Haddington & Aberfeldy

August 2014

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Lynne and Daisy move out on to the balcony section to see what they can see.  Unfortunately, as it is later in the season, there are not as many flowers out.  But it still very vegetation-heavy.  If that's a thing.

But look at this crazy big bush thing with red flowers on.  Have you ever seen anything like it?

With the backdrop of purest green, it's hard to completely make out this one, but it is still pretty striking - a long, thin, perfectly upright stalk with ever decreasing leaves protruding from it.

We made our way round the pathways, this time not missing out any numbers.  Eventually we reached 12.  As you can see.

Around this time we found this suspicious looking hut.

It appeared to be linked to this Get Your Hands Dirty sign.  It talks about leaf mould being a crumbly brown material that helps the soil.  It asks you to get your hands dirty and have a feel, but put it back afterwards (it's not really a great holiday present, you don't imagine).  It also recommends that you make your own at home, but it does take three years for the leaves to decompose sufficiently, so it's not really a good Saturday afternoon project for the children.

Despite the end-of-season feel, there were still some striking flowers around, like this one...

...and also this one.

This pesky bird wouldn't stay quite still enough for long enough for me to get it into focus and not the nearby leaf, but I've put it in anyway.  I'm like that.

Whilst Lynne and Daisy were often rushing ahead to find the next numbers, I was taking pictures and carrying The Boy.  It looks like he's sucking his thumb here, but he's not a thumb sucker.  He must have been chewing it or something.

Here are the girls at the last sign, number 33.  Daisy has visibly tired from the walk, as it does involve quite a few steps up and down.

Here is the house that is next to the gardens.  Not a bad little two-up, two-down.

Some more flower shots for the flower lovers amongst you...

...and also here.

Lunchtime was had in the House of Menzies.  Daisy is running out because this is the shot afterwards, but I wanted to set the scene.

Inside, Daisy was keen to demonstrate her break-dancing skills on this randomly-placed rugs.

We drove back a scenic route and, with the children asleep in the back, we decided to further elongate our path homeward by driving partway round Loch Tay as the rain closed in rather dramatically.

Refreshed by this, Daisy was keen to head to the farm to see what farmyard action was going on.  Obviously Kitty came along.

We watched on as Calum did some shepherding with the sheep.

There were some plucky souls who did not fancy joining in with the fun quite so much.  "Come on, lads - if we stick together he'll never get us."

The Spirit of Wood furniture store, ladies and gentlemen.

A resplendent bunch of different coloured flowers (they probably have names, right?).

Calum suggested we take his little jeep for a ride, so I drove with Daisy down to our lodge where Lynne took a photo.

When we got back to the farm, a cat took an interest in proceedings.

And in fact it wanted to take over driving duties.  We didn't let it of course.

Meanwhile Gregory busied himself by just looking cute and a little bit wistful.

That evening we were invited for a home-cooked meal at Nicky's, where Daisy practises her unique football skills.

As we waiting for the meal to be finished off, young Jacob let Daisy watch his mini-tablet, rather sweetly.

It was a very pleasant looking evening.

I was heading out for a night bike ride, so Lynne showed some excellent multi-tasking skills by feeding Gregory whilst reading a book for Daisy, which she dutifully turned the pages for.

Calum and I (on a borrowed mountain bike) met his cycling mates at a nearby pub, and from there we headed up a long off-road climb as the light faded.  From most of the way up that climb, I turned back to take a photo of Aberfeldy (any excuse to rest my increasingly sore back).  We then headed across some fields before whizzing down a long, straight track with big spotlights showing us the way.  That was certainly interesting (i.e. scary) and I slowly lost touch with the group, eventually meeting them when we got to the road.  From there, we spun along the main road back to the pub for a few pints (or soft drinks for those driving) - it was funny to look back at all the bright lights, like some huge well-lit tank whizzing along the road.  Here is the route we did.

It was a grey morning the next day (Friday), although I did catch a rainbow in amongst the drab sky.

I was back out on the bike again; this time on a borrowed road bike (with my bike rack no longer fitting on the new car and absolutely no room for anything extra inside the car).  Nicky and I cycled over to Kenwood where we met up with her friend.  We then took a social, scenic route, racking up 25 miles round the River Lyon before ending up back at the farm.  Here is the route we took.

After I returned, we drove a good chunk of the way to Perth to go to the Stewart Tower Dairy, which was home to a vast number of flavours of ice-cream.

We had one very grumpy sausage, though.  She ignored the waitress who asked for our order and then sat on the floor behind the chairs.  With this lack of behaving, I said that I would put her in the car.  She didn't relent so I called her bluff.  That didn't go down well but it had the desired effect and she was a different person when I went to fetch her after five minutes in the isolation booth.  (The car alarm went off initially which didn't help!)

Lynne had a traditional Scottish dish of Stovies served with oatcakes.

By the side of the dairy were some miniature animals (it was a fully operational farm) which provided some good camera fodder.  I've zoomed in here and everything but they are still tiny!

After lunch, we headed down to Noah's Ark in Perth for some indoor fun action.  The adults were allowed on some of the features, such as these motorised trikes which we could both sit on.  Whilst driving round, this was my attempt to take a photo of us.  A selfie, if you will.

Here is Daisy taking control by herself.  (I say that, but she couldn't actually drive it on her own.)

Needless to say she managed to quickly find the only TV in the place, in this miniature bus.

We switched children, and Lynne and Daisy had a go on the motorised trikes (£1 a go).  All pretty good fun.

For our last evening in Aberfeldy, we met up with Nicky for a curry at Chillies restaurant, home of Daisy's first proper curry the year before (a proud moment indeed).

And then it was time to go, as the clouds descended.

We packed up the car as I took photos and Daisy hung around in the doorway.

All in all, another fine trip to Scotland.

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