Brace yourself, it's an epic.

Winding our way up the hill and back again.

Not a sculpture

It has been a while since the last blog, and there is a good reason. It is very hard to write when driving or even being a passenger. At the end of each day it is cooking, washing and battening down the hatches time. We had lovely weather in London and Wales and mistakenly we thought maybe we were bringing the sun with us. Well, we weren't. What ever was holding the good weather in place snapped with a THUNK! when we left Mandy and Jimmi's new mansion at Thornton le Dale on the Yorkshire moors. I had better fill this part in as the last blog was up to Wales.

 

 

They are very beautiful, the moors. We had a lovely time looking around at Whitby. Yes saw the captain, and millions of round people eating fish and chips enjoying the bank weekend. We went to a great little pub in Lewishham which is a place close to nowhere and in between somewhere and somewhere else. Then we went to the Yorkshire sculpture park which had some good works but it seems to need some refurbishment as the works in the grounds are looking very dated. There was a very interesting exhibition by a English African guy Yinka Shonibare MBE. Colourful, interesting and well made. I reqlly enjoyed his interpretation of "The masked ball"

 

 

English BBQ! Hoorah!

However, The best part of our stay was the picturesque village of Thornton le Dale. It is quaint and quite well preserved, unlike so much of England. The village still functions with a post office and village shop, unfortunately the butcher shop has shut recently. And the old peoples' home is attached to one of the local pubs, how cool. We had a BBQ "outdoors" and stayed out until about 9 pm in the sun which was amazing.

 

 

 

 

Then we started up the road towards Edinburgh and it started to rain and I don't think it has really stopped since. Oh yes it did stop some times and that was when the wind was blowing a gale. It is nice to be in a car though and I am glad I am not one of those crazy people we see riding a push bike with panniers. Or even more crazy walking beside a road with a full pack. We often wonder where on earth are these people going?

 

Our drive took us through north east Yorkshire where we saw Anthony Gormleys 'Angel of the North'. We arrived in Edinbugh and settled in for the night ready for a big look around the next day and, as it turned out, Paul's Birthday, which I forgot, you would think being so close for the last three months that would be something high on the list of things to remember. We were quite hungry and decided to have a birthday lunch. Paul had Haggis and tatties and neaps, which was pretty forgetable. As was the beer. Haggis is quite nice but it seems that chefs do some pretty terrible things with it. We saw the castle but didn't go in and a few churches which were big and much warmer than the European ones. And we walked up and down the Royal mile about 15 times looking for the toy museum, which once found, turned out to be quite good- and free! The national gallery had some interesting art works in it including some Rembrants, Van Gogh, and Degas. The layout of the gallery was quite confusing and a bit old fashioned but well maintained and the staff looked very nice in their Tartan uniforms. We left Edinburgh after looking for the Robbie Burns memorial, we found everyone else's in the park and it wasn't until we were driving out of town we found Burns's overlooking Arthur's seat.

 

 

St Monans, perhaps...

Up the road we headed towards Perth to see Jen and all of the boys, taking the coastal route through St Monan and St Andrews- The cathedral must have been huge! The bases of the pillars are the seize of a small car. St Andrews is probably a beautiful place on a nice day and there a quite a few interesting little shops BUT! Now, I don't want to seem negative and picky but how many op shops does Britain really need? I am really surprised to see whole High Streets full of 'Save the whales, Cancer foundation, MSSufferers need hep, Celiac sufferers unite, One legged dog Hospice there are fund raising shops EVERYWHERE! How come these shops can afford the High Street rents and some small business's have just shut their doors after 200 years of the same family trading in the same shop and city for 200 years? This leaves Britain smelling of mothballs and old cupboards. Britain looks like it has not left the 40's and it is often very ugly. When there is something interesting to see it is very expensive to get into and invariably surrounded by a pay and display car park that has ridiculous parking limits and payment options. At this point I would like to say thank you to all those small businesses who struggle to make life more interesting, to all of the exhibitions that don't require huge payment to see them to the small towns that have said no to pay and display.

 

 

We had a super night with Jen and Paul and Nicholas and Louis (thank you very much! Hope the cricket went well) then it was up into the hills of Scotland, past Balmoral where we were not invited in for tea as the Queen was not there. Up to Inverness and down past Loch Ness for more pay and displays and no Monster. I reckon if you have to pay to just park they could at least rummage up a loch-beast or two. By golly it was green and watery in those parts. Water gushing out of every nook and cranny, water rushing through gaps and gorges, water pouring under bridges and over rocks. Very pretty. And very mossy which I like.

 

 

Driving in Scotland, rainy.

We made it through the rain and over to Skye which is an awesome place. If you like rocks, cliffs, peaks, mist, windswept villages of white cottages and rainbows you'll like Skye. Just bring a raincoat and a warm hat. We spent a very windy night in a fairly sheltered camp ground where we were luckily able to use our cooker in a "camper's bothy", otherwise it would have been no hot dinner for us. The wind does rather wreck havoc with the gas jets...

 

 

 

 

 

Old Man of Storr.

 

 

 

 

Traffic jam, Skye style.

 

 

 

The next morning had us searching unsuccessfully (we think) for dinosaur footprints. I write "think" as it was a bit hard to tell. Evidently this beach had a few excellent specimens that were worth hunting for, so we hunted. Then it rained and we stopped.

 

 

Hang in there, Comet!

 

 

Back on the mainland we weaved and wended our way through incredible hills. Classic highland rolling clouds, mist sweeping into valleys, peaks jutting up into the sky, rivers plunging down though the flats. Great driving country and, again, full of crazy walkers. Full credit to these nutters, all through Scotland there were people, ordinary people, not Bear Grylls types, striding purposefully along with huge packs, wet weather gear and walking poles. Going somewhere I guess but bugger me we couldn't tell. Mid week! Don't these people have jobs?

 

Putting the "high" into the Highlands.

 

 

 

Islay... Ahh... It was a bit disappointing to learn that all of the distilleries on Islay are owned by big multinationals, I guess that is the reality these days. Laphroig for example are owned by the Louis Vuitton folks it turns out. Also most of them get their malting done at the same joint on Islay, buy barley from the mainland and import their yeast from pretty much one place. And of course the peat all comes from the island as does the water. So the only differences are how much they smoke their malt, the shape of their stills and a few tweaks such as length of fermentation (far quicker and far, far more dramatic than beer fermentation). Still it was very interesting and we learnt a lot and got to drink whisky we normally can't get. And we did find the one distillery that is family owned, uses at least a proportion of Islay barley, and is a bit more small scale. To be fair there is no way the big kids could meet their demand without being mass produced. Lagavulin for instance is at maximum capacity and has to age and bottle most of their whisky on the mainland cos they have no space at the distillery. And Bruichladdich also uses some Islay barley.

 

 

And, bonus, we got to visit my very own piece of Islay land on the Laphroig site. And I'm happy to report that my square foot is in a better position than most. And claimed my rent too, they pay a dram per year for them to use your land. You just have to go there to collect the rent.

 

 

Time was running out, a dash to Glasgow to post some unneeded winter gear home then it was "so long" Scotland and "hello" England again.

 

Jo loving the Pencil Museum.

 

 

Hadrian's Wall, impressive. Lake District, pretty as a postcard. Pencil Museum, actually rather fascinating and quite a delight for Jo. Across through Yorkshire again. Peak District, peaky. More mad walkers. Stratford-upon-Avon, old and very Tudor looking. London, train to Paris.

 

 

 

Here we hit a snag. The plan had been to sneak back into Europe and be able to stay until mid July, but a pesky date stamp in the passport, and some internet research has meant that we got worried about staying too long in the Schengen zone (google it, its very helpful for Europeans, very unhelpful and stupid for non-europeans wanting a long holiday) so we have had to tweak our plans.

 

 

After a few coolish but highly cultural and good days in Paris we flew (flew! In a plane, first time for months! Quite strange actually) down to Malaga and finally, finally sunshine and heat. Shorts, swimming, sunglasses, sunscreen, fresh fish, and Spanish.

 

So the new plan is that tomorrow we're getting the ferry to..... Morocco! Very, very exciting. Partly cos we needed to get out of Europe again in order to prolong our holiday, and partly cos we're so close to it we may as well. And it's hot there too which is a good thing.

 

 

Last thing - beer report for the UK. I had high hopes for Britain, I like ale, I like beer at a temperature that allows it to have flavour, I like old fashioned beer and breweries that have history. In saying that I also like flavour and punch and interesting styles, so England was a big let down. I reckon I had about three or four beers in England that I would like to drink again. The standard pub gets all excited about serving 'real ale', and they do serve it, just that its not very good. And for some reason I have yet to fathom English beer is almost all of a fairly low alcohol percentage (like 3.8 - 4.4 is standard) which I think contributes to the lack of oomph in the flavour. Disappointing.

 

 

Wales was better, and it was good to find a number of Wales owned breweries and some very good micro breweries. But Scotland, oh my goodness Scotland. Rates alongside Belgium and the Czech Republic in my book. (legal disclaimer: there is no book) Strong flavours, interesting flavours, lots of micro breweries, organic beer, lots of hops, higher alcohol content, and all readily available. Superb. Nearly all the beers I had in Scotland I really, really liked. Best ones were from the Harviestoun brewery and the Black Isle brewery. They were quite outstanding. I think Scottish brewers are less confined by tradition perhaps and the success of Brew Dog I think has also encouraged brewers to create more diverse beers.

 

 

Beer report from Morocco? That could be a challenge. Mint tea anyone?