Stardate: 4 May 2019 - Hooroo, Scotland the brave - missing you already

And we definitely will.

On our last full day in Scotland we didn't want to venture too far afield so our furthest outing was only about 35 kms away.  We started with the Cluny House Gardens just outside of Aberfeldy, which Geoffy was very keen to visit, not for their petunias but because their brochure promised "Red Squirrels.  Everywhere you look.  The joint is teeming with them!"  Or words to that effect.

And so it was.  And delightful little critters they were too.  Geoff was happy to leave after he'd seen his squirrels but I insisted we inspect the gardens because we had paid 5 pounds each for the privilege.  😁

The gardens were very large and contained two giant Sequoias planted in the 1850s and many small trees, shrubs and flowers.  I must say that we recognised maybe 10 per cent of them.

That's a rhododendron in the distance but everything else in this pic is a mystery.

We had a yap with the garden's owners whose house is a very large pile over 200 years old.  A family member had bought it in 1951 and we saw pics of the garden in its undeveloped state.  It was very steep and pretty ordinary and definitely had no red squirrels.  It's still steep but really is a delight now. There are steps and ramps down to the bottom, where I swear the temperature was zero degrees.  Damn it was cold today!

Our next outing was to Highlands Safaris.  I was concerned this meant I had to climb the local munro or corbett with a 25 kilo backpack but fortunately we were only required to attend a slightly too-long lecture about red deer, then feed the red deer and meet a barn owl.

We were a tad uncomfortable that our host, George kept emphasising that all the deer we could see would eventually be culled because the farmers hate them and they need to keep the numbers down and if any of us were interested he could take us out for a shoot some time.
Um... no thanks.








My other excitement for the day was seeing FOUR neolithic stone circles, only one of which was signposted.  All were in sheep paddocks.  It just seems extraordinary that these mysterious stones have survived in situ.  And while I knew there were a lot of them over the British Isles, I hadn't expected to be lucky enough to just stumble across them (but not literally) especially four in one day.  Alas, no parking or even stopping along the narrow country lanes, so no photos.

Just before handing over to Mr Pants - it's a mistake to get money out of a Scottish ATM because you will always get Scottish pounds and they are bastards to shift anywhere outside Scotland.  Ya cain't use 'em in England, although English pounds are also used here.  We have several times had to buy things just to get rid out of our Scottish bank notes received as change. Coins are okay - they don't have Scottish ones. Not sure why one and not the other.

Also want to say that our Inchmahome Priory pics yesterday were pretty ordinary and that's because most of it was covered in scaffolding and we didn't want the scaffolding intruding on our pics.  In hindsight perhaps that was a mistake as there are only bits of buildings in our pics and not the whole caboodle. Ah well.  Reminds me of our visit to Wayland's Smithy in Oxfordshire some years ago - a Neolithic burial chamber that is absolutely magical, except that when we visited, the council rangers were all over it with their Victa 2-strokes and whipper-snippers.  Ya win some, ya lose some.

Goodbye, Scotland the Brave.  And thank you for your history and your hospitality.

***

Hortense has been over generous today in leaving me numerous photos to put up and describe in lurid detail, but I'll do my best to resist the temptation to overdo it.  We thought that today would be spent in pursuit of Scottish wildlife that we'd heard so much about but hadn't yet seen much of.

The main priority for me was indeed the fabled red squirrel.  And Cluny House Gardens lived up to its advertised attractions.  The reason this little critter was so happy to pose for photos was because he had the nose bag on, and this pic shows just that.  Charming!







The gardens themselves were great, but let's face it, a garden's just a garden without red squirrels.

That's very ungenerous in the case of Cluny House.  This is a bit of the walkway, that takes you up hill and down dale and every whichway.  The instructions suggest you allow an hour to an hour and a half, which would be quite realistic had it been about 15 degrees warmer.  We finished in a new record of 25 minutes.  Maybe a little bit more, but not much.







Highland Safaris proved to be far more genteel than its intimidating name.

Some of the more timid Highland Red Deer, who obviously have plenty to eat, as they weren't hanging out for the pellets that we were given to feed them.

And here is Ossian the 5 year old barn owl.  Host George brought her into our room and she had a bit of a fly around our heads before settling on her perch.  She was born and has been raised in captivity.  I guess she's lucky that she gets three square meals a day without any effort on her part, but I couldn't help wondering if she would have been happier to be out in the wild hunting for herself.  Ah, the mysteries of life ...






Our final stop was in Fortingall, a pretty enough village with thatched roof houses, but not one that you'd go out of your way to visit, except ...

... the churchyard has a special enclosure within which is a 5000 year old Yew tree.  Actually it might only be 3000 years old, depending on where you read about it, but definitely not a day under that.  And reputedly the oldest living thing in Europe.

This is very much a case that the photos don't do it justice.  You can't get too close because it's surrounded by a stone wall, but there are stone supports holding some of it up.  I reckon if I was that old I'd need a bit of help too.

A living thing some thousands of years old ... certainly makes you think.






The other good thing about today was that we had Cluny House and the Yew tree all to ourselves.  Highland safaris was a bit more crowded, but quite manageable.  And we enjoyed a very acceptable lunch there too, and met some visiting dogs, which is always a treat.  I really must stop calling all small white terriers Wee Jock, not that they seem to mind.

In closing, I have to agree with Anne about the highlands.  I think we're missing it already, and we don't leave until tomorrow morning.  More from the English midlands.