Scotland 16th - 20th

Tuesday 16th August

Ryan, Daniel and I went to Taymouth Castle we took some polaroids and had a huge chat about movies and music. We had lunch at the house then Ryan and I drove Daniel to pick up the book he had ordered from the bookshop while the others went to the Crannog centre. All the boys had southern fried chicken for Tea and all the girls had fish. Jo made a lush bread and butter pudding! yum! :P

Wednesday 17th August

We headed out to the Hermitage and had lunch in the car park before going to the Beatrix potter exhibition and walked to the station from the exhibition. It was a good exhibition but it did seem a bit more like a creche. The gallery above had some amazing art. We went back to the hermitage and went for a walk. Sue stayed in the car while we walked around. We went into the Ossian hall and saw the Salmon leaping up its a shame to think they won't make it up there :( We drove back through dalguise we saw a house Beatrix Potter once stayed at and plenty of pheasants! We had burger and chips for tea and played the logo game.

Thursday 18th August

The weather was good so we headed to Ben Lawers for lunch while looking at the view. We went for a walk in Killin at the other end of Loch Tay the path followed the old railway line. The path was very trecherous and we had to use a few logs to get across some boggy bits. Three ducks began to stalk us everytime we thought we had gotten rid of them they appeared :P Unfortunately all good things must come to an end and when we got back to the house we had to pack for our departure the next day. We had lasagne for tea and Jo made bread and butter pudding again :D We played the logo game one last time.

Friday 19th August

We left the house at 9am and arrived for breakfast at Dobies. Daniel travelled with us to Carlisle and Hadrians wall. We visited Bird Oswalds roman site before checking into the Premier Inn at Carlisle we arrived just after 6pm. We all had a nap before coming down for dinner at the Brewars Fayre after dinner we got to bed about 10.30pm.

Yes Ryan and I shared this! :P

Saturday 20th August

We all had breakfast at the Brewars Fayre Ryan and I packed to leave first as we had further to travel. We left just after 11am and stopped at Tebay and another services nearer home. Michelle and Co left just after 12 and they stopped at Tebay and a garden centre on the way back we got home at 6.30pm and Michelle and Co got home at 10.15pm.

It was a lovely holiday and didn't feel at all like 2 weeks worth.

Scotland 11th - 15th

Thursday 11th August

It was very wet in the morning and had been raining all night this was nothing unusual as Devon see's its fair share of rain but according to weather forecasts this rain was the worst on record for Scotland. Loch tay had lost its beach that only 5 days ago Ryan, Daniel and I had been stood on. The river Tay was very high and was at risk of bursting its banks although the rain never seemed that bad it had quite an effect on the surrounding streams, lochs and rivers. We decided to visit Dewars World of Whisky today as the rain was still coming down in the morning and all the other activities were based outdoors. The tour around the distillery was quite educational the smells were very strong especially from the fermentation process :/ ick! After the tour we got to try a sample of the whisky i had never tried whisky before and didn't know what to expect. We had 3 to choose from a single malt 12 years and 15 year whisky and an 18 year whisky i believe i had the 18 year whisky as the bartender said it was the sweetest of the three. We sat at a table and took our first sip =O it was certainly strong and not something i wanted to try again in a terrific hurry. Ryan finished his although he also said he did not like it

We had a browse around the gift shop before deciding to go onto Aberfeldy the rain had finally let up and we took the chance to have a look at the Birks of Aberfeldy. This was very fast flowing and Ryan and I grabbed a few sticks and played pooh sticks with them. Sue and I were irritating Ryan by jiggling the bridge as he was trying to steady his camera lol :P We returned to the house for tea and had Spaghetti Bolognaise.

Friday 12th August

This was Ryans grandparents wedding anniversary and the day we visited my favourite place Pitlochry they had a delightful little craft shop there with so much in it for the size of it. We had dinner in Victoria's Cafe. Jo had the Haggis and then a Banoffee pie for pudding, Colin had Chilli and a Cheese and Biscuit pudding, Sue had Salmon with a Creme Brullee pudding, Michelle had a Chicken burger with the choc fudge cake pudding, Graham had a special burger with the sticky toffee pudding, Daniel had a Chilli burger with vanilla ice cream pudding, Ryan had Cannelonni and choc fudge cake pudding and I had a panini with a choc brownie pudding. It was a really lovely place to eat. Daniel, Ryan and I went up the high street to look at shops and i brought Ryan a heart candle holder we then travelled back down the high street to heather gems where Ryan brought me a beautiful necklace with a heather gem heart =D On the way back from Pitlochry Ryan and I walked down to the Dam and Fish ladder while people waited for us as i had never seen it before. We came the scenic route back from Pitlochry along Loch Tummel which made a few of us ill as the roads were twisty :/ Ryan and i fell asleep in the car so we missed it all :P

Saturday 13th August

We visited Aberfeldy again as there is a tiny little bookshop/cafe/gallery there. I brought a book on Wicked Witches of Scotland and Daniel ordered a book that Ryan had been telling him about. We then drove along Glenn Lyon and spotted some highland cattle. Ryan and I went to see if we could get any closer to the cattle but the grass was very wet and there was a big bull in the field that quite frankly i did not want to be on the bad side of!! We headed back to the house and had curry for tea it was a clear night and we could sea the moon and stars but unfortunately not the milky way which Ryan had been very eager for me to see.

Sunday 14th August

We visited Killi Cranki (sp?) on this day in particular Soldiers Leap. The weather was really nice for once it felt like a summers day! :P After soldiers leap we went to Lynn Tummel where we saw bungee jumpers i filmed them and Ryan tried to claim to my mum that it was him :P We travelled back to the house and some of us had sweet and sour and some of us had Spaghetti Bolognaise for Tea. We went out with Graham and Daniel to shoot some night time shots on Ben Lawers it was really cold but the light made cool photos!! 

Monday 15th August
We travelled to Perth where we had lunch at Dobies and visited the musuem and gallery some of the gallery stuff was very good and the Beatrix potter art was very interesting! We sat by the river where Ryan found a statue of a bird with a fish which looked like the seagulls from Finding Nemo this ment lots of MINE MINE followed :P Daniel, Ryan and I where then trying to synchronise patting our legs its surprising how much we failed doing this! On the way back we stopped at Dunkeld and Birnam to see if the Beatrix Potter exhibition was worth going to we also stopped off at the railway station. We had Jacket potato for tea with plenty of cottage cheeeese :P

Scotland 6th-10th August

Saturday 6th August

This was a chill out day for all the drivers and map readers to re-group and just have a general relaxing day after the long drives. Daniel, Ryan and I did disappear for an hour or two to have a look at the Loch and feed the ducks and ducklings. We came back to the house and went into the Hot Tub the chlorine gave me a bit of a headache and i had a quick nap to shift it before Tea. Ryan kept me company. We had a lovely sit down meal something i haven't experienced in a long while its nice to have a meal around a table for once :) The weather is set to be rainy for the rest of the week to come but we will see what each day holds.

Sunday 7th August

We had a games room day we spent some of the day playing on the PS3 and we played pool although i am god awful at it so it was more of a laugh than anything, Ryan and Daniel played Scrabble Daniel won :P Ryan and I made curry for everyone it was delish and we had mini cupcakes! Yum!!

Monday 8th August

We had lunch in the car park of Loch of the Lowes before going into the centre to try and glimpse the Osprey although we did not sight any Osprey we did see some Red squirrels and a White fallow deer. I
brought a couple of things a thimble for mum and a pin badge for dad. We headed back to the house as it was a bit damp for us.

We headed to Dunkeld Cathedral after Loch of the Lowes to have a look around the Cathedral was quite big and the river was very fast flowing.

We travelled back to the house where we had pizza and pasta for Tea and more mini cupcakes. I struggled to upload pictures to facebook as the internet connection kept connecting and disconnecting.

Tuesday 9th August
The weather was nice on this day and we decided to go to Ben Lawers the car park was full when we arrived and we just managed to find a space. We had lunch and Ryan and I took some polaroid pictures. Graham used his remote control 4X4 over the rough terrain and Ryan took a polaroid of this. We drove down to Killin and visited the gift shop the joke Killin-time got exhausted within about 10 minutes lol :P We sat at the Falls of Dochart while people took pictures. Jo, Colin, Ryan and I were all fascinated by a rock pool which ended in a soggy shoe.

We left Killin shortly after and travelled to Loch Earn however there weren't many places to stop along the shore line we did manage to stop in one spot but we had to climb up and down to get to the Loch all good exercise!! :P

We arrived back at the house and had a dinner of Pasta and soup.

Wednesday 10th August
Ryan and I awoke thinking of the news we had to tell everyone on this day. We headed downstairs for breakfast. Michelle and Graham had gone shopping in the morning and at lunctime Ryan and I ended up playing Monopoly with Daniel while everyone else went for a walk to Taymouth Castle. On there arrival everyone sat around the table Daniel went to get Graham from the games room and Ryan and I announced that on this date in 2013 we would be getting married!! =D We showed everyone all of our planning so far and our venue. Everyone was very interested which i think put Ryan at ease :)  We had a lovely fish and chip dinner and i again struggled with the internet connection.

Scotland

OMG, finally holllliddddaaaaayyyys have arrived!!

We left for Scotland on the Thurs 4th August we left Devon at 4pm and arrived half way at 9pm we stopped on the way but it slips my mind as to where we grabbed a Mcdonalds and Ryan mentioned he recognised it as the place he had been to the previous year with his family.

We stopped in Preston just off the M6 in a premier inn which was very comfy we decided on the Friday we would head out early we set our alarms for 7am and checked out at 8pm we had brought breakfast with us in the form of porridge pots and cornflake pots. We topped up some petrol before we left and then got back onto the M6 to carry on to Scotland we stopped at a Tesco in Perth to sort out lunch and get some munch for our first week. We left the Tesco at 11.30am and arrived at our home for 2 weeks just after 1pm. We parked the car up and wondered around as we couldn't check into the place till 4pm we checked if it was okay to leave the car there before going down to Kenmore village to look at Loch Tay and the Himalaya's display. We texted Ryans mum to let her know we had arrived safely and that we would see them soon.

At 4pm we went back to pick up the keys and Ryan showed me around the house it was a large house!! We unpacked the car and got a drink and Ryans uncle Jo arrived shortly followed by Ryans mum dad and brother. Then a further 15 minutes later Ryans grandparents arrived. We all unpacked the cars and chilled out over the weekend.