Four Wheels, Easter Eggs and a Guidebook

As the year seems to be speeding past us, it's once again suddenly Easter and that means a mini-holiday for most of us. Deciding not to face the airport crowds, and urging to get out of the city, we set upon a road trip out into the Western Highlands of Scotland. Armed with a guide book, we roamed the winding roads with no real plan, finding ancient graves, castles, bright blue lochs, rolling highlands topped with snow, changing weather, and friendly people with rustic accents. Mixed in-between these stops and encounters were quite a few pints of beer, and some delicious local meals straight from the local sea.

On our second night, as the tourists poured into the small town of Fort William packed into a busy pub and luckily enough to score a table for the night and presented with our teenage waiter, dressed in a new Iron Maiden shirt and clearly having no motivation to be there, let alone on the busy start of summer. Think he was having a really bad night as we continually had to tell him when we wanted drinks. Think we broke him as he managed to say "thank you" by the end of the night

The highland roads offered lots of varying scenery from deep lochs, passing clouds, rain and hail, to green sunny valleys, cobbled bridges, hidden mansions, snow capped hills, and eager locals waist deep in a river waiting for that salmon to bite. In 3 days we managed to squeez e in quite a bit of Scotland, continually compare bits of the scenery to home, and get a glimpse of the end of winter up at the skifields, which I think might be calling me back at early next year.

Water of Leith

With summer approaching I had a wander around the neighbourhood into Leith. This is an old port town thats been around for centuries, and after being dodgy for many years is making a comeback as a nice waterfront place to live, with vibriant cafe’s and all the usual marketing stuff. It is nice though, especially with the old building mixed with new glass, steel and life, mixed in with a bit of history. I like exploring the place that I live in and wonder how many locals do the same, or just see it as a place to live.

Kiwi English

While, um, "researching the web" at work I found an interesting site about a little study undertaken at schools in NZ. They gave kids some common english words and got them to come up with all the other terms that they knew. This is what they got:

Common words are partay (party), "cool", "awesome" "sweet", "mint" (wonderful), "screw up" (accident), mish (task/mission), "stylie" (fashionable) and "bad arse" (trouble-maker).

The influence of Maori vocabulary was, unsurpisingly, much more prevalent in the north and east of the North Island "kia ora" being listed often but a smattering of other Maori words used throughout, most commonly "tu meke" for wonderful. Interestingly, this same region had the most common frequency of the raised eyebrow or head flick for hello.

+ Check out the rest here.

Endless Winter

 

A week of sunshine marked the start of summer, and ended quickly enough as it was hailing and snowing once again. After 2 long winters (broken by a week in Malaysia on the way here), i’m sitting back waiting for the warm months, and some travel. Hopefully it all starts next weekend when I’m off to the highlands for a look around. Have been wandering around my neighbourhood taking some photos, so hopefully i’ll have something up soon.

Other than that, not much happening here. Weird how when you are overseas there is the expectation of continual excitement and adventure. I suppose each day does allow the opportunity to go find something new, but that exists anywhere you live. The routine of work and home life makes you forget that sometimes.

Encouragement?

"Everytime I think I party too much, I remember that Keith Richards is still alive…" - Bill Hicks