Monday, July 15

We're starting to notice a small change in the weather. Just a little bit cooler. I think last week was summer. Natives have told us that this has been a very unusual, meaning lovely, early summer. They have not  had one like this for 9 years. NINE YEARS!!!!! The woman who told us that was originally from Georgia.

Today being Monday, we knew there was a Scottish music concert in Pithochry at 7:45 tonight, but we weren't sure how to fill in the rest of the day.  Over breakfast, we came up with a plan that kept us in about a 10 mile radius from the resort. We started down the road toward Kenmore. On the way, we stopped again at the Croft Moraig rock circle formation to take some more pictures and read the plaque which showed us how the formation evolved over the years around 300 BC.

A few more miles down the road, we arrived at the Scottish Cronnag Centre. This place has recreated one of the round houses built on artificial islands or altered real islands about 2,500 years ago. There were several people in period dress and one showed us how they used some of their tools. There was a lathe that was suspended from a tree branch. He showed us how they made holes in rocks to act as anchors for fish nets and he actually started a fire by using a flint and then transferring the ember to another container with wood shavings in it to be able to transfer to an oven or fireplace. Everything they did looked really hard. A woman who was actually Dutch but had married a Scot, took us out to the  rebuilt Cronnag and explained how as many as 20 people would have lived in it with cattle, pigs, sheep, goats, and maybe a dog or a cat.

From there we headed into town and ate lunch at the Kenmore Hotel - tuna Nicoise salad and a chicken breast with ham on it.

Next, it was off to find the oldest tree in Europe: a yew that they think is 3,000 to 5,000 years old. Its in an old churchyard and it doesn't look that impressive. Yes, its big, but yews are not that good looking of a tree when they get big and  old.

We still had time to find the Queen's View: a lovely view from a promontory of the Loch Tay, which we had been driving around all day. After that we still had a  couple of hours, so we headed back to the resort to rest.

So at 7:00, we drove over to Pithlochry for the concert. Its held in the community field and is performed every Monday during the summer. Its called the Vale of Atholl Pipe Band. This was truly a community effort to raise money for the pipe band. The band itself is made up of boys and girls playing bagpipes, snare drums, and those big ones that you carry in front of you and hit on both sides. Then there were some solo singers, two groups of young girls dancing and some old women dancing what looked like square dancing. At the end of the two hours, the pipe band marched up to the center part of town and played as they moved down the main street. We felt very Scottish, but I think that's enough bag pipes for awhile.