Catching up ...

I felt great pangs of unrelenting shame when I saw the date on our last posting. Well we got a new one in under a month ...

So what have we been up to?

1. Moving stuff

We've got a new place arranged and a moving date in mind ... October 15. The new place is significantly larger, with 5 bedrooms. A little ludicrous for just two people and a spoiled dog, but it's the only thing in our neighborhood that would allow us to have Casey. It has a great little garden and a brand spanking new kitchen. We can fill the extra bedrooms with visitors, right?

2. Golf

My fabulous wife purchased the new Tiger Woods golf for the Wii last week. I've been playing probably a little too much. I think I'm undoing all the good teachings of my golf lessons.

3. Movies

We've been taking a few (too many??) evenings and weekends off watching some old ones and some new ones. We've seen and enjoyed:

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs - fabulous piece of absurd animation. I've always been a fan of Bill Hader and Anna Faris, and any movie with Mister T as a philosophising street cop makes my list.

Waitress - actually watching this now as I'm doing the post. Great, funny, sad little movie. Interesting perspectives and great little pie recipes to boot.

Tropic Thunder - a hundred and one reasons to hate this movie, but I still split a gut laughing. Robert Downey Jr is a comic genius.

Hot Rod - probably the greatest dumb movie ever made. Definitely an acquired taste, but it suits me (and thankfully Fiona) just fine. Cool beans!

Hitchcock movies - we watched Vertigo the other day. It is a shame that people don't make movies like this anymore. Intrigue, plot and real acting - whole scenes with people just having conversations - by real actors, Grace Kelly, Jimmy Stewart, etc ...

4. Reading ... about zombies

I'm just going through the last few pages of a new classic called Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Someone had the genius inspiration to mix old school Jane Austen with zombies. I can think of a few dozen other titles that could benefit from the same treatment.

5. Raging Against the Machine

We got our letters back from the driver's license authority ... rejecting our applications to trade in our old Canadian licenses for new British ones. Since our legal right to drive on our American licenses expires in a couple of weeks and we now have to apply for provisional licenses, take a theory test and pass a practical test with a local pass/fail rate of 40%. Yeah, no problem. Hence the extremely loud curses emanating from northwest Scotland last week.

6. Journeying into the Heart of Darkness

I got in the car after work today at 5:30 pm and the automatic lights came on right away. You have to keep reminding yourself of Scotland's other (many) good points during days like these. We're having a hard time keeping track of how quick the leaves are changing because it's getting dark so quickly these days.

Visitors - Day 5 - Strathisla

In a nice flip from Monday (from my perspective anyway), Fiona was up bright and early to attend an American Women of Aberdeen board meeting while I had a decent little sleep in. A late breakfast followed. There wasn't much on the agenda, at least not anything that could be done before noon on a good conscience.

We had planned, as every good Scottish host should, to visit a whiskey distillery. We had quizzed our good friends Vicki and Bob and they had recommended Strathisla, located about an hour away in Keith. We arrived in Keith at about noon and had a relaxed lunch in the Royal Hotel. The relaxation was forced as we waited for the menus, waited for the starters, waited for the mains, etc ...

We finally got to the distillery at about 2pm, in time to join a tour. The distillery itself is beautiful, an old stone building sitting in the woods with pagoda chimneys and a working waterwheel. Strathisla is the oldest working distillery in Scotland, started by the Chivas brothers of Aberdeen over a hundred years ago. They brew their own single malt and put quite a bit of their production into the Chivas Regal blended Scotch. I would totally recommend it if you only have time for one distillery tour - it's informative, it's pretty, it's close and you get two drams instead of one.

We started with a wee dram of the Chivas Regal, which was much better than I anticipated. I've been trying to develop a taste for Scotch as I feel it will make me more sophisticated, a quality I currently lack. I could take up ballroom dancing or expensive cigars, but I feel forcing myself to drink Scotch is easier and cheaper.

The tour was very good and incredibly informative. It ended with another wee dram, either a Chivas 18 year old or the Strathisla single malt. Both were tried and both were enjoyed. We all left quite happy.

Visitors - Day 4 - The Bruce

We did a little bit of whip cracking to get everyone up early enough for one of our classic day trips. We're finding that it's an economical way to see this country, as there are so many things that are within an hour or two from Aberdeen. If you leave early, plan on coming back late and pack a good lunch you can string several of them together to make an interesting day.

Normally our day trips have an over-riding theme - Loch Ness, the East Coast - and the plan for this started out similarly - Scottish heroes. By the end of the day it had turned into a little bit of a hodge-podge, but we started out with the intent of getting to know William Wallace and Robert (Big Bob) the Bruce.

Once we dropped Casey off at the kennel, we made our way to Stirling Castle. Unlike previous day trips, we had to fight some pretty bad weather. There were periods of heavy rain, interspersed with periods of lighter rain and the occasional bout of drizzle. Not an auspicious start.

The drive to Stirling is easy and quite scenic. The first dip into the valley with the castle on the hill can take your breath away. You wind your way through the narrow cobblestone streets up to the top of the hill where the castle lies imposingly over the valley. We spent a few hours touring around - highlights include the Great Hall, where we all felt comfortable on some royal thrones, discussed 17th century royal politics with a docent, marveled at the tapestries and cursed our luck that the Royal Palace was under renovation. I think Stirling Castle stacks up well against some of the other castles we've seen, with its valley views moving it high up on the overall list.

We grabbed a quick lunch at the castle and moved on to our next site for the day - the Wallace Monument just across the valley at Abbey Craig. Built in 1869, it is a tower with multiple levels of museum-like rooms about Wallace and other Scottish patriots. They even have Wallace's broadswoard, a massive weapon that could only really have been used by a pretty big dude. I'm not sure Mel Gibson was the right choice in Braveheart. We climbed the 246 steps to the top and made it out onto the viewing deck. By now the weather had started to clear and we got some really impressive views. Unfortunately the reason the weather was clearing was a blasting wind (70+ mph at the top) and they quickly shut down the upper deck.

Post-monument, we stuck with the Scottish warrior theme and headed to Bannockburn, where Robert the Bruce routed the English army of Edward II, freeing Scotland from English overlordship. The battlesite has a great interpretive centre where the little kid inside everyone can come out and play, trying on battle helmets and chain mail. The Bruce monument on the site is quite impressive. Hard to imagine this formidable warrior dying of leprosy.

Slightly depressed by the scale of the slaughter at Bannockburn, we decided to use feats of engineering to lift our spirits. In nearby Falkirk is an interesting, modern alternative to the canal lock called the Falkirk Wheel. In essence, the wheel moves ships from one high canal to another low one (or the other way around) by parking them in a big tub and rotating the entire tub up or down. The whole thing can be powered by the energy required for only 8 toasters. I was expecting a giant squealing, grinding, smoking monstrosity, but if you're not paying attention you'll miss the movement, it is that quiet.

If we told you that Annie and Rinus are big golf fans, you'll probably guess where we ended up next. St. Andrews, and the Old Course, the home of golf. We parked and wandered across the 18th fairway and past the first few holes. Although it was blustery and a little cold, the course appeared to be full, with some people toughing it out in shorts and polo shirts. Even this late in the season the course looked great. There were some white tents going up here and there, I think they are part of the preparations for the British Open, which will be played here in July of 2010. We resisted the urge to steal a club and hit a drive and instead made our way to the club house where we left some money behind.

We finally straggled across the finish line at home at about 10:30, a full 14 hours after we left. Needless to say there were no dominos that night.

Visitors - Day 3 - A Lie In

This blog entry comes to you as mostly hearsay, but please don't dismiss it out of hand. I had to spend Monday at work, leaving the fates of the guests to Fiona's more than adequate hosting abilities.

While I was up at 6 and off to work by 7, the rest of the house had just finished breakfast when I came home for lunch. After I left again, they hopped in the rented mini-van and headed north up the coast. They made their way all the way up to Peterhead - "a hell of a town" with a disturbing lack of ice cream. The Ythan Estuary was also viewed and enjoyed. Rosehearty also made the cut, with a tour of a sad little fishing harbour with an equally sad little lobster boat put-putting over the water.

After I got home again we wandered past Union Street for dinner at Ciao Napoli, which has replaced Poldino's as our favorite Italian place. Lobster ravioli, monkfish, calamari and veal left us all fat and happy. Well, the happiness may have been more attributable to the three bottles of Valpolicella Mara 2006 (recommendation approved by all - the winery can send the cheque whenever they like).

It kind of put the cap on a good, relaxing day. Good thing too, day 4 was going to be one of classic day trips ...

Visitors - Day 2 - A Full Scottish

Day 2 dawned bright and early. We had planned a special treat for our guests - a full Scottish breakfast. When we moved into this apartment we marveled at the 8 burner stove and made some snide comments about how we would never use them all at once. This breakfast was the closest we ever came - 6 of 8.

We spent an hour getting it ready - toast, eggs, bacon, sausage, black pudding (blood sausage for Anglos, bloedworst for Dutchies), haggis, tomatoes and mushrooms. Yes, yes, we realize we forgot the beans. We only realized this after we had served everyone up and were faced with a fresh, unopened cans of beans staring back at us from the counter top. It went down well anyway, especially the black pudding which brought back fond memories for our guests. The haggis also went down surprisingly well. There were many questions as to why people looked down at haggis so much.

In an effort to burn off the 5,000 calorie breakfast we headed off to Dunottar Castle near Stonehaven. Dunottar is quickly becoming our "Fort Edmonton", the old tourist attraction in Edmonton that every guest was taken to see. It still amazes, a spectacular ruin on the edge of the sea with an interesting and complex history. Even with the 187 steps, everyone left in a good mood.

Meanwhile, Casey had found herself a new best friend. She's has her own agenda to convert all the non-dog lovers in the world, one at a time.

Next stop was a tour of the beach, a whimpy 99 (soft ice cream with a flake bar in it) and drive through old Aberdeen. A BBQ at home served as good run up into a rousing game of dominos. For the sake of posterity (and to ensure there is no whinging or complaining in the future), I will leave you with the final rankings:

1. "Mr Strategy" Jack

2. "Steady as she goes" Fiona

3. "Running Commentary" Rinus

4. "I never win" Corry

5. "I should win" Rik

6. "I did what Jack says, how come I didn't win" Annie

Visitors - Day 1 - Braemar Gathering

I'm doing a little bit of catch-up here. Usually when we have guests and/or travel is when we generate the majority of our blog posts. Our latest batch of visitors, my parents, plus their and our good friends Annie and Rinus, have been here for six days and no blogs - what gives?

We've been kept so busy with day trips and dinners that blogging has lost it's ranking amongst other critical tasks such as sleeping. I'm going to attempt to get through it all, so put on your reading glasses and enjoy.

We picked the guests up early on Saturday morning - not ideal as we had been invited to the neighbors house the night before for dinner and drinks and had indulged a little too much and a little too long. Nevertheless we arrived on time and suitably attired. I had put on my kilt to give them a proper Scottish welcome. It also had to do with our destination for the day - the Braemar Gathering. The Gathering is the last and most celebrated of the Highland games summer circuit. After dropping the cases at home we made the drive up into the mountains. Braemar is a beautiful setting and after two straight days of rain that resulted in many cases of flooding we had a day of spotty sunshine - enough to leave with a sunburn anyway.

The Braemar Gathering is a must-see event for anyone who happens to be in Scotland that first week of September. We walked in and took our seats around the arena. Things were happening everywhere you looked. Highland dancing, sprints, distance runs, relay races, jumping events and the so-called "heavy" events, where unusually large men throw combinations of heavy items (hammers, stones, weights and cabers) for distance, height or accuracy. They seemed to be the most popular events, which is not surprising given some of the characters participating. Mom was particularly enamored with Mr. Sebastian Wenta, a guy I recognized from previous World's Strongest Man Competitions. He really got the crowd involved as he went for a new record in the aptly named "Weight over Bar" competition. Dad was particularly impressed with the Hill Run, which involves a 5km race - you guessed it - up and down a nearby hill. Annie and Rinus kept a close eye on the military inter-service tug-o-war. Each team had its own coach yelling encouragement and tactics (pull harder?). My personal favorite - the nice warm bacon rolls. Actually, the massed drum and pipe bands were most impressive to me. I can imagine a cold shiver running up and down your 16th century spine if you heard that coming up over the hill and you happened to belong to the wrong clan.

At about three o'clock Queen Liz (in the royal box with the yellow hat - or was that Charles?), Prince Phil and Charles showed up. We all sang a rousing chorus of "God Save the Queen". They left an hour later. I did not see the Queen eat a bacon roll.

We rolled back into Aberdeen with just enough time and energy to order some very un-Scottish pizza for dinner. Dominos were discussed but not played. It turns out that it takes just as much energy to watch someone do a hill run as it takes to do it yourself...