Mansion, Lichens and Hillwalking

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.

Our Local Climbing Gym

Usually things in Scotland tend to be smaller than things in Canada: houses, cars, yards, pubs, trees, mountains and snowpack for example. But the Edinburgh International Climbing Centre in Ratho is the one, BIG, exception.

Kinda like the VanKellner's basement, only a few more routes.

In case this wall isn't steep enough, it can be made steeper.

Note the guy in the white square 'flying' through the air, attached to the rail above him. Sketchy.

Blue Forest Goes Under the Knife

My front shocks stopped working properly, so super-James decided to dissect them and find out why. Here's our excellent bike stand: our bike rack attached to the window frame in our living room.

Dirty shock

Dirty oil that came out of my shocks.

Nice shiny cleaned damper with other important bits.

Dr. Floyer, ready to inject.

Blue oil goes up top, red oil down below.
She's all fixed up and bouncy now.

Sushi Night at Hollybank

Black Cat Loses It

I introduce "Black Cat". She lives here with us at Hollybank Terrace, though she accidentally spent the first two weeks of our time here stuck in a neighbour's coal cellar. She wears a magnet on her collar which lets the cat door know it's her and not some random neibourhood cat trying to get in. I gave her a can of tuna to lick out the other day and she ended up wearing it.

"Uh - guys, can you get this thing off me. I can't lick it when it's attached."

"Really, it's not THAT funny. Now get it off."

"GET IT OFF!"