A Scottish Thanksgiving

Oh, what a surprise! You caught us eating Thanksgiving dinner in this natural pose! Since our kitchen isn't supplied with the adequate pans/utensils for cooking a turkey, Nick cooked a Scottish chicken for our Thanksgiving dinner. He also made cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes with leeks and parsnips (very British). For dessert, a pumpkin pie. Best of all, I didn't lift a finger for any of this cooking! I offered to help but Nick kindly gave the excuse that there wasn't enough room in the kitchen for the two of us. I think he was really saving me from doing something I'm not fond of. What a great guy I have!

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. We're off to Madrid for a 4 day trip this weekend so I hope to have some "exciting" stories for you when we get back.

A Week With My Dad

First of all, I apologize to those of you who actually check our blog (i.e. Daisy)...I've been very delinquent in updating the blog these past few weeks. Truth is, we haven't been doing much since we were awaiting an action packed week with my parents last week. Unfortunately, only my dad could make the trip out here (we REALLY missed you Beth!) and we managed to get out and see some of Scotland on day trips from Dundee. Another unfortunate "spanner in the plans" was that my dad and I came down with food poisoning on Thursday and we were sick most of the day. Not fun. Luckily, it was just a 24 hour thing and we were back to touring on Friday.

On Wednesday, Nick took the day off and we went over to Dunkeld and Birnam which was about an hour's drive away from Dundee. The "big" tourist attraction is a Beatrix Potter exhibit and since I was a big fan when I was little, I forced Nick and my dad to go into this exhibit which was really aimed for children. I think they still had fun. (most of you are probably like "who is Beatrix Potter?". Just think Peter Rabbit.) In Dunkeld we went to the old cathedral there and saw this really cool tomb of The Wolf of Badenoch. His story is that he deserted his wife for some other lady and as a result, was excommunicated from the church. So in revenge, he burned down towns. Obviously he eventually made reparations since they gave him such a nice tomb!

After the cathedral, we took a walk in an area called the Hermitage which is just a woodland area by a stream. It was very pretty but I can imagine how beautiful it must be when we're not in the dead of winter! Nick took some cool water shots.

My favorite picture from the week is from the top of St. Rule's tower in St. Andrews. I actually took this picture (I usually give this task to "long-armed" Nick) so I'm pretty proud of myself.

Shout Out

This blog post is a shout out to Heather in CO for sending me something I wasn't expecting: an "I voted" sticker. So I can finally walk around feeling proud of myself! I might get some weird looks around here. Anyway, here is a picture to show you how smug I felt with my sticker. Thanks for sweet-talking your polling place lady Heather!

Another abbey, and some mountain

The weather this weekend was unseasonably uncrappy, so we rented a car and did some sight-seeing. On Saturday we headed to Edinburgh by way of Dunfermline. We toured the ruins of the abbey, hoping to see where Robert the Bruce and some other kings are buried. The abbey was nice in a typical busted-up Scottish ruin sort of way, and the newer church had some pretty great columns- but the area where the kings' tombs are had closed for the season the day before. Sam's disappointment was heartbreaking. We were ok though- after a mediocre lunch of really cheap meat in a pastry casing plus donuts, we got back on the road to Edinburgh.


We spent the afternoon wandering around the Scottish National Gallery, which was pretty good. Surprisingly good, actually, with some pretty great artwork. A lot of the pieces were listed as 'accepted by HM Government in lieu of taxes' which sounds kind of dodgy, but whatever works. There was a painting of a dog which has to hang in the museum forever in exchange for a large donation in 1915 or so, which is maybe a little out of place. After the donor died the museum had to care for his other dog, too, which is kind of whimsical and charming?


On Sunday we headed for the highlands to climb Schiehallion. This mountain kind of dominates its surroundings and is a popular hike, there were probably 80 people or so on it today. It was a great day for it though. A nice steady climb up into the snow with great views. The mountain is more significant than most if you're into the history of science- in 1774 the Astronomer Royal Nevil Maskelyne measured the deflection of a plumb line caused by the mountain's gravity and deduced the mean density of the earth, which is pretty good for 1774, and it was the first mountain to be mapped by contour lines. Academic trivia plus moderately strenuous physical activity- not a bad day.

Pictures are here.

It's Cold

I don't have much to report from the last week since we took it easy last weekend. However I would like to point out how cold it is here. The high today was 40 deg F. I wouldn't think that sounds too cold but it feels so much colder. I'm used to a Colorado 40 degree day which feels a LOT warmer than here. I was warned about this and I thought my Minnesota skin would reemerge after 5 easy Colorado winters. This is not the case.

The other day, I tried to save on our gas bill by turning off the heat for a little while over the lunch hour since the sun was coming in the window. However, by the time I finished eating lunch, I had lost feeling in my right hand thumb and ring finger. Maybe I'll keep the heat on.

Wind Blown & Soaked: Our West Coast Trip

Last weekend we rented a car and took a trip to the west coast of Scotland. We left Saturday morning and drove the long route to the town of Oban. On the way, we stopped at Doune Castle which is most well known for it's contribution to Monty Python's The Holy Grail. Do you recognize it?

The castle is used in many scenes of the movie (Nick remembers them all) and the castle is obviously proud of the part it played by displaying lots of Python memorabilia in the gift shop. Nick and I both absolutely loved this castle. We both love Monty Python but that's not the reason why. This is what you think of when you think of castles. The location was really beautiful set next to a river and farm fields and forest. And the castle itself had a lot of rooms and tiny, dark spiral staircases that you really had to watch your step on. I don't know if it just felt less touristy to us but we both really enjoyed Doune Castle. I'd even go so far to say it was my favorite.

As we made our way to the west coast, we drove along a single track road (read: VERY scary one car width road that is a two-way) along Loch Awe, which was beautiful. We stopped to get a picture of Kilchurn Castle (shown below) but you had to hike through a field to get the shot and it was pretty muddy and there was lots of sheep poo. So I left it up to Nick. What a trooper.

We then drove on to Kilmartin to see a cairn and some standing stones. These were interesting but I was getting antsy to get to Oban at this point and the weather had turned very cool and windy. So Nick had to take some rush photography in order to appease his wife who was freezing her toes off.

We arrived at our B&B in Oban in the early evening and started to make our phone calls for Sunday's adventures. Our original plan was to take a boat out to the islands, including Staffa, to see puffins and other sealife. Unfortunately, the weather didn't cooperate. All the boat operations were not going out on Sunday (I actually got laughed at for suggesting it) so we had to come up with something else to do. When we woke up Sunday morning, it was cloudy but didn't look too bad. We thought we could maybe manage a hike. So after breakfast, we headed north along the coast. At this point, the wind picked up and the rain was pouring down. We stopped to get a view of Castle Stalker (another castle in The Holy Grail, it's at the end of the movie). We were out of the car a total of maybe 3 minutes and we were totally soaked (luckily we had thought ahead and wore non-cotton trousers that could dry very quickly). Nick tried to get some shots of it but it was pretty dark. For the first few pictures, I held an umbrella against the wind so I could cover the camera while Nick took pictures. But then I abandoned him for the car. I know where my priorities lie. I think the picture shown below is one that he managed without me.

We then drove back to Oban but stopped at Dunstaffnage Castle since we are now such die-hard castle fans. We had hoped this would be an indoor viewing event but alas, it was another open roofed ruin. Nick took a few pictures of me in the rain but in most of them my eyes are closed because the rain was pouring horizontally into my face. Am I painting a vivid picture of our Sunday afternoon?

The rest of Sunday we spent in bookshops and cafes. We were hopeful for nice weather on Monday so we could fit a hike in before driving back to Dundee. Unfortunately, we woke up to another rainy and even more windy day. Mother Nature was against us this weekend. So we gave up and drove back to Dundee on Monday. Even though we didn't get to do what we had hoped, this is the first time the weather has foiled our plans so we really can't complain. And it was a relaxing weekend. I got plenty of knitting in!

Our pictures are posted here.

Exercising Our Right

I've told many people now, but we received our absentee ballots on Monday. This was a big event in the Moeckel household. Here is what absentee voting looks like:

Before we could vote, we both spent an hour or so reading up on the many Colorado amendments and referenda. Usually, we would have heard about a few of these through watching TV. It feels pretty different being over here during election season and not seeing a single political ad. I kind of like it. Although there is humor in the absurd voice overs and dramatic music.

The one bad thing about absentee ballots? You don't get an "I voted" sticker. What a bummer.