Crannog - Anniversary Outing

We have been married for 8 years on 7th September. Or, as I like to say, 8 lo-o-o-ng years :-) We decided to do something nice together on the actual day of our anniversay, a Monday, since I was on holiday from work.

I had seen the Crannog on TV recently and wanted to visit and as the sun was shining, we set off on the gorgeous tourist scenic route via Crieff up to Loch Tay.

http://www.crannog.co.uk/

The Crannog- a replica of an ancient, iron age dwelling place. Made mostly of local alder wood.

Side view of the Crannog and its bridge. It took 3 summers to build basing the design on archeological evidence found in this and other lochs.

A crannog is a type of ancient loch-dwelling found throughout Scotland and Ireland dating from 5,000 years ago. Many crannogs were built out in the water as defensive homesteads and represented symbols of power and wealth. Often when you see a small isand in the middle of a loch, it was originally the site of a crannog.

View over Loch Tay from Crannog.


Michael carving a piece of wood on the lathe.

Here's one I made earlier. Using the foot-operated pole lathe.

We also both made fire using wood & friction! Ray Mears would've been proud!

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!