May 15, 2012
Home.....
..... what a trip, folks...... Aberdeen, Ballater, Banchory, Aboyne, Montrose, Perth, Crief, Crainlarich, Dunstaffnage, Oban, Mull, Iona, Inverary, Glasgow, and London.... and those were just the BIG towns....... I am beat...... I am home, but I am beat.....
.... time to listen to some music and relax.....for tomorrow, we begin it all again......
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May 03, 2012
Lost...
... 6am in Ballater, Scotland and I have just boiled the kettle for a mug of coffee..... drinks, carry out dinner, and a marathon of keping awake until darkness fell yesterday and it was time for rest..... six hours of sleep, and the dawn is here early..... it is a cool, misty morning here - so very far removed from the steamy mornings we'd had lately in Tennessee... still, it is so nice to see the family all laughing, joking, and sloshing wine all over the place in celebration....
.... lunch has been booked at The Raemoir House Hotel for later today..... then we'll wander back to the lodge to digest and contemplate what's for dinner..... oh, AND to begin calling the airlines to find out where they lost The Missus' luggage.....
.... there is no adventure without a little adversity, eh?....
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May 01, 2012
2012....
... and with that, Rubberneckers, I am off....... I shall studiously write - in better handwriting - more pages in my handly little travel journal.....
... off to the windswept shores of Scotland once again.......
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April 30, 2012
April 29, 2012
April 28, 2012
April 26, 2012
April 25, 2012
April 24, 2012
Class.....
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.
Wilfred Owen
8 October 1917 - March, 1918
.... goodnight......
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Fiasco....
... part two of Hell....lost luggage, missed flights, lost spouses, inoperable cell phones......
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April 23, 2012
April 22, 2012
April 21, 2012
Thyme...
... continued from May 10th, 2006 in Montrose, Scotland....
....and here's the earworm I was talking about....
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April 20, 2012
Grilling....
... in Scotland, when you decide to grill, you grill.... the weather has nothing to do with your deision....
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April 19, 2012
Pate....
.... after stuffing ourselves at lunchtime, this was written after evening snacks.... May 7th, 2006....
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