i spotted this book in a polish kiosk window and i thought i provided a nice link between our recent holiday in scotland and my few days in warsaw. i like links like that.

flowerdale is a walk from Gairloch harbour. more details here

these were the holiday cottages / bungalows that we stayed in whilst in scotland. excellently large with three bedrooms and three bathrooms ! their website even has a nice floor plan.

a lovely walk with some great views from inverewe gardens

we walked up a bit of a mountain in the rain at Beinn Eighe. There's a great choices of walks, from the flat wheel chair nature trail through to a proper up-a-mountain trek (which was a bit too ambitious for us). there's a nice visitor centre and good children quizzes.

instead we did the bite-size 'quite far up the mountain, but not too bad' one which gave us great views over loch maree

it had all your classic walking things, like stepping stones over mountain streams, before finaly getting back down to loch level.

here is a sunset near helensburgh. i've got millions of landscape pictures from our trip up north, so just ignore them if you find them a bit tedious. i'll try and spread them out a bit.

when you look at them, perhaps throw some iced water on your face and stand by an air-conditioner on full blow to get the true scottish effect

now, i'm hoping this isn't a racial stereotype, but i can reveal people in glasgow have quite a strong accent. i had a few problems understanding a taxi driver (but i have that problem in london too).

i remember there was a dreadful comedian when i was growing up who did an impression of a scottish person which involved saying 'see you jimmy' lots. it seems scottish transport have maintained this tradition.

more photos on the same here (my flickr account)

this is my last scottish entry - nearly a month after we left the place !

these comedy items were on sale on a service station near the Scottish border. it wasn't clear to me whether they were meant for:

* english people leaving scotland wishing to remember the scots
* english people on the way to scotland wishing to blend in with the scots
* scottish people heading to england wishing to reinforce national stereotypes
* genuine irony-free scottish accessories

we don't have too many mirrors in our house. sometimes it's best that way.

it was jane's birthday when we were in scotland. i made jane a lovely cake. i pushed the candles in but kept it in is wrapper just in case jane didn't like the cake.

luckily she did:

in the evening we went to a very posh restaurant:

it appeared that noel edmonds had got married there are some point. THAT'S how posh it was:

here's a bizarre place. it's the falkirk wheel. it's a magic lifty thing to get canal boats from the canal at the top to the canal (and vice versa). it saves having a load of locks.

now, i may be wrong, but there seems little point in trying to speed up the flow of traffic on canals since it's very charm is its slowness. and such a thoroughly modern solution is completely at odds with the historic nature of canal travel.

that aside, it is an amazing thing, especially the way the canal comes sweeping out of the countryside on a massive bridge:

looking along the top bit:

this chap was some kind of curator and had a fanastic posh english accent. a proper english gentleman:

click to for big

jane with some highland toffee

this appealed to me. it's an electric cable which runs from underneath the loch to the house on the island (which i've helpfully highlighted for you!). it's was very strange and the water was so clear.

the sign which warns of electric cables on the right wasn't actually anywhere near the cable.

i was hoping for fantastic sunsets when we were in scotland, but the drizzling clouds didn't provide for that. instead i got some quite nice silhouettes.

click for big

i was sitting outside a bar with my father in law when this chap walked by with his giant drum

a little later we heard the full troupe and went in search:

the sound of pipes is quite amazing. here is one being tuned. this sounded even more amazing.

here's a a tune which i thought was great. it was played by a single bagman. does anyone know what this one is called ? and here's that one that everyone knows.

sorry about the quality of the clips. my phone is a bit rubbish at recording stuff !

when we were in scotland we stayed in a plce called montrose house in balmaha. it's a fantastic place. absolutely massive and handy for walking, a little shop and the pub. there some photos and stuff here

It used to be a holiday house for poor kids and there's a picture of it in the olden days here

here is the entrance stair case:

and here is the dining room table:

and here's what it looks like from the outside:

the view out the front was superb, as was the view from the back.

in fact, if you aren't a regular reader of this blog then just have a look at the scotland category if you want to see what's to do and see around and about.

it seems weeks ago since we were in scotland (because it was). here's some pictures of our trip to Rowardennan

click for bigger

a memorial:

happy walkers:

right, back to the scottish holiday. still plenty of stuff to come all you scots-lovers !

One morning we went to Inchcailloch Island

we set off by boat from balmaha boatyard.

The girls loved it:

and so did my father-in-law:

the boat dropped us off at a jetty and went off:

I then walked up to the top of the hill with jane's parents:

the views were fabulous and would have been even better if the clouds got out the way:

click for big

meanwhile the girls played on the sheltered beach:

then the boat turned up and we got back before the rain:

i found this headline quite entertaining but i'm not sure why. i'm sure the story itself was quite upsetting for those involved, but it does raise a number of comical images in my mind.

as you will have realised our scottish holiday had a good mix of friends and family as well as sightseeing and walking. here is our family and jane's aunt all looking out for interesting things:

and here is one of those family photos which will hopefully take precidence over the usual boring ones:

definately worth clicking for big

please look away now

we saw one of these slide by above water whilst walking along, helpfully marked by its escort boats. there was a load of people in red clothes standing on the top - possibly having a last stretch of the legs and fill of the lungs before a few months of claustrophobia.

these things (i carefuly haven't used their name or powering mechanism, but you can follow the link above) are strange anyway, but even more so when floating by for all to see.

it's back to work tomorrow after 2 weeks off. the first week we were in scotland (by the way we are only up to tuesday lunchtime in retro-posts on that week).

whenever we go on holiday we always think about whether we would like to live in the place we are visiting. scotland was a bit wet but was incredibly beautiful.

my main concern would be whether there would be enough blogging material to photo. working in london is great for photos, but would the highlands be quite as good. nature can provide some fantastic photos of course, but it's the human touch on life that i enjoy.

if ever we did move (highly unlikely in the near future i imagine) then i think rivers could provide a solution to my human remains problem. we took a walk along the Clyde in Helensburgh and saw all sorts of junk washed up.

here's a fridge and a squashed buoy:

now here's a remarkable thing - Irn Bru. On our recent trip to scotland we noticed Irn Bru everywhere. it's the coca-colo ('cocalola' says kezia) of scotland.

i tried some at the loch lomond shores which was an irn bru only establishment.

look at the colour of the thing. i'm sure this is why the stereotypical scotsman has red hair:

they sponsor rubbish bins:

and kids play parks:

cans even wash up on the side of rivers:

oh, and i think it tastes horrid. but then i'm probably not man-enough to drink it or something.

there's a place on the south end of loch lomond called 'loch lomond shores':

it's very nice and you get to see a nice IMAX video and a very poor animatonic thing.

but the best bit is the view from the top:

our holidayhouse was right opposite the oak tree inn, which is a lovely traditional pub/inn/restaurant/cafe/hotel thing.

here are esther and kezia enjoying a coke:

there's a little hill in balmaha (near the massive hill) which you can climb up quite easily. on this occasion jane carried kezia.

here is jane getting her breath back:

we were not alone in enjoying the view:

jane's dad looks and ponders:

everyone looks and ponders:

here is the view from the scrubland in the back of our scottish holiday house:

click to expand your horizons

we had a very nice trip to Milarrochy Bay with cousin catherine, cousin mike and his parents.

here is a view of the loch:

inspired by the children cousins jane and catherine regressed and built a sand speed boat for esther and kezia (mike's dad provided valuable engineering input):

jane's parents spot something funny in a tree:

then kezia came down and walked through a very photogenic hollow tree:

we stayed in a village called Balmaha on the side of Loch Lomond. Opposite the pub and right next to our holiday house was this rather lovely play park. the girls loved it (Kezia IS loving the hammock swing, she's just holding on tight!)

the first night we arrived at Balmaha we walked up a little hill and saw this rather pretty sight as the evening drew in.

i loved scotland. and this shop summed it up nicely. it WAS great outdoors.

but it was also great indoors too ! (especially when we were visiting friends and relations, and staying in a lovely holiday house).

in my experience, which i admit is a bit limited, it isn't very sunny in scotland. like ever. so i suspect these tanning shops do very well.

i managed to get a tan just standing by this flourescent tan with it's nice 1980s graphics and type font.

quite a general sign this one, but welcome (quite literally folks) neverthelessormore