Scotland day 8

Today, our last day in Scotland, was one of those picture-perfect days. Sunshine, blue skies, white puffy clouds, only a bit of a breeze. I couldn't find a photo of that kind of sky. You'll just have to believe me that it did exist for a very few days.

Sarah, Kate and I chased Geoff and the other kids out to visit a nearby castle ruin and take a hike, while we cleaned the house and washed towels and sheets. I cleaned out the fire box that was just about overflowing with ash from the four evenings we had built fires to heat the living room. Sarah and I cleaned floors with the Hoover and mop and bucket and dusted stairs and furniture. Kate did the laundry and tried to organize clothing for tomorrow’s packing.

Around noon, the rest of the family returned and we piled into the car to eat at a garden centre which has a good cafe and have a browse around the antique shop next door. Lunch was more than ample and very good – sandwiches and soup. The antique shop was the most crowded and disorganized shop that I have ever seen – and I’ve seen a lot of shops! Furniture, pots and pans, dishes and glass objects, books, and hundreds of other miscellaneous things were piled higgledy-piggledy from floor to ceiling, leaving only very narrow aisles for walking. It would be truly amazing if the proprietor could find anything. Despite all the mess, I found a few treasures at reasonable prices. Obviously, Scotland is the place in the British Isles to shop for antiques. London prices are out of sight, as one might expect. Anyway, I bought two pieces of glass – an amber colored seal and a small blue bottle that has a few bits of orange in it. I also found a very interesting round metal sieve that I plan to hang on the kitchen wall, if I can find a space for it. My kitchen wall is getting rather full as I seem to find ‘just one more thing’ almost every time I’m in an antique store. Only Sarah and Kate and I went into the store. Geoff is not interested in antiques and it was not a safe place for small kids.

We then proceeded on to a transport museum that we thought would appeal to the kids. (Kate has photos of this on her blog http://www.katelnorth.blogspot. com. with a link to her flickr pages). It was actually a really interesting place. There was quite a collection of classic cars in addition to some really old ones. There was just enough information about each vehicle to be interesting, but not so much as to be overwhelming. There were also buses, trolleys, motorcycles, bicycles, a huge snow-plow and a musical contraption that filled an entire wall and played honkey-tonk music. There were several videos – one about the roads in Scotland and another about how a wooden wheel is constructed. It was a very informative place for adults and the kids loved climbing onto the large vehicles and going around looking for specific license plates. All in all -- a good day. Tomorrow, we will get up early, pack, head for the Aberdeen airport ,and fly home to London. We all agree that it’s been a wonderful holiday and we should come back again someday.

My MANY photos from this trip can be found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/kathydillard. They are sorted and and labeled with most of the duplicates removed.