Home again!

Back in Perth, had problems loading photos to the other entries will try later. See you soon!

I'm not like that ....really

The trip home was interesting - well the trip through customs at Heathrow.

As all tourists do, we had bought a few souveniers, put them in our carry on luggage and thought no more about them.

The bags went through, first my bag and then Hamish's and we were both called over. You see in Glasgow I had found these gorgeous little hammers and they have all these little screwdrivers inside them....yes I know I wasn't thinking. Then comes Hamish's bag - with handcuffs...oops. We explained they were from the Sherlock Holmes museum but they still didn't like it.

Thankfully they let us put the items in another bag and go and check them in. Hamish stayed with the other bags, of course and then they let 'the handcuff lady' through - they all had a good laugh!

Winchester

We drove down to Winchester for the afternoon, unfortunately it took about an hour just to get out of London so we arrived later than we expected.

We parked outside of Winchester and met Alison and we all walked into the town and saw the Winchester Cathedral, some very old Roman ruins (3rd century AD) and some original Tudor houses. There is also the house where Jane Austen lived her last days in 1817.

Again it was great to catch up some more with Alison and hopefully we convinced her to come out to Australia for at least a holiday.

Sherlock Holmes Museum

We had intended to see Madame Tussauds but when we got there (we walked after I refused to pay 18 pounds for tube tickets!!!) there was a queue so long......As most of you know, I don't queue, so we went to the Sherlock Holmes Museum around the corner.

That was fun, it had lots of things to buy - Hamish bought some handcuffs (more on that later). They have set the house 221 Baker Street up to what it would look like if it had been the home of Holmes, complete with mugshots of the criminals from the books.

London

We spent a day wandering around London with my cousin Alison and her daughters Annie and Claudia. I haven't seen Alison since we were about 13 so there was a lot to catch up on!

We saw the London Eye, Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace .... and spent the whole day walking and talking - it was great.

I think London is a bit too big for us!

Edinburgh Castle

We finally got to Edinburgh castle on our final day in Edinburgh. We had tried on three other occasions but had been distracted by other things on the Royal Mile.

The castle is pretty amazing and you can imagine how good a fortress it would be with its commanding views. Being so high up the moat didn't have water - instead it had sharp spikes pointing upwards ...lovely.

Outside on the square, where the tattoo and concerts are now held was where they executed 300+ witches - in other words women with atitude!

Lancaster

On the drive from Edinburgh to London we stopped at Lancaster overnight. Had a great dinner at a local Italian resturant and had a quick look around the Lancaster Castle and Priory. The castle is about 800 years old and stands on a site that was a Roman fortification some 1000 years before that! The priory is older than the castle and you can see some of the same gothic decorations that we saw at Roslin. On the other side however, where it was added to a few hundred years later it is plain by comparison.
The castle is still used as a prison but not a high security one. Apparently Lancaster was where the main court (and port before Liverpool) used to be so the more serious criminals were sent here for trial and imprisonment ....and an all expenses paid relocation to Australia.

Royal Mile - Part 4?

The Royal Mile also has a Police Museum. It has a display of the old truncheons they used to use as well as some information on the more infamous crimes that happened in Edinburgh.

Roslin Chapel

On the way out of Edinburgh we stopped and saw Roslin Chapel. We are glad we did - it is truly amazing. Everything in it is different to everything else - there are so many intricate patterns in things that you can't actually see them - it's like looking at intricate lacework.

Then if there are multiples of anything eg 12 pillars - they'll all be different. it's like they tried to do as many different designs they could think of!

Because they have scaffolding around the chapel - with a canopy to protect the chapel from the weather you are able to go up and look at the roof.

Photos of the kids just messing around....

Carlton Hill in Edinburgh

This isn't the best matained attaction in town but it is interesting. There is a Pantheon that was started as a tribute to Napoleon but never completed as well as an old

telescope and other monuments.

The Royal Mile Part 3

The characters of the Royal Mile are an attraction in themselves! The kids had great fun fighting with William Wallace and trying to make a knight and something that looked like the grim reaper smile.

Walk through Roslin Glen

We went on a 2 hour walk through Rosslyn Glen guided by the local ranger - it was a great walk - the views were amazing. We saw the remnants of the Gunpowder Mills which had been there for 150 years and saw the Rosslyn Castle which was started in the 1300's.

The Royal Mile Part 2 - The Real Mary Kings Close

This underground tour (unfortunately no photos allowed) took us under the Royal Mile where the closes used to house many of Edinburgh's poor and wealthy alike. Appartently Edinburgh had 6 story plus high tenament buildings and of course the poorer you were the lower down you stayed. There were also open sewers and the plague was rife.
It was a great tour - told in cosume by a 'merchant' of the day - complete with ghostly presences. Most amazing for us was a room that used to house a family of 12 - it was smaller than our lounge room and it was the entire house - complete with the bucket in the corner.

The Royal Mile Part 1 - Camera Obscura

There are so many things to see and do on the Royal Mile so I'll just talk about our favourites. The Camera Obscura was great, full of mirrors, 3D effects, and lots of hands on displays - the kids loved it.

The Royal Yacht Britannia by Gena

Today we went and saw the Britannia, the yacht the queen and her family sailed on in the 1950's till the late 1990's. The tour was an audio set that was self controlled. My favourite rooms were the queens bedroom and the state dining room. It was even big enough to sit all glenisters for christmas lunch (56 seats) and uncle peter would be very happy to sail it!

The servants and crew were not nicely treated with their jobs and living space they had to do all the chores before 8am eg. scrub the deck, so they wouldn't get in the way of the royal family.They lived in a shared cramped room with not much space for their belongings.


by Gena

Eating healthy

After about a week of eating takeaways etc we all started to crave some healthy food. Imagine our surprise when we opened the peas and corn and founds blobs of butter - thankfully we were able to fish them out.

Twilight

The twilights are incredible here. These are photos I took at 12:30 am from the coast next to the park we are staying at.

No flash - the yellow is from the street light though.

Off to Edinburgh today

Not sure what the access to the internet will be.

jamie's view on france

in france we arrived at the airport and it was gay cos we coudn't do anything we got a bus from the terminal after we had to wait 1hr in the ticket line to check the passport then as i said we got on the bus and it took us to somewhere gay and we got a metro (which is the under ground subway except its a train ) then we got to the hotel with all our luggage (which we carried around for bloody ages) and then we found out that cant go to our rooms till 2pm that was like 4 hrs away and like i was hungry as. Then we went to the markets to fill our time and then looked around i then went to have a drink with dad and hamish ( i had coke( the went to the hotel and we could get in at 1pm which was good cos i was pissed. then i went to sleep and didnt wake fro a while and then got up and fell back to sleep and woke the next morning

then did site seein and then went home and ate and sleep again then woke next morining and did the practically the same thing for next 4 days which sucked

i dont have time to tell you the rest so i just will say the best thing in the whole of paris was the stay at the hotel

Scottish night out

We went to a traditional Scottish evening of entertainment in Inverness last night. Lots of bagpipes, singing - this guy had the most amazing voice, Highland dancing and a bit of humour and magic.

Then everyone was on the dance floor for the Gay Gordons - a dance similar to the Evening three step.

The street photo is taken after the show at 10:30 pm with no flash. It was still light enough to see without lights, infact it doesn't really get very dark at all, then the sun is up at 4:20am.

Inverness Castle

This is the castle in Inverness - currently used as the court house.

Culloden

We went and visited the battleground of Culloden. They say the conditions there are similar today to what they were in 1745 when the battle or massacre happened. Very muddy.

For all the Diana Gabaldon fans - here is a photo of my Jamie with the Fraser grave marker.