A Whirlwind Tour of Scotland

Long before we decided to move we had planned a trip to Scottland and Ireland in mid May, into June. As we were planning we had the mindset that if we are going to take the time to fly all the way there, we might as well stay there and explore, so we arranged for two tours. The first tour was a trip around the Scottish Isles aboard a small ship, Le Champlain by Ponant. We were so busy at home we really didn't want to go, but we could not get our deposits back. So...what choice did we have? We went through with our plans and hopped aboard the plane for Europe. Here are pictures from our Scotland journey:

Once we were there, we loved it and thought the trip was fabulous. We enjoyed amazing weather for this area and this time of year. Even the locals in both Dublin and Edinburgh were remarking about the weather. They all sported smiles on their somewhat sun burned faces! Here are some pictures of our first tour: 

Edinburgh

Welcome reception and dinner aboard the Royal Yacht Britannia

Queen Elizabeth's cabin. I was tickled to see Corgis placed in many of the ship's rooms.

The Tron Church along the Royal Mile. Many places of worship have lost so many parishioners that the buildings are now used for alternative purposes. This one is a the Hub. It is an event center. 

The site of the Edinburgh Castle has been occupied for centuries, perhaps beginning as early as the Bronze or Iron Ages when wandering peoples built small huts atop the ridge overlooking the river. It has had fortifications on it, some burnt or torn down, with each conquerer building anew, or fortifying existing structures. 

The pet cemetery at the castle of Edinburgh. 

A busker on the Royal Mile playing a Stroh violin. It has a trumpet-like bell for amplification. His dog never moved! There were many bag pipe players, adding to the ambiance of this historic city,

Rosslyn Chapel, built in the 15th century 

The National Museum of Scotland has an eclectic collection. It was thoroughly enjoyable to check out displays on technology, clothing, art, music and more. 

The Millennium Clock is a highlight of the museum. This amazing clock was built, collaboratively,  to represent the last thousand years. with many moving parts of symbols representing events, animals, and stories. Every hour it turns on and I found myself staring at the clock, trying to take in all of the action.

Greyfriar's Bobby faithfully lay on his owner's grave in Edinburgh for 14 years. The town buried Bobby next to his owner. A statue near the graveyard depicts Bobby. Visitors rub his nose for good luck, hence it is so shiny!

Aboard Le Champlain

The ship was beautiful! It has only 92 staterooms, and they are modern and bright, and all have balconies. However, it was a tad bit chilly so we rarely ventured onto our balcony, except to take a picture or two!

The Captain had an "open door" policy on the bridge most days.  It was interesting to see all of the equipment. At least one member of the crew never took eyes off of the sea while we were sailing. no matter how many people were asking questions. 

Shetland Islands - Windy & Chilly

Only a few trees on the open land

Lerwick Harbor

I've always been captivated by the narrow streets of ancient towns.

Of course I'd find a shop that not only sells wool from the Island's sheep, but one that had some quilting cotton as well!

A small harbor in Scalloway

A delightful mackerel fisherman. He explained how he catches and brings up mackerel

Cuddling a Shetland pony. I wanted to take him home with me!

We learned about Shetland sheep. They are a bit smaller than other breeds and are often crossbred with stock that produces a better quality wool. The Shetland sheep require less supervision for lambing than other breeds, so are well suited for life on the hills. We enjoyed a great demonstration of the steps in training sheepdogs.

We were treated to potato soup, seasoned with lamb at a local hotel. It was welcome after being out in the cold wind watching the demonstration. My wee little sheep admired the bread that accompanied the soup.

Orkney Islands

This is an Italian Chapel, built by Italian prisoners during WWII who were brought to the island to build "Churchill Barriers". They claimed they couldn't do work to support the Scottish war efforts, but they agreed that they could work to build causeways among the islands!

The chapel was built from quonset huts. 

All of the "tile work" was created with paint

Lewis Island - The Hebrides

An ancient Broch, or shelter structure. The buildings were tall silo-like structures that houses families and their animals on several floors. 

Stairs were built into the inside wall of the brochs.

A home in Gearranan Blackhouse village house, originally inhabited in the 1850's. The primitive homes were still being used up until 1974.  

The structures were long rectangular buildings with a sloping floor that permitted rain leaking from the roof to drain to the end of the building. Animals were housed in the lower end. Originally, peat fires were burned in fire pits in the center of the open room. 

Isle of Lewis

Our ship is under the rainbow, on the far right

The view from a croft on Isle of Skye

One of two wolf hybrids owned by Yasmin, the crofter.

A Hebridean ewe. 

Highland cattle

Isle of Mull

Stormy skies

Colorful Tobermory village

Duart Castle

We disembarked our beautiful ship and boarded a bus for Glasgow. We had a tour of the city and spent some time at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum and the cathedral. It was raining heavily most of the day, perfectly matching my mood as our tour was coming to an end. 

 

Making it Ours - the Guest Bath

 Like our kitchen and master bath, the guest bath in our new/old home is serviceable, but dated. Since we were renovating the other rooms, we decided to bundle the guest bath into the project to get some discounts for services from the contractors. 

Before, during, and after pictures of this project:

 

Making it Ours - The Kitchen

The kitchen in our new/old house is beautiful. It has three large picture windows looking out to the back yard, pasture and the barn. There is another window that opens onto the lanai so it can be used to pass food/drinks back and forth. The windows were great, but that meant there was only one wall for upper kitchen cabinets. The existing cabinets. including the two wall cabinets, were functional. The granite was dark, and there were work areas with little light from the 2 existing florescent fixtures. The refrigerator was large, and had only one door, which made it awkward to open and put food in or out with the opposing island in the way. 

Fast forward (well, maybe not so fast) to our new kitchen. Here are some before and after photos:

The window pass through to the lanai

Our great view into the back of our property

Our only wall cabinets

The "minimalist kitchen"

New cabinets, new countertop and new appliances. 

The window for the pass-through was removed so more wall cabinets could be added. 

 My previous kitchen had far more cabinets and a walk-in pantry. It has been a challenge to organize and store my food, cookware, dishes and glassware, but I think I have it. I have a new double oven and a double-drawer dishwasher. I'm loving them both. Now all that is left is to decide what color to paint the walls in the kitchen. Any suggestions?

Making it Ours - The Master Bath

So, we bought the house....but then we began to say, "what if we did this…. or that?" We couldn't leave well enough alone. We had to make it our own. 

First to go was the master bath. When it was originally designed and built, almost 30 years ago, it was quite ahead of its time. At that time it was one large room with the vanity, toilet and shower along one wall, and a huge, black Jacuzzi tub on the other side. Apparently the owner tired of having g water from the shower spray and splash everywhere and a glass block wall was installed. The bath was very usable, but we have grown accustomed to our own vanity space, and we knew we would NEVER use the black, jacuzzi tub. It was questionable whether we’d have enough hot water to fill it, and then there was the question as to whether we could actually get in or out of it! So, we began to reimagine the space: remove the tub, move a wall to expand the small walk-in closet, move the shower and toilet and expand the vanity … I felt like I was living in an HGTV show, only in those shows all of the planning, demolition, and rebuilding all happen within 45 minutes!

Our plumber, who also took on the job of keeping all of the other contractors in the queue, began at the end of February. He pulled out some sheetrock, soffits, and the fixtures. He then began jackhammering a lot of concrete to reroute some of the plumbing. 

The carpenter built a new wall to extend our closet a smidge, and changed the door from entering the closet from the bathroom to entering from the bedroom. 

The electrician wired for a few new light fixtures and relocated the fan. 

Our tile guy patched the concrete when the plumber was finished installing the new pipes, smoothed it all, installed underfloor heating and tiled the floor and walls. 

The cabinet guy put in the cabinets and the granite/quartz guy put in the counter and sinks. 

Plumbing fixtures went in, a piece of glass was installed, light fixtures were installed, a coat of paint and new mirrors went up and our transformation was complete, 

WOW! What a transformation!!

And finally....our new bath evolved:

How Does Your Garden Grow?

The landscaping around our new home is lovely. ("What?!", you say?  A "new" home??? It's a long story and you really don't want to know...trust me! 😂) Suffice it to say that the Mister and I became disillusioned with the community where we had chosen to settle.  We were finding that in our travels the extra 5 +/- hours of  driving to get in/out of Florida to be tedious. And, we wanted a house with some property. We were drawn to the home by the scrub oaks and palms, providing dappled shade in the hot Florida sunshine, and having plenty of sunny, grassy areas in established pastures. 

The previous owners were gifted in creating a few amazing garden areas with unique touches. I think their gardens called to me. I never felt a need to dig into the dirt at our Babcock Ranch home...but here, I'm itching to get out there and trim, weed, remove and replace plants!

Here are a few shots of the garden areas when we acquired the property: 

Limestone boulder, decorative cordyline in background, grasses and ??

Leaf shape concrete bird bath made my previous owners

Inviting walkway around the pool cage

Concrete plantar in a metal stand, settled on a rustic bench

Cordyline in a pot near the pool

Northern Florida winter wasn't especially kind to some of the plants in our garden. We had a few nights below 32 degrees. The cordyline and ferns were hit especially hard. The sword ferns received a trim and they are bouncing back...all over the place. The colorful cordylines are just beginning to show the promise of new shoots. I'm thrilled because their color is very striking. 

As spring has been creeping up on us, We have been adding new greenery throughout our yard. 

The Mister & I have begun to clear out the understory at the front of our property, near the road. It's an area with scrub oaks and pines and a few small trees underneath. 

The view to the road. Oaks and pines, and smilax vine that I'm slowly weeding out. The picture shows three newly planted azaleas that will provide us with bright blooms in future springs.

...and two Corgis who love running and exploring our almost 6 acres!

This is "Elizabeth" (in honor of the Mister's mother).  She is one of 6 or 7 camellias we have planted 

Leopard lily that survived the winter

Butcher's Bloom Plasticus climbing an old pitchfork in the garden.

I felt the pitchfork begged for a vine, but didn't want something that would 

take over the pitchfork and bury it under leaves and flowers. This vine was acquired at Hobby Lobby. 

It is an "always-green", and will last years without changing!

The bench along the path behind the pool begged for a flower basket