Sun and Slush

We've had a pretty quiet couple of weeks just kicking about and working. We visited Glasgow for the very important purchase of a toaster. We can now enjoy Vegemite on toast in the comfort of our own home!
We also have had our room WiFied so we have been pretty content the last few days, sure makes Skype calls a bit more comfortable.
The reason we have been connected in our rooms is due to the fact that the laundry, former net cafe and sometime party centre has been unceremoniously used as a storage area for all the odds and sods currently being removed from the old staff quarters.
A wee bit of renovation is taking place which involves Adam, Kenny and anyone else manly enough to make the grade ripping walls down, pulling wiring out and salvaging anything we may find useful. Guess what, there was a toaster there!! Doh!
The weather has been on every one's lips. But then we are in the UK, weather is the conversational home ground of everybody. On our visit to Glasgow we had a beautiful clear day for the first time in a long time. Standing in the sun was quite unfamiliar and enjoyable although the day was still freezing cold. Today we experienced what we will tentatively call snow as we did actually hear a Scot refer to it as such although we on loch level experienced falling slush. The hillsides were very prettily coated though, we even did a special photo run in the cold. The photos don't really do it justice though, this place is magic.

The magic of this place even extends to time travel. Well at least it seems that way every now and then when you glance out the pub window or duck down to the local store and run into a 19th century gaoler walking by or buying cigarettes. This is thanks to the well preserved gaol next door to our pub which includes period costumed guides. Funny stuff.

This hotel alone has a lot of history attached to it, the building itself is from 1770 and the hotel was founded in 1777 making it 11 years before the First Fleet landed in Australia. There are loads of ghost stories in the hotel with one couple leaving the hotel at two in the morning to sleep in their car believing their room was haunted.

Adam has to climb the three stories to turn off the lights at night leaving him in an increasingly darkened hotel. Keeping in mind the place is decorated with huge old oil portraits it can be quite a spooky experience. Glad we live in the new staff quarters out the back, although it is probably constructed over some pet cemetery or something.

Photos: The view from our door to the back of the pub-our long commute is interrupted by falling slush, Another view from our door to Dun na Cuaiche (pronounced Doona Craig), We used our beach and snow setting for this shot- we never thought it would come so in handy- note the big mountain in the back left blending with the clouds