Gardners Crescent. My street

The stairway to my apartment

The park & Princes Street.

Over the last couple of days Chris has been changing servers, so things have been down, but now we are back & live!
There should be some new photos in a day or two, but I haven’t had a chance to really take anything over the last week.
Michaela gave me a russian medium-format camera for my birthday, so I will be working that thing out over the next little while too! Otherwise, I have a couple of posts in the mental banks that I need to work on. I need to get back into the habit a little over the next little while. Don’t think I have forgotten you all!
Oh, OK, here is an old photo of some flowers. They seem to be one of my big subjects these days. Go figure. This is from a fair in Madison Wisconsin. I liked the photo cause I thought it looked like I had played with it in photoshop, but I never touched it!

Special thanks to Caroline and Caroline for the cake and to Danielle too for coming in to work & giving me a special surprise birthday party!

Before I fill you in on my movements, here is a little hint for the young players. If you are sitting in a cafe having two different drinks for morning tea, remember to pay proper attention. Shaking your juice up is always a good idea before drinking it, but it is not such a good idea with your diet coke…
Yesterday I went to the “Clerk” estate in the back of Penecuik. Mic had lived here for a couple of months when she first arrived & basically this family once owned a BIG chunk of the land which is now this whole town. They have lots of grounds now that people love to walk around. Ever since I first started writing with Mic, she was telling me that this place looked like Rivendell out of Lord Of The Rings. She wasn’t far wrong.
The day was pretty rainy & Mic felt bad that we didn’t have the sun to bring out the colours, and that we missed the main body of Autumn, but it really was still pretty amazing. Here are just a couple of pics from the day.

Getting to Saturday was a painful process. I was working Thursday & Friday nights, which meant getting to get at 8am on Saturday morning. Fortunately, my other afternoon plans got cancelled, so I was able to get at least a little sleep before I headed off to my own little bit of Rugby bliss.
We went via Dermott and Benita’s place. Mic & I had met them in an Aussie pub, we had hit it off & they had invited us to come along to the Rugby with them. After having a little tomato soup & then waiting for Dermott to grab us some “roadies” (a couple of beers to drink during the walk to Murray Field), we were off!
It rained during the whole half hour walk to Murray Field, then it continued to rain during the match, but luckily we were under cover. Dermott & I were find anyway, looking as Australian as possible in our Driza-bones. Murray field itself is reallly beautiful & the vibe was great with thousands of guys cruising around in rugby jerseys & kilts and everyone feeling a good vibe.
The game was pretty awesome too. The First half was the better for Australia, with 4 tries leading to a 28-0 lead, but in the second half we really sucked & we lost that half 14-4, leading to a final score of 31-14. On the good side, we were behind one of the goalposts & it just happened to be the one that saw all 6 tries!
Anyway, I have been feeling lazy about actually writing for the last month. Again I think I will leave you with just a couple pics.

Stirling Mortlock going over for the first try of the night.

For my first time, the Aussie flags were in the minority.

I’ve been revisiting old pics & playing around with them. Here is a couple of them.

Well I am slogging through work & focussing on the fun that is coming in the future. That is coming into clear focus at the moment, cause I just booked some easyjet flights for my travel. So far the planned destinations are Venice, Geneva, Berlin, Budapest, and Prague, but I should also fit in some time to enjoy a little more of Italy, a lot more of Switzerland & hopefully Krakow!
I’m feeling fairly uninspired at the moment, so I will leave you with a couple more travel pics.

Carbisdale 10pm, whilst I was looking for the best view of Carbisdale Castle.

Georgie enjoying a moment of sun at the Clava Cairns.

With only 4 of us doing room service at work, if one person can’t do things it often means that one of the others has to pick things up, so since one of the night room service guys has had some personal things happening in his life over the last month & the rest of us have been dealing with it. the point of this blog? Well I have to do a number of night shifts over the next week, which means 7pm-7am. I am not a fan, but if I don’t do it, then someone else has to, so what are you going to do?
What this all meant for me yesterday afternoon was that I had to make the decision to stay up as late as possible last night & prepare my body for the late night I have coming this evening. It was aided by two things. No.1 I had to get up at 4am to say bye to Georgie & Julie who had to get to the airport for 7am flights, and No.2 There was a party happening for Stevie, a guy I have worked with for the last couple of months.
Georgie & Julie got to bed nice & early, so I headed out to keep myself awake. This is the first time that I have been out with a large group of people from work & it was nice to see everyone having fun. There may be lots of stresses with my line of work, but the bond that comes through shared experience (and the consumption of a fair bit of beer) is a strong one, and the stresses of everyday are usually left at the bar door.
As usual, I think the photos might tell a better story, so I will let them do the talking.

Basicallly the only view we had of Stevie all night…

Girls about the town.

The relationship I share with all chefs is one of mutual respect and admiration!

I will keep the writing down to a minimum, cause I have a fair few pics to post. Lets just say that I had an awesome week, though large chunks of it didn’t go to plan. It started when I picked Georgie up from the airport. she had met a French-Canadian girl on her flight & this girl (Julie) was in Edinburgh for 5 days & didn’t know what she was going to do. Well it turns out the answer is “ditch her pre-planned accomodation & come touring with Tim & Georgie”
I got to do a fun mix of things I have seen before (Wallace Memorial, Doune Castle, Glen Coe, Edradour), which was fun because lots of places look different in the Autumn & there are lots of new things to find too, plus I got to visit a bunch of places that I haven’t been before, like Carbisdale castle and Culloden. I didn’t manage to climb Ben Nevis (both of the girls were quite fluey), but I did make it up Cairn Gorm, itself an impressive peak.
Anyway, on with the pics!

Eagerly anticipating the arrival

A lovely day to start on

The Cairns were 4000 years old!

Cool as a Castle, even better as a Hostel!

If the outside was impressive, the inside was doubly so! It literally took us 20 minutes to find our room in the maze of amazingmaze of a place!

Frosty, cloudlined triumph!

Julie, George & I enjoying a quiet pub meal to finish a fantastic four days.

Hey there people.
I will make this quick, cause I am sitting in a hostel in the Cairngorm Mountains, and I am paying �1 per 20 mins & only have 18 left. Anyway, I have been having an awesome day off. Georgie arrived OK from London & she met a French/Canadian girl on the flight called Julie, who was in Edinburgh for 5 days & didn’t know what she was going to do. Well the long & the short of it was that she ended up coming with the two of us.
We drove up to Ben Nevis (talled Mountain in Scotland, if not the UK) via the William Wallace Memorial and the Doune Castle. We didn’t end up climbing BN though, cause the two girls have a bit of a flu. Day two saw us head up to the Carbisdale Castle which was awesome, cause it is actually a Hostel. YOu have no idea how HUGE this place is. You will get pics sooner or later. On the way we got to visit Culloden, home of the last great battle on British soil. Very interesting.
TOday we came down to the Cairngorms & we climbed up most of the Cairngorm Mountain together, then Georgie & I finished it off. It was at cloud level, so windy that we had to stand on an angle to keep from being blown over & so cold that there were bits of snow all over the shop.
Tomorrow is a drive back home via the Edradour Distillery, then it is back to work tomorrow.
Anyway, I will write more about it later & will be posting pics for weeks to come for sure. In the mean time, here is your question for the day…
What is your principal motivation for what you do? No explanations or anything, I just want the answer.
TCG.>.