Welcome to the latest installment in my series about my holiday in Scotland. This one deals with the immediate area around the house where we were staying. It features pictures from a small walk on the Saturday evening, a longer walk on Sunday morning and the house itself.
Ferry Cottage is part of a large estate, the Balmacara Estate, which was given to National Trust Scotland in lieu of death duties in 1946 and has been administered by them ever since. As the name suggests a Ferry service used to run from just outside it. Here are some pictures…
Ferry CottageThe first of two maps on display at Ferry Cottage
A view through the kitchen/diner/sitting room area
THE FIRST WALK – LOCHALSH HOUSE AND BALMACARA SQUARE
Lochalsh House was pretty much rebuilt in the 1930s – a total of £230,000 was spent on it then, and it reflects that heritage.
Lochalsh House through the treersLochalsh House
Having seen Lochalsh house we went back in the other direction, and walked by way of a Visitor’s Centre to Balmacara Square…
WALK TWO – RERAIG
On Sunday morning we walked to the village of Reraig where newspapers and food can be bought. Rather than retrace our steps we walked back along the foreshore of the loch (under British law no one can own foreshore). Here are the pictures…
Info board in Reraig
One of many and various shells I saw – there is a special post coming about this aspect.
AMONG THE ROCKS
OUTSIDE FERRY COTTAGE
I subsequently ventured out again although I did not go very far. Here are the pictures…
Having checked out of Saucy Mary’s I headed towards the mainland. I started taking pictures almost as soon as I was on my way – at this stage of the day it was warm and sunny, to the extent that I was wearing shorts and to put it mildly I had time to spare.
The bridge from just outside Saucy Mary’s
In the opposite direction to the bridge lies Castle Moil
The full link from Skye to the mainland.
looking under the bridge from Kyleakin.
ON THE BRIDGE
Naturally I made full use of the walk across the bridge…
Here is the island between the two bridge spans…
The author of Tarka the Otter lived here, and apparently one can still sometimes see otters hereabouts (although I did not).
THE MAINLAND
Just on the mainland side of the bridge is a detailed information board:
It was also in this area that I got this picture…
Here is a direct shot Saucy Mary’s where I spent the Friday night…
I found a seat near the bus station and spent a while resting, taking a few photographs…
This picture and the next were taken before I had sat down.
In this part of Scotland the battle was between the SNP and the Liberal Democrats.I noticed something on this island which prompted me to zoom in even closer……and I was rewarded with this.
After a while I moved on, and after a brief examination of what the town had to offer visited Hector’s Bothy for a drink and a nibble. I also made use of the free wifi. I then did some more exploring and took some more photographs…
I visited a bakery/ coffee shop and the £5 note I got in my change immediately caught my eye…
This is a Scottish £5 note, which I had not seen before.
I next headed for the train station…
Finally, my parents arrived in Kyle of Lochalsh at about 6PM and we headed for Ferry Cottage.
Post 2 in my Scottish holiday series (there will be more later today). This post describes the journey there.
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the second post in my series about my holidayin Scotland. This one focusses on the first day, when I travelled from King’s Lynn to Kyle of Lochalsh and then walked across the bridge to Isle of Skye, where I stayed the night at Saucy Mary’s Lodge.
THE FIRST LEG OF THE JOURNEY-
KING’S LYNN TO PETERBOROUGH
With my envisaged train for the next leg of the journey leaving Peterborough at 9:46 and the bus journey reckoned at 1 hour 20 minutes or thereabouts I decided that prudence dictated being on the 7:34 rather than the 8:04. The journey ran fairly smoothly and I arrived at Peterborough Train Station at just after nine o’clock.
PETERBOROUGH TO EDINBURGH
The 0:946 to Edinburgh Waverley, scheduled to get there at 13:20 arrived in time and was not absolutely packed, although it is clearly a popular service. I got a window seat in a designated quiet coach (both parts of which represent significant bonuses to me – the latter even more than the former). This was the start of the portion of the journey that is not so familiar to me, and also therefore represented the point at which the camera got pressed into service…
Taking photos through the windows of moving vehicles can be frustrating (and all bar a few taken when the train was at rest were taken thus)
On the approach to York, the first stop after Peterborough
At Darlington, one terminus of the world’s first passenger carrying railway, the Stockton & Darlington.
A first glimpse of the sea just north of Newcastle
Edinburgh Waverley
EDINBURGH TO INVERNESS
A slightly late arrival at Edinburgh meant that I had to move fairly fast to make the change to the train to Inverness. A combination of the fact that some idiot at Scotrail (part of Abellio, the profit-making subsidiary of the Dutch state railway company) had deemed three carriages sufficient for this train and the heat of the day made this leg of the journey like travelling in an oven on wheels. However, neither of these factors kept me from taking photographs…
INVERNESS TO KYLE OF LOCHALSH
Arriving at Inverness over half an hour late I then discovered that the train I had expected to catch to Kyle of Lochalsh was being replaced by a bus service. There were two different buses, and there was some confusion of who should go on which, but we set off at the appropriate time. I continued to ply my camera…
My first sight of the Skye Bridge, and a by then very welcome sign that the journey was nearly complete. When I first travelled this way in 1994 there was no bridge, just a regular ferry crossing.The approach to Kyle of Lochalsh, with Kyleakin visible in the distance.
THE WALK TO SKYE
It was still pretty hot even at 8:45PM as I began the walk to Saucy Mary’s, which according to my instructions was 2.5 miles. The reason for this is that the bridge to Skye actually starts a good half-mile beyond Kyle of Lochalsh, is itself a longish crossing and then on the other side one has to go back along the Skye shore to Kyleakin which is directly opposite Kyle of Lochalsh. I arrived at Saucy Mary’s thoroughly exhausted and went straight to reception. There I was greeted with news that I had been relocated from my dorm bed to a room normally used only by staff. The reason for this was that the people who had booked the other four beds had revealed at the 11th hour, having not mentioned it while booking, that they were travelling with two babies, and the manager had decided that it was unacceptable to put me in the dorm room in that circumstance (absolutely right, and thankyou very much).
Setting the scene for a series of posts about my recent holiday in Scotland.
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to this first in what will be a substantial series of posts about my recent holiday in Scotland. Although I still have a lot of photo editing to do from said holiday I do now have enough photos at my disposal to start the series, and I will look to interleave the rest of the editing with producing posts for you.
THE HOLIDAY TIMELINE
I travelled up on May 26th and back on June 4th. These two dates were entirely taken up with travelling (14 hours each way approximately). In between these two days there were:
Saturday – most of the day spent waiting for my parents to arrive so we could go up to the house that would be our base for the week, three miles from Kyle of Lochalsh.
Sunday – a quiet day featuring some walking in the immediate vicinity of the house
Monday – A walk to Kyle of Lochalsh, lunch there and a bus back. A quiet afternoon.
Tuesday – a visit to the Talisker Distillery on the Isle of Skye.
Wednesday – a brief visit to Plockton to book the a table at the Plockton Inn for supper, a trip to Applecross and then back to Plockton for the supper (the birthday meal).
Thursday – The Jacobite Rail Journey (steam train between Fort William and Mallaig, a section of railway known to vast numbers of movie goers as the route of the Hogwarts Express).
Friday – the final full day.
THE LOCATION
Kyle of Lochalsh is on the mainland of northwestern Scotland, very close to the Isle of Skye, to which it is nowadays linked by a road bridge. Ferry Cottage, where we were staying is located at Glaick (pronounced Glike), three miles from Kyle of Lochalsh. Here are some maps for further clarification:
SOME PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE AREA
Here are a few photos from the immediate area in which we were staying:
Kyleakin viewed from high aboveFerry Cottage, where we stayed.
Kyle of Lochalsh from above
These last two pictures show the stretch of shoreline that includes Ferry Cottage.
THOMAS’ CALENDAR CHALLENGE
I saw some quite amazing scenery while in Scotland, and it has become something of a tradition to produce a photographic wall calendar each year. A number of my Scottish pictures will undoubtedly feature. If in the course of this series of posts you see a picture that catches your eye as worth a place in the calendar there are two things I invite you to do:
Post a comment identifying the photo that has caught your eye and/ or…
Create a blog post about the picture that has caught your eye explaining what it means to you and why you think it should be included. If you do this I will reblog your post.
Should you succeed in convincing me to include the picture in my calendar I will give you credit for doing so. I end with two final pictures, the second of which is almost certain to be in the calendar:
A rarity – the lighthouse is framed twice over, once by the bridge and once by the masts of the boat in the foreground.This is the view across Loch Alsh from outside Ferry Cottage on a sunny day (yes, Scotland does have such things) with the additional feature of the world’s last remaining ocean going paddle steamer – this will almost certainly be in the calendar.
It is my birthday, and this year the number is the same as the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
OTHER 42s
There are a total of forty-two eyes in a standard deck of playing cards – three two-eyed kings, one one-eyed king, all four queens are two-eyed, and two two-eyed and two one-eyed jacks makes a total of 21, which needs to be doubled as the faces appear twice on each card.
There are 42 spots on a pair of standard dice – 21 on each.
The great game of cricket has a code of 42 laws governing it. Law 42 governs fair and unfair play. The most important phrase in this law is: “the umpires shall be the sole judges of fair and unfair play“.
Adams is not the only famous writer to have used the number 42 – Charles Lutwidge Dodgson aka Lewis Carroll was responsible for the following:
The original Alice in Wonderland had 42 illustrations
“All persons more than a mile high to leave the court” was Rule 42.
The Baker in The Hunting of the Snark had 42 boxes
A COUPLE OF “HITCHHIKER” LINKS
To conclude this brief Birthday post I hand over to Laina of thesilentwaveblog with:
This auction was a three-day affair, on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. All three days were at our premises, 5 Norwich Street, Fakenham. Our next auction will also be over a three-day period, but there will be no selling on the second day, as the third day will be at Fakenham Racecourse and we will be setting things up down there.
MONDAY
The setup was accomplished with no problem and the first item went under the hammer at 10AM as intended. The auction started with coins which fared reasonably well, cheques which did not, some interesting ephemera which attracted some attention, and some joint numismatic/ philatelic items which fared well. The militaria which concluded day 1’s action started very quietly but picked up again later. Here are some pictures from this day…
The big screen display for people who turned up at the venue.
Lot 359, one of those joint numismatic/ philatelic items, came my way for £8. I will be going into more detail about it in a future post, but here is the shot that appeared on our slideshow…
Lot 359 – five images.
In between moving stuff for day 2 down into the shop ready for the morrow, consuming my sandwiches and other little bits I also did some work on our next auction. Here are some pictures of items that will be going under the hammer at the end of June…
TUESDAY
This was the quietest of the three days. It featured stamps, postal history and first-day covers. There were no room bidders, and the internet bidders did not bestir themselves and the second half of the day. However, eventually some items did sell, although it was a hugely unsuccessful day. Here are some shots taken before proceedings got underway…
There was an addition to the routine today – three large items that feature in our next auction needed to be offloaded into the shop, photographed and given lot numbers. They are now lots 791, 792 and 793 in our June auction – two dolls houses and a rocking horse:
Lot 791 – the thatched cottage version of a dolls houseLot 792 – a more modern style version of a dolls house.
Lot 793 a rocking horse, and not just any rocking horse……a locally made rocking horse.
After attending to this and to bringing down the lots for the morrow I had time for some more work on the June auction…
WEDNESDAY
This final day of our sale featured postcards, cigarette & trade cards, Liebig picture cards and books to end the auction. We needed a good day, and we got one. All else was overshadowed by three postcards, lots 1038, 1039 and 1040. These were early 20th century Real Photographic (RP) cards featuring football matches. 1038 and 1039 went for £495 and £450 respectively, while lot 1040 sold for no less than £900. Most of the rest of the postcards found buyers (one postcard, an RP featuring the 1910 visit of Halley’s Comet sold to none other than science writer Ben Goldacre), the cigarette cards had some successes, and the Liebig cards fared pretty well. The books did what ordinary books usually do at auction. Here are some pictures I took early that morning:
I redid this one after seeing a few of the less huge lots that I had omitted to bring down (see third pic). Although the dolls house was not in this sale no place had as yet been found for it.
Lot 1107 (about which much more later) went to me. Going into this auction I had a couple of other items besides the two I actually bought (for £8 each) mentally filed as possibles, but found myself obliged to ignore them since my old camera (after somewhat in excess of 80,000 pictures) had conked out, necessitating a replacement which in turn meant that I could not entertain mere ‘possibles’ at this stage. Here is the image that appeared in our slideshow:
The auction concluded, wiring tidied up and internet bidders list printed out I finished my working week by doing some more work on the June auction. Here are some of the items I imaged…
The diagnostic criteria for Asperger’s/autism includes the tendency toward:
“Highly restricted, fixated interests that are abnormal in intensity or focus (e.g., strong attachment to or preoccupation with unusual objects, excessively circumscribed or perseverative interests).”
…At least, as described by those with cultural authority (a topic that will in itself be the focus of a future post).
(That criterion is Part B-3, for the curious.)
This is often shorthand-termed “special interest”, by some on and off the spectrum, and although I’ve used this term myself, you’ll see that it’s usually enclosed in quote marks, which I intend to indicate that although it’s a common and recognizable term, I don’t particularly like it.
For the record, I prefer terms such as “niche specialty”, “subject area of expertise”, “topic/subject of interest”, and so on. (Don’t those sound more dignified, not to mention more accurate?). Mix and match Dignified Terms until your heart’s content…
The two manifestos to which I refer are those the Labour Party and the We Own It Campaign. In this post, which as a purely political post features text that alternates between red and green I will share links to some of the posts that the Labour Manifesto has already generated, and links to both manifestos and some of my own thoughts.
THE WE OWN IT MANIFESTO
This is a must-read document about public ownership. At the end of the document there is a link to click to enable you contact your candidates to ask them if they will support these measures – I have just done so. As a sampler, here is the section on Railways:
As a coda to the above I point out that most of our railways are in the hands of profit making arms of other countries state owned railways – the Dutch state owned railway by way of Abellio operates more track in this country than there is in the whole of the Netherlands.
THE LABOUR MANIFESTO
I recently shared the draft version of this manifesto with you, The final version was released yesterday, and is every bit as good as expected. The screenshot below shows the scope of the document. Please do read it in full – primary sources are always better than secondary, even on those occasions when the authors of the secondary sources don’t have axes to grind.
MORE ON THE LABOUR MANIFESTO
In this section I will share four links to posts concerned with the Labour Manifesto:
The Skwawkbox have produced a piecethat combines commenting on the Labour Manifesto with showing the sheer desperation of the Tory response to it. This post also has an excellent accompanying graphic, reproduced below:
I have no objection to tactical voting where such represents a chance to be rid of a Tory. In certain seats, notably Brighton Pavilion which they already hold and the Isle of Wight among others I would unhesitatingly call for a vote for the Greens, given that they have stepped aside in no fewer than 30 seats to improve Labour chances there and that I have a great deal of time for the Greens. In my own constituency of North West Norfolk there is only one way for any progressively minded person to vote – for Labour Candidate Jo Rust. Make sure you use your vote on June 8th.
PHOTOGRAPHS
Just a few photos to end this post:
Lot 1107 in James and Sons upcoming auction.1107-a – A Northern line train of 1956 stock.1107-b: The last two items in the album.Mama duck with her brood, the Gaywood River near Beulah Street.
Much of this post will be sharing finds from elsewhere, but there will also be some pictures of my own. I will be starting with politics, moving from there on to transport, then some science and finishing up with some stuff about autism. Other than in this introduction most of the text will be coloured, and links as usual will be in bold and underlined.
POLITICS
There is a particular reason why I am mixing red and green in this section and priveleging green by having it come first. The Greens have pulled out of a number of seats in the upcoming general election to make Labour’s task easier. These seats include at least one held by a current cabinet minister. I urge Labour to reciprocate by at the very least not fielding a candidate in Brighton Pavilion (the only seat currently held by the Greens), and preferably also by leaving a clear field for them on the Isle of Wight, and in a few other seats that the Greens are particularly targetting. In my own constituency of Northwest Norfolk Labour is the only party with a chance of unseating the Tory, and I will thankfully be able to vote Labour with a smile as they have very sensibly reselected the excellent Jo Rust as their candidate. My first two shares are both about Labour’s plans to deal with tax avoidance. The two pieces in question are:
I conclude this section with a reference to Labour’s manifesto, now in the public domain. I have read the document in full and urge you to do likewise by clicking here. As both an aperitif and a lead-in to the next section of this post I reproduce the transport section:
Having covered water creatures and the ancestors of air creatures we finish with land creatures, and the largest fossilized footprints ever discovered, with a diameter of 1.7 metres. These dinosaur footprints are located near Broome in northwestern Australia, a place I visited in 2006. The largest creatures living there these days are crocodiles which at an absolute peak might grow to a body length of six metres. The article is titled “World’s largest dinosaur footprints discovered in Western Australia” and accompanied by some good pictures, one of which I reproduce below.
The prints indicate enormous animals that were probably around 5.3 to 5.5 metres at the hip. Photograph: Damian Kelly/University of Queensland/EPA
AUTISM
I have several pieces to share in this section, starting with two from americanbadassadvocates as follows:
I finish this section with a link to piece from thesilentwaveblog. There is another very recent post from this same blog that will be featuring in the post I shall be producing for my birthday. As a clue I will tell you that due to the particular number it will be I am calling this birthday the “Douglas Adams Birthday”. Today’s link is to a post titled “Asperger’s / autism and microaggression” with the picture reproduced below:
PHOTOGRAPHS
Just a few photographs today, mostly of items going under the hammer at James and Sons next auction (full catalogue available here):
Lot 359 – five images.
Various cigarette card lots, all in the 1100s
A 2016 £2 coin, commemorating the 350th anniversary of the Great Fire of London, the first I had ever handled (taken just before I handed over as part of a bus fare).
aspiblog 