Tuesday August 8, 2000

This place is great. A beautiful stone cottage built in 1700, on a hill with postcard views. Vegie gardens, fresh raspberries by the bushel, hens, 1 stud ram with 2 prospective brides, beautiful grounds and gardens. The only other guest is a young woman from Denmark who is here to lead a Christian Youth camp that starts on Wednesday.

Food is great: last night's dinner of pork and fresh garden vegies yummy!

 Today was another that started overcast and misty with intermittent rain/sunshine. Always warm though. We started at the village tourist shops and took lots of photos along the way. The village is so lovely. All stone buildings of similar architectural style, lovely street plantings and lots of beautiful hanging baskets. We found an Internet site and checked our Email. That was faster than usual as we were only reading, not writing.

We then set off to explore places suggested by Somersal, our hostess, starting with 'Queen's View'. This viewing place was first made famous by Isabella (wife of 'Robert the Bruce') and later by Queen Victoria. We imagined that they were probably right in declaring it a great viewing place but unfortunately for us the mist was impenetrable at that time!

At Crannoch we saw a coach load of Pipers getting ready to do a performance at the Village Square. On closer inspection these kilted pipers weren't Scotsmen at all but 'The Pennsylvanian Pipe Band'.

I must admit we weren't keen enough to sit on the wet grass and wait for around 30 minutes in misty rain as the skies forebode worse to come. We stopped at a pub on the way back to the village and ordered our usual 'soup of the day'. It was very nice but we were surprised to find it cost £2.70 each. We were used to paying around £1.70 each previously.

 Dinner tonight was another fabulous home cooked dinner and dessert: we are in heaven! The computer here is playing up but we were able to send one photo attachment. We'll find somewhere tomorrow to send the others.