Wednesday, July 17

One of the nice things that we like about our foreign trips is that when you visit a place for more than a few days or a week is that you have time to spend some time just hanging around and soaking up the atmosphere in a leisurely way. This afternoon we sat outside and watched a male seagull fight off competition for "his woman". The female walked behind him making squeaking noises when he wasn't trying to shoo off others.

The day started cloudy and cool. We stayed in trying to figure out what we wanted to do. Around noon, we drove over to Pithlochry to revisit the HeatherGems store for Linda to look and purchase more of this unique jewelry. We ate lunch on a deck at Drummond's Restaurant about 2 blocks off the main drag. We had discovered it on Monday night when we walked past it on our way to the Pipe Band Concert. Ordering at the bar, we both had fish and chips and talked to Mrs Drummond. Linda wanted to know more about the Drummonds and the palace down the road, but what's true about many people who live close to certain sites, she had never been there and didn't know anything about it. I guess we will need to check on it on the web.

A few miles down the road was the Killiecrankie Gorge and visitor center. In 1689, the Battle of Killiecrankie was the first conflict of the Jacobites trying to restore the Stuart claim to the English and Scottish thrones. As opposed to the Battle of Culloden up north, this was a slaughter of the English army. They make a big deal of  one British soldier who was being chased by the highlanders, jumped over the stream at the bottom of the gorge to get away. And, he lived. We followed a path down to and along the stream. After about 1/2 hour, we turned around and walked back up the hill with a lot of high steps back to the car.

We continued down the road 3 miles to the Blair Atholl Castle, But, it was closed. We were able to drive into part of the grounds through a wide driveway of about 1/2 mile lined with large oaks. A bit like Tara. So, we were able to take some nice pictures.

Turning back toward Pithlochry, we stopped at another visitor center where I had a good espresso and Linda was able to walk across the road and take pictures of the reddish-brown, long-haired cattle. Here is a little fact that comes under the heading of  "too much information". I used a very modern looking porta-potty. I had to put a 20 pence coin into it to be able to open the door. Once I closed the door, a woman's voice told me that the door had been locked and could remain so no longer than 15 minutes. At the end of that time, it would be automatically unlocked, but not opened. At any time, I could press the button to get out. No reading the NY Times on this pot.

On the way back, we stopped at the Co-op and picked up food to cook dinner. Linda cooked ground lamb, onions, peppers with some warmed up rice and mushy peas that had been soaked for about 20 hours. Here, we buy groceries for the day. That's about all the little fridge can hold. Speaking of little, we have a Barbie-sized ice tray (12 minature ice sections - 2" X 10") that is just working fine. Just no entertaining.

We watched BBC history shows on TV.