Well I have made it through my second 4 day stint at work. I can relate to the Apostle Paul in regards to beating the body into submission. After my first day of work, my feet wanted to lead a peasants revolt against their superiors, and it was only suppressed by ibuprofen. After my first 4 day stint there was general disquiet, but after the second week of work they have settled down to being governed by my mind & one the whole have followed the rest of my body in keeping quiet about the whole experience. It makes the days a lot easier when you can actually walk properly during them!
I would love to write more about the politics of work places, reflections on half hour walks to work at 6am & the value of a good bacon roll, but I have barely any battery left, so I will have to leave things here. Possibly I will return to put up a pic or something. Until then, stay beautiful people!
TCG.>.

I would love to be able to hang out with my friends, but I can hold off till next January. After all, I have all of Scotland & Europe to keep me entertained, plus a full time job to bash away at too. Family is a little tougher in some respects. It pains me to think that Charlotte & Bethany are going to be 6 months old when I get back & I have missed out on a big part of their growth, but again, I hope to be around for the rest of their lives & it is certainly a little better knowing that they wont even remember the time that they spent growing up without me.
Basically, I haven’t had any major problems with being away from people in Sydney at all. Working in Mangrove Mountain got me used to the idea of being a fair way away & then my mind which is geared toward just getting whatever is in front of me done is coping with doing just that as the opportunities to try new things & see every fresh thing around me.
Knowing how comfortable & secure I feel, I was a little tripped out by last night. Not only did I have a dream that I remember upon waking (a rare occurrence indeed), but I ended the dream in tears & almost woke up crying.
I was out in the country, I saw a plane fly by low & drop something (it is interesting that even in my dreams, seeing a low-lying plane makes me think that they are aiming at a Sept. 11 style attack) & then I was walking to the plane so I could help pick up whatever it dropped. My dad, Uncle Stevie & some other random guy were standing there, so I shook all of their hands. As I continued to scan around for hands to shake, I saw my Grandfather Joe-Joe. Joe-Joe died a couple of years ago, but I could see him as clear as day, but where I could chat with my dad & shake all of the others hands, I knew that despite appearing in front of me, he was beyond touch & all I was going to hear would be an echo of his voice stored away from memories of him telling me that he used to be able to hold me in the palm of his hand. He was a man that I loved and admired, but now he only stood before me as an image & a collection of memories.
My first real pang of homesickness had arrived. It had come in a dream & it is not a need to get back to Sydney or even Australia. To love people & loose them is not what God created me or anyone else for, but through our sin it is what we have received. I’m homesick for the Promised Land. I want an eternal relationship & want to see the faces of those I love around me & know that they are secure in Christ. I want an end to mourning, and end to war and an end to death. I long to wake every day to the pleasure of real peace and the joy of endless opportunities & to never have to hesitate because of a real or imagine fear.
I love my family so much. Every one of them is precious to me, but I know that too often I disappoint them & that sometimes they frustrate me. I have more quality friends than any one man deserves and enough friendly acquaintances that I never need fear that I don’t have a place to stay in an emergency, or someone to chat to if I was worried about something. Sometimes I lie to my friends & all too often I work at portraying an image of myself to the wider circles of my world which is a representation of what I would like them to think I am rather than an accurate representation of who I really am.
I yearn for an honesty that is complete and definite & I pine for depth of relationship that transcends all pretence and sings with a passion clean and pure.
I love my life. There is so much I would like to see and do, but sometimes I can almost hear heaven�s call.
Some days I just want to go home.

I wish I could say that they last three days have been a haze, but I feel like I have lived every minute of them. Not in a “I was haveing so much fun, I feel like it was a really rewarding experience” kind of living, but a “I hurt & am tired, this job is a killer” kind of living.
Doing 12 hours a day really does appear to mean that I am either working, travelling too or from, eating, or sleeping. Still, I am three quarters of the way through my first 4 day stint & I am looking forward to my first 4 days off. I celebrate finishing by having to get up the next morning to set up a bank account, & then doing a shift at the Restaurant that night! Good times.
Thanks to everyone who has commented and those who wrote me emails. I will get back to you as soon as the work week is over.
TCG.>.
P.S.: ALLISON: If you are referring to a book I have to a Upritchard, then you are spot on. If so, drop me a line @
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& let me know what you are up to.

Flowers in the gardens of Dunvegan Castle

I can’t remember the castle name, but it was just on the mainland side of Skye.

Loch Ness from the Hostel

Obsession with long exposures & water…

I sat with five others in the staff orientation room at the Radisson SAS hotel this morning. A Dutchman, an Irish Woman, A Spaniard, an Australian and a Pole. If it were walking into a bar it would have made the perfect joke! We weren’t there for laughs though. We were getting introduced into the wonderful world of Hotels work.
I sat there in wonderment. Here I was getting briefed on a new full-time job. 24 hours prior I was sipping Whisky at Scotlands smallest distillery Edradour, 48 hours ago I was warming up after swimming at the foot of a mountain waterfall, and 72 hours ago I was enjoying the glorious glow of the sun atop the “Pap of Glencoe”. Travel time is always such a strange thing. Every moment seems to hang in the air like so many gossamer threads in a spiders web, but the days flash by faster than a lightning strike!
The weekend was awesome! You can read Michaela’s (in my links) account if you really need a blow for blow of the big stuff that we did & I will just let you know about a couple of little things. As we drove up to Glen Coe we stopped at a lovely anonymous loch to take a couple of pictures. The still glass-like water was pretty enough, but combined with the cool air & the lazy sun, it was a moment you just want to be able to carry with you whenever you are feeling drained or a little too busy. There was a father there with his two kids, about 3 & 1. He was patiently showing them how to skip stones & they were equally patiently showing him how to splash around & fall over. I don’t know if it makes me long to see my Nieces & Nephews, or have my own kids more. Just beautiful. (An awesome moment, just before we left was the two twin-rotor Army choppers, practicing low-level flying, that powered by us, shattering the peace, but creating a cool memory)
Glen Brittle was a very different kind of beauty. Truly in the middle of nowhere, we had to drive for 25 minutes down a one lane road which was actually used for two way traffic. The Glen was nestled behind a barren and mist covered mountain. The hostel was an oasis of warmth and light in the cool martian territory around it. The rooms comfortable, a creek meandered by not 5 meters from the hostel, coming from a waterfall that was only another 30 meters up the hill. The feeling of isolation (geographically) and family (friendly staff & hikers) was an intoxicating mix & I started dreaming of a Christmas up there. I went to sleep that night dreaming of swimming under the waterfall & then hiking up the mountain that was its source.
The next morning it was raining & the lovely little waterfall was now a pounding torrent & the stoney crags of the mountain were now covered in cloud. I had to abandon my climbing plans (much to Michaela’s happiness) but in near-freezing temperatures, I still managed to brave the base of the waterfall. It was officially the first time that I swam in water which really did force the air out of my lungs upon contact with it. Good times!
Finally, our drive back to Edinburgh looked like it was going to be a frustrating one. It was pretty enough, as most of Scotland is, but Distillery after Distillery was closed (being a Sunday). We were at our wits end & decided to stop by the little town of Pitlochry for lunch before heading on. As it turns out, Pitlochry is a pretty busy tourist town, which means lots of open stuff. It did mean that the “Bell’s” Whisky tour was open, which was good news, but that tour of a major distiller was cast aside like so much rubbish when we found out about Edradour “Scotlands smallest distillery!”. Not only was it a quaint little place which boasts to make the country’s last totally handmade whisky, but it also spent most of the last two centuries under the ownership of Clan Campbell, my forefathers on my mothers side.
One awesome tour, two bottles of liqour (one of whisky & one whisky cream) and three small conversations later, we were back on the road, feeling like we had found the perfect conclusion to an awesome weekend.
As usual, the camera came with me. I will probably post a lot of the pictures over the following months, but here are just a couple of the ones that I really like.

A wee little kiddie enjoying a lovely Loch.

A Bridge over a waterfall, then to the mountains beyond!

Tim looking tough. I shouldn’t though. I was only 2/3 of the way up!

The raging waters of the Glen Brittle waterfall with the hostel in the background.

The raging waters of the Glen Brittle waterfall with the frozen but contented Tim in the foreground.

There is a Renault Megane sitting outside the front of the house. It’s owned by “Thrifty”, but it will be driven by me. I have to say that it is a pretty cool car. No key to start it per se. Just a credit card that goes in the central console and a start/stop button above that.
I’m really looking forward to the weekend. First off we get to head to Ikea so I can buy one or two pieces of furniture for my new room, not to mention some sheets (Guess who is over sleeping in his sleeping bag inner sheet), then off to Glen Coe, home of the Campbell Massacre of the McDonalds!
The Isle of Skye (and Tallasker Distillery) and Loch Ness also lie in our path over the weekend. I have had to cut out Inverary for this trip because I GOT A JOB! I start on Monday morning at 7am and will be working at the Radisson Hotel in room service. Good times.
Well there you go. Like last weekend you probably wont hear from me till Sunday, but I have a quiet suspicion that I will have enough pictures from this weekend to keep posting for some time to come.
Have a good one people, cause you know I will be.

Well the weekend away went very well. The travel up to Aviemore was very pretty, the kids were cool & the site itself had some cool facilities (though some pretty dangerous acitivities). Unfortunately, I am not allowed to post any of the pictures that have any of the kids in them, so you will have to settle for some pictures of stuff on the site & a local loch that we travelled to.

Bell flowers & Mushrooms

A Loch, a Mountain, an Island and a Castle.

The Castle on the Loch.

The Creek (What Scots call a “Burn”) by the house at the campsite.

Green and Gold. A little Australiana in the UK

Enjoying a cool mountain stream.

Well I am about 10 minutes off heading out for a youth group weekend away up at Aviemore, so that means no posts for the next 48-72 hours. Have no fear though, I will be thinking about you dear readers (both of you) and when I come back I will hopefully have some lovely pics of the Cairngorm Mountains. Even better, we hope to make it back for the Fireworks night in Edinburgh on Sunday night!
Write me comments so I feel special when I get home.
Tim.>.

The bane of my existance. It sits at the bottom end of my bed & it is responsible for a small puncture in my foot, several scratches & a pair of ripped socks.

Caledonian 80. Good times.

This is the great “Parrots”.

Well yesterday was a bit of a dud all in all. I went to the Mac store & they were little help concerning “Airport Express” usefullness in this country & even less help in regard to finding a broadband service provider who doesn’t want a 12 month contract. The place Mic & I went to lunch at had pretty substandard sandwiches, especially for the price, then I went to visit a bank to be told that the proof of ID info that I had been given previously was actually incorrect. Of course, Of course, the info I had been given previously had been because what I was told prior to that was also incorrect.
I decided to cheer myself up by getting this nice room spray stuff from Crabtree and Evelyn that one of Mic’s roomates uses. Of course, they were all out. Just before I was to leave the store though, I decided to try one of the other sprays. This was the only thing that went right for me all day. In the strange world of smell creations, some bright spark at C&E decided to create one that was supposed to smell like green salad! It’s crazy, but it works. It also appears that just like my love hate relationship with coffee, Salad, which is an entirely foreign substance to my digestive tract, appears to be a good pal of my nasal cavities, so I am now the proud owner of a salad scented room.
As requested by Cate, here are a couple of pics of my new place, with a couple of random pictures thrown in for good measure.

My room

The living room

The collection

The world through Michaela’s eyes (or should it be glasses)