Stonehaven and Dunnottar Castle

Inthe background there's the boat harbour.

On Sunday after the meeting we drove to Stonehaven. Just as we drove into the town we saw this awesome playground. We wanted to go there but Mum and Dad said we had to wait until we'd been to Dunnottar Castle but when we got back it was too dark, so we couldn't go that day. Anyway then we had lunch, which was haddock(fish) and chips. Mum had a stomach ache after lunch (because she didn't like it). After lunch we built a sandcastle at the beach and then we walked up to the Castle. When we got there we payed the entry fees and went in. The thing I liked best in the castle was the jails. Mum told me that nearly two hundred people were brought to the jail because they said that they wouldn't agree to the king as their religious leader.This is a photo Dad calls 'ruined by mathew'. At least 37 men or women finally agreed to take the oath of allegiance and were released. Twenty five escaped, however fifteen were recaptured and two fell to their deahs during their attempts. The prisoners had to pay for their food and water, otherwise they would have starved to death. Some died. Later when they were taken somewhere else about 70 of them died from fever on the journey.

As we were walking on the pathway to the Castle we saw lots of bunny holes in the ground. Then we saw some rabbits but as soon as they saw us they quickly went near their burrows.

On the way back we saw two deer hounds - they came up to my ribs. They were grey in colour and had long, shaggy fur. Deer hounds used to catch deer in the olden days but now they're just pets.When we got back to the car there were some people surfing at the beach. We saw one person stand up and try to catch a wave in but fell over halfway there.

Climbing a Mountain & the Museum

We were driving along the road in the Isle of Skye on the weekend and we saw a mountain (well massive mountain to me). We thought we'd climb it so we did. We saw a deer at the top of the mountain. We were going to take a photo of it, but just as dad was about to, the deer ran away. This is a video of us on the top of the mountain the crackly sound is the wind blowing.

Anyway we got to the top and then it was time to go back down.(It was wet and mushy). We ran full pelt down the hill doing faceplants every now and again and once I did a faceplant, cracked up laughing and tried to get back up, but I was giggling too much so I fell back down into a puddle of water and got a wet bottom. Just as I had nearly got to the bottom of the mountain I stepped in a mud puddle and got my shoes dirty...they were wet for the rest of the day! We had to get changed into some new clothes because our other ones were soaked. Just as I was getting changed a car went by (on the narrow country road that not many cars used), I screamed and ran to the other side of the car.

On Wednesday we went to the Grampiam Transport Museum - it took half an hour to get there - it was in Aberdeenshire (the nearby towns to Aberdeen). At the Museum there were quizzes. The first quiz I did was one where you had to look for traffic light signs on the displays in the museum. The traffic light sign would have a question on it and I had to find out the answer to the question by reading the information about that thing. Then it would tell you what to look for to find the next traffic light sign. The most interesting thing I found out was that the prize for finishing the quiz was a lolly (typical! - Mum)....

There was a pentacycle - it had 5 wheels. The middle wheel is humungous and the other four wheels are smaller - two at the front and two at the back of the middle wheel. Do you know who used to ride these bikes? (the postmen).
I also saw the Mortier Organ - my guess at its size is that it was 4-5 metres high and 6-7 metres wide. It looked heaps cool. We asked them to turn the organ on and it was so loud I put my hands over my ears (look at the photo!).

There was an old fashioned black and gold car and on it was engraved 'Joanna II' (see the photo).Mum made us leave at 2.30 even though she'd said that we could at 3pm (we had to leave because we were playing hide and seek and trying to do even more quizzes to get more lollies, as they had just put some lollipops out which weren't there when we got our lolly earlier).

Here's a photo of what I usually do when we're at home or in the car driving. This picture is of me in pj's at 1pm!

The banquet and a bit of climbing-Ireland

On Monday Dad and Mum decided that we'd go to a banquet at Donguaire Castle (dong-gwehr).

When we got there we still had about an hour before we had to go to Donguaire Castle so we went farther up the road, where we saw a mountain. We walked up to the top; it was pretty rocky. Our legs ached by the time we got there.

At the top, lots of people had built cairns (keehns) to show they'd got up there. Cairns are rocks piled up on top of each other, they don't have anything to hold them together. Soon it was time to start heading back to the car.

When we arrived at donguaire Castle we went inside and we were given a drink of spicy cordial. It tasted pretty sweet, but it was nice! There was a lady playing the harp.

When we went into the Banquet hall we were given salad and smoked salmon. I hated the smoked salmon. Second coarse was soup with soda bread which is a heavy brown bread. Third coarse was chicken, vegies and chunky potatoes - they tasted like chips to me.

The fourth course was apple pie and cream. Yum.

Sam, Matt and I sang 'Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star' up on on the stage - singing in tune with the harp. Then we heard some songs and poems recited (which were boring) about the area of Kinvara (that's the village where Donguaire Castle is).

Then a ring was handed out to the mother of the three children on the first row - which was Mum. The ring has two hands holding a loveheart with a crown on top. Now this ring is called the Claddough Ring (pronounced claddock) and you wore the heart facing out to show that you weren't married. If you were engaged or married you wore the heart facing in, to show that your heart belonged to someone already.

We had heaps of fun.