Isle of Skye - Haggis Tour

This shirt is the best way to start my stories on Scotland - it is a good description.

Our first stop was the William Wallace Monument in Sterling - a really steep walk. I took quite a few pics of the monument including the part that is supposed to be a replica of William Wallace himself but decided to include the overall pic and then underneath is a very special sculpture of none other than Mel Gibson - this statue is below the monument by the shop. Kinda funny that he managed to get himself included in the William Wallace Monument.

Eilean Donan Castle. Unfortunately we couldn't go into the castle - wrong season but we still got to wonder around. This castle was damaged during wars and battles and remained that way for a long time. Then a gentleman of the Mac Rae family (the owners of the land) had a dream of walking around the castle in its complete state. He woke up, drew up plans and organised to rebuild the Castle. Later the original plans were found and his reconstruction was proven to almost 100% accurate. All from a dream.

We then made a trip to the Clansmen Centre close to where we were to bunk for the night in Fort Augustus. Two of the people on tour got dressed up in the original style of dress and we were shown all the various weapons that were used. The interesting thing is that the whole idea of different knit kilts for different clans was never in existence. They only had natural dyes and used whatever they had at the time. The idea of a different knit for each clan is a modern concept.

This is Sligachan the magical river between the red and black mountains. Let me take you back through the misty curtains of time. There were two clans living on either side of Sligachan - the Mac Donalds and the Mac Cleods. The problem with these two strong powerful clans living so close to each other was that there was constant battles between the two. The chiefs from each clan decided to meet in order to devise a plan to bring peace. Luckily they each had children a beautiful daughter (possibly the most beautiful girl in the world) from the Mac Donald clan and then a eligible bachelor from the Mac Cleod clan - the plan was for them to marry and bring peace.

The day arrived and the beautiful girl packed up and headed down to Sligachan to meet her future husband. With her she had her little dog, her donkey which she rode on and a little farmer boy who lead the donkey. They arrived and started to cross the river - the donkey got a scare and the beautiful girl fell off damaging the side of her face and losing her eye. Upon arrival on the other side she was confronted by anger since the man she was to marry did not want an ugly wife he then beat the dog, donkey and farmer boy and sent them all back.

On her arrival home her father was so angry with the situation that he too banished her, her donkey, her dog and the farmer boy. Having nowhere to go she went down to Sligachan and cried trying to find a solution to her dilemma.

Elfin, King of the wee people, heard her cry and asked what had happened. She explained the story and he said not to worry and whispered in her ear. She then went to the edge o the river and dunked her face - when she resurfaced she noticed that her reflection was once again beautiful. She then dunked her dog, donkey and the farmer boy and it had the same affect for all and they all lived happily ever after.

I decided to make myself more beautiful aswell and dunked my head in the water - nothing happened I must be too beautiful already. ;)

Here I am on the banks of Loch Ness, over my shoulder you will see the Loch Ness Monster. ;) Just kidding it is Steve, he is an Australian who was also on the tour. Although in the next pic you will see that the Loch Ness Monster did come out and say hi.

This is our whole tour group - quite a few of us. In the end I had a blast and I would recommend Haggis tours to everyone. They really managed to show me the sexiness of Scotland.

Edinburgh with Al

My trip to Edinburgh - hang out with Allan. After a 8 hour bus drive a was suprisingly still awake enough to play tourist and my first main tourist site (after Als place that is) was Edinburgh castle. I probably saw it on one of the worst days possible because of the weather, somehow it managed to get colder upon entering the castle. It was supposed to be used by the royals back in the day but due to the conditions of the castele (gale force icy winds) they would only really use it for emergency refuge. The photo is my pose before going in and conquering the castle.

A beautiful view of Edinburgh was available from all around the castle cos the castle is on the top of a hill . This particular view you can see Balmoral Hotel and the station - you might also notice the horrible weather.

High Street in Edinburgh is the first main street in Edinburgh - it is home to all the tourist spots. It is also known as the Royal Mile because it is just over a mile long and has Edinburgh Castle on one end and Holyrood Palace on the other. This photo was supposed to depict all the Scottish flags but most people who have seen it notice the car first.

Alot of the old school buildings here have seperate entrances one for girls and one for boys - I can only assume that the entrances are not still used to seperate the girls fromboys but I hought it was really cool. I wonder if all the classrooms had two entrances as well.

I tried to look as Scottish as possible (you know when in Rome do as the Romans do) - but under the advisement of Allan I decided to put the hat back and walk away slowly before it jumped up and tried to attack me. ;)

RUGBY - My timing could not have been better. Sat afternoon, Scotland vs Wales - venue Scotland. We went looking for a good pub to watch the game and landed up here, notice all the people? More importantly notice all the Wales supporters? I promise I was in Scotland. The pub still managed to belt out Flower of Scotland with enormous pride so inamongst all those red shirts there were alot of Scots aswell. Scotland won and even though I am not Scottish I felt very proud of the victory and Flower of Scotland is one of my new favourite songs.

What is watching the rugby without going out after on a pub crawl? Debbie, Lee, Allan and myself(behind the camera) went out from pub to pub finding all the parties. It was a good evening but by the end I was ready to pass out. I must make clear I was ready to pass out due to lack of sleep and not due to alcohol intake. Remember I had been on a bus the whole night before.

Three cheers to Allan for looking after me in Edinburh. Hip pip! ... Hip pip! ... Nog 'n pip! ... No more pip's! ...

School Cancelled

Woke up this morning (Thurs 8 Feb 2007) and it had snowed again last night but better still - it was still snowing. Mark was going to a different school this morning so today I had to walk and take tubes. Walking in the snow is really cool ... literally. The snow was squeeking under my feet and I had all these light flakes collecting on my coat. When I arrived at the school I got someone to take a photo cos I felt like a snowman but it just looks like I got wet.

The kids were all sent home due to the severe weather conditions but we all stayed in to do marking and other boring paper work. Then decided to take a break and play in the snow, so we went outside and built a snowman. Shortly after our little photo shoot some kids who were still hanging around came by and stole his head so he didn't last very long.

Taresa and I then decided to make a mini snowman for the Maths department since we were the only Maths teachers outside. We decided to name the little guy JJ for Jim Junior (our HOD's name is Jim). We then took him inside and put him on a chair to give us moral support while we all marked the yr 9's SAT exams.Here are a couple of us marking, once again Taresa has a smile on her face. From left to right, Sofian(dunno if that is spelt correctly), Taresa and John. The department is bigger than this but not everyone was there and not everyone fitted into the photo. I included this photo cos at the time it brought back memories of our group marking sessions at Northcliff - miss you guys.

JJ started melting and we were about to leave so we took him outside to prolong his life a little, this is just outside the staffroom. Even JJ seems to be looking for some kind of help for this school of ours.

We went to Mc Donald's before going home but you will be glad to know that I did not take a photo of our food this time. On the way home Mark took me on a detour across Tower Bridge - really stunning. This photo was taken from inside the car so prob not the best but I had to share it.

All in all this has been the best day of my year so far. Absolutely magical.

Science Museum

Being the teacher I am all the museums are a must but in baby steps. Jon, Vicki, Kristine and myself decided to check out the Science Museum - added bonus entry free.

One of the first things I took a picture of was this REALLY old car - I decided that if I ever had a car for any antique type value it would have to be one like this. It is a 1950 Rover Gas Turbine Car. Considering its age I really think it looks quite funky.

The next car is for all you F1 fanatics - after taking the photo Jon pointed out the sign that said you are not allowed to take photos ... oops. I spose the fact that I am putting it on the internet is not so great either. Its not the best quality photo and I am not making money from it so I think I should be fine. I didn't read all the details but basically it is the remains from one of Mika's crashes. Cool hey?


Then the games, one of the coolest things about the science museum is all the things you get to play with. I took a photo of the city that Vicki and I nearly saved from a power failure. All the lights go out and you have to do various tasks to get all the engineers to the places they need to be in order to get the electricity going again. We managed to help the first 2 engineers but the 3rd one was in a hospital helping some dying patients. We were supposed to look after the patients while the engineer sorted out the electricity - we killed 3 of them, on the bright side we had a 50% success rate (and with OBE that is a comfortable pass). ;o)

Kristine, Vicki and myself waiting in the que for virtual roller coaster ride. It was more like a sci fi roller coaster ride - and we might of all suffered from a bit of whiplash but it was really cool. Not sure what exactly I was doing in this pic but I am sure it made sense at the time.


Finally Jon, Vicki and I ended the day with pizza from Pizza Hut, they have a really yummy version of the whole crammed crust thing, the pizza is surrounded by cheese heads (pizza dough filled with melted cheese). Tasty very tasty.

Marriott Hotel

This last Friday I went to the Marriott Hotel; Christina, Tim, Vicki and Jon were all staying there for the weekend. This wonderful photo of Vicki and I was in the hotel room. I officially decided that if I ever find a rich man I could get used to living in Hotels.

Christina then took us all out for dinner at Fratellis this is the restaurant inside the hotel. It was very posh and I felt a little underdressed in my takkies (or trainers as they call them here). It was a great meal; had calamari for starters, chick for main course and strawberries with lemon sorbet for dessert - I was definitely filled up after that. It was great catching up - I also tried a Magners (Irish cider), good but not after the strawberries.

For those of you who don't know from left to right, Tim, Christina, Jon, Vicki and ME.

The closest station to the hotel is Gloucester station and I thought the walls were really pretty so I took a picture, I haven't seen any other station decorate its walls.