Saturday and Summer’s Coming

Mutterings continued.

Saturday and Summer’s Coming.

The forecast is for 25c and sunny today. Eeek! Too warm, too warm!! For someone of my Celtic appearance, anything over 23c and a UV level of 4 is too much. Why is it my mother, a Pom who grew up in Manchester, has a great tan and yet my skin resembles the underbelly of a fish? I think she used up all the melanin and left none for me.

I’ve just upgraded my Foxtel subscription to include Movies Plus – this gives me three more channels of films I’ll probably never watch. Movie One is showing Iris (with Judi Dench) and The Shipping News (Judi Dench). In the movie of my life, she will play my mother. Emma Thompson will play me, of course. Or Dawn French. Or Camryn Manheim.

TV1 is showing a Star Trek:TOS (though in my day it was just called Star Trek) series 1 marathon this weekend. I used to watch ST from behind the lounge, out of sight of Dad, as it was on past my bedtime. Wednesday nights were very cool – Hogan’s Heroes (very non-PC now), Mission Impossible (with the good team) and Star Trek. Next Generation I enjoyed, stopped watching Deep Space 9 after the first couple of seasons and didn’t watch Voyager at all. I’ve never bothered with Enterprise either, though I do like Scott Bakula from Quantum Leap. Wept buckets at the end of the final ep of QL.

But then, I’m a very soppy person.

Today’s This Time Last Year:

Lots of photos in this one!

Ash and I have found THE place we want to live – Dunkeld is a small village north west of Perth and just gorgeous. Stone buildings, a river, trees…. Lovely in autumn, I’d really like to see it in winter.





We had morning tea (bacon and egg sarnie) in the bakery in the main street – we sat in the window and watched the Dunkeld world go by, including your actual Scottie dogs. Opposite the bakery was what looked like an empty antiques shop. It was for sale for 125k pounds, a bargain as it had 7 rooms upstairs (bed, bath, sitting, recept, etc) and large showrooms downstairs. While neither of us has 125k (pounds or dollars) it didn’t stop us from planning what we would do with the building. It would have made a great theatre space along the lines of the Maltings in Berwick.

We noticed a number of posters around the village advising of a forthcoming meeting to discuss the future of housing in Dunkeld. Like a lot of towns, the houses are being bought up by people who don’t live in the village (no, not THAT Village) and only visit the place once a year. This is causing an acute housing shortage for young people growing up in the area.

We visited Dunkeld Cathedral which was built between the 13th and 15th centuries, though a Christian community has lived in the area for over 1000 years. The Cathedral was all but destroyed during the Reformation in 1560. When we visited restoration work was being carried out on the interior foundations. The souvenir shop (there’s always a souvenir shop) was a tiny portacabin and card table.





The lawn from the Cathedral down to the River Tay.



Passing over the bridge we walked down some steps and along the footpath by the river to a place that we, as Shakespeare buffs, just had to see - Birnam Wood. The Birnam Oak is believed to be the last surviving remnant of the Wood, the oak forest made famous in Macbeth and is thought to be over 1000 years old. The lower limbs are supported by large wooden props and the first 3 metres of the trunk is hollow.










Just north of Birnam Wood is The Hermitage, an area overseen by the National Trust of Scotland and the Forestry Commission. The forest features some of Britain’s tallest trees, including a 64.5m Douglas Fir. A couple of follies, built in the 18th century, overlook the River Braan and waterfalls.





On the walk to the folly, we passed some office types who were obviously doing some bonding wank. Some were tying each other to trees and hauling people up into the branches, while others were wandering around with their eyes closed and walking into each other. As always happens with these groups, there were a couple of guys hanging behind having a smoke and laughing at the others. That’s usually me as I find these exercises a total waste of time.

We had lunch looking at the river and spent a lot of time gazing at the waterfalls.

After lunch we drove to Loch Tay on which a crannog has been reconstructed. A crannog is an ancient loch dwelling built out in the water as a defensive homestead from around 5,000 years ago. People continued to build and occupy them periodically until the 17th century. The Loch Tay crannog reconstruction is based on archaeological excavations of the 2,600 year old Oakbank crannog and the centre houses relics of furniture, clothing and homewares, including a butter dish with butter inside. It was just fascinating.