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Loch Ness

Everyday Life: May 2015

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We don’t have a garden but started the month with a jaunt to the local garden centre as we heard the cakes were good (agreed!).

If you’ve grown disillusioned by your fruitless search for the Loch Ness monster, you can plop the next best thing in the front yard – only £26.99!

Nessie for your garden

There was also more first-person signage for Gareth to be enraged by. He said this one didn’t bother him so much, as it’s a fair warning.

Third person cactii

(Did you know there’s now a word for this phenomenon – “whackaging”)

Neighbour Cat News: she now prefers to enter by the living room window, sometimes pausing for a snooze halfway through the journey.

Neighbour Cat at the window

Aside from mourning the end of Mad Men, May was a bit work heavy so I didn’t take many photos. Oh hang on, THE OVEN DOOR EXPLODED. I took a picture but I don’t want The Mothership seeing how mucky the oven was. Thank goodness it was safety glass, so it didn’t make too much mess, but there was glass all over the salmon. Of course it worked just fine for all Gareth’s oven chips, it bided its time and waited for something pricey to be inside it.

The month ended on a high with a trip to Edinburgh for a wee Up & Running meetup. Some were racing, some were supporting; all were in great spirits. I know only lived there two years and that was over a decade ago, but every time I get off that train it feels like the most right place in the world.

Edinburgh half marathoner leaders

We did a side trip to Glasgow to visit our awesome friend Clare. There were big blousy rhododendrons everywhere. If that’s what they are?

Rhododendron in Glasgow

I guzzled way too many coffees because there were so many good ones. By Sunday night my head felt like it was about to split in two, but it was so very worth it. Questionable latte art and all.

Questionable latte art

The weekend finished with a spontaneous revival of the Whisky Project. I found one I liked! Royal Lochnagar. I detected a vanilla finish and lots of websites I checked just now mention vanilla, so maybe my taste buds aren’t as clueless as thought. But I reckon anything would have tasted good that night, being so giddy from good times and great company.

Whisky with friends

P.S. Summer in Scotland…

Stormy rainbow

Everyday Life: September 2014

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Just to clarify, we haven’t moved again – the Brown House was our house in Dunfermline. We rented it out the past year then decided to sell. We’re still in Inverness in the same rental place, where the awesome Neighbour Cat still sneaks through the bathroom window and falls asleep in random places.

Marcel the Cat

Catching up on September… it was one of those months that make it look like I have an actual social life! It started with the annual Jocktoberfest at the brewery. The theme was Wild West and the place looked fab.

More Jocktoberfest

More Jocktoberfest

More Jocktoberfest

We had a weekend in London to see Rhiannon. I’m sure we didn’t just talk our heads off and eat cake but the photo library says otherwise.

London cakes

Spotted in Islington I think…

Joan Rivers

As well as saying goodbye to the old house we had to let the old car go, too. It had done nearly 220,000 miles (354,000 km), the gears were slipping and it couldn’t go over 45 mph which is no bloody use on the A9. We’d inherited it from Gareth’s dad – it was his old company car and they let him keep it when he retired. Since it was a FREE CAR! we kept it alive for as long as possible but when the repair estimate became way more than the car’s value we had to let go. Talk about emotions this month, jeezo!

Goodbye car

Speaking of emotions, that referendum happened!

The day before

The month ended with a bunch of beloved Up & Running friends coming to town to run the Loch Ness 10K. And to drink lots of wine. I’d got myself a bit isolated these past few months, so Social September was the perfect (gin and) tonic.

Jocktoberfest

Somebody call National Geographic

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Today we went to Dores, a village on the south shore of Loch Ness. The premise was to go for a walk but we both knew it was really about getting a scone from the Dores Inn. Gareth went on a wee bike ride to Dores last November and stopped at the Dores Inn for a chocolate chip scone and has been going on about its tastiness ever since. Gareth never goes on about carbohydrates that are not beer, so I knew it must be special.

So we walked for half an hour, icy wind numbing our faces, until the token effort had been made. We headed to the pub, only to be thwarted by approximately 475 people crammed inside… nae room at the inn. If I was going to eat a scone I wanted to really savour it and unlike a sheep on a neep, I can’t just plonk down in a crowd and enjoy my food.

But at least we saw some surfing ducks by the shore of Loch Ness. The wind had whipped up some waves and the ducks were riding them, over and over. Don’t come for the Monster, people… it’s all about the ducks. Now brace yourself for dazzling cinematography…

Yesterday I went Sheep on Neep stalking, as requested by Vickie in the comments of the last post. I hid in some bushes by the side of the road, trying to catch them with the shitty built-in zoom of my ye olde camera.

I love the guy on the left here kneeling down to get closer to the goods.

More sheep on neeps

I was a good 20 metres from them and hidden by branches but they still managed to stare eerily at me, then run away. I don’t like people watching me eat either, to be fair.

More sheep on neeps