First trip with Minnie

Who’s Minnie?  Well, Minnie is a campervan I just bought!  Have you always wanted one? So many of my friends are admitting to, now!  Well I’ve often had the notion, but recently, after a summer where I didn’t really go anywhere, except for my week in Doune, I decided to think seriously about the idea!  I looked at various websites, looked up Scottish sellers (easier to buy from, as to travel a great distance to collect seemed a bit daft), and eventually found one that I really liked the look of!  Good age and mileage, nice layout and a make that friends definitely recommended.  Off went my email to the seller to say I was interested and could I have a look at it.  Back came the reply with a phone number to call, and that very afternoon I took myself off to Fife to take a look.

The van was great, and on the advice of a campervan owning friend, I decided to offer for it!  Offer accepted, we shook hands on the deal.  The seller was delightful, and made every effort to make sure everything was perfect for my taking it over, so a couple of weeks later, on Monday there, I returned to Fife – by bus this time – to collect and drive Minnie home to Peebles.  It was my idea to call her Minnie!  All my cars have had names, from Daisy and Susie, my very first Austins, through the Minis -  Dougal, Charlie, Ivy  and Bil  - yes one L.  It’s Swedish for car – to my mother’s Mitsubishi Metal Mickey, and the rest – Peugeots Betty and Belinda, to Smudge then Sukie who I still  have for now– just in case Minnie and I don’t make it together!!

So yesterday, after a very busy few days, and in need of some relaxation, I set off with Minnie to collect my friend Morag, for a trip to St Mary’s Loch, not so very far away, where we would have lunch.  It was a lovely day with blue sky and puffy white clouds as we drove down the country roads, through bright autumn coloured beech woodland, to reach the loch. The sun was glinting on the white painted historic inn, Tibbie Shiels, named for the 18th century widow who began it, and nearby, yachts and sails shone at the marina.  We parked up on a piece of land beside the Loch o’ the Lowes, once part of the glacial St Mary’s loch but separated now by millennia of alluvial debris washed down from the burns flowing from the hills on either side of the valley into the loch, eventually cutting it in two.  Tibbie’s is built on the isthmus – wow, there’s a word – but the parking area is alongside the smaller loch – quite choppy yesterday with the blustery wind that had risen as we arrived.

The above three photos are not my own.  I thank the photographers for the use of them.

It was pretty cold too, but the sun was shining its rays through the clouds over the loch and hills.

 

However, inside the van we enjoyed our ham and chicken salad, followed by chocolate brownies and yoghurt, and eventually a cup of tea, once I discovered which knobs to use to turn on the gas bottle and the cooker! 

We braved the cold so Mo could take another photo of me with Minnie before we set off home again.

It had certainly been very relaxing just sitting in the van, being rocked by the wind, watching the waves and the weather as it passed over changing from sun to rain and back!  Heading home the sun was behind us so better for taking photos.  Unfortunately the autumn colours didn’t come out terribly bright.  I think I used a wrong setting on my camera! 

This one is looking over to St Mary’s Loch from where we were parked, while the next one gives a glimpse of Tibbie’s amongst the trees.

I think the best photo I took of the autumn colours was this one, looking through from the road to St Mary’s Loch, but it isn’t a patch on the true colour! 

We are having a wonderful autumn for colour this year.  Shame I didn’t capture it this time!

 

So on the way back, the sun came out again and once again we got the blue sky and puffy clouds.  This is looking down the Yarrow valley to the Gordon Arms Inn, where the road turns off towards Peebles again, and further on this is the view from the road called the Paddy Slack to Lee Pen, the hill overlooking Innerleithen in Tweeddale.  The Paddy Slack took its name from the French, Pas du lac, the road to the lake (or loch in Scotland,) having been constructed by French prisoners of the Napoleonic war who were billeted in Tweeddale.

Almost at the bottom of the road there’s another lovely view of Lee Pen with Traquair Mill in the foreground, and here today I will end my trip – only a few miles to go to Peebles.

Next time I’ll continue my story of the Knoydart visit which I started last time.  Time may be easier to come by in the next wee while, as up till now things have been manic, with an urgent visit to the eye clinic included because my doctor thought the grey curtain I was seeing over half of my left eye, and the flashing lights I had been experiencing could be a retina problem.  Glad to say that after examination by the eye consultant I can report there is nothing wrong and that he thinks I just had an ocular migraine!  Of course I have been warned that if it happens again I go straight to my doctor!  Fingers crossed for no recurrence! 

Talk again soon.

Doune again

Hey!  Sorry I have been MIA yet again!  My sister is prodding me.  She's fed up logging in to the same page all the time, so time to do something about it.  Things just fill up my days.....

OK, let's see what I can write about today.  I have lots of photos of things that have been happening, and probably the best thing is my recent visit back to Doune  in Knoydart for the annual lacemaking week!  Yes, that time again!

We gathered once again at Mallaig one Saturday afternoon in September; were met  by Gavin, the boatman, and taken over Loch Nevis,in the boat Gripper II and round the coast of Knoydart to a very misty and dark looking Doune.

Always good to be back again, and almost immediately cares and worries seem to melt away, and it’s all peace and tranquility for a whole week.  We all got settled in our respective accommodation: some of us in the wooden lodge in its own little bay round the headland a little, and others in the stone lodge rooms right next to the dining room where we, obviously, have our meals, and also make our lace.  We had time to relax in the lodge sitting room before dinner, and just enjoy being back.  As always, dinner was wonderful and we were to find ourselves being used as guinea pigs for some new recipes!  Everything that is cooked in the Doune kitchen is so good, that there are never any worries about things not working out!  It was dark by the time we headed back along the path to bed but we are all used to that and are kitted out with torches, as it isn’t just dark, it is  black dark!  The only lights are little pin pricks from the scattered houses and the Gaelic college across the water on the south end of the Isle of Skye.  Little did I know that three of my friends had individually booked into the college on Gaelic courses!

Next morning we were all ready to start lacemaking.   Out came the pillows, the solid type of cushion things that the lace is made on, the bobbins, threads and pins, and we were off!  Here are some of the lovely things being worked on this year.

 

 

Joan and Sheila work on beautifully fine Continental lace – I think this is of the type called Binche (French pronunciation where the IN is a bit of a combination of IN and UN with a nasal N!).  Margaret was working a piece of English lace called Buckinghamshire Point lace (Bucks, for short) and Norma was finishing off a bookmark before starting on a piece of free(hand) lace in the form of a leaf.  I spent a bit of time contemplating how to work a piece of lace I had found in a picture.  I’ll show you a bit of the picture detail but can’t show you the whole thing as it is going to be a present – a surprise one!  That’s it below!

 

Liz, our lovely hostess, was working on a Honiton flower and finished it off this week.  Here it is before she took all the pins out and took it off her pillow.

Morag was sewing – beautiful panels of pre-printed (by herself) cotton.  This one was inspired by The Book of Nothing that her husband Michael was reading, and here’s another printed sheet below!

She made the felted spectacle case, (above) beforehand to give to Marge, via Margaret, and also brought the beautiful fuchsias to show us.

Lisbet was our “artist in residence” for the week, quite often to be found sitting sketching – us or the outdoors!  She drew a few with me in them so I’ll be vain and show them off!

We had a lovely American family there for the first half of the week and one day I gave the Mom, Ellie, a lesson in lacemaking, not realising that Liz was quietly sketching us.  Here’s the finished picture!

The family were lovely, and the two little boys very well behaved, but just like all little boys ready for some fun, down among the rocks looking for sea anemones, shells, crabs, and jelly fish!  One day Morag and I walked up the hill to the only section of road in Knoydart and were in time to take a ride down to Inverie with Gavin in the Doune minibus where he was collecting the family. We enjoyed the beautiful views along the route and had a quick glimpse of Inverie village before everyone piled into the bus for the return journey. 

 

 

At the top of the track back down to Doune is a sign -  a play on words.  Doune is pronounced Doon, which is also the Scots word for Down, so you have Down here to Doune!

The boys were off down the path through the grass and hummocks of heather like the proverbial shot from a gun, and were happily playing in among the stones on the beach when we got back!  It was a shame we had to say goodbye to them on Tuesday.

I’ll stop just now and write some more next time.  You shouldn’t have to wait too long for that!