Bonnie Bonnie Banks

Hi All :)
Tim and I have both been working for a few weeks, exploring Edinburgh bit by bit and saving a few pounds, so we planned a long weekend away to Loch Lomond. :)

We hired a car (oooh, fancy not using public transport for a while!) and set off on Saturday morning. We took the scenic route and went via Stirling and the Stirling Castle, the second biggest and probably most important castle in Scotland. The weather wasn't playing along but we had a great time trying to soak up Scotland's fascinating history inside the stronghold. It was quite an experience to walk through the bedchambers and home of real famous Royals who shaped this country. The tapestries hanging in the throne-room were spectacular, showing that unicorns do exist, hehe!

Tapestries in the Throne-room

The impressive and beautiful Castle walls

Defenses!

After the Castle we got back on the road and headed west to Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park. The trip ended up being slightly longer than it should have been after we took an unplanned hour-long detour... but of course no-one is being blamed for that! We finally arrived at the extremely cute and beautiful 'Gardeners Cottages' - our accommodation for the next 3 nights. The cottages consist of about 4 apartments in one long building which used to be the staff housing to the big fancy Arden House next door. The gardens were beautiful with bunnies, robins, daffodils and lovely big trees. It was just a short walk to the shores of the famous Loch with it's special views.

The Gardener's Cottages

On Sunday morning we went on a beautifully scenic drive around Loch Lomond, Loch Long and Loch Eck to reach the Argyll Forest Park. The road took us through a spectacular river valley with mountains and cliffs towering in the mist, past mountain goats, sheep and highland coo's! We walked the Puck's Glen Gorge, which was just magical! It is named Puck's Glen after a mischievous sprite who appears in Shakespeare's 'Midsummer Night's Dream'. The walk mostly criss-crossed over the river, wooden bridges and waterfalls through the gorge and really felt like a fairy wonderland!

Puck's Glen

Where the fairies live!

On Monday we took a ferry across to Inchailloch Island, one of the biggest Islands on the Loch. It was previously a hunting ground for Robert the Bruce (and we spotted some of the deer that still live there!), as well as monastery for a runaway Irish Princess known as Caintigern. The name Inchailloch means 'Isle of the old woman', probably after the nuns who lived on the island. We visited the rruins of the Church and burial grounds. The Island also has remains of a farm, and was the burial ground for Clan MacGregor. The burial rituals used to involve some heavy drinking and there are some funny, if morbid, stories of the family members losing bodies or forgetting to bury them because they all got too drunk!
We climbed to the top of Inchailloch and the view of the Loch and Ben Lomond was stunning, made even better by the sunshine! We were lucky enough to watch an Osprey circling above us. :) The forest was amazingly peaceful and carpeted in a blue haze of bluebells. After we enjoyed a picnic lunch on Inchailloch we caught the ferry back across the Loch and drove up to The Lodge Forest Centre and Red Squirrel Hide - excitement! After a pretty, short walk through the forest and past a lovely waterfall we found the hide. The birds were extremely active and fun to watch and eventually we were rewarded with a little red squirrel who came down and had lunch in front of us!!! It really made the weekend, to be able to sit quietly and watch him nibble away! :)

View from the top!

Burial grounds

Bluebell carpet

RED SQUIRREL!!!

Our final morning was Tuesday and we treated ourselves to a 1.5 hour cruise up the Loch. We passed a couple of cute little islands and Rob Roy's cave, where the famous Scottish outlaw and hero hid from the Duke in the 1720's. It was a lovely morning on smooth water, with the high mountains around us still with patches of snow on them!

One of the Cruise Loch Lomond boats

Natural Beauty

Cruising!

Loch Lomond

And so after an amazing time on Bonnie Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond, we headed back to Edinburgh!

In other news, Tim's job is still going well and I have also been working for the past ~2 months. I am working about 4 days a week at a cafe called Leo's Beanery. I'm in the kitchen, doing breakfasts and lunches and some mornings I go in early to open up and make scones, soups and quiches. It is pretty hard work but I am enjoying it and I work with great, friendly people.

We are still enjoying this beautiful city and ticking off things bit by bit. We were able to visit the spectacular St Giles Cathedral, walk the Royal Mile and picnic in sunshine at the Royal Botanical Gardens. The weather is slowly improving and all the buds on the trees have popped open and flowers are blooming!

I am sending lots and lots of love and hugs to everyone, miss you all! Hx

Barefoot and in the kitchen

I imagine some of you might be confused. What is Tim doing in the kitchen? Surely it must be too cold in Scotland for even the thickest soled person - even Tim! - to be barefoot? But Helen and Tim are living day-by-day from hand to mouth in someone else's flat they found on AirBnB; they don't have a kitchen to be barefoot in! I'm sure these are just some of the countless expressions of disbelief cascading through your minds as you read this very post. Well rest assured. You may all sleep comfortably (as I am unable to do at 23:00) in the knowledge that in a blow to global feminism it is not I but Helen who has been spending her time barefoot and in our own kitchen:

Heron Place
Granton
Edinburgh
EH5 1GG

That is the location of our new kitchen and here is the view from the kitchen:

Together with an open-plan kitchen we also have 2 bedrooms, a bathroom, 2 broom cupboards, a balcony and a bonnie Scottish lass called Robyn. This is what the flat looks like from the outside (we're actually around the right hand corner of the building):

So what has Helen been up to in the kitchen? Well, she's been baking awesome brownies, biscuits, muffins, cupcakes and rocky road.

We also found an awesome one pot cooking cook book which we've been working through. I must admit I've been pretty chuffed with the way things have been going. I work all day and I get to come home to new baked goodies and then Helen cooks dinner. I think it's really a good deal. Until I have to wash the dishes...

The more financially minded of you may be wondering how it is we're now able to fund renting a flat and all this baking and cooking. Well I got a job as a barista on weekends at cafe. The ad was simple - Barista needed, work starts next week. I was invited for an interview and it was only then that I realised it was for a children's play cafe. The whole place is designed to let parents of little ne'er-do-wrongs sit back and enjoy their (rather expertly prepared) skinny/soy half-shot latte without having to worry about what little Jonny is up to. There's a small plastic jungle gym and millions of toys for the little darlings to play with. This was obviously the goal at the end of my career rainbow and I signed up immediately - what luck!

This was just before we found the flat we're in now and also just after I submitted my CV to a software development company without much hope of a response. However, after starting as a barista on the wekeends, I had an interview with the software company and they offered me a contract during the week. It was all rather serendipitous and we were able to sign a lease for our current flat since this all happened within the same week. The cafe hired me because they were just too busy for their current staff and I felt bad about just dropping them suddenly so I worked there until the end of Feb (fyi: a 7 day working week is a bad idea).

As for Helen, she's still looking for work and spending my money as only a woman can. She is however spending it on sweet treats so I guess I can't complain too loudly. It is a small world though and a friend of Anne's who actually lived in Edinburgh for a while mentioned Helen to one of his old flatmates who runs a deli in Haymarket near the Murryfield stadium. The guy who runs the deli chatted to Helen and while he can't even give Helen part-time shifts he did say he'll let her know if one of his staff needs covering. Helen's already worked one shift there and she's got another tomorrow. Obviously this kind of casual work isn't ideal but at least it's something - if Helen spends too much time at home I'll be poor and fat. On the other hand, with my software contract we're getting by so any money Helen earns would just be a bonus and I think she could probably concentrate on her baking instead of getting a job as long as the cost of baking comes out of her pay :P

...Aaaaand we're back!

We're back in Scotland and boy is it cold! We left 35deg C in George and landed in 5deg C weather in Edinburgh. But at least there's no snow on the ground here yet unlike the mountains we saw from the plane. We think it was the Alps but the cloud and snow were covering the signs and SAA didn't have the greatest map.

Now, a few of the more astute readers might realise that we were going to fly with Lufthansa so how did we end up on an SAA plane? The short version can be summed up with the following quote from one of the helpful airport staff: "The plane is technical." The long version is hopefully more entertaining but just as enlightening.

5th Dec 2013: The prologue to this saga of global travels concerns the tropical storm of December 2013 that tore through the UK and northern Europe the day we left: Storm Xavier. Helen and I were supposed to catch a train from Dumfries to Edinburgh and then fly form Edinburgh to JHB via a 1hr stop-over in Frankfurt. Xavier had other plans and forced the UK authorities to close the entire Scottish rail network due to the risks posed by trampolines and plastic garden furniture strew across the tracks. Thankfully Brian and Debbie drove us to the airport where we managed to catch our flight which was half an hour late. Xavier continued to accompany us on our journey and the half-hour approach to Frankfurt was not stable. I'm not a nervous flyer but even I was thankful when we finally touched down in Frankfurt. At 21:20. When we were supposed to board the connecting flight at 21:05. Helen's calm demeanour however ensured that we ran across Frankfurt airport, through the unexpected security checkpoint (containing precisely one very short and very peeved, voiceless female German security officer) and onto the next plane with a whole five minutes to spare. The next flight to JHB passed mostly uneventfully and thus concludes the prologue.

22nd Jan 2014: Helen and I arrived at JHB and proceeded to check in for our flight to Edinburgh via Frankfurt. Helen noted that the flight to Frankfurt was delayed but we had around 6 hours to catch our connection in Frankfurt - we were not going to have a repeat of last time.

I, in my boundless wisdom, made sure we arrived in JHB from George 4 hours before we needed to board the first flight to Frankfurt. This gave Helen plenty of time to not stress or worry when we arrived at the Lufthansa check in counter to be told that our flight was delayed until 11:40 the next morning due to a technical fault. Our option was to either stay the night in JHB or try and get onto another flight to Frankfurt. We chose the later and that was how we came to be on an SAA flight departing at 20:30. Which was then delayed until 21:30. At 21:00 a CheckPort official came around to check our passports. He loudly proclaimed that the plane had arrived and that now he had to check our passports. He proceeded to check everyone's passports in the surly manner that only an official can. Once all our passports had been checked we waited to board the plane. We continued to wait until 23:30 after the plane we were supposed to board "went technical" and they had to get a new one out of the hanger and ready to fly to Frankfurt.

Eventually the powers that be took pity on us and in a move to boost moral taken out of every hostage drama movie they handed out food and beverages to us. This was a mixed blessing as it meant we got food but also that they thought there was enough time to actually get through a whole meal. Except that suddenly the plane was ready and we had to board even as the last people were being served their meal. Anyone who has been disturbed at 23:30 by someone and had to go out on an errand can sympathise with the plane at this point. However, I personally think it was little unfair for the plane to retaliate by making its auxiliary power unit to "go technical" leaving us on the plane on the tarmac with no aircon while all the grumpy people board. Being an SAA flight and an ACSA managed airport I suppose it was predictable that the tug (the truck that pushes the plane around the runway) would then also join the plane in solidarity and the spirit of ubuntu and refuse to co-operate too. We finally got off the ground at around midnight but we did arrive in Frankfurt a whole two hours before our next flight. We were NOT going to go through that again!

24th Jan 2014: Epilogue - Helen and I have settled in quite nicely in our room in Edinburgh. The people we're staying with are very friendly and even printed us a map of Edinburgh with touristy things pointed out. Before we left last year I signed a zero-hour contract with a stocktaking company which means that they don't guarantee me any work but they'll keep me in mind when clients need stock taken counted. Well it looks like I have 2 jobs with them next week so that's something at least. Also, there is a job fair in Glasgow on the 29th for the commonwealth games which I think are in March so we'll go past and see what we can find. The weather is cold here but no snow yet. Carol and Rob, our hosts, say the snow is still coming though. Hopefully that gives us enough time to go down to Dumfries and visit the Yates's to say 'Hi' and pick up our warm clothes - trampolines and garden furniture permitting.

Love to everyone back home, hope you're all enjoying the warm weather.

P.S. Helen says this is a very long post but considering it's my first one I need to make up for lost time...

Squirrels and fireworks

Hello from an increasingly chilly Scotland! Got out the leg warmers, boots, stockings, gloves and scarves!

Tim and I have managed to do a bit more exploring when the weather has been kind enough to allow it. We went to the spectacular Caerlaverock Castle, just down the road from Dumfries. It is a beautiful, medieval, triangular castle with a moat around it! We had a fantastic day in this 13th century stone building, admiring how much of the original castle remained. Photos just don't seem to do it all justice and show it off properly. Tim especially enjoyed the stories of the famous 1300 siege when the English army attacked the Scottish Castle, defended by only 60 men! Unfortunately the Scots surrendered after only 2 days.

We had a fantastic, if fresh, day walking through the forest at the Ken Dee Marshes near Castle Douglas. Aaaand.... I found my red squirrel!!!! :-) :-) :-) so we've finally seen one, he was very busy foraging on the forest floor and didn't even notice us. Super cute and I look forward to watching more! The forest walk had 2 bird hides along the route and we enjoyed getting to know the Scottish birds at the feeding boxes. It was the first big-ish frost and some of the puddles were still completely frozen at 14:30! We'll have to remember to wrap up before our next walk, no more shorts and t-shirts!

Remember remember the 5th of November... we celebrated Guy Fawkes night in Glasgow with Megan and James. We planned to make our way to the fireworks in the Glasgow Green, but unfortunately the subway was unexpectedly closed and taxis were useless! So plan B, we walked up to the University and watched the fireworks from the top of Glasgow. The setting was beautiful with the gorgeous University behind us and fireworks across the whole city in front of us!

The next morning we had some time to enjoy the art and museum at Kevin Grove gallery, before heading back to the train and home to Dumfries. It was a short but sweet stay and good introduction to a beautiful city we hope to explore some more later on!

So that's all of our recent news in a nutshell, I hope you will like my photies attached. In other news, I've only got 2 weeks of work left, and the we're planning a couple of days on the Isle of Man and then we're heading South! Decided to go home for Christmas, so will see everyone back home soon! :-) lots of love to everyone! Special love and thoughts to Anne and all of her chicken pox. Hx ♥♥♥

Hard at work!

Ok ok ok... here is some news! Sorry for the long wait but I've been very boring lately and working! 
I am working at a garden centre coffee shop called Gardenwise. We do teas, coffees, toasted samies and a canteen style lunch. It's quite busy even though the average customer age is probably 85! It's been great getting to know some 'real Scottish' people and chatting to the locals. We've also had some funny miscommunications in the kitchens with all the strange accents, apparently the way I pronounce 'lettuce' is very strange. I quickly had to learn to call a broom a brush, potatoes are called tatties, 2 pound coins are not R5 coins even though they look very similar and haggis really is very popular!

In other news, it's been great spending some time with Grampa Barry and Gran Val and we had some fantastic 80th birthday celebrations for Barry. Megs and Kendra come down for the weekend and we had an amazing carvery dinner in Carlisle! Tim and Grampa were put to work by Brian and they built a very fancy fence between Bramley House and the neighbouring house. They all worked very hard and I think Brian enjoyed having his South African labourers here!

On my day off on Wednesday Tim and I went through to Dalbeattie. We had a lovely walk through the forest but unfortunately didn't find any red squirrels. We did see some cute robins and a woodpecker. We had a picnic lunch overlooking the Dalbeattie Loch and really enjoyed exploring the forest. We will just have to keep looking for my squirrel!

So this is just a quick update to stop all the complaints for a little while! We are starting to plan more exploring, but need a couple more pounds first!

Lots and lots of love to all! XxxH♥

Big City Lights

Wow, back from the big city of LONDON!!! What a fast, hectic, awesome, whirlwind couple of days. We have navigated the underground, fought through other tourists, sat in the top of a double decked bus and fed a squirrel in Hyde Park. :-)

We arrived in London on Wednesday (11th Sept) after a 5 hour train and tube trip. We had a quick walk around wimbledon, no wombles unfortunately!
12th Sept: into London Town we go! We headed straight to the Natural History Museum. It is absolutely mind-blowing, wow!!! There are more spectacular rocks and minerals than a geologist can look at! 'The Vault' was a collection of interesting and precious stones, including a PRIVATE (!!!) collection of 296 coloured diamonds. Unfortunately the dinosaurs were on holiday, but that didn't mean we didn't have enough to keep us busy. We saluted Darwin's statue and enjoyed some very cool fossils! We spent about 3 hours there and only did half of the museum. Definitely somewhere to go and see again next time! After that we had a quick (2hours) look around the Science museum - history of computing, maths and flying. Exhausted after all this excitement, we dragged ourselves up to Hyde Park for our picnic lunch. The rain stayed away :-) and we got to see part of the World  Championship Triathlon as they swam around the Serpentine Lake. And of course I found my squirrels who shared my lunch with me. Once recovered and revived we walked to Harrods. WOW!!! Scary and waaaay too many people, but very interesting to see. Loads of money being spent and incredible to see all the different nationalities in one place.

13th Sept: Happy Birthday Miss Bray! Kirst met us in the morning and we made our way into London to find a hop-on-hop-off red bus tour. Apart from being veeery wet, it was a great interesting way to see all the sights for the first time and to get some of the history behind this amazing city. Unfortunately, due to the rain, my camera didn't click nearly as much as I wanted it to, but got a couple of good shops. We ended the tour with a cruise along the Thames River. After being nicely drenched we headed to a yummy Thai Restaurant for supper to meet some of Kirst's friends and to warm up!

14th Sept: early morning rugby with a room full of South Africans who quickly became very unhappy South Africans! After the disappointing game, we headed back to the city towards the Tower of London. We went the traditional route and had fish and chips for lunch, in front of the Tower, overlooking the Thames and fighting off pigeons! Once inside, we explored the White Tower and saw the very sparkly and impressive Crown Jewels. We also had a look at the torture chambers and saw the spot where numerous people, including Anne Boleyn was beheaded! A very grim part of London's history and scary to think how much absolute power some of the Kings had. Tim loved the exhibitions in the White Tower, with all the armour and weapons. There was also very cool dragon made out of guns, maps and armour. The history in this one small(ish) part of London is incredible.
After Tower of London we made our way back to Putney to celebrate Kirst getting old at the boathouse on the Thames River. It was a great night with lots of South Africans to chat to. A fantastic way to toast London, :-)

15th Sept: time to head back to Scotland, with a long list of things to do on our next trip to the big city!

Lots of love to everyone!xxx H♥

Acclimatizing

So we can slowly see that winter is peeking at us from around a corner. The days are getting shorter and the temperature is slowly dropping. Even though Tim and I are no where near ready for winter, we are enjoying acclimatizing to the Scottish! We supported the local Collin vs Torthorwald cricket game, and can see why SA usually beats Scotland! But it was a lovely warm sunny day, soaked up by the South Africans while Scots looked for shade.
We had a great day out with Brain, Megs and Kendra when we went to see the Grey Mare's Tail Waterfall, the 5th highest waterfall in Scotland. We walked up to a fantastic viewpoint and really enjoyed the scenery. The Roaming Linn which forms the 60m drop winds it's way through the purple heather filled hills, just for my mommy!!!
After visiting the waterfall we made our way to St Mary's Loch where we had a picnic lunch in the sun, on the bank of the Loch. Such a picturesque, beautiful place and exactly what you imagine when you think of Scotland. ♡♡♡
We also stopped at a dairy that Brian collects milk from. The have 2 robotic milking machines which are incredible so see in action, especially for a farmer's daughter. The cows stay in a shed all day and are trained to walk through the robot 4 times a day to be milked automatically. Very very cool - suddenly only 2 people are needed to run a farm that milks 220 cows. Luckily I had Megan there to interpret for me because I only understood every 4th word from the farmer in his thick accent.

We have also been able to see how the country locals do it by going to the Moniaive Gala where we watched traditional dancing with bagpipes and swords, sheepdogs working and even alpacas! Kendra and I went to 2 other country shows in England last week to help with the shetland pony showing. I was expecting to just sit back, enjoy it and watch but was thrown into the deep end and actually had to show a couple of miniatures! The ponies are very cute and full of attitude. It was great fun, and my pony and I even won a 3rd place :-) My favourite was a tiny 11 week old foal, much smaller than our ridgeback, Max! He was so good and won foal of the show. I really enjoyed walking round the show, there was everything from vintage tractors to ducks, sheep and vegetables. The second show even had some carriage driving events which were awesome to watch. So I have officially decided to sell my car when we get back and replace it with horse and carriage.

Apart from the rural life, we had a quick introduction to the city on Saturday when we took Kendra to Edinburgh and then helped Megan move flats in Glasgow. Both cities are beautiful and we definitely need to go back to do some proper site-seeing!

Other exciting news: heading to London on Wednesday for 4 nights, yay! Going to be a culture shock for us small-time third world Africans but looking forward to it. Super excited to be seeing Kirst for her birthday and keen to explore the city a little bit! So loads of news coming after our visit.

Huge hugs to everyone and lots of love! Enjoy the pictures. XH♥