We were lucky enough to get invited to our friend Harry's 30th birthday which was spent a a swank mansion in the Highlands close to some good hill walking.
View of the Cuilin Mountains on the Isle of Skye
The pictures really don't do the size of this place justice. It was massively spacious. This is living room #1.
Living room #2
The upstairs hallway.
There was about 10 bedrooms upstairs, so the place slept 20 in comfy beds. But if you wanted to cram folks in and sleep on the floor, I imagine you could easily fit 200 in.
The dining room.
Andy and Harriet did it justice by bringing one bottle of wine per person per day, along with plenty of gin and tonic and whiskey.
Scary control panel
We listened to the Beatles on LP!
The gardens
There were loads of cool lichens in the woods. I wish I could identify them all, but I would have needed my dissecting kit, a microscope, a big fat lichen key book and either a lichen expert to explain all the terms in the book or a whole lot of time. Regardless of this I was stoked after our two lichen classes and I'm seriously considering doing something lichen-focused for my thesis.
Funky foliose lichen.
Long rhizines (the 'rooty' bits underneath).
Cool cup lichen
White stream lichen
My favourite lichen of the day.
Close up of the apothecia - the spore-bearing sexual reproductive bits of the lichen.
Also known as 'jam tarts'.
We hiked up some peak as well.
Successful destressing after spending too many hours in front of a screen.
Spent a day hiking around Ben Eighe while up in the Highlands.
Iced in grass.
Clubmoss
We ran out of time and didn't make the summit of Ben Eighe proper, but we still got some fantastic views up high.
Day 1 at the Cottage was Beach-exploration day.
Farmhouse
Long shadows at 12:30pm
Tide art
Funky seaweed
Flotsam or Jetsam? Turns out they're not the same thing.
Beach #2
Happy Sue
Even the road looked good in this light.
The local Post Office.
Beach #3
These cows have some stellar real estate.
Lichens growing right next to the sea. Who knew there were salt tolerant lichens?
We spent a week in a cottage near a tiny town called Badachro in the Highlands. Aird Cottage is somewhere down there, behind the island.
Aird Cottage
The village of Badachro.
We spent a lot of time hanging out next to the fire in the evenings. Our goals of knitting, dancing, playing games and making music were all achieved.
Food was five star and included wild venison and some locally harvested mussels.
Cottage garden.
Scotland got a rare snowfall near the end of our stay up there and more than two weeks later we still have snow in Edinburgh.
Sue, living it up.
Lumberjack John and Bertha in Edinburgh.
Glencoe
Scottish wildlife.
John making friends with a doe.
Cold at the car.
In the Lost Valley.
Looking back on the Lost Valley.
Into the snow.
View of the Cuilin Mountains on the Isle of Skye
The pictures really don't do the size of this place justice. It was massively spacious. This is living room #1.
Living room #2
The upstairs hallway.
The dining room.
Scary control panel
We listened to the Beatles on LP!
The gardens
There were loads of cool lichens in the woods. I wish I could identify them all, but I would have needed my dissecting kit, a microscope, a big fat lichen key book and either a lichen expert to explain all the terms in the book or a whole lot of time. Regardless of this I was stoked after our two lichen classes and I'm seriously considering doing something lichen-focused for my thesis.
Funky foliose lichen.
Long rhizines (the 'rooty' bits underneath).
Cool cup lichen
White stream lichen
My favourite lichen of the day.
Close up of the apothecia - the spore-bearing sexual reproductive bits of the lichen.
We hiked up some peak as well.
Successful destressing after spending too many hours in front of a screen.