August 9-11, 2010--Summer in the Highlands, or more castle crawling.

Friday the 13th (August 2010) was a momentous day.  The Archive ran out of books that were approved for us to image - again.  Rats!!  We hate it when that happens -- we had to take the next three days off by order of our supervisor in England!  Seriously!  That was enough time to get back to the Highlands - this time in the summer, when there were leaves on the trees. 

This is a loaner - 5 speed and brand new (8 miles on it when we got it).  Our Meriva was in the shop with a power steering problem.    Unfortunately, it took five days to get it fixed and we had to take the "Loaner" on our Highlands trip through Perthshire and the Aberdeen area.

This is proof that we were in the Highlands -Heather.  It is just starting to come into bloom and is only out where it is a bit warmer, like along the road.  But it is going to be beautiful in about three weeks - purple all over the hills.

I guess we haven't gotten our fill yet of Castles, especially those that are not in ruins.  This is Crathes Castle (pronounced Cra (a as in crab) thz), gardens and estate.  The estate was granted to the Burnett family in 1323 by King Robert the Bruce, for their support of his ascent to the throne. The castle was built in the 1500s.  We toured through many grandly furnished rooms, but they don't let you take pictures in them.  We'd love to have shown everyone the beautiful china, silverware, and furniture made specifically for the rooms in many of these castles.

You can take pictures of the grounds and gardens though.  This is a shot at Crathes.  It's interesting because most castles don't have any plantings around them and yet they have massive big walled gardens on the castle grounds filled with flowers and trees that we're familiar with and many, many that we're not.  We've never seen so many varieties of beautiful flowers than we've never seen before.  Plants were not grown around the castles to keep their enemies from invading undetected and gardens were originally walled with stone to keep animals out and solar heat in.

This is Drum Castle, which is the work of 21 generations of the Irvine family who lived here for over 650 years.  The original tower castle, with 12 foot thick walls, is on the left.  Then there is the medieval addition to the right and the more modern, probably only 200 years old, in the rear.  Most of these "lived in" castles have come into public hands because the owners could not afford the 70% inheritance tax.  Lets see, if the castle had a value of 5 million pounds, and you happened to have saved an additional 11.7 million in cash, your total estate would be 16.7 million.  Your estate tax, at 70% of 16.7 million, would be 11.7 million pounds.  So you pay all your cash and get to keep your castle. (And there would have been income tax on the 11.7 million you had saved to pay the inheritance tax!)  No wonder they have, basically, given them away (most of them with furnishings included).!

Fyvie Castle has housed five successive families over its 800 year history.  There is an impressive collection of fine old furniture and tapestries.  Most have some sort of collection of arms and armour, and this one was impressive. There are also huge portraits everywhere in these castles.  Rich folks seemed to like to have their pictures painted - sort of like us taking photos to preserve ourselves in history.

This is the front of Haddo House, one of the most spectacular mansions/castles we've toured through.  Yes that is their own chapel attached on the end of the house.  Services are still held there weekly (Church of Scotland). 

And this is a shot of the back of Haddo House, with some of the landscape.  This is a huge estate with treelined roads and a guided tour including lots of interesting stories.  These big houses and castles are on acres and acres of grounds and woods and usually can't be seen from any road.  It boggles the mind to imagine the number of people required to keep these mansions and grounds up. 

And this is Cawdor Castle, near Inverness, which originally was Calder, but they fancied up the name.  Some castles have guided tours, others are self guided - some, like Cawdor, are self guided with guides in the major rooms to answer questions or tell you about that area of the castle. 

Cawdor is the only castle we have visited that has a working drawbridge.  All of them are situated to make them hard to attack.  Scotland has two preservation organizations called Historic Scotland and National Trust.  Most castles, abbeys, gardens, and ruins are managed by one of these two groups and for a reasonable annual fee and their membership card, you can get in free to all of these historic sites.  It's a great bargain if you are living here and they do a wonderful job with their properties. 

Pitmeddin Gardens was also on the itinerary. 

More trimmed hedges at Pitmeddin Gardens than anyone can imagine!

A nice couple visiting for the Edinburgh International Festival from Ohio took our picture in this fun sunroom at Pitmeddin Gardens.  Lots of tourists in Scotland during August for the 3-week long festival.

We made a fun little stop at a seacoast village called Lossiemouth (mouth of the River Lossie) located on the North Sea between Aberdeen and Inverness.

Coastline at Lossiemouth.  Beautiful clouds!  We've loved the clouds in Scotland. 

HIGHLAND GAMES

We have wanted to go to some Highland Games for several weeks - and finally found a P-Day that would work, Sat. 7 Aug. 2010 at Inverkeithing, about fifteen miles away from where we live on the other side of the Firth of Fourth.  Any village of any size in Scotland hosts Highland Games each summer.

When we got there, they were doing foot races.  This little girl was fast for her age and ended up winning the race, but to be fair I need to tell you that they were handicap races and she had a pretty big handicap.  We were all cheering her to keep her assigned lead!

Cycle races were fun too.

 

The best were the "Heavy Events."   The first pictured here is the hammer throw -  a sixteen pound hammer was thrown after winding up to toss it.

The 56 pound weight, near the top of the bar, is picked up in your strongest arm, waved between the legs a couple of times to get some momentum and tossed over the bar.  The bar is raised each time more than one contestant clears it.  And don't let it come down on top of your head!

The last event is the Caber Toss.  Here a long pine pole is stood up narrow end down and the contestant balances it on his shoulder, works his hands under it, and lifts it, while balancing it against his shoulder.  Then he has to walk, and then run.... 

and then toss the pole, landing it on the large end and having it flip over with the small end pointing directly away from you.  No small feat when you realize the pole typically is 19'6" tall and weighs 175 pounds.  This is a big man's event and we saw some BIG contestants!  It was surprising to see these heavy events done in kilts until you realize that every important event in life here calls for men in kilts!

The last events were dancing competitions and....

Pipe Band competitions.  Here they are just warming up!  Someone has said that the best place to hear the bag pipe is over the hill from it.  They really are fun to listen to and their traditional Scottish attire makes the bands very smart looking.

Practically Perfect P-Days - July 2010

Linlithgow Palace Jousting

10 July 2010 

It was a drizzly day but the knights came to joust at Linlithgow Palace despite the clouds and mist.  Several were dislodged but none killed!  No matter the weather, the loch and palace at Linlithgow are always beautiful.  This village is fairly close to us and we love it!

 

Scottish Thistle

Scotland's unusual national flower.  It was credited with alerting the clansmen in the Highlands to a nighttime Viking attack.  As not to alert the Highlanders, they took their boots off, but when one of them stepped on a thistle, screaming in pain, the clan came to life and were victorious.

 

Dirleton Castle and Gardens

17 July 2010

This formal garden at Dirleton Castle was at its peak the day we were there.  The monkey puzzle tree on the right (Ned cut the top off in the photo) is found on many of the estates and is a very unusual tree.

 

Tantallon Castle on the North Sea

17 July 2010

 Our grandkids would love this one - lots of nooks and crannies to explore.  Note that it was 17 July and I'm wearing my raincoat, fleece jacket underneath, and my neck scarf (but no gloves - I forgot them and left them home!).  It's never really summer in Scotland!  Take that back, three weeks in June were nice, but honestly, the temperature high this summer in Edinburgh so far is 77F (25C) and that was for one day only!

 

Calaverock Castle near Dumfries

24 July 2010

 

This is what you imagine a castle to look like and the first we've seen with a real moat . . . plenty with  moats, but none with water in them.  Some never ever had water in them but moats were dug to make it more difficult to attack the castle.

Even moats couldn't stop the destruction of the seige machines which hurled huge stones at and over the castle walls.  The major destruction of the castles came later with cannon and gun powder.  Few were not left in ruins.

 

Culzean Castle (pronounced Cull-lane) 

24 July 2010

 

This castle, as pictured, was designed by the famous British architect from Scotland, Robert Adam, and built for David Kennedy between 1777 and 1792 on lands owned by the Kennedy clan dating back to the 1400's.  In 1945, the inheritance taxes (70% of the value of the estate) were so great, the family donated this palace and 560 acres to the National Trust of Scotland.  It is decorated with original period furnishings and furniture that was made especially for this home.  The estate includes a red deer park, huge gardens, a swan lake and wooded walking paths so beautiful that it takes your breath away.  It's located on the Firth of Clyde on the Atlantic Ocean and a must-see when visiting Scotland.

This huge leafed plant in Culzean's gardens would make a wonderful hide-out for kids or be perfect for a Jurassic Park movie set.

 

Castle-crawling with the Senior Office Sisters

31 July 2010

The senior sisters who work in our mission office have no car and have seen much less of Scotland than we have.  We took them for a delightful P-day visiting three castles, a long drive through the countryside, and ended with a fish and chips dinner.  The sister on the left has just joined our mission from Ireland when the Scotland/Ireland missions were combined in July and lives in West Jordan, Utah.  The sister on the right is now a dear friend from the Phoenix, Arizona area.  While you're serving, you feel like the other missionaries (young and old) are your family.  By the way, fish and chip shops can be found in any village in Scotland like McDonalds fast food is found in the States, but they're not franchised.  We see hamburger joints only occasionally.

These darling sisters (Christina-11 yrs. and Sarah-13 yrs.) took the office sisters and us on an official tour of Linlithgow Palace.  They were delightful and very knowledgeable and professional!