Smoke me a kipper i'll be back for breakfast -

After alot of trawling the internet we finally found a campsite that had room for us for a few days respite and welcome change of scenary - we really wanted to go up to Dumfries and Galloway but just couldnt find a site open or with room so we extended our search to Wales - no joy and then started on the peak district - nothing - east coast - rammed and finally we resigned ourselves to more garden time and a real staycation in our own house - we even measured for carpets thinking we might just crack on with redecorating the dining room..... and then a random campsite we had contacted on line answered our email and we booked four days at Balloch O Dee, a farm campsite near Newton Stewart in Dumfries and Galloway - so a day wasted chasing the bloomin interweb but a result!!!!!

It was a very nice camping as well - Although it got busy and the pitches were as spacious as the Solway view so it was noisy but still not too big, nice facilities, a bit quirky - lots of hens and quite a large number of dogs - friendly owner and best of all a fire pit!!! It has currently become my new favourite camping - although I am fickle but anywhere that allows a fire is always high on my list. the weather was favourable - at least for the first two nights when we sat out enjoying glorious scottish evenings with a hearty fire slowly smoking ourselves to rival any smoke house product... amazing clear skies and wonderful milky way... extra bonus - NO MIDGES!!! We had very good days walking the coastal paths - sadly neglected and very over grown so quite intrepid in placed but still passable - although some of the gorse was well over our heads!!! Lots of beach trawling and toe dipping - the weather did eventually catch up with us but we enjoyed laying in the van listening to the storm raging and the rain on the roof - its been a while since we were able to do that for real - not just inthe back yard!

We managed to take advantage of the eat out to help our scheme - fish and chips in Portpatrick and very fab steak sandwiches in the Steam Packet in the Isle of Whithorn. I spent an afternoon sketching in Port Logan under wild skies and we had a pleasant morning mulling the never changing bookshops in Wigtown. For some unknown reason we had never wandered away from the village centre so this time we followed the signs for the old harbour and we delighted to find a lovely walk which included the martyrs grave and most sinisterly the Wigtown martyrs stake where the Solway martyrs Margaret Lachlan and Margaret Wilson who were Scottish Covenanters were executed by Scottish Episcopalians in 1685 by tying them to the stake on the towns mudflats and allowing the drown with the rising tide - interesting what you can discover in the backstreets of small scottish towns...

Another back 'lane' discovery - in the middle of nowhere down a lane (with grass in the middle) not nearly a high road or even a B road we found a beautiful sculptured bush perfectly cut to display a bird - attached was a wee plaque saying simply Sams Bird...

Alesund

Our final destination stop was Alesund. This is a very pretty town in southern Norway built on a peninsula. All the houses are painted pretty colours and a lot of the architecture is all very Art Nouveau based. This is because the town itself was completely burnt to the ground In 1904 by a fire for which they never found the original cause. The whole town had to be rebuilt and this became a huge National Effort and a lot of prominent and up and coming architects flocked to the town to stick there 20 pence in. Consequently the town is very heavily Art Nouveau which was very fashionable at the time. There is this wonderful Museum just off the harbour which is a very beautiful Art Nouveau house. It has amazing panelling, doors, wallpaper, and it's all furnished with beautiful art Nouveau Furniture. It also house a collection of of enameled Art Nouveau Trinkets,boxes, spoons, jewellery, very very beautiful. There is an interesting collection of old books and paintings a...

The Blue Dot

Excellent evening spent at the first Blue Dot festival held at Jodrell Bank. Clever use of the radio telescope as back drop for the main stage... there were some major teething issues which hopefully will addressed if this event happens again - mainly access and parking.. it was a nightmare approach to the festival and fortunately as we were only doing one night we decided to ditch the car and chose to walk the last mile and half into the site... what a relief as if we had queued we would most certainly missed Public Service Broadcasting which was one of the reasons we were going.. anyway we caught them and then enjoyed fantastic set by Underworld - danced much of the night away in the rain - my trusty solfest poncho almost kept me dry.. it was a splendid evening and the telescope looked brilliant when lit up when it got dark. There was a rather fab "installation" called a luminarium, lack of site information - another hiccup meant we were really lucky to catch it just ...

Goodbye Dissertation!!!

The dissertation is finished... it took me ages to do all the detail stuff Harvard referencing ect... the simplest tasks were starting to drive me mad!! I cant believe how long it took me to work out how to number pages excluding the first two pages aagghhhh... I suppose I should be grateful that its not like the olden days where you had to get it typed and bound before hand in - this essay has been a hard slog, a subject which I felt was interesting - how the digital explosion is ruining traditional creative methods turned into a fairly unexciting - pretty boring unexceptional topic! there will never be a next time but my advice is think of something funky - does Danny Boyle like garden Gnomes - Racoon meets Lady Gaga - anything that might surprise you but not too grown up!! I have worked hard and will be rewarded with a mid grade because there is no passion in this essay - the hard slog is evident as is the lack of enthusiasm - C'est la vie you cant win them all....

Planet Ruby Starrs

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