Added Ireland photos - even more

So I've now updated "The updating continues..." (January 24) and "Loads to tell" (January 22) with photos from Ireland. There's a few sentence-long comments introducing the pictures that were added as well, but they're right by the photos. I'm sure you'll figure it out.

Since I've been told by people before that they have used some of my photos as computer wallpaper, if you find you like a picture and that it's not as high a resolution as you would like (not sure what Blogger puts them up as) then I can try loading a size larger (I'm using medium) to see if that helps. Although if they've been used as wallpaper before then they should be alright. And I'm just being vain to suggest it, perhaps ;) But anyway, give me a shout if that's the case.

And now for some photos from the days I spent in the Connemarra region of Galway county. This was truly out in the boonies, where buses would go in to certain villages only on one day of the week and only leave on another day. The landscape reminded me of the Highlands, but then the stone is a different colour - sort of the same colour as the Burren.

This mountain is called "Diamond Hill"; I walked up to the top of it.

View from the top of the hill over the water.

View of some of the mountains that make up the chain known as the Twelve Bens

I saw a few of these (pictured below) out of bus windows, but in walking by this one I got to inspect it more closely. What is it? It's basically a roadside shrine. There's a statue of a saint in the middle, enclosed chamber, then a statue of the Virgin Mary on the left, and you may be able to make out 12 crosses going up the hillside in the back that have pictures on them of events leading up to Christ's crucifiction.

You'll notice that the sheep below has three stripes on him (or her): red, black, and green. The sheep in Scotland are often spray-painted as well, but usually with just one small bit of color. I'd never seen sheep with three colours like this one below, that was in a field with similarly-painted sheep along a road I travelled. It's a punk sheep!

"Walk" up the hill behind the Coylet

Two weeks ago I was taking a walk down the forest trail up the hill behind the hotel (I think the entire mountain is called Beinn Ruadh, which means "red mountain" - there's a lot of mountains called that over here, as well as Beinn Mor - "big mountain"). I was planning to go to Puck's Glen and hang around there for a bit as the weather was really nice - cool, but sunny. I never made it to Puck's Glen, for while walking along I got to looking up the mountain and thinking that it wouldn't be too hard to walk up it, as there were sections with no trees on them whatsoever, and it's that underbrushy growth stuff that makes it hard to get places. So on a whim, I started up the mountain in a section that didn't have thorny plants on it (there's a lot of thorny plants over here also).

I think I started up around 12:30pm. It was a good climb - the hill is steeper than you realize, or at least steeper than I am accustomed to being from PEI - and it tires you quickly going up like that. Within a few minutes of climbing I always find it hard to believe how high up I am.

So with several breaks along the way, by 2pm or so I was getting tired but thought that I was quite near the top. I paused for as long as I could as it was much colder up at that height that it was down in the forest at the bottom, and since I was sweaty I felt the cold quicker than I normally would. Also, having not planned to climb up a mountain I hadn't really dressed for cold weather, but it wasn't too bad.

Mountains being the deceptive things that they are, of course I was not nearly at the top, but almost at the top of a crest that, once I climbed over it, I could then see the seemingly vast rest of the mountain that I had to climb. I considered turning back a few times short of the top, but I made myself go on and felt that I was well rewarded by the views when I got up. By then I think it was getting on 3pm, so it was about 2.5 hours to get up. My legs didn't even feel tired for a few minutes while I was up there, owing to the view! So here's some pictures that I took.

This is the view over the hills toward the southeast where you can see where Loch Long (on the left) meets the Firth of Clyde (into back of photo and stretching to the right). The view of Gourock, where I take the ferry to to go to Glasgow by train, is just blocked by the hill on the right. If it looks as though you could quickly jaunt across those hills to the water, that's the deceptiveness of mountains again - I'm standing on a steep slope and the rest of them are quite steep as well.

This is Loch Eck, looking northwest. The Coylet is right on it's shores but not in view in this picture. You can see why we can't get television signals from this photo - we're smack dab in the middle of a very narrow glen that is primarily filled by loch.

Here you can see the Coylet Inn from above. Well, you probably can't actually see it very well, but you can probably see the caravan park that is the grouping of buildings in the middle. The hotel is just a small speck to the left of them separated by some trees along the road.

On my descent of the mountain (which took about 30-45 minutes compared to the ascent of 2.5 hours), I startled a bunch of sheep (I only "baaaa-ed" at them a few times!) and they watched me until I was out of their view, or at least until they were out of my view. There was quite a few sheep at the top of the mountain, with a fence to keep them to the upper regions. Seeing sheep over here always makes me feel a bit odd since I know that the farming of sheep is responsible for so many Scottish people having to leave to go to Canada in the 1700-1800's.
The sheep are standing in amongst some heather and grass, which became my friend when going down the hill as there were some sections that were really muddy (near streams) and I would have just kept sliding down if I didn't have handholds.

As you can see in this photo the sun is starting to set in the west (on the right), as it's getting on 4pm.

I've yet to put up my Ireland photos, but I'm working on that. The hotel phone line is now functioning again, and even the library seems to be liking Blogger now on occassions so we'll see how it goes.

Back in Scotland

Hi Everyone! I've been back in Scotland since the end of January but I haven't been able to get online since then because the hotel has been without a working phone line since January 31. Someone stole part of our phone line to get the copper, so we've been told, and for some reason it has taken almost two weeks and we still have no phone line. That's British Telecom's efficiency for you. All our calls have been diverted to our manager's mobile, so we can at least receive and make calls but it's still been a problem for business.

I still have some more updating to do on Ireland, and some pictures to put up, but it will have to wait unfortunately. I'll just "falsely" insert updates into their rightful chronology and slip photos in as well when I can and I'll let you know that I'm doing it.

The weather has been great lately. Other than some rain on this Thursday, Friday, and then a bunch of wind as well on Saturday, it's otherwise been clear and sunny. Last Monday I climbed the mountain behind the Coylet, I think it might be called Beinn Ruadh which just means "red mountain". There wasn't any path but there was also no trees in the way so it wasn't too bad - tiring, but enjoyable. The view was quite good and I managed to get some pictures which I'll throw up here later. Coming back down was also interesting as I got myself into some slippy patches around a stream and had to make use of the local fauna, mostly heather, to steady myself going down. But gravity being only in the one direction, going down the mountain went about 6 times faster than going up.

That's all for now - now I'll see if I can post this. If you can read it, either I was successful or I just e-mailed it to someone who could post it. That's the problem with these free library computers - they don't like Blogger.

The updating continues...

Ok, so I left off with me heading to Tralee last Saturday. I got in there in the evening, and learned from people staying at my hostel that there was a festival of Irish dancing called Shindig on for the weekend. A bunch of Irish people told me where a ceilidh was going on that night and I headed there with some German and French folks. There was a live band and some stepdancers at first, and then it moved into a hotel ballroom and people were doing set dancing, which is the same premise as square dancing and probably where American square dancing originated from. It was pretty cool to watch a whole room full of people tapping and swirling around in sync, and I got pulled through a few sets with the help of an Irish fellow from my hostel and managed to stay on my feet.

On Sunday I decided to go to one of the stepdancing workshops that was being offered with two of the people I had met the evening before, Caroline and Michael, who are German students working as teaching assistants in county Clare. Since I had missed the first day's workshop I had to do some catching up and so was a bit behind the other people in the class but I did achieve some competent-enough steps.

Caroline and Michael were then heading back up to Clare (Tralee is in Kerry county, by the way) and since the weather wasn't too good for going out to see the Dingle peninsula (rainy and windy) I decided to accept their invitation of a drive north and a free night or two of accomodation. We took a coastal route for the scenery and then a ferry from Tarbert to Killrush, and there went to Ennis, the largest town in Clare, where Caroline lives. I spent Sunday night at her place and the next day we poked around Ennis togther. I liked Ennis for what I saw of it - it's nothing special in terms of sightseeing towns, but it's a good size and was pleasant looking and full of friendly, helpful people.

Monday afternoon I took the bus westward and Michael, who lives in Lisdoonvarna, picked me up and we drove out to the Cliffs of Moher. We went to the spot that locals tend to go to, as opposed to the viewing point designated for tourists, and so our trip out to view the cliffs involved scaling several fences labelling with signs telling us not to trespass. It was a really good day to view the cliffs (pictures of everything will follow when I get back to Scotland) as it was sunny, however it was quite cold due to the wind at the shore, but you can't go to the shore and not expect wind.

The cliffs themselves...

It's still really me that's posting. Here's a "vanity" photo to show it, and that I'm very cold.

An old tower that was at the clifftop - this is an example of the towers that I mentioned that are everywhere in Ireland - in towns, in fields, and on the coast.
Monday evening I spent at Michael's place, having supper, using the internet (that was my last post) and having a great discussion about the English and German language. I had a great time hanging out with Michael and Caroline and I'm glad I met them and hope to run into them again in the future.

From Lisdoonvarna I took the bus northward toward Ballyvaughan which is smack-dab in the middle of the Burren, a rocky limestone area. The bus took the coast road which meant another good drive full of views (as have all my bus rides over here been). It was also on another narrow, winding road, on which drivers really seem to depend on their brakes more than I would if I were driving. I don't know if it's just Ireland or if it's my age or something but I find I start to feel slightly ill if I do not look out the window at where the bus is travelling when it's driving over winding roads like that. I used to be able to read in cars but can't do that anymore.

I got into Ballyvaughan around 10ish, and walked south of town a few kilometres to take in the scenery and get to Aillwee Cave, a limestone cave open for touring. And so I finally saw in person the subjects of my grade 6 science project - limestone stalactites and stalagmites and their ilk.

The Burren means something like "rocky land", so aptly named it is:

I had to catch the bus to Galway at 2:25pm (buses are infrequent around here and depend on what day of the week it is as well) so it was back to town after a bit and off to Galway, where I am now. I just spent the evening chilling out watching some TV (I don't get that too often given where I work), getting acquainted with a soap/comedy from Manchester called Shameless. I've spent this morning checking out the town and will get back to that shortly.

I'm doing this photo large just so you can see the details better - this is a typical roadside hedge. Check out all those plants - every one of them has some sort of thorn on it!

Loads to tell

Well, well, what have I been up to? I shall give the whirlwind version up to a point and I will update again with pictures when I get them off my camera - I will probably go back over old posts and add them in.

I spent 3 nights in Dublin. Last Tuesday I went to see the Book of Kells as I mentioned and then I went to the Guiness Storehouse and learned about the making of the beer and its history. There were many interesting things in the exhibit, in particular I found tasting roasted barley on its own neat as you see taste how it influenced the beer. I also enjoyed an exhibit on cask making - coopers were impressive tradesmen. There was also an exhibit on old Guiness advertising with videos of TV ads through the years, many of which I found quite funny. The ads from the 1950's were the best - back when the motto was "Guiness is good for you" because doctors at the time were actually prescribing it to people. One ad consisted of two cartoon ostriches tangoing to a tune that had a repetition of that motto, and then some man came in at the to dance with the female ostrich while the male ostrich swiped his Guiness I believe.

Wednesday I walked around the city and then met up with Kelly, a girl I met in Edinburgh who is from Nova Scotia but living in Dublin. We had lunch in the Temple Bar area and walked around the shops. Later in the afternoon I did some more exploring of my own, checking out the architecture in some interesting areas - a lot of it is Georgian, which is the straight rectangular style I mentioned in my post about Trinity College. The buildings in Dublin I would describe as discontinuous - there is no one consistent style along most streets and it can actually vary from one part of a building to another. Many cities will have a certain "look" to them, but Dublin doesn't have one, other than not having one.

Thursday morning I took the bus to Kilkenny, the capital town of county Kilkenny. I checked out the town which still has a lot of its medieval layout as it was spared by Cromwell's army due to some switching of allegiances of the local Duke of Ormond, the Butler family whose castle is located in the town above the river Nore. I got a good crash course in Irish history by taking the castle tour as the Duke was a pretty important guy in Anglo-Irish history as they like to call it here.

Two castle pictures

View from down the river, where you can see the vantage point the castle had...

The sign on the lawn, which is a normal European thing. I can never understand having grass you can't sit or walk on, especially in a park.
That evening I went out to a local pub with some people from my hostel to hear some traditional Irish music from a local band who were quite energetic. That evening also resulted in me having to fish my passport out of a toilet (fortunately recently cleaned as I could see the cleaner in the water) and I may leave the story at just that for the moment to keep you wondering. I will say that I fished it out quick enough that only the corners really managed to get wet so it is alright.

So then where am I? Friday. I did some laundry (exciting! Clean clothes) and then took a bus back to Dublin so that I could go to a birthday party at Kelly's. The bus ride ended up being very long because of traffic backed up all along the highway. When I got to Dublin I checked my e-mail to learn that the party had been cancelled, and so I did a quick check of bus times and saw that I could catch a bus to Cashel at 6pm. I saw this at 5:40pm. So I ran from Parnell Street to the Busaras (Main Bus Station) and got there in time for 6pm to find that the bus was late anyway. Losing faith in Bus Eireann, I took the bus which also was slowed some due to traffic - roadwork being done at night, apparently. I got into Cashel (in county Tipperary, by the way) at 9:30pm, not having booked a room at all and counting on the hostel there still being open and having vacancies. Both were the case, although the woman seemed a bit put off at my arrival at first but then seemed to warm to me. She did have a lot of instructions about my room, and kept emphasizing to me that it was ensuite (i.e. has its own bathroom) as if that was a really big deal. A lot of hostels are ensuite now so I wasn't too impressed, especially when I found out that the ensuite shower did not have hot water. I got a really good night's sleep, which I neede after all my bus travelling, so I was content when I woke up in the morning anyway.

In the morning I headed up the hill to the Rock of Cashel - a one-time Norman fortress given over to the church in the 1100's. When I first saw pictures of the fortress (also known as St. Patrtick's Fortress) there was something that really drew me to it and I was keen to see it. I wasn't disappointed, even though the cathedral and the chapel there are in ruins. Somehow the fact that it was ruins made me enjoy it more - the cathedral is mostly just missing it's roof, but that meant that it was open to the sky and the sunlight poured in, highlighting the architectural features like the arched ceiling. There also wasn't the usual assortment of interior decorations to distract from the building's shape itself. When I was first in the ruins it was quite sunny - cool, but clear - but then a storm blew up quickly and there was a really fierce wind and rain and perhaps hail - I had to run inside. But all-in-all I really enjoyed my visit to the fortress, and then it was added to by a short walk down the hill out of town to vist the ruins of an old monastery - the Hore Monastery, in much worse shape (and a favourite drinking spot for local teens judging by the empties there).

Like a rock...

"Inside" the cathedral - call these my artful photos it you'll be so generous.

Surprisingly (to me) there was a cemetery at the top of the Rock around the cathedral, and people are still being buried there. One rough ol' walk for the family members who were leaving flowers on the graves.

Just a photo of the path I walked on to get to the ruined abbey (in the middle in the distance)

That ended my stay in Cashel, and I got on a Bus Eireann bus (that came late once again) that took me to Cahir, where I could connect to Limerick, where I could then connect to Tralee (in county Kerry) where I wanted to stay the night in order to get down to the Dingle peninsula. On my stopover in Cahir waiting for the bus I dashed up to the castle there and spent the forty minutes learning more about Irish history (I'm filling in the blanks) and checking out the castle. It was really cool because it's still in very good shape. I could climb up the narrow stairs in the towers and look out over the walls where the soldiers would have once kept guard. It would be a great castle to take a kid to.

This is Cahir's main street as viewed from the castle - I include it just because it's a very typical looking small town in Ireland.

The gate at the castle, and I think that's a drop of water on my lens. No, two. Well, it had just started pouring and I had to catch a bus.

I left the castle just in time to see my bus for Limerick pulling up early, of all things! My faith in Bus Eireann was restored as I took it to Limerick and then caught another on-time bus to Tralee. These two trips were not over highways but over narrow, winding roads through the country-side. So bumpy that I couldn't write, but great scenery anyway. Rolling hills, not many trees but some thickly wrapped in vines. Thick, low hedgerows and stone fences. Old ruined towers sticking up in the middle of fields. All the grass is still green. The trees have no leaves, but the vines on them do.

"Furry" trees as I call them...

Try climbing over that sucker without a scratch - all the plants wound in Ireland...

And from there I got into Tralee on Saturday night, with the intention of going to Dingle. None of that happened, but I'm having a good time and will fill in the rest later.

In Dublin - Trinity College and Book of Kells

I arrived in Dublin last night on my first Ryanair flight ever, on which the overhead announcement boldly proclaimed (with a trumpet sound) was another of it's on-time flights. I paid £22 return for my flight so I was just happy to get here. The sign as we were boarding the plane read: "Ryanair - the low fares irline". So low fares they haven't even bothered to replace the "a".

I spent yesterday poking around Dunoon before getting on the ferry to Gourock and then the train to Paisley. I got off there and strolled around some to kill some time, as I had left the Coylet pretty early in the day due to the fact that it was cold since all the heating had been turned off and I was also just keen to get going. Paisley looks like a lot of the other towns along the Clyde, just bigger. I have some pictures I'll download when I get the chance.

Then I spent many boring hours at Preswick airport which didn't even have a TV to watch.

Anyway, this morning I went over to Trinity College. The college made largely of grey stone buildings that seem very straight and rectangular, like a lot of other buildings in this part of Dublin. It's also behind a huge wall like many other things in Dublin. Once again as when I strolled through the University of Glasgow, I could tell when I was drawing near to the university simply by the clothing and bags on the numerous young people, and by the occassional professor who sticks out from the crowd with his odd manner of dress and greying hair, often wearing a bicycle helmet and trouser clips and carrying a briefcase of course.

The Book of Kells exhibit was very interesting - a history of the Irish Church, the making of the book and other similar manuscripts, and information on how books were made at the time (very tedious) and the symbology used. The detail in the images is so great that I have trouble making it all out so I can't imagine trying to draw or write that small and so regular.

The library following the Book of Kells exhibit was also amazing to me and surprising since I didn't really know it was part of it. It looks just like every old library you see in pictures or in movies but never actually get to see in person (until now). Ladders that slide along the shelves, all old hand-bound books, two levels, statues of old guys. I was impressed.

The stormy Hogmanay

A belated happy New Year to everyone. I haven't gotten to post lately largely because I've been working extra hours over the holidays. From Boxing Day up until January 3, which I had off, I worked every day, and then I'm working today and tomorrow to take care of some stalkers that are booked in (we're otherwise closed) and then I will have Wednesday and Thursday off. The hotel's then closing for two weeks starting January 15 and that day I will be flying to Dublin to tour around Ireland for a couple of weeks.

Things are slowing down at the hotel again but it was quite busy over the holidays. Hogmanay (New Year's Eve) we were full for meals and had other people in the bar. There were winds of around 80mph and rain that night, which caused the parties in Edinburgh and Glasgow to be cancelled as well as other parts of the UK as well.

The weather did not foil Hogmanay at the Coylet though. Just as we started serving food to our first diners the power went off at about 8pm, which meant that many things would not function of course. All the food is cooked on gas appliances so that was alright, but we had to rig up some lights in the kitchen so that the staff could see. Victor cooked with a headband flashlight for a while until some people with camper vans ran an extension cord from their camper into the kitchen and hooked up some trouble lights to it. All the tables in the dining room have candles on them at all times anyway so they were alright, and we had placed candles throughout the rest of the building as well in anticipation of the power cut since our lights had been flickering earlier in the day. Poor Fraser had to wash all dishes by hand and we had to keep track of all the food orders and bills by hand, but everything went right ahead with just some minor delays. All the food was cooked to the usual standard and people were quite happy and enjoying themselves. We had planned a games theme for the evening with table-top games on the restaurant tables and that worked well with the lights being off as people had something to entertain themselves with. The electricity came back on just before the last table got their food, at about 10pm. Some people actually requested that we turn the lights back off as they prefered the atmosphere in the dark.

Also on Hogmanay the wind blew off the chimney pot and cowl for the bar fireplace. The cowal is a piece of shaped metal that had been installed recently to prevent the wind from blowing the smoke back down, but it unfortunately acted as a sail in the high winds. Oddly enough, now that the chimney has no chimney pot it hasn't been blowing back too often at all on really windy days.

We had a stretch of a few really rainy, stormy days after New Year and now it's back to the occassional really rainy day and other days of just some rain and some clear periods. I was out for a walk last Wednesday through the forest and saw quite a few trees down, many of them being quite healthy trees and not the usual old ones that come down in the wind. Power crews were out cutting down trees near the lines, and at the time our lights were still flickering.

As I mentioned I'm flying to Dublin next Monday. I'm going on Ryanair on a flight that cost £0.01 each way before you add on airport fees and the fee I opted to pay to check a bag (£7.00) since the carry-on bag size is quite small. So my return flight from Preswick airport to Dublin is $50 which ain't too shabby, and then I just have to pay a few pounds to get to Paisley to take the train directly to the airport. I just learned today that if you show the ticket agents in Paisely your flight confirmation that your train ride from there to the airport is free, so that's pretty sweet. Haven't decided exactly where I'm going to go in Ireland but I've been getting suggestions from people and I'll just take it as it goes.

Consecutive dry days!

It had to happen eventually - I had two days off in which it didn't rain. Monday this week I woke up to see a clear day as the sun was rising. I had been planning to go across the water to Greenock for shopping but I postponed that trip in favour of a day of walking. I was bouncing around like a dog who knows it's going for a walk as I got ready. I went up a trail behind the Loch Eck caravan park to get onto the forest road - a set of tire tracks running roughly parallel to the road below but up on the mountain. I walked it all the way up to the Whistlefield Inn, and stopped in there for a drink and some potato chips. I've been hearing about the Whistlefield all the time since it's a neighbouring hotel but I'd only seen it from the outside so I was curious to go in. I hung around there a bit and talked to some of the staff and then headed back to the Coylet. On my way back I met a fast-walking elderly local man who kept the conversation going so well that I missed my turn off and had to double back to find the trail back down to the road. It was a very good day of walking - it was incredibly sunny and just a bit chilly.

Here's Loch Eck perfectly reflecting the mountain and the mists when I set out for my walk.
One of the many streams running down the mountain-side along the forest road.

Tuesday I took the ferry across the Clyde to Gourock and walked around there a bit before hopping on the trail to Greenock - along the rail line to Glasgow. Greenock was a big port town at one time and a major shipbuilding area. Lots of stuff was imported from the Americas - it has a Jamaica Street just like Glasgow does, probably oweing to some sugar importing going on. It was also a major export town of Scottish emmigrants heading overseas - a lot of them last set foot in Scotland in Greenock. And Greenock's final claim to fame is that it's the birthplace of James Watt, for whom the unit of power is named. They're very proud of him - there's a college named after Watt in Greenock, and a building to mark his birthplace with a statue of him on it, and a restaurant/bar named for him even. There's even a collection of some of his equipment in the small town museum - I saw his balance and what appeared to be a set of drill bits.

I got myself a pair of hiking sneakers in Greenock to replace my worn out sneakers that I've been wearing. I was also thinking of getting myself some new dress shoes but didn't see any that caught my eye and so figured I'd wait a while since I still had the cheap shoes that I've been wearing for work. Then the next day at work, Sod's Law (mocked by fate, similar to what we call Murphy's Law at home) came into effect and my left dress shoe broke at the ball of my foot when I put it on for work. So I've managed two evening shifts on a squeaking, improperly supported shoe and came into town today to get some shoes. I managed to get some very decent shoes so I'm alright now.

I'm glad Christmas is coming, not only for the day off and the gifts and food and all, but also because once it comes I will no longer have to listen to the Christmas CDs we play in the restaurant and the bar, as well as what the radio plays. Other than the music it doesn't feel very Christmas-y to me, even with the decorations and all, simply because everything is so green around here and it's so warm.

It hasn't been raining much at all this week - miracle of miracles! The weather forecast I read for Christmas Day (in The Scotsman) called for it to be clear and a "bracing" 5 to 7 degrees Celcius. I wouldn't describe those temperatures as bracing, but I've checked with some Scots and they wouldn't either so I don't know what The Scotsman was thinking.

And now for something completely different and slightly amusing to you perhaps. Just to show you the kind of joking that goes on around here, and to show how talented our chef Victor is at not only cooking but artistic stuff as well, here is our kitchen porter, Fraser, dressed up as a space-man by Victor. Fraser had to bear this costume because it often seems that he is on another planet than Earth.
Anyway, happy Christmas to everyone!

Buses, plus-fours, and food

Just in at the Dunoon library again, with a post of assorted thoughts.

I don't know if I mentioned this before, but the public transport buses around here are also used as the school buses. There's a bus that goes into town and gets there for 8:30am that is a school bus, but anyone else can take it as well. Then there's a bus that leaves downtown Dunoon at 3:20pm and stops at Dunoon Grammer School (the secondary school - ages 11 and up) and waits around while all the school kids get on. I generally try to avoid taking that one as I feel weird sitting in amongst all the teenaged, loud, kids. So if I'm in town on a school day and need to go back around that time I catch the 3:50pm bus. It also picks up some school-kids but not so many. However, when one driver in particular is on, the bus always makes a stop at a newsagent in Sandbank so that the kids can get off and buy snacks. I knew I was living in a small, unrushed place when the public bus makes an extra stop for kids to buy treats.

The hotel has some more hunters staying once again. Deer hunting, pheasant hunting, and fishing bring out a lot of our guests. Most come from "down South"; i.e. England. Now, if you are to picture the stereotypical image that most Canadians have of the outdoor sporting Englishman, I think it would probably be the slender man in a wooly sweater, perhaps a tweed coat, but most certainly he would be wearing short pants that I've been calling breeches (from fencing terminology) and long socks. Think Prince Phillip or another prince of choice out in the woods with a gun. Well, believe it or not (and I had trouble believing it), people other than royality still do dress like that to go hunting or fishing. The trousers are called "plus-fours" so I'm told (because they extend about 4 inches below the knee as I've just read online), and they often have little tassle-like things on the hems. I've yet to see anyone under age 40 wear them, or anyone Scottish, but I have seen women wearing them on a few occasions and loads of men. The posh-er the accent, the more likely the person is to wear plus-fours in my experience.

One of the hunters this morning thought I was from Quebec because he said that he could hear French in my accent. I told him that English was my native language as it was of all the people I grew up around but that didn't seem to sway him. A hotel owner up the road did tell me that she could hear similarities between my accent and that of a Quebecer that works for her but she didn't go so far as to say that I sounded French. It puzzles me as I speak French with an English accent so how can I speak English with a Quebec accent?

In my time working at the Coylet, I have been fed 5 meats that I had never consumed before. Those meats would be venison, pheasant, rabbit, duck, and pigeon (yes, you read that correctly - not the street ones, wild ones). The venison I don't find too different than beef - in fact, in effort to use up leftovers one day our chef made us meatballs and pasta in which the meat was venison and pheasant - our manager coined them "game balls". The pheasant I wouldn't really know from chicken if no one told me otherwise, and the pigeon is like a flakier almost nicer-than-chicken version of chicken. The rabbit I don't know if I'm super keen on - it's very strong flavoured, dark and chewy - I don't dislike it but it didn't capture my fancy. Duck, however, I really like.

Then, in addition to the meats, I've had black pudding once or twice, usually a leftover Stornoway black pudding that someone didn't eat at breakfast time. It's actually quite nice for being made of blood - you can certainly see the colour of it but it tastes alright. I couldn't eat a whole plateful of it but one slice, a few inches in diameter, is fine. I had haggis as well last week, which I've had before in PEI and liked then anyway.

Weather, ghosts, and sleepwalking

Another quick update while I have computer access - and I just put up a post from a few days ago that didn't make it the first time. I couldn't check if the post had worked last time either because according to the censoring software at the library my blog is blocked because of "Sex/Acts" content. I don't know what sort of word I used in one of my posts that qualified it for that - "Acts" could incorporate something violent I suppose so maybe when writing about something historic I talked about weapons or wars or something. It annoyed me anyway, and surprised me as I try to keep this blog as a family show.

Really bad weather in the west of Scotland yesterday - loads of rain and high winds. I read in a newspaper (bear in mind it was the Scottish Sun that costs 10 pence and it likes to use CAPITALS and italics just like that on select words and phrases for emphasis) that this is the rainiest fall/winter for at least 30 years and perhaps since records have been kept. Loch Eck has once again overflowed its bank just up the road a bit down by the caravan park and the wind this morning was blowing waves from the loch up on to the road. The loch water level has been going up and down regularly with all these rainy days we've head - the two rivers that connect to it are tidal so when they drain out the loch can then drain pretty quickly itself.

I believe a long time ago I said that I would write about the ghost stories at the Coylet so here I go. The most famous story is of what's called the Blue Boy. It's supposed to be the ghost of a young boy who died at the inn in the early part of the 1900's - from what I know he lived here because his family ran the inn, and he slept-walked one night out of his room and into the loch and drowned. The story gained some fame after Emma Thompson the actress made a film based on the story called The Blue Boy which was filmed here. The reason the Ghostfinders Scotland were at the Coylet some time ago was to do with that I believe.

The haunting from what I read entailed mostly places feeling cold and doors and objects moving on their own. The room that is supposed to be the haunted one is room 3 which is straight across the hall from my room. I've been told by people of their experiences with seeing people in the night or feeling cold but I've never experienced anything inexplicable while here. Matt, who claims to have had many experiences with ghosts over his lifetime, would tell me that I don't experience anything because I don't have an open mind about supernatural stuff, but if that prevents me from being scared by anything then I'm not going to worry over it. He also tells me that he can sense that there is no ghost at the Coylet any more, but he feels there is one just up the road before the caravan park where the staff caravan is. Again, I've never seen anything.

I did, however, start locking my bedroom door at night a few weeks after I started here because I had begun sleepwalking several times a night every night. I never left my room to my knowledge, but I didn't want to go wandering around the hotel spooking guests and then I heard about the kid drowning in the loch and I figured locking myself in was probably a good idea. I doubt that I would ever make it outside to the loch in fall temperatures without waking up as I usually wake up once I get out of my bed, but it doesn't hurt to be sure. I probably can't manage to turn the key to unlock my door while asleep but I certainly can if I needed to get out in an emergency like a fire so leaving it in the lock keeps me safer on all accounts. My sleepwalking seems to have settled back down to rare occasions now (probably since I got used to my surroundings) so I'm not too bothered about it now at all.

And as one guest who I told about my sleepwalking said, if anyone of the hotel guests does hear anything moving about and thinks it's a ghost it might just very well be me!

Long time passing...

I haven't updated in a while due to lack of computer access. This will probably have to be a short post as well because I'm at the library and the computers are in demand.

Been having some wicked weather lately - heavy rains and wind, with roads flooding alongside lochs. The hotel held a Christmas craft fair on Sunday and attendance was good considering the aforementioned flooding. We've also had problems with the smoke from the fireplaces blowing back down the chimney and into the hotel when the wind gusts the wrong way. On slightly windy days you have to walk around and wipe soot off of tables and chairs every ten to fifteen minutes, and on bad days, like one afternoon when I was working, the fireplace essentially explodes, covering every surface imaginable with a layer of soot and even setting off the fire alarm. We're waiting on getting the appropriate protective top for the chimney; I think they're called cowals.

The Christmas staff party was yesterday and overnight. We (there's now six of us full-time - out front there's Karen the manager, Matt, and me, and then in the kitchen the chef Victor, food-prep guy Pickle, and kitchen porter Fraser, and then one-part time woman out front, Teresa) all went up to Inverary which involves driving up to the top of Loch Fyne, a sea loch west of the Coylet, and then down the other side some distance. At the top of the loch the mountains are more Highland like because they're pretty much treeless, and the tops of them were all covered in snow since they're higher as well.

Inverary itself is the capital of Argyll, although it's much smaller than Dunoon. It's also the seat of clan Campbell of Argyll and the castle is in the area. When we got to town we started off by visiting Inverary Jail with the original buildings from the 1820's and 1840's. As part of the visit there was a history of torture and punishment in Scotland and Victor, who is Spanish and heard people complaining about the Inquisition before, said that the Scots were just as bad as the Spanish and I would agree.

We stayed at the George Hotel overnight, with food and accomodation all paid for by the hotel as our compensation for working over Christmas. It was a good time and then we all headed back today.

Business should be picking up now that we're into December so should be good workwise. We're getting two weeks off at the end of January and I'm trying to decide where I'd like to go for it. I think I've settled on Ireland but not absolutely sure yet.

Return of the Pictures: The Focusing

More Coylet interior photos (see previous post).

The back of the dining room (on the other side of the windows is where us staff peer in and watch people eat). The main kitchen is to the right of those windows in back, and the small kitchen for coffee and stuff is to the left in back.

The back side of the bar.

The front side of the bar, as viewed from the door.

Pictures 2: The Coylet Interior

I was bored a bit on Tuesday so I wandered around the inn and took some photos. Here they are in no particular order.

This is in the "lounge"; the first part of the restaurant after you enter from the hallway (which is on the right in this picture). The table in the bay window is table 9, where the staff tend to have our meals and hang about when the place is closed. The heater is actually under the window seat by the table so I like to sit on the heater on one end with my feet stretched out over the heater on the other end.

The front of the dining room (the lounge is to the right of here), showing the conservatory.

Here's our lovely steep spiral staircase (original, i.e. 16th century according to everything I've read). It presents quite a challenge to the drunken and elderly. It's almost like a ladder instead of a stair. And no it's not slanty; I was when I took this picture I guess. Oh, and the other doors are to the toilets. The view here is from the front door, so the bar is to the left and the restaurant is to the right.

The hall fireplace with door to the bar on the left and door to the women's washroom on the right. And some pictures of the Coylet years ago and a moose that someone killed.

A darkish picture of the other end of the lounge, showing the fireplace that divides it from the dining room (and another moose head - there's a hunting and fishing theme to the place as you may have gathered).

Few more pictures to come in another post.

Rainy reverie

Rain, rain, and more rain. I think it's been raining some each day for at least two weeks. I got out running on Monday when it was clear for about 30 minutes but it started raining again on my way back. That was a miserable day actually, as the wind was gusting and it was pretty chilly. Tuesday the weather was teasing - it would start to clear up and I would start getting dressed to go outside and it would be raining again before I finished, sometime with the sun still shining. I did see the most intense rainbow I have ever experienced and it seemed very close as well. Here's a photo that doesn't do it justice:

Rain is so advanced in Scotland that it can rain without clouds being present. Honest. Sometime last week there was a shower, a pretty good one too, and the sun was shining with no clouds overhead. The only cloud that I could spot was some little white whisp off in the distance.

Whilst standing in line at the bank on Monday, a customer ahead of me started speaking to the teller in an American accent, mid-West I think. The sound of it jarred me out of my standing-in-a-long-line-at-the-bank-soaking-wet reverie. I've become accustomed to every one around me speaking in Scottish accents, or other UK and Commonwealth accents that still sound closer to a Scottish accent than an American one. So the flat sound of an American accent seemed really out of place. (Oddly enough, I can watch movies with that accent and it doesn't seem out of place, but I guess it must be similar for Scottish folk watching those movies as well.) I then realized that out-of-place is how I sound to everyone else when I'm going about my business in town or at work. For all I know, every time I speak in a bank or a grocery store or whatever, I'm jarring people out of their reveries with my Canadian vowels. I seem "normal" to them until I open my mouth and speak. Actually, come to think of it, that's probably true in Canada as well ;)

The word "wean" is used for kids over here, pronounced something like "wain". It is so common a word that in a bookstore in Dunoon I saw a shelf in the cooking section labelled "wean food". It seemed to me like "weans" are some sort of other species that have a special diet.

Something I find interesting: I've been told that it's hard to measure the true depth of lochs because they are so dark, owing to little sunlight because of northerness and mountains surrounding them blocking out the light. However, you can get a general idea of the depth of a loch by looking at the height of the surrounding mountains. The loch is about as deep as the mountains are high. So here's a picture of the mountain beside Loch Eck for your consideration (taken from part-way up the mountain on the other side - on a sunny day nonetheless!).

That's some deep water.

It's bloody Baltic out!

To start, my apologies to my loyal readers (I think I have a few of those) for not updating for a while. I really don't have any excuse as it's not been too busy around the hotel with the exception of Saturday evening. Not being busy, however, seems to make me and everyone else here feel lazy and tired and I so I simply haven't felt much like updating. And I haven't had much to update on.

It's raining today - a really cold, sloppy sort of rain. It's been raining pretty much straight since Monday or maybe even Sunday. The temperature has gone down this week so that it's often just around or above freezing overnight and around 8 or so degrees during the day. It's been snowing on the higher hills and so the mountains around the inn are now topped with snow, as you can sort of see in this picture that I took of the moutain straight across the loch just at sunset.

When the weather gets a damp chill to it like now the Scots describe it as Baltic. I think it's a brillant sounding word for it, but I really don't know if the weather feels like this in the Baltic states. Actually, every time I hear the word "Baltic" I think of Monopoly first and Eastern Europe is an afterthought.

With the colder weather we've been keeping fires going all the time and my hands are getting stained from coal in the cracks of them and I can't get it out from under my nails all the time which is somewhat annoying as it doesn't look so good to be serving food with blackened hands. Even wearing gloves doesn't seem to keep the coal from getting on them. I was out to shovel coal into the buckets and for some reason the act of shovelling coal makes me feel very historic whereas burning coal doesn't so much. It seems very Dickensian to shovel coal (It's not easy stuff to shovel either - I wouldn't want to do it for a living all day or anything.). When I was in Edmonton my office mate Aaron said that we Maritimers were Dickensian for burning oil for heat as it's natural gas that's burned in the West. I guess everyone has their own definition of what is behind the times - for me it's coal.

I'm taking an indoor rock-climbing class down at the Benmore Outdoor Centre which is 3 km down the road inside the Botanic Gardens. It's a three week class on Wednesday night and I missed the first class because I didn't know about it but I got up to speed this past Wednesday. I heard about it when some men who were taking the class came by the Coylet after class for some drinks and were telling me about it. Anyway, once I finish the class that gets me certified to use the climbing wall facility on the practice nights every Thursday. That will give me somewhere indoors to get some exercise when it's dark and rainy over the winter. Climbing is something I've wanted to do for some time and I enjoyed it the night I was there. It's nice to do a sport that also involves my arms since I seem to be leg heavy.

There's also a fencing club in Dunoon that I just found out about but I've just heard that it's a kids club. There's a possiblity of them setting up some adult fencing activities, or if they need some help teaching kids I'll be up for that. They only fence foil which isn't so great but if I'm desperate enough I'll pick up a foil again.

Pictures!

Finally got pictures off my camera so that I can post them. We'll see how many Blogger will let me put up. I may have to use my MSN Space for some of them.

Let's start with around the Coylet Inn and Lock Eck, since that's where I am now. I'll leave my journeys in Edinburgh (seems so long ago now) for later.

Here's the view of Loch Eck, looking southward on the road, from room 3 of the inn. I took this while cleaning the room because it shows the mists rising off the mountain that I see pretty much every day that it's not "pissing" rain. And yes, those are small palm trees you're seeing.


I took this one the day I went to Glagow. It was so foggy it looked as though the world ended a dozen feet or so out into the loch. Amazing.


Here's a nice one of Loch Eck that I took from a walk on what I think is Stroncullin Hill, about 1-2km south of the Coylet.


An unfortunately dark picture of the stream at Puck's Glen. There's also loads of little streams along the roadside like this - they drain under the road and where the culverts are no grass grows on top because they're covered with stone so I have to jump over them (they're sunken compared to the surrounding grassy areas) when I'm running on the shoulder of the road.


These trees actually scare me. I first saw them at Benmore Botanic Gardens and I didn't have my camera with me and the only label on them was Latin and it was something like Aracinthea aracina or whatever. This specimen I spied on my walk along the road back from Puck's Glen. It appears to be dying and good riddance. What frightens me is how thick the branches are and the needles - the needles are sort of succulent and it just looks like the thing is waiting to reach out and grab you. Please note that I have never before in my life been frightened of a tree.


This is the trickiest part of my usual jog, which I do going southward on the road. The shoulder here is narrow on both sides. I should be jogging on the right hand side because I'm going northward but because of that rock face I always cross the road and run on the grassy part next to the short stone wall with my back to oncoming traffic but checking behind me all the time for cars. If one comes from behind me I stop running and shimmy up to the wall ready to jump into the loch if need be.


Finally, some poor photos of my room for anyone who's really curious. I should post some interior photos of the hotel but I haven't really taken any. That's for another day I guess. Or you could check out this website on the ghost investigators who were here some time last year and who took some interior photos of very weird things. And some video which I'm unable to hear since I have no speakers. I'll probably write some more on the ghosty stuff another time, but not tonight since I'm tired after all this.

Here's my bed and door (these were taken the day I moved in by the way so my stuff is all over the place)


The other side of my room, showing window, chair, dresser, and the edge of the sink. Beside the sink the roof comes in and there is a cot stored there that I am using for a table but the plan is to get some shelves to put in its place.


Finally, the view of the hillside that comes up sharply beyond my window.