. All very interesting, as was the exhibition of the original carved wooden heads that James V decorated his ante room ceiling with. A very well done display with lots of notes about the symbolism in the choice of some of the heads (Hercules, Roman Emperors, and a couple of cherubs) and the clothing fashion styles of the time as depicted through the garments - most "heads" included neck and breast areas as well

The piece de resistance however was the replica 7 panel Hunt Of The Unicorn tapestry adorning the Queen's chamber walls. The original is in a museum in New York so Scottish Heritage undertook a complete set of replicas. This took 15 years to complete and a dozen or so weavers worked in it. What's more, the modern version has the warp set at half the density of its mediaeval original (David, think 720p as opposed to 1080p). The original warp density would have added an estimated further 10 years to the project!!

Now think back to the 16th century. The originals must have taken around about the same time to weave, 25 years for one set of tapestries. James V owned many sets, these must have been as costly and an as ostentatious indicator of power and wealth as any gold finery.

Bravo, Historic Scotland, your reconstruction is stunning and a magnificent example of 21st century handicraft. Gentle reader I heartily recommend taking some time to find out about the Hunt Of The Unicorn tapestries and their recreation, in the interweb.

A quick mooch around Stirling and back to the bus station. Where we found an interactive journey planner. And joy, we could use it to plan tomorrow's route and it told us the cost of individual fares. Had we succeeded in our own Unicorn hunt?! Let's try and see where a 3-5 zone ticket will take us. Nope, no ability to show zones and plan cheapest option. No Unicorn then, but a start, a single horned cow perhaps? Narwhal in a skateboard? Definitely not a unicorn.

Bus home, it's a circular route with this morning's inbound bus being a different number to tonight's outbound one (#17 in the series "How to confuse a tourist"). This one turned off the main road and up a winding, twisty, little road directly past the famous Wallace Memorial (would be on our to visit list has we more time). You can't miss it, it's a great big tall building atop a hill

Talking of Wallace, whilst at the castle we wandered around the gift shop. I noticed brown and grey tartan goods - this was a special tartan created by Islay Weavers for the Braveheart film. Brown and grey because Wallace and his followers would probably have only used natural, native dyes. Watch the film and you'll spot Mel modeling this tartan and some interesting blue make-up. His catwalk mince isn't up to much though.

Sunday, avoiding conflict

We've deviated slightly from our vague itinerary. Originally we'd planned to pop down to New Lanark to revisit Robert Owen's socially experimental mill. Revisit, because we went there on our family trip to North Uist some 20 odd years ago. Anyway we got dates wrong and booked the Glasgow campsite a day early, so we have a spare day in the grueling schedule. Plan A is to spend another night in Glasgow. There are several museums etc we'd like to see. And indeed that was the plan until we realised the football was on. Now you don't need to be much of a fan of Scottish football to realise that Glasgow Celtic v Glasgow Rangers is THE local derby match. Both clubs have a fierce reputation for partisan fans. Add to that the fact that the two clubs haven't faced each other for 4 years (because of Rangers' demotion) and this is the Scottish Cup semi-final. Add to that a city which has already proven to us that many of the inhabitants daily consume more than the recommended weekly (monthly?) intake of alcohol.

OK so what's plan B?

Let's go to Stirling a day early then we get an additional day when we can bus out to Doune to see the castle (Monty Python and the Holy Grail) and visit the nearby Deanston distillery. We've been in Scotland for a week already, so about time we had our first dram.

First things first. After a wetting in Edinburgh last week Liz's Gortex jacket has not proven itself to be up to the rigours of the Scottish weather. So we've been researching new rainproofs. My Berghaus Gortex seems a bit more robust, but, heck, it was only £4, a charity shop bargain. Perhaps I too should actually get the walking gear I really would choose for myself. So back to Go Outdoors which is conveniently en route. We'd seen the jackets we would like last week but were indecisive, as always. In the interim however we've found the same jackets on offer on the web quite a bit cheaper and Go Outdoors, price match and drop an extra 10%. So if we are to get them now is the time, it's a substantial saving. And surprisingly easy it was too. The Go Outdoors cashier ask for website details, wandered off to check the deal and discuss with manager and within a few minutes back returned with a price that was 20% off the store price. Sorted, although we did enquire whether Liz was still eligible for the normal 10% Girlguiding discount on to of that. You've got to try!

Armed with new jackets all we needed now was some rain to test them. And would you believe it, the sun was shining!! Still perishingly cold though.

Off to Falkirk to see the new Kelpies statue (two huge stainless steel horse heads) and the mightily impressive Falkirk Wheel boat lift. Basically the Wheel consists of two baths at either side of a wheel and as the wheel rotates the upper bath moves down to take the place of the lower one which is now at the top. The impressive bit is that the baths each hold a quarter of a million litres of water weighing 500 tonnes with another 50 tonnes for the baths (caissons, for the technically minded) themselves and the distance between top and bottom caissons is 24m. A lot of computer control is needed to ensure that weights balance when boats are in the caissons. Good old Archimedes! It's the only lift of its kind in the world and it was great to see it in operation. We were tempted to take a tourist ride in one of the boats, on a warmer day, perhaps.

Oh, and by the way, this is in Scotland so by the time we had got there from Go Outdoors we were able to test our new rain wear after all!

On then to the campsite for an earlier stop, do the washing, cook tea, empty the loo, have showers, write blog. The usual camping sort of stuff.

Q: What's the definition of a Scots optimist?
A: Someone with solar panels on the roof.

Saturday, tea with Mackintosh

OK, when did I last have a rant? Must be time for another one! Glasgow buses quite rightly protect the driver by insisting on exact fare and so the driver carries no cash nor has access to the safe box into which your ticket fares are deposited. Great idea. Well it would be if they published the bus fares so you could have the exact cash ready prepared. Not difficult, especially when there is a Day Rider ticket which is a flat fare and allows as many bus journeys as you want. Not just Glasgow, almost no bus companies post details of their fares structure on the web (or if they do I haven't found them). Trains are generally very good in this respect but for tourists it is very difficult to gauge bus prices.

So we turn up at the bus stop this morning with a chunk of change but discover we don't have enough for two Day Rider (or whatever they're called) tickets and just have enough for two returns. The bus driver smiles as I point out the irony of a correct fare system where it is impossible to know in advance just what the correct fare might be.

Still all this is is diffused by our new friend. A little elderly local lady was waiting at the bus stop and engaged us in conversation. She then sat next to us in the bus and we'd got a fairly detailed biography in the 30 mins or so it took to reach the city centre. Glaswegians seem to consist of two completely separate tribes, the dour and the loquacious.

First port of call is Glasgow Girlguiding shop. Just! The street is closed off because a very large crane is moving a very large container to the top of one of the buildings. There is pedestrian access but it appears to stop short of our destination. No, we can pass the "Pedestrian Route" sign ushering us across the road and slip into the shop so Liz can photograph a Senior Section archive display. On leaving we notice the crane's load above or heads, not too far away. We also noticed that everyone else is much further away, including the hard-hat wearing site workers. Not time to linger, methinks.

On to the Willow Tea Rooms for lunch. Much of Mackintosh's earlier work was based on Tea Rooms in Glasgow. The Willow Tea Rooms on Sauchiehall Street were the first that he completely designed, in 1903. Sadly, after the owner Kate Cranston retired from the tea room business in 1919 the building got used for many other purposes but in 1983 it was reopened as a tea room and the famous Room de Luxe was remodeled back into a facsimile of the earlier era. So as well looking round a lovely little Mackintosh museum we got chance to take Tea, and a nice scrambled egg lunch in elegant and historic surroundings.

We should have seen taken heed of the omen. On our way to the Museum Of Modern Art it started snowing. Not much but definitely snow! It was telling us, don't go to the MOMA. And quite right too. Many people reckon that you know you are old because you don't relate to the music of the day. I used to think that a better yardstick was not relating to the comedy of the day. I now know for sure that Liz and I certainly don't relate to the art of the day! Much was very abstract and required significant effort on behalf of the viewer to exercise some power of telepathy to try and glean any inkling of what on earth might have been going through the artist's mind at the time of inception and then to use that insight to imagine what idea the work was trying to convey. Whilst the phrase "utter bollocks" might seem a little harsh, it would have been interesting to have met one of the many artists represented there and hear them defend the charge.

Due to wasting our time trying to wring some element of meaning out of the MOMA it was too late to have any time at another museum but my Good Beer Guide suggested a local pub might have a folk music afternoon on a Saturday, so of f we went to the Babbity Bowster. Like every Glasgow pub we'd been into it was crowded (we'd actually entered about twice as many pubs as we'd stopped at in the city because they were all so busy we couldn't find anywhere to sit). The folk group was just a bunch of people rehearsing in as pub. That is to say, they were playing for their own enjoyment not necessarily for an audience and so were, as such groups tend to be, excellent. Trouble was there were a lot of them (at least 18) in a tiny crowded pub. After a slow pint and half a dozen songs we decided it was just too darn hot.

Too early for dinner, too late for museums, must be pub time again. Once again the Real Ale Guide was our guide and led us to The Laurieston a little walk away across the river. The reason? The pub is a heritage pub because it is a wonderful example of an unspoiled traditional architected pub of the period. The period in this particular case being the 1960s! A circular bar, split into two rooms, a wooden floored public bar and a smaller carpeted lounge. Formica everywhere, fixed two-tier red Formica tables defined the bar's layout and a vintage glass Warm Pies cabinet atop the Formica bar top screamed back to the days when the Beatles new single would have been the juke box choice. A wonderful pub, that has appeared in a Ewan McGregor film and Fratellis video. Just like the Willow Tea Rooms, living history.

All clouds supposedly have silver linings. On our way to the MOMA we spotted a pizza restaurant and good it was too. Quite a walk back from The Laurieston but not too far from our bus stop so perfect for dinner.

Friday - the school of architecture

Ok, so it's not raining this morning. But the forecast isn't good so let's take waterproofs, just to be sure, eh!

Glasgow's a bit flatter than Edinburgh so walking is much easier. Of course, walking is a better option when it isn't raining. So we bought combined train and subway tickets, £6.60 each to travel between 100 plus stations, all day. That's less than a return from Chandlers Ford to Winchester. Brian, stop banging on about it - Southampton has the most expensive bus prices in the UK, get over it and just hope that bus passes still exist in a couple of years time when you become eligible.

On the topic of bus passes, what definition of United (as in United Kingdom) is it that means Liz's bus pass doesn't work here in Scotland?

Oh, and a funny thing happened in the way to the train station. We were about half way from the campsite when an elderly lady called out to us from her doorstep. Her voice was quite weak and with the accent we couldn't work out what she wanted but she pointed to her garden gate so we opened it and went to see how we could help. All she wanted was a firm arm to help her walk the length of her garden path and a few further yards up the road so she was ready and waiting for the Asda bus. Good deed done for the day and it's not even bob-a-job week.

I digress, stop one of today - the Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery. Another one of those all day places that we couldn't do justice to in half that time. Highlights were the Rennie Macintosh and Glasgow School exhibitions - some stunning works, and a personal bucket list tick for me - Dali's Christ Of St John On The Cross. That painting was the first painting that made me realise art was something more than just capturing an image. Stunning! Lots more including some interesting sections on design and how to appreciate art. Lots of famous paintings, Constable's Hampstead Heath, Lowry's VE Day (although a non-matchstickmen Lowry seascape proved what a great artist he was) and Strang's portrait of Vita Sackville West to name but a few.

We missed quite a bit of the art as we wanted to get to a second museum. But a slight delay, leaving the Kelvingrove, it was, once again, slashing it down. Fortunately there was a Brewdog bar directly across the road that made an ideal half-pint shelter before braving the slightly less rain back to the subway and on to Scotland Street School Museum. The school was designed by Mackintosh (after much arguing with the School Board to build the building he wanted - subterfuge meant he got many of the design ideas in but not the rich tiling he had planned for the interior). Still interesting architecture with stunning windows giving huge amounts of natural light. A slightly disappointing museum (not fair, it was probably good but the previous two - the Kelvingrove and National Museum had been outstanding). Still, once again we were leaving almost right on closing time.

The Good Bear Guide let us down, both pubs we looked in were just too crowded to be any good for our meal so we settled on an almost as crowded Wetherspoons. I don't think the crowding is a result of fewer pubs in Glasgow, just more clientele.

Our final port of call was the West Of Scotland Radio Club - not many members tonight but we were made most welcome and watched an interesting presentation on Chinese kits including a £20 oscilloscope I've been thinking of buying just for the fun of building it. Most interesting and some good ideas.

Oh, and it had stopped raining and was a nice, but cold evening steel back to the station.

Thursday - travelling

Not much to say about today - we left Edinburgh and went to Glasgow. Full Stop.

Well, we went the scenic route at least, avoiding the network of motorways that seem to connect the various parts of both cities. A quick look in a couple of outdoor clothing suppliers en route - somehow our waterproof gear has been tested to the limit over the last few days or so and maybe it is time we shelled out some significant spondoolicks on getting something really waterproof. But, indecision, as always, has deferred the decision for a few days. A quick break in Airdrie (necessitated by full bladders) gave us chance to try local cuisine - a scotch pie (pie case with, in this case, cold soggy minced beef in the bottom) and a bridie (a pasty shaped pastry with a beefburger stuffed in the middle) followed by two excellent local cakes.

The campsite is on the outskirts of Glasgow at Stepps. It is a weird site, just place for 10 vans on a huge site which is still being built and appears to contain a mix of holiday apartments and retirement accommodation. Still it's a lovely site close to the train station and has won awards for being green - I wonder how the waterless urinal in the gents works?

The only other lowlight/highlight of the day was the trip to the local pub to catch the Liverpool v Dortmund game. Lowlight because the pub had no real ale and the only keg bitter was so tasteless I switched to lager for my second pint. Add to the fact the barmaid was one of the least friendly we've ever encountered it was a pretty dour experience (I've been saying "you don't go to Scotland for the weather", I can add to that "and you don't go to Glasgow for the hospitality")

So if it was that bad why stay for a 2nd pint? Good question especially when Liverpool were 2 goals down and needed to score 3 to save this European quarter-final. Could I bear watching the 2nd half or just cut and run after one pint. No, I decided to stay - Liverpool pulled one back straight after half time, there was hope - I'll get that 2nd pint. Then Dortmund scored again and the bad beer in a bad pub seemed to have been a bad decision. Then Liverpool scored again - my "Yes!!!!" in a rather loud tone silenced the pub of people that have no interest in futbah south of the border. All eyes turned to me, the stranger in a strange land. I was quiet for the third goal and dumbstruck when Liverpool won it in injury time. That 2nd pint wasn't such a bad idea and maybe it tasted really good, after all!

Wednesday - the Edinburgh tourist bit - at last

Well the forecast yesterday was for heavy rain today, but this morning it suggested light rain with, wait for it, the possibility of not rain for some of the afternoon. Perfect Scottish site-seeing weather (well as good as it gets anyway).

First stop - Greyfriars churchyard. Remember those days when there was not a dry eye in the house when the 1960's classic Greyfriars Bobby came on the TV. Well my sister does and when we mentioned we were going to Edinburgh it was the first thing she associated with the city. So a photo of the wee duggie's grave was in order (and will appear here when we get time to upload).

Next a stroll through the Grassmarket, site of mediaeval marketplace and gibbet, now a trendy eatery and chic shop area, situated at the bottom of the castle rock. Then the 187 steps up the Castle Wynd to the castle itself. I'm glad to see the Edinburgh Royal Mile site classifies Castle Wynd as a shortcut for the fit. Fit we are not, knackered we were!

Thanks to our Christmas pressie of English Heritage membership being over two years old we get free admission to Historic Scotland sites, and a good thing too - it was probably getting on for half the cost of our EH gift! Perfect timing though as a tour was just about to start - however, we were informed this would be slightly curtailed tour so we could all get back down to the lower level in time for the one-o-clock gun ("187 steps", "back down to the lower level", your probably getting some idea of the three dimensionality of this part of the day).

Every day since 1861 a gun has been fired as a one-o-clock time signal. One-o-clock local time, not GMT, UTC or whatever. Why one-o-clock not 12 noon? I suggested to the guide was a Scottish thing that someone realised the cost of 12 shots and decided paying for just one would be more prudent. The real reason, of course, is that the time signal came from Grennwich via the telegraph and would take enough time to reach Edinburgh too late for an accurate 12 noon signal so they settled on the next hour.

Lots more to see in the castle, including the Honours Of Scotland, the Scottish Crown Jewels and the small rectangle of rock known as the Stone Of Scone on which monarchs have been chilling their buttocks in coronations since Scottish king David 1. I was particularly impressed with lifesize brass replicas of the Honours, along with Braille descriptions so that those that could not see the display could also experience it.

On then in the rain to seek shelter in the National Museum Of Scotland. Mistake, we should have come here first thing and spent the day here. We'd barely got started before an assistant was tapping us on the shoulder warning us it was 10 minutes to closing time. Highlights were the Lewis Chessmen although the lion's share of the horde is in the British Museum. The astronomy section was interesting but the natural history section was fascinating. Instead of the usual boring classification by genus, each of the displays took a different theme e.g. differing number of legs, or a particular aspect like flight and displayed animals of all orders that were unusual in the category, Much more interesting and stimulating for youngsters (and us not so youngsters). But only having 90 minutes or so meant seeing but a fraction of this fascinating museum. 

Still raining and we're hungry - now one thing Edinburgh is not short of is pubs, many very good ones at that. The Real Beer Guide suggested a wonderfully fitted Victorian gin palace where we managed to squeeze past the crowds of vertical drinkers at the bar to snaffle the last remaining table. My steak with Orkney ale pie was a bit predictable but Liz sampled more local fare with her Haggis, tatties and neaps.

And guess what, when we stepped outside for the bus it had stopped raining!

If it was nae for yur wellies

Just one of the following statements is true:
We had a lovely tour of Edinburgh Castle
We took in all the sites, including Greyfriars Bobby
We had a wonderful shopping experience in Edinburgh's boutique shops
It slashed it down with rain all day and we trudged round best we could

Now I'm guessing the title has given it away! What an 'orrible day. Still tomorrow's set to be even worse!

We did get into the city. We did have a very interesting tour round The Museum On The Mound which is the old Bank Of Scotland building and so a museum dedicated to money. £1,000,000 is not as big as pile of twenties as you might think. A nice museum, well organised and plenty for kids to do. Interesting to see that all the profits from the gift shop go to Children In Need. Crikey I  might even start thinking these bankers want to be seen as fair and kindly people who merely want a fair share of society's wealth, if I'm not careful.

Much of the rest of the day was spent either sheltering from the rain or looking into outdoor shops to investigate better clothing to keep the rain off body layers. Sitting down in pubs features largely but only because they were dry.

At least now we have our bearings. Tomorrow's dashes to museums etc will be informed dashes rather than haphazard wanderings. But it is a bit sad to be in the heart of such an historical and vibrant city and be thinking how nice it is to be back in the warm and dry of the van.

Tom Hanks and the Knights Templar

It's mid-April and the wind is bitter still. Enough is enough, let's have some warmth. No, the forecast suggests even colder nights to come before the daytime temperatures eventually reach double figures.

Before we leave Berwick, like Basil Fawlty, I feel I must mention the war. There is a rumour doing the rounds that Berwick is still at war with Germany. Totally false! The rumour should be that it is still at war with Russia, also false but not as false!

The story goes like this, back in the day, Berwick changed hands so often that proclamations often said "Great Britain, Ireland, Berwick-upon-Tweed and all British Dominions". It is purported that the declaration of war against Russia in the Crimea was so worded. However the Treaty of Paris neglected to include the Berwick bit leaving the town still at war.

Subsequent checks by the Foreign Office have proven this to be nothing more than rumour but not before Robert Knox the then mayor of Berwick met with Russian Officials in 1966 to sign a peace treaty, " just in case ". Apparently Knox told the officials " Please tell the Russian people they can sleep peacefully in their beds".

Anyway let's leave Berwick and head to Edinburgh. Not hammering along the A1 but let's take the coastal route out through Eynemouth and Dunbar and past all those seaside links golf courses. Passing the very impressive Bass Rock, a jagged vertical block menacing just off shore. Pity the weather is drizzly, would have made a nice photograph. Mind you coming over the top of some hills in mist and suddenly seeing a huge wind farm just off the road was impressive. The huge towers loomed up out of the gloom quite menacingly.

Dan Brown probably did Roslyn Chapel an incredible favour by featuring it in The Da Vinci Code. It now gets hundreds of thousands of tourists a year from all over the world. But what a well deserved visit it is! The chapel is unique. Quite small, part of an unfinished larger church it probably houses more carvings than any grand cathedral. And what carvings they are, fantastically ornate, depicting Bible characters, angels, moral tales, Green Men, the founder himself, plants including something purported to be maize - several decades before Columbus's trip to America! No wonder the legends abound. An excellent interpretation room has been built alongside with some state of the art graphics explaining the history, building process, and interpretation of some of the sculpted works. No photography inside, and a bitter, bitter wind outside means we can't share as much of the visual experience as we would have liked.

Now safely tucked up in Edinburgh with the van's heater on!

Sunday, to Alnwick, maybe not.

Plan A: catch the bus to Alnwick and visit the Castle, famous Physic Gardens and bookshop. So yesterday we checked with Berwick Tourist Info about bus prices, something that Arriva seemed to deliberately hide online, apart from student pricing. Perhaps they assume the only folk smart enough to figure out their online website are students. Well they had me baffled, that's for sure.

Berwick Tourist Info don't know for sure but give us a ballpark figure which was perfectly reasonable. And then - the guide whispers to me, "but you don't want to go on a Sunday". Why not thinks I,  internet research suggests everything is open, perhaps there are strange religious sects lurking to drag us off the street and into a Nunnery (I really must stop having cheese just before bedtime, it gives me the weirdest, most enjoyable dreams). No, on a Sunday the bus goes the scenic route and takes 2 hours to complete the 34 mile journey; weekdays the express bus takes well under half that time

OK, 4 hours sat on a bus is just too much a price to pay for the day out. Now we could just drive there, but that breaks holiday rule #1 which is to park the van up at a campsite and only move it when absolutely necessary, preferably only when moving on to the next campsite.

Plan B, stay in Berwick and go to the museum. That'll work, especially after last night's chance encounter. On the way home last night we popped into The Curfew, Berwick's micro pub. For those unfamiliar, micro pubs are a new phenomenon where a small pub starts up in a small premises, usually an old shop and buys real ale in minimal quantity so beers are always changing. Did you spot the emphasis on "small" in that definition? In the case of The Curfew think shipping container with a bar at one end. Standing is almost mandatory because the few seats they do manage to shoehorn in are guaranteed to be occupied.

Where was I? Oh yes, chance encounter. So at the bar next to me last night stood a young chap wearing a shirt emblazoned with "Northern Edge Coffee". Now if it is one thing I've learned from my Dad is that it never hurts to strike up a conversation in a pub. So I mention how good it is to find a coffee roaster in Berwick. Long story short, he plans to be at the roastery Sunday morning and if we want to drop by for a tasting we are welcome.

Now the roastery is actually very close to the campsite so off we trot at 11, full of expectation and expecting to get full of coffee and the place is shut. Rats!! C'est la vie.

Anyway off to Berwick Museum by way of a decent Sunday Lunch back at the Castle Hotel. The food (and beer) was so good yesterday, definitely worth a revisit. The museum in the old barracks was 3 museums in 1, a history of the King's Own Scottish Borderers Regiment, a history of Berwick barracks, and a history of Berwick, including a small art gallery. The military stuff was interesting enough but not me, the town museum was quirky with odd artifacts, but did have the Holy Island electro-mechanical telephone exchange. Fascinating to dial one of the other handsets in the museum and watch the relays click and whirr.

Oh, the highlight of the day? Seeing the grey seal again off the bridge. On the way into town the tide was out and a lot of white water around the bridge parapets. The seal was in some calmer water with his head obligingly out of the water the entire time it took from us spotting him to Liz bring her camera to eye-level, whence he immediately dived. Then a canoeist appeared riding the white water, what fun that appeared. Liz took some shots but we were certain that his presence would spook the seal and move it elsewhere. Not so, just a few metres from the canoe up popped the seal's head, coordinating exactly with Liz closing the zip on her camera case! This time Liz re-engaged camera in record time and managed a snap microseconds before the seal disappeared beneath the foam once more.

Don't you just love a happy ending?!

Holy island

In memoriam, Alan Hull, founder of Lindisfarne.

Today's early, early alarm call 07:00 meant we were at the bus stop well in plenty of time to catch the bus out to the island, about a 12 mile or so journey. We could have taken the van but would have had to be mindful of tide times, the island is only reachable at low tide. Anyway it turns out Liz's OAP bus pass works so the only fare is £8 return for her toy boy. And anyway bus travel is greener and far more pleasant.

Liz and especially I are not religious, so why bother visit the site where St Aidan and St Cuthbert brought Christianity into Northumberland and, eventually the rest of England? Quite simply, because Lindisfarne, it's priory, those early saints are a quintessential part of what defines being English! They defined Englishness for centuries. That original rift between the Celtic church and the Roman Church must have sewn the seeds for Henry VIII's break away from the Vatican and the subsequent Catholic/Protestant warring. If Oswald has not converted to Christianity would we all still be worshipping Woden?

One thing that hacks me off is all these English Nationalist groups, calling for the banning of the burkha and making St George's day a national holiday. Have any of them taken the trouble to explore what being English means? Do any of them know any English history? What about culture, can any of them sung a traditional English folk song or dance a traditional English folk dance, I doubt it. If we have to have a patron saint let's make it Aidan or Cuthbert, not some Turk who never set foot in this country who just happened to be a favourite of a King who didn't even speak English and who tried his hardest not to set foot here either.

The island was fascinating, a little community isolated from the mainland, it's main trade being tourism although I hope the few fishing boats still maintained a living for probably families who have relied in them for decades, if not centuries.

Back to Berwick early afternoon (that's all the time the tides would allow us) and since it still wasn't raining, time to walk the walls. The town has been reinforced in Elizabethan times to ward of the Scots and had impressive ramparts, each with gun enclosures to catch those heathen Catholic Scots in lethal crossfire should they ever deign to threaten God's own Proddies! Believe me, this is some serious defence work, and the UK's first garrison town to boot, prior to Berwick having its own garrison, squaddies were housed by the local townspeople, I bet that was fun!

Then for an evening meal. The painter Lowry was a fan of Berwick and many of his paintings depict parts of the town (if I every get decent internet I'll upload some paintings and photos). When in town he stayed at the Castle Hotel which the local butcher had told us did an excellent steak dinner special. If it's good enough for Lowry it's good enough for me. And it was, two huge local steaks, chips, all the trimmings and a bottle of wine for £30. Makes up for that cheap fish'n'chip meal on our anniversary a week or so ago. And if this hotel could offer up a bottle of wine with only 20% markup (i.e. it sells in Majestic for £9.99 and is in the Crown's menu for £12) then why do southern restaurants make at least 100% markup?

One slightly sour note of today, first thing this morning Liz took a walk to the toilet block. On her return there was a bloke with a placid Labrador walking close to her, coming the other way was someone with two little yappy terriers. The terriers took umbrage that another dog should be in their vicinity and got frisky. They were on those extensible leads and one ran behind Liz and attacked her, leaving either a purple claw or tooth mark in her ankle. Unfortunately she was not using her walking stick at the time or a canine rectumotomy may have needed to be performed.

Life in the van #1 - Space (the final frontier)

I thought it might be interesting to depict what living in the van is like. Let's start with the physical stuff - space.

The van splits into two separate spaces, the driving bit and the living bit. Unlike many vans these really are separate, you can't access the cab from the back or vice versa (unless you are an Olympic gymnast). I won't bother describing the cab, it's a standard van cab, driver and passenger seats, driving bits etc. Many campervans actually have front seats that rotate so they can be used in the rear but not so in ours. However you can reach over the seat backs and dump stuff on them, handy for coats, shoes (in a bag) etc.

The living space itself consists of a gallery address (0.65m*0.60m) and a seating area with table (1.70m*1.55m) giving a totally lining space of 3.0 sq mtrs - or 1.5 sq mtrs personal space each! You really do have to be on good terms with each other, there's nowhere to sulk!

That space also includes storage space - cupboards in the galley, and lockers under the seats. There's also a large (a relative term, nothing in the van really merits  the description "large") storage "Luton" area over the cab. More about storage in a later blog entry.

The galley has a fridge/grill/2 ring cooker on one side and a sink with loo underneath on the other side. The seating area has a 1.7m bench running the length of one side and two seats astride the table in the other. At nighttime the seat back will close the gap between the two seats transforming that side too into one long bench. The central aisle is then filled with the seat backs from the bench side to make one large 1.7m * 1.5m double bed across the entire width of the van. A little extra length can be achieved by making sure the driver and passenger seats are as far forward as they can go and filing the gap between them and the bed with boxes and cushions to match the bed height and so be suitable for placing pillows on.

Friday - just out and about

OK, chores day. We will be getting short of underwear and socks soon, so Liz has to spend a little time in the launderette. This site was deliberately chosen because it has such facilities. Whilst she organises that Brian has the task of emptying the van's chemical toilet. As we only use this for liquid waste it's not too onerous a chore, although this morning the chemical disposal point was a little walk away and the toilet particularly full!

Washing up and showers too, meant that the chores took most of the morning. Off to explore Berwick then. Note the weather is important in all of this and the sun is shining brightly so the plan is to walk the 1.25 mile circumnavigation of Berwick's walls. Alas, as soon as we walk the three quarter mile trip into town, partly over a long and ancient bridge across the Tweed, the weather suddenly turns cold and squally, not really suitable walking weather. So time to provision. Yesterday in Alnwick we picked up a bread "stottie", a flat, bottom of the oven loaf, today's baker provided dessert, a " bannock", a round, very fruit laden loaf. Very nice they both were too. The local butcher once again helped Brian in search of the perfect pork pie; a good attempt but not in the top 10 (unlike the one from Wigton two days ago which was excellent). We've neither tried a Scotch Pie yet, but Liz enjoyed the black pudding pie!

A local green, organic shop was the only place we could find a bottle of the locally brewed Bear Claw beer and also locally roasted coffee (both probably produced within sight of where the van is camped). Although that type of organic shop did mean somewhat extravagant pricing. A quick pop into a tiny micro-pub and then back to the van for an early afternoon, the weather was just too cold and unpredictable. On the walk back over the bridge we spotted a grey seal directly below us in the Tweed. Note to self, make sure you have the binoculars with you at all times.

Back to the van for 6, and a night in, we're planning an early start tomorrow. Yes, 7 am alarm call. Why? You'll have to wait until the next blog entry to find out!

Thursday - All along the watchtowers

Oh, oh our first van problem. We awoke to see a nasty damp patch around the rear roof hatch. The very slight angle of the van meant that water had pooled up against the side of the hatch wall and there must be a small gap in the seal. Too difficult to sort out now, it needs a tall step-ladder to reach properly but I soaked up all of the water pooled on the roof and reaching up from inside smeared some silicone around the edges as best I could. All done by feel as I can't get to inspect my handiwork and probably quite a mess but it might just effect a seal. Not too much problem if not, we just need to check water pooling each night and soak up as much as we can so there is none to sneak in.

After the bad start the day improved rapidly. The evil wind has dropped and it has been fairly sunny all day. Perfect for our driver across country, literally. Rather than hammer along the main roads we chose a more scenic route from Carlisle, upon to Bellingham, across to Alnwick and then asking the coast past Seahouses, Bamburgh and into Berwick. Once again stupendous scenery and fascinating geography with crags, gullies, escarpments, and lots of other features I can't name.  I should have paid more attention to at school.

Much of the journey was along Roman roads, much parallel to Hadrian's Wall (and all its watchtowers, hence the tenuously linked title). So dead straight but only in the horizontal plane. The equivalent of tight bends up here are the multitude of "Sudden Dip" signs.

It's wild country and you've got to be pretty tough to live up here. Even the larger towns like Bellingham and Otterburn are little more than villages and very isolated. Must be hard in the winter, and everyone probably owns a Land Rover. Nice to go back through Bellingham, it was the location of our first holiday after having the girls. They were pre-school and Granny offered to look after them whilst Liz and I took a week earned break. Not sure why we chose Bellingham, maybe the isolation, more likely a cheap deal we found somewhere, in those pre-internet days.

On to Alnwick and its castle and gardens. The gardens are on our want to visit list but today we settled for a mooch round town and a couple of hot chocolates in the local tearooms. To find out the difference I ordered the deluxe whilst Liz insisted on having the regular. The difference: whipped cream, marshmallows, Flake, the whole shooting match. Thence on up the coast through the strange seaside resort of Seahouses, strange because I'm can't believe it gets seaside warmth up here too often. Onwards to Bamburgh with its impressive overbearing castle, another must visit! Probably the most impressive looking castle in the UK.

Not a great start to Berwick, I dropped the power cable ready to hook up to the site's electricity and on picking it up I discovered I had found a pile of dog pooh. All over my hands, in every nook and cranny of the plastic plug. What an unpleasant mess. Don't get me started about irresponsible per owners!!

Weds continued - why we do it

One of my readers (probably the only one) commented on the negatives posted: cold, wet weather, dour people and chasing our tails hunting for LPG and I could read the subtext "Why bother?".

Here's why. After last night's blog entry we did indeed wrap up warm against the elements (2 hats, the wind was so cold) and brave the just over mile walk to the pub. And a scary walk it was too down a main road without pavement where the 60mph sign seemed to be taken as a minimum rather than maximum.

Arriving at the pub just before 8 we found ourselves the sole customers, not an auspicious start. But they had 3 handpumps of their own Carlisle Brewery beer on (all of which were excellent). The pub architecture was superb, an excellent example of a 1930s art deco influenced wood paneled interior, most of which was still original. No surprise to discover it is Grade ii Listed. Then we read our beer mat which referred us to the State Management Scheme. The. what?, you ask; they what?, we asked too. Basically in 1916 as part of DORA (the defence of the realm act) the government took over all the pubs in the Carlisle area to try to reduce alcohol consumption of workers at the nearby munitions works in Gretna. They closed pubs, rebuilt others and put civil servants in charge of all the pubs. The goal was to make pubs less working man alcohol centric but more family friendly and food oriented - I suppose having your missus come down the pub might well reduce your alcohol consumption (doors in my case). Landlords were not incented on alcohol sales but on sale of soft drinks and meals. An interesting experiment who merits further reading. The amazing thing is that whilst a similar scheme in Enfield was stopped in 1921, here in Carlisle it continued until 1973!! Social engineering on a grand scale. The Spinners Arms was an example of a 1930 pub under the scheme built by the scheme's main architect, Harry Redfern.

Wonderful stuff but it gets better, just before 9 a group of musicians wandered in, set up in a corner and started jamming folk tunes. No house band, no fees, just a group who enjoy playing together and use the pub to indulge their talent. And very talented they were too. This sort of informal music where musicians jam together and the rest of the pub ignore them (no applause) is quite rare even in Dublin where a few such places still exist but to find such craic here over in England is rare indeed. And very enjoyable, all instrumental, mainly reels and airs that were very heavily Irish influenced. Good stuff and sad that we felt we needed to leave before the end.

Anyway one night like that, great architecture, great beer, great music and an interesting snippet of English history we were totally unaware of - that's we we suffer the weather, traffic, and glum faces of shopkeepers.