Blogs from Scotland, United Kingdom, Europe - page 20

I awoke to the sound of sheep baaing and the rain pattering lightly on the roof of our wooden pod. The blue, low light surrounding us was thick with mist and rain, and it was beautiful in a cold, dark way. We drove to Mallaig to find out what’s going on with ferries and boats. Not much hope with the ferries to any islands as even though one was sailing to Eigg, due to the weather, they couldn’t guarantee getting us back today or tomorrow even. I was disappointed because I really want to see the islands but I don’t fancy being marooned on them in the winter and I hadn’t brought my book. There’s no ferries tomorrow as there’s charter boats instead, the day after there might be a ferry to Eigg, no one knows ... read more

19th Jan 2022 Mallaig We knew before we set off on this trip that getting to any of the Small Islands may be impossible. This was due to the weather, the time of year and the scarcity of anything resembling a helpful timetable on the Calmac ferries website. The casual nature of Calmac continued when we called in their offices this morning. Today’s sailings were all cancelled due to the weather. Not sure how much worse it was out there but it has been mostly sunny here with the odd wee shower and more wind from me than anywhere else. Tomorrow they may go to Eigg but there’s a strong possibility we may get stranded there. Other destinations are cancelled as they are running a charter with the ferry instead. If they can be arsed we ... read more

The reason we’d decided to holiday in Scotland during January was in the hope of snow. Not because I’m a big fan of the stuff but because polar bars are and polar bears are very hard / expensive to see in the wild, with snow. So the next best thing was to go to Highland Wildlife Park in the Winter as they have the only polar bears in Scotland, but just to wind me up it was a beautiful sunny day; seven ruddy degrees! Not even a ground frost in the morning! Gah! Scottish weather likes upsetting me, the reason I chose to do the Edinburgh marathon in 2007 is that I assumed the weather would be cool, but no, there was a heatwave that day. Typically we were the first to arrive and had to ... read more

After a veritable lie-in until 8am we breakfasted in our room before heading out into the clean Highlands air. Part of the reason for this trip was to try and photograph polar bears in the snow at the Highland Wildlife Park. When the sun is out all day and the temperature is a heady 6 degrees…..well that just ain’t gonna happen. A note from yesterday. When we last came up here, about 8 years ago, the A9 had a trial maximum speed limit in some parts for HGV of 50mph. That trial is still going on! And it’s dumb! That speed limit applies to single carriageways so everyone behind has to go at 50 as well… The roads are straight and smooth yet this eternal trial is slowing everyone down to 50. Okay dumbnuts, here’s the ... read more

Having been allowed a lie-in until what holiday-Claire calls almost lunchtime……7:30am…..we headed into town. Glasgow was very quiet and yes I know it’s Sunday but, for such a populous city, the streets were mainly devoid of what you may know as people. Great stuff. We had a few hours until we were due to checkout so plenty of time to walk to the cathedral and necropolis. There are plenty of old buildings in Glasgow to photograph, plenty of decay and dereliction too as well as litter bins almost as tall as Claire! What a city! Somehow she didn’t fall in any and didn’t accidentally fall into the cat cafe we passed either…..thank goodness we only had limited time!! Despite the walking last night and lots more today we still never found what could be described as ... read more