Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday

It rained all day on Tuesday so we stayed close to home and listened to the noise of the power saws taking down all the trees and shrubs in our neighbour's garden that gave us any privacy for our back garden. Now not only our new neighbour but also her neighbour can now see right into our back garden (and us, theirs) including seeing everything I hang on the clothesline. I know it was her trees and shrubs she took down and that she had every right to do so. I'm complaining because (a) until now our back garden has been totally secluded, (b) because the new neighbour never even showed us the courtesy of mentionioning to us that she would do this, and (c) because the new neighbour is the last person you'd want to have to chat across the back fence to. In fact, you'd do precious little chatting and a bodacious amount of listening! A blog is a wonderful thing when you need to complain bitterly and you know the neighbours you're complaining about don't even have computers much less know how to use them. Okay, rant over.

In the afternoon we all donned our rain gear and walked into the village to visit the charity shop, show our guests The Old Jail where we first lived when we came to Comrie, and to follow Don to the greengrocer's, the butcher's, and the deli to gather ingredients for dinner. Don made us his version of Nick Nairn's fabulous lamb stew (Don adds parsnips to the recipe). It was not only rainy but coolish, the perfect night to have stew. We spent some time both in the afternoon and in the evening helping Ruthellen and Russell plan their trip up to the Northern Highlands.

Yesterday dawned bright, sunny, and mild. After a good brekky, we took off for Glen Lyon with the usual stops at Killin to see the Falls of Dochart (which were roaring with water after a day and night of rain), a browse through the gift shop, and to ramble around the ruins of Finlarig Castle with its beheading pit and mausoleum. Then we followed the high road above Loch Tay until we came to the Ben Lawers Road (a single track, really), which we took all the way across the mountains that separate Glen Dochart and Glen Lyon.

We travelled from Bridge of Balgie in Glen Lyon to the village of Fortingall, stopping a few times for photos, especially at the Roman bridge which sits in front of a waterfall, which was really running full, again because of the rain. We had lunch at the Fortingall Hotel (a nice old country hotel in a sort of art nouveau style built around the turn of the last century), had a wander around the churchyard next door where the old yew tree is said to be the oldest living piece of vegetation in northern Europe at ~5,000 years old, and walked up the road a bit to take photos of the few remaining thatched-roof cottages in the village.

On the way to Aberfeldy, we stopped at the Keltneyburn Smithy where Heather Cumming was minding the shop while her folks were away. The mother, father, and Heather (in her 20s) make utilitarian objects as well as wonderful and often quite whimsical sculptures out of both wrought iron and scrap metals. Heather, who never wanted to go into the "family business" has quite an artistic flair, especially for making birds and animals. A slightly larger than life-size horse she made of scrap metal several years ago was bought by an American couple and shipped to Arkansas. (It probably would have been cheaper to buy several real horses!) Right now Heather is working on a scrap metal elephant. No one would accurse her of thinking small.

After a browse through the House of Menzies (pronounced Mingus as in Charlie Mingus the jazz bassist), a high-priced gift shop and cafe, we drove through the town of Aberfeldy and then home, via the Sma' Glen (a small glen). The heather is starting to bloom in the hills now and it is looking so pretty.

Last night Ruthellen and Russell took us to The Deil's Cauldron for dinner, which was a lot of fun. We began finalizing their route through the Northern Highlands and put the finishing touches on the plans this morning. At 12:30 today a man from the car hire place in Perth arrived to chauffeur them to the office to pick up their car. Now they are off on the first leg of their adventure. They'll stay in Nairn tonight and then go on up to Thurso for the next two nights as they're catching an early morning ferry on Saturday morning for an all-day guided bus tour of all the major sights of Orkney (Skara Brae stone age excavations, Maes Howe burial mound, the standing stone Ring of Brodgar, the Italian Chapel from World War II, and the resting ground of the HMS Royal Oak at Scapa Flow as well as the towns of Stromness and Kirkwall. They'll spend the next couple of days going around the top of the Northern Highlands and traveling down the western (Atlantic Ocean) side, including a short visit to the Isle of Skye. If all goes as planned, they'll be back on Tueday.

Just so you know life is really back to normal with us, Don is on the golf course and I'm washing clothes!