Scottish Highlands

We returned from our trip to the Scottish highlands last night. It was a lovely trip although the weather was not always the best. We travelled over on the Stena Line HSS ferry early on Monday and then met Dodds coach at Stranraer. We stopped off at Ayr and Perth on the journey up to our hotel at Carrbridge, near Inverness. Parts of the village were used in the filming of the "Monarch of the Glen " TV series. This interesting bridge was just across the river from the hotel.
We visited Drumnadrochit where there is a Lough Ness Centre and outside, the inevitable "monster" - albeit a plastic one! How disappointing when I expected to see the real thing!
On Wednesday we had a lovely trip on the Jacobite steam train from Inverness to Mallaig. It was a round trip of 84 miles. One particularly good part was going over the Glenfiddich viaduct.
Mallaig is a small fishing village looking out to the Hebrides.





Not far from Ben Nevis we visited the famous Commando Memorial in memory of the members of that elite regiment who died during World War 2.

Good growth

My garden is doing really well now. Keeping the rabbits at bay is the biggest struggle. They are very fond of the cauliflower plants and also the strawberries. Luckily they don't seem to like the broad beans or the potatoes. We have been using the lettuce and green onion tops already.
In this dry weather I try to give them plenty of water.

Summer at last!

We have had a few days of warm sunny weather now and it is supposed to last until midweek.
Yesterday was the pipe band contest in Enniskillen. It has been held at the Broadmeadow instead of Celtic Park for three years now. The move was mainly because of the weather making the field very soggy. I was there yesterday doing my usual job of helping with the sandwich making at the Killadeas Pipe Band catering stall.



Niall has been doing some boating too. Yesterday he went up to Enniskillen and then to Devenish where he met up with others for a barbeque. Today he went out with Paul, Chris, Maria and Lynsie and had another barbeque at Tully Castle. Hope this lasts a while!
Barry's engagement has taken place and we were over at the celebration party last night. He proposed at the top of Cole's Monument!

Belleek Flower Festival

Yesterday was a bank holiday here.
Our church choir was invited to sing choral evensong at a closing service after the flower festival being held at Belleek Parish Church. A new chancel has been built on and a most beautiful window added to celebrate the history of the pottery.
Being just on the border the people here have had difficult times so this event was very much a community effort and could raise as much as £20,000.Here you can see the window depicting many images representing the work of the pottery in Belleek. The original wall had no window in it but now it is bright and colourful with two additional small windows, one to left and right of the chancel.A commemorative basket was made by the pottery to mark this event. It is a traditional Belleek woven basket and in the base there is a picture of the new church window in porcelain. This costs £115 and for each basket sold, the church will benefit by £50. Apparently quite a few of these have been ordered by Belleek collectors in U.S.A.
By the way, it's still raining here. Can't put the umbrella or the winter woollies away yet!

Full bloom.

The daffodils and the rhododendron are in full bloom at the moment.
By the way, what do you think of the photos that I took with my camera with the black screen? Not too bad, I think.

It's gardening time again.

It's time to get the garden back in shape again. We have had a week of really good sunny weather so I was able to get my vegetables planted nice and early this year.
I have added an extra row to the plot and planted some potatoes. It will be interesting to see how they do. There hasn't been any potatoes in this place since your granda had them many years ago.

Holy Land Trip

Here is Dad floating in the Dead Sea. You cannot sink or actually swim in it because of the high mineral content. Under foot is all salt crystals.
This was our first view of our hotel at the Dead Sea at a place called Ein Bokek.
This is a view from near the top of the Mount of Temptation. First you travel up in a cable car and from there you can walk up about 100 steps to the Greek Orthodox monastery built at the top.
This is part of an aquaduct built by King Herod the Great to transport water to Caesarea. It was 11 miles long and excavations have revealed part of it.
This photo was taken at a viewpoint overlooking Haifa, the port on the Mediterranean Sea coast.
We went to church in Haifa on Sun. 29th Feb. and the congregation entertained us to lunch afterwards.
We arrived home from the Holy Land on Tuesday evening.
We stayed in Tiberias for 5 nights, one night at the Dead Sea and the remaining 5 nights in Jerusalem. The weather was changeable as we had thunderstorms for the first few days but it was warm and sunny when we moved further south.
It was wonderful to see all the places we read about in the Bible.