howie’s halfpipe

Today we began with a little trip to a beach just north of Aberdeen where my hippy parents used to frolic in the sand dunes before i was born.

Then we dropped mother off at the hotel and the 3 of us headed somewhere or other. We got some lunch and stopped at a little railway to pick up some railway merchandise. Then it was off to a castle in the mist. It was a pretty cool castle, it was on a cliff and only accessible by a windy steep path.

Beach

Captain Wife

Wife doing some interpretative dance on edge of the north sea

Castle

Castle in the mist (not it’s official name)

wife on a bridge

another amazing photo by Robert Howie

boys toilet at the castle

more castle.

Happy Mothers Day all of my mothers out there. known and unknown.

today we left Perth in a nice fog and headed towards Aberdeen, with a quick detour back to the hotel.

We stopped at Scone Palace, which was a pretty cool place. Old things arnt really my cup of tea. In my opinion once you have seen one antique table you have seen them all.

So i wasnt all that interested in the insides of the palace, but the outsides kept me entertained for quite a while, oh and the gift shop!

Scone Palace 

The Peacock that took the nappy san challenge.

The Palace and it’s guard.

you havent been to Scotland if you havent seen a highland cow, pronounced highland cooo.

Can you help wifie escape the maze?????

We have been without internet for 2 whole days now. In the last 2 days i have also felt quite nausious…..I have internet tonight and i feel fine.

We went to York and visited the NRM, for those of you who arent down with the NRM it’s the National Railway Museum.

I love trains.

NRM 

The NRM recentlly aquired the flying Scotsman, my favourite steam train in the whole world. Here it is below.

After York we headed to the lakes district to stay with some of my family. It was fun, my cousins sure do have a lot of energy, we played the worlds longest game of rounders in the back field and chatted away.

Today we went and had a look at some lakes.

Lakes

This afternoon we crossed the border and are staying in Perth.

Sign of the day (yesterday)

DLR

This morning wife and I made a dash across London to go on the DLR (Docklands Light Railway). It’s cool, super frequent trains to a range of places, and best of all the trains are fully automated. No driver!

Then it was back to the Hotel to meet the olds. We drove to Oxford where we spent some time sorting out hire cars, for some reason we ended up with 2 cars instead of one. But we are hopefuly changing back to just one in the next couple of days.

Here is the one that my parents got for me and jenny.

It has a sun roof, in case you thought we must have got out my pocket knife and made a hole in th roof for a good photo op.

Village

Now we are in some village, it’s small and english like. I had steak for dinner, cows taste different in England, must be the mad cow disease.

Signs of the day

Today wife and I caught about 5 thousand buses and 3,238 trains.

I can’t remember where we went exactly, just the main attractions.

I know thumbnails can be anoying but i figure you may not want to actually look at my photos so now you get a choice.

Big Ben

London Eye

I really enjoyed the eye, I’ve been looking forward to it for weeks.

Madam Tussauds

Madan Tussauds was no way near as good as i expected. It was packed full of rude french people whou would physically push you out of the way so they could push in or get in front for some reason. I was getting pushed around a lot and sometimes with a lot of force.

you may have noticed that Mr Speiilberg and myself don’t look very impressed, well i can tell you why. I just showed him an episode of ‘wisdom with tabitha’

London Bridge - complete with their ‘package deal’ photo opportunity.

We also went to St Pauls, and i drank a bottle of coke that was from Germany.

We went for a walk with my parentals into hyde park. we didnt get very far casue everyone was so exhausted.

Our hotel is just down the road from a big strip of cafes and food joints. A lovely part of town to have dinner. But why do that when you can have a real dinner.

I’m eating a frozen lasagne and drinking a bottle of coke. there was only 2 problems, the first being our micriwave doesnt work, the second there is no utensils.

being the handyman that i am i fixed both problems. I took my frozen lasagne into my parents room and used their microwave. The cooked plastic container was too hot to carry so i wrapped it in an old newspaper. Now i’m in our room eating lasagne with a tea spoon.

them my friends it is sleep time, i miss sleeping.

I am in London, Notting hill to be exact.

24 hours of sitting on a plane, 4 airports, 3 trains and now all i want to do is sleep but its only 3pm in the afternoon.

that is all.

I packed my bag tonight for our UK trip. I know i broke my own ‘day of departure packing’ policy. but for some reason i did.

Anyway I have packed socks, undies, boxers, shirts, shorts, pants, hats, drink bottle, shoes, thongs, cables, towel and other bits and pieces and my suitcase is only just over half full.

I’m pretty much the best.

one more sleep then i get to go on a plane, i love planes.

I’ve now sent out my resource kit that i made at work. It’s gone, posted, and emailed. So now thats done i’m ready to escape for 3 weeks to the kingdom that is united.

don’t really have a heap to do now so maybe it’s home time…..