Summer stuff

Well, I haven’t been blogging much the past few months – partly to do with job-related hassle and partly me going out enjoying the longer summer nights.

I had been saving up my holidays so took 2 weeks off in July- much needed after no (official) time off since the start of March. I spent one week down in York with my sisters, their kids and my mum and dad – we rented 2 cottages outside of the city at the same place we went to last year. It’s great for kids as there’s an indoor pool, tennis courts, a pool & table tennis table and a playground. Unfortunately the weather was quite rainy with unpredictable torrential downpours on most days including the day we went to the beach in Scarborough! We had a day at ‘The Deep’ – the aquarium in Hull, went into York city a couple of times, went to Castle Howard of Brideshead Revisited fame, and a lavender farm which smelled great!

Ruben watching jellyfish, The Deep, Hull

France family portrait (minus Sarah & Kate) at Castle Howard - from front left to right: Dan, Mum, Ruben, Me. Back left to right: Matt, David & dad

The last week of my hols I spent in Stirling- it was rainy here too and pretty cold for summer – only 16c. It wasn’t the best week cos Charlie our adored cat was ill and we found out he has feline aids (they can’t infect humans) – Michael was inconsolable until Charlie pulled through his illness really well after a course of antibiotics. He (the cat) is now eating huge piles of very expensive cat food! I swear his food costs more than ours!

We did have a few very humid and hot weeks in July but since then the weather’s been really wet and not very hot – some days it’s been downright cold! I don’t think the rest of the country has fared any better mind you.

I have managed to do a bit of sight-seeing in Scotland with a day trip to Glencoe and a hill walk up one of our most scenic mountains Stob Binnein. I also dragged Michael up one of our most accessible hills, Ben Ledi near Callander!

The ascent to Stob Binnein- the ridge up to the summit in the mist

Toni & Roser at summit of Stob Binnein having lunch

Carniverous sundew plants on boggy hillside

Glencoe - The Three Sisters

Glencoe - Micael trying the real ale at the Clachaig Inn

I’ve also discovered a fantastic salsa night here in Bannockburn near Stirling which happens once a month – it’s been years since I did any salsa but I am picking it up again and really enjoying it. I am considering taking a few classes just to improve enough to avoid knocking knees with my partner and stepping on his toes! I indulged in a wonderful pair of proper dance shoes which makes a big difference - they are really soft and comfortable despite having a 2.5 inch heel (I only tried on about 30 pairs)! They mean you can do turns without jarring your ankle and also don’t slip on the dance floor.

Salsatastic!

For Dad's birthday treat we went to 'Go Ape' an adventure course in Aberfoyle in the forest with zip wires, rope bridges, ladders etc. It rained quite a lot but we didn't get too wet under the trees.

Going ape- dad on longest zipwire in UK

I am still working at Edinburgh Uni just now although the contract is due to end in November. The job didn’t turn out quite how I expected and has involved dealing with huge amounts of NHS bureaucracy and hassle which has been demoralising and DULL. Anyway, on the plus side I quite enjoy being in Edinburgh particularly in the buzzy summer season and during the Festival when there are lots of interesting street acts all over (including bands playing outside my office window)! Also my boss has gone on sabbatical for a year so as of this month I am now spending most of the week at Stirling uni which is much easier to get to and means I can fit in more fitness classes!

The Udderbelly venue at Edinburgh Festival

Unfortunately I didn’t get the project grant I applied for although I did get through to the final selection round which is an achievement in itself. But my current project has been extended for a few months and I can work on that part-time based at Stirling Uni – the prospect doesn’t exactly fill me with joy but, hey, it’s better than nothing!

I am looking forward to my next trip which is a few days in Barcelona. I have only been once and that was for the Millennium celebration in 1999/2000 so it’ll be lovely to go back and this time in warmer weather. I find I work better when I have something to look forward to!

May Party Month

Mexican-themed party

me & Roser

Trying to smash the pinata to get to the sweets

Pinata action!

Barbeque

May - Mountains

To be completed...

Vane Farm RSPB reserve, above Loch Leven

Vane Farm, Loch Leven

Ben A'an - looking down on Loch Katrine and over to Ben Venue

Ben A'an looking at Ben Venue

The summit of Ben A'an behind the lovely, lush forest

Summit of Ben Vorlich - lunch with a view!

Ben Vorlich summit and ridge- badly eroded

Views from Ben Vorlich

Ascent of Ben Vorlich, getting steeper

Ben Vorlich from side of Loch Earn

Scottish Spring

April 2009

When Michael and I go on a bike ride we often go via Bridge of Allan, through the mine woods to Dunblane. If we are feeling particularly energetic we extend the route to go through the university campus, around the lochs and also explore a bit more of Dunblane, as we did on this occasion in April. Having spent all day on Good Friday writing a grant application for a future job I was ready to exert myself and get some fresh air. We must have clocked up 20 miles on the round trip, a lot of that being on rough ground off-road.

Dunblane Cathedral Doorway

The cathedral in Dunblane really dominates the skyline and is more or less at the heart of the town. The architecture looks like a bit of a mix of styles and stones with some very ancient looking doorways.

Dunblane Cathedral - another ancient doorway

Dunblane Cathedral Tower

On Easter Sunday I went over to visit my parents in Glasgow and stayed for lunch, we had Easter cake and sat outside in the sun for our lunch - a rare opportunity for outdoor dining! My day off on Easter Monday involved a straight 13 hours of work on my research proposal. I am looking at it as an investment in our future but it's a sad fact of academic life that you need to use your holidays and spare time to secure future funding!

The following weekend (18-19 April) was another glorious sunny weekend so Michael and I had a look in our local walks guide book, selected a hill in the nearby Ochils, and set off wearing more clothes than we needed given how hot it became. This necessitated Michael removing his trousers at one point, much to my amusement and enjoyment! I was not allowed to post the photo on my blog....!

Larch tree growing sideways along the ground on Wood Hill above Alva, Clackmannanshire

The approach to Wood Hill is through a lovely sycamore wood and then there's a fairly steep ascent to get to the summit. Once at the top there are no trees, just grasses and you can see for miles. You could easily walk across the top of various hills in many different directions without dropping down much in altitude. It was so peaceful , sunny and beautiful I had the feeling I wanted to stay up there all day.

Ancient Scots pines on Wood Hill

Top of Wood Hill looking down on Alva village

Inevitably, we got a bit lost on the way down as we were trying to macro-navigate and some of the landmarks in the guide book had changed since it was written! We ended up in a maze of gorse on a vertiginously steep hillside and finally came into a field of sheep including what looked like a large ram. Gulp! We stuck close to the barbed wire fence and hoped to god we didn't have to fling ourselves over it into more spikey gorse bushes- they have BIG thorns!

Beautiful gorse flowers- they smell sweet like peaches. Tillicoultry in background

Spring lamb with Mum on descent of Wood Hill. There was a big ram in the field too.....

The blossoming gorse covered a lot of the lower slopes of the hills and from a distance looks really impressive. In the towns all the cherry tres are in blossom with their big fluffy flower pompoms in pink or white. The petals regularly drop off and carpet the ground until around 2 weeks after they flower when the trees are bare of flowers again. Later in spring, in May, it's the turn of the Scottish bluebells to carpet hills and woodland floors - a really lovely natural 'wonder'.

Gorgeous pink cherry blossom in Riverside, only lasts 2 weeks

Red Kites

Red Kites at Argaty farm, 21 March 09
All the family, apart from Kate & Ruben (Ruben had a party to go to), came over to our house in Stirling today before heading up to Doune to Argaty Farm where they have a wild group/ flock of rare birds of prey, red kites, living. In the winter the birds group together before going their separate ways again in the spring when they pair up and establish nests across a wider area.

In the viewing hide -a bit chilly and windy

The farm is a working farm where they try to work with not against nature and they've built a viewing hide where you can pay to see the wild birds. They tag the birds so they can track their progress- some have moved up to enar Inverness and one has even gone to Wales to live. Michael and I have been once before in February when it was foggy and all we could see were the silhouettes although we could hear their eery cries.

Red kites - we counted over 30. They have a distinctive v-shaped tail.

The weather was ideal today to see them nice and sunny and windy. There were over 30 kites and we got some amazing views of them. The guide feeds themonce a day with a small amount of meat-usually rabbit but today they had sea trout which they seemed to love. The birds feed on carrion, worms, small mammals in the wild and they are also partial to fresh sheep's placenta- mm, yum! They are quite light birds- around a kilo in weight - so they couldn't catch or kill something as big as a lamb despite some people believing they are capable of this and persecuting them as a result.

Kites swooping down to get the sea trout

The guide set up a telescope so we could see some of the birds close up and he spotted one perched on a telegraph pole so we got a good view of its beautiful feathers. With our binoculars we could see the kites swoop down to get the fish and then eat it on the wing!

The sound is poor quality but the images aren't bad - they loved that sea trout even if it wasn't fit for human consumption!

Jan & Feb - gone in a blur!

Well, I haven't been blogging much the past 2-3 months, as you may have noticed. The rest of January went by very quickly- I was ill for about 2 weeks although working for most of that time. Work has been very busy and not very enjoyable but I had some good news the week before my hols - not only did I get through an internal competition allowing me to put in a full proposal for a 3 year research fellowship at Stirling uni but I also got past the 1st stage of selection to get a grant from one of the research councils to do my own research for 3 years. I'd do one or the other, not both, but applying for more than one is hedging my bets as you don't find out till summer if you've been successful. Of course, I now have to write 2 proposals on top of doing my day job! We have been out and about quite a bit in February. Some of the highlights for me are below.

We went to see the red kites at Argaty farm, Doune. It was pretty foggy so we couldn't see them in detail but we could see their silhouettes and hear their calls http://www.argatyredkites.co.uk/home1.html

Dukes Pass Road between Aberfoyle and Callander Dad by snowdrops at Culzean Castle & Country Park, Ayrshire Snowdrops at Culzean Luss, Loch Lomond from the pier
Luss, Loch Lomond

Luss, Loch Lomond - picnic in the winter sun Michael at Inveruglas looking towards Loch Lomond & Ben Lomond covered in snow

The snow covered mountains at Crianlarich

Loch Katrine - robin singing & me getting used to the zoom!

Scottish Christmas & Hogmanay

Christmas parties and post-Xmas walks
Michael spent the week before Christmas in Somerset with his brother and family - I don't know what they did to him but he came back missing England! I was working, cat-sitting Charlie and had a pre-Xmas meal with friends where we all anonymously bought a present for about £2-3 for a randomly picked person at the party- the 'Secret Santa' gift. It's amazing how inventive some people were at finding a gift for that price- I ended up buying chocolate! Sergi did a impromptu Santa appearance dressed in Halloween left-overs!

The first few days of our 2 weeks off I slept. A lot. I was either exhausted from work or from the virus we all caught but with differing effects and severity - Micahel got in much worse than I did and my dad and sister had it for months.

Secret Santa - Sergi in make-shift costume. Pre-Xmas dinner with friends.

Christmas Eve was very mild and I was fine going out in my new short dress, sandals and tights. We had arranged to meet some friends but they were running late so we tried a 'new' pub in a gorgeous old bank building while waiting. It turned out to be just as neddy (rough) as the 'old' pub! There were lots of blokes with very short hair already pretty drunk and Xmas tunes were playing loudly, but it was the atmosphere more than anything that felt 'off'. We didn't linger -one drink and out!

The pub next door, also 'new' (renamed or new owner?) was less neddy and cheaper but very loud. We got a seat on the 'snogging couch' as Michael dubbed it (too low to be of use for anything else!) and waited on the others arriving. In the end it was just 4 of us as Michael could no longer stand the loud music and went home early. I ended up listening to the woes of one drunken individual in a quieter pub across the road - Merry Christmas!

Xmas Eve in a very noisy pub- me, Sonia & Toni

We drove over to mum and dad's on Xmas day in time for Xmas dinner around 3pm so that we wouldn't leave Charlie for too long on his own as this would be only the 2nd time we'd ever left him alone over night (I had had a sneaky trial run while Michael was on hols). Both Sarah & Kate were there with their families and also Dan and Ruben's dad was there too (well we make sacrifices for the children...). I think I had drunk more than I'd realised the night before and felt somewhat hungover...

Summit of Craighorn, a we hill near the village of Alva, 29 Dec 08 - cold but beautifully sunny

When mum and dad moved from Hull up to Scotland over 40 years ago people still worked on Christmas day and post was delivered on the 25th too- it didn't used to be a holiday although dad used to take it as annual leave. Of course, now most things shut on Xmas day and sometimes on Boxing Day. Apparently in 1583 the Presbyterian Church suppressed the observation of Christmas in Scotland because there are no biblical references to Christmas celebrations. The Church of Scotland continued to discourage the celebration of Christmas into the 20th century. Hogmanay (December 31) was traditionally a much bigger holiday and celebration which is why it's still such a big deal in Scotland today. We have the 1st and 2nd January as bank holidays not just the first as in England. I remember feeling New Year in England was a real anti-climax compared to up here where at midnight all the people around you- strangers too - give you a kiss and wish you happy new year and there's a real party.

Michael at summit of Craighorn

By 29th December we felt revived enough after illness etc to go on a short hill walk which turned out to be longer than expected- we were following the route in a new book of local walks we got for Xmas but had to cut it short as it would've beee dark before we finished it at the rate we were going! It does get dark very early in winter up here- around 4pm.

Hogmanay in a local pub called Nicky Tam's- supposedly a haunted pub

Short video of The Bells (midnight) in the pub with the piper playing Flower of Scotland

In contrast to Xmas Eve Hogmanay was minus 5 - dry but cold for getting your party gear on. Stirling Castle puts on an outdoor party on the esplanade - this year they had Deacon Blue playing, who I quite like but Michael doesn't. anyway at £25 a head we decided we'd rather spend the fifty quid on something we really wanted! We could hear the music from the streets anyway and had it not been so cold we could've watched the fireworks from our garden! Instead we went to a couple of local pubs and had a few drinks - nice & warm!

A short hill walk on New Year's day 2009 up Myreton hill near the village of Menstrie - we had the hill pretty much to ourselves unlike Dumyat hill opposite which was heaving with dogs, babies, grannies, mobile phones...!

On New Year's day we went for the traditional walk - we had gorgeous sunshine and cold crisp weather so we went up a small local hill from where we could see every man and his dog up Dunyat Hill opposite! A friend made the mistake of going up there that day and posted her photos on Facebook, one of which I've nicked to show you! Last new year 's day it was foggy all day with torrential rain- when Michael had the vomiting virus so I walked around Stirling and Bridge of Allan alone just to get some air.

Dumyat Hill 1/1/09 - Glad we didn't go there. Check out the guy on his mobile phone! (Taken by Angela H)