Nature Friday - From Scotland

We join Jakey for Nature Friday. Here is a picture Lady and Man took on their trip to Scotland. Lady and Man LOVE trees!

Travel Thursday - Wrapping Up A Wonderful Three Weeks

Today our 3 week trip in Europe draws to a close. Thank you for coming on this journey with us.

On our last full day in the Bonny Land we hopped in the wren and headed toward a lighthouse (and forgive me for not remembering the name. I think this day is the only day I didn't take pictures of signs. I know Yamini will put the name in the comments!)

This lighthouse is now a residence, so you can't go in, but the light itself still works. We bet this is Rosy, Arty and Jakey's mom's dream home!

Someone had placed this on a fence post

Then we went to a reservoir. The Man and I enjoyed our walk through the forest surrounding it.

See the bird?

Then we headed back to Dunoon for a little tour. The Man had not really explored. While driving around we discovered the church near the castle museum (I believe it was the Dunoon High Kirk) was open. In all the time our hostess had lived in this town, she had never been in the church, so we happily explored it.

We are sure there is a better punch line to 2 atheists and a Hindu walk into a church, but for us, the answer was have tea! This lovely church offered tea (served with biscuits) for the price of a donation. We very much enjoyed this time. 

After our refreshments we ended our explorations in the cemetery. It seems our time in Scotland was bookended with cemeteries. 

We spent a lovely evening watching movies and chatting. The next morning we were up early to head to Glasgow to catch our flight home. 

We were very lucky to have had the opportunity to see new parts of the world this summer. We are forever grateful to our hostess Yamini and the opportunity to meet Bertie and Gail. 8 years ago when I started writing this blog, as a way to cope with the handful of a dog we had just rescued, I never would have imagined this would connect us with people all over the world and give us the opportunity to travel to meet them.  There is good in the internet! 

We have some travels lined up for 2019  and we look forward to sharing them with you. 

Wordless Wednesday - Lady's Home Office Supervisor

It is beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Slowly but surely we are getting the house ready for Christmas.

Saturday, I put up our upside down tree, which is decorated with our Hanukkah decorations. For the record, a Hanukkah tree is not a thing, and we are not Jewish, we just celebrate both Hanukkah and Christmas.

Sunday we got as far as putting up the Christmas tree. It is not decorated yet. Getting the 15 foot tree up and the lights working is a feat unto itself, made worse by the mice got into one part and made a nest, so there was a lot of vacuuming required. To get this tree up and the leaves looking more or less acceptable took an hour and a half. At this point, the Man had to start cooking for our Grey Cup feast (Grey cup is the Canadian football teams Super Bowl). In the next week or so we should be able to get it done. 

Mischief Monday - The Entire Week

We had the kind of week that will make you drink. (Note the above picture we are sharing the water dish because the Lady had forgotten to fill it and we were like 1 hour without water and were sure we were going to die! We don't usually share, we usually take turns)

It started Monday. Lady packed us into the car and drove us to day camp. She had to work late and the Man had hockey tickets and she didn't want us to be alone too late. On the drive in Lady realized her car was leaking fumes into the cabin. A couple years ago she was told there was something cracked and this could happen (her car has a lot of kilometres on it). So she had to drive with the windows open. 

At camp, Lee had an amazing day, but Phod did not. He attacked another dog and had to spend most of the day alone in a kennel . . . . . This is the second time at a camp Phod (our teddy bear) has been aggressive. We have never seen it, but believe it. 

I am really just a suck-a-bear

For the rest of the week, the time Lady would have spent on blogging was spent on car research. 

Thursday, Lady and Man had a new TV (it also died - as did a blender - Lady hopes that is her 3) and a dining room table delivered. Well, really they got part of a dining room table. The legs didn't come. Apparently, a salesperson screwed up and didn't sell Lady and Man the legs. That is right, you had to buy legs separately (have you ever heard of such a crazy thing). It was both annoying and funny to our peeps. In the end, the legs are arriving for free Tuesday of this week. 

Wake me when life is back to normal

Saturday brought car shopping (it is too cold here to drive with the windows open indefinitely and really not that safe). Sometime this week, Lady will be bringing home her new to her 2018 Nissan Qashqai S. In the afternoon, Lady put up the first of our 2 Christmas trees. All this furniture moving has got Phod very stressed out. He actually went and hid in the bathroom while Lady put up the first tree. (At the timing of writing this, the second tree had not been put up, but it will be later today). 

That was our week!  Hope you all had less eventful ones! Tomorrow we will share some pictures of our trees. 

Nature Friday

First, I hope this works. I don't upload enough videos to be sure.
Second, for my friends on Facebook, you may have seen this video, but it is one of my favourite videos ever, so I am sharing it here. This was taken on November 14, outside my home office window. (Note to self - wash the darn windows in the spring!)

Enjoy!

Travel Thursday - Two More Days in the Bonnie Lady

First - to all our American friends,

We wish you a wonderful Thanksgiving.

We are thankful for the internet and Blogville that has connected us to people around the world who we would not have the opportunity to get to know any other way.  Without this medium, the story I am about to tell would not have taken place. 

We hope you all have a lot of turkey! 

One of our turkeys taking a break from eating the bird seed and chillin'  in the dirt. 

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Monday brought another rather dreary Scottish day, but while this didn't stop us from having an adventure. We headed out to Auchindrain Township, the most complete example of a farm township. I can't remember the date, but the last resident left in/around the 1950s. The township has been left as it was left more or less.

The only residents now

One of the things North America could learn from Europe (in general) is that dogs are safe to go places. It would have been unheard of for a dog (except a service dog) to be allowed in such a place in Canada. But Bertie was more than welcome to explore with us.

What was really cool abut this historical site is that all the information was on an iPad, that tracked your location as you walked around and gave you the relevant information. It wasn't flawless, but we were able to learn a lot about the township this way.

Bertie and Gail exploring as the Man played with the iPad

A cottage

Some pee-mail was needed to be left. 

A ruin across township

There were plenty of chickens wandering around and I will say Bertie was very much the gentleman and didn't try and hunt them. Hailey would have taken a head or two! 

After our exploration here, we headed over to Inverary for lunch.

The Man and Lady didn't pay to go into the jail. They thought the price was very high for the time they had 

A wee stop on a cattle road on the drive back to the hutch.

The next day, Gail and Bertie said their goodbyes and headed East to home. It was another rather dreary day. The Man and Yamini decided to stay in the cozy and dry hutch. I decided to go wander around Dunoon.

While I may be an air sign, I would say water is my element and I enjoyed walking the beach.

It was chilly

I made a stop at the Dunoon Castle Museum. It reminded me very much of the small community museums in small town Canada.

Looking down

One of the true finds in Scotland for me, was the milk chocolate. I can't have any form of soy and milk chocolate in Canada (and the US) uses soy lecithin. In Scotland they used sunflower lecithin, so for the first time in over 2 years I indulged in milk chocolate. (Yes, some made it back to with me).

Here is the statue of Highland Mary (Mary Campbell). She had an affair with Robert Burns, who wrote several pieces about her. She died after nursing her brother, likely of typhus at age 23.

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Next week we will wrap up our Travel Thursday series with our last full day of vacation. 

Wordless Wednesday - Action!