109 - Day 5 - Hogwarts (!), Caerlaverock and fun in Dumfries

This is what the front of Chillingham Castle looks like during the daytime. Not so menacing... it's like a little pussycat.

I would have explored further, Craig was about to pick us up... I didn't want to wander off too far.



The driveway out of Chillingham (which I rotated and saved for all the good it did me... oh well... you're used to cocking your heads to the side by now...)



Love this weathervane. It's so campy. But perfect.



The tunnel we walked through the night before. In the dark. With no flashlight. Well... it's not a tunnel per se... I guess it's just an archway.

Gimme a break... it was dark.



This is what the hanging trees looked like during the day. The guide said this kind of tree (name escapes me) is extremely flexible, so the branch would bend and never break. Is it a yew tree?



It was waining. (if you didn't read my rainy day odessy blog, that won't make any sense to you)

Old-fashioned road signs. Everything was so much cooler back then...

The head of the last guest who left without paying

Craig knew how excited we were about seeing Hogwar... I mean, Alnwick Castle, so he put it in warp speed again, and off we went!

Look! There it is!

I'm a wizard!

More castle.

The front gate. Not sure if those figures are supposed to fool people into thinking that the castle is guarded, or if they're meant to be whimsical. I'm hoping it's the latter...

Ye Olde Cross... Craig said the window display hasn't been changed in 150 years. The (then) owner died while in the process and they haven't touched it since. Superstitious? Nah.

LOL... I love chocolate, but somehow this just didn't whet my appetite.

I call this one "Scottish Armadillo." At least from far away. Close up it's a shirt or something.

LAMB! YUM!

Oh the carnage!

Trebuchet, oh trebuchet... I have to admit that I was thinking of Monty Python here...

This is Caerlaverock Castle, yes... it's a ruin, but for a ruin it's in pretty good shape.

Pretty tower scene

... and if you get cold, you can cozy up to the fireplace for warmth

Once again, I climbed lots of stairs... all in the name of art...

Murdoch's Tower. Murdoch was a bad man. Murdoch was a murderer.

Just before you die, you see the ring...

The Globe Inn. Robert Burns' watering hole. Robert Burns is a big deal. He's called Scotland's favorite son... and is he ever. There are a few names you hear again and again... Robert the Bruce, William Wallace, Sir Walter Scott, Mary, Queen of Scots, and Robert Burns... but Robert Burns really got around (literally... he had 12 kids). Everywhere you go there's some reference to Mister Burns. This is perhaps the most famous one.

The Pound King. The Scottish equivalent of the Dollar Store (but at 178% the price). If my grandmother lived in Scotland, she would shop here.

Mmmm... whisky. The owner of this B&B (Ferintosh) put a wee decanter of Glen Moray in the room, so Jamie and I partook. It warmed me right up. And it wasn't disgusting. I was getting my palate ready for Bladnoch the next day. (My hair was all messed up because of the rain...)

...sigh... It's going to be hard to get back into the habit of writing an actual blog again... Going back and recreating my vacation is easy.

We had today off. Weird to have a day off in the middle of the week. It messes with your head. Now I have two more days of work to suffer through. Ah well. Any day off is a good day off, right? And for Veteran's Day no less. I shouldn't grouse.

I was never in the military but my dad was in the Air Force during Vietnam. Luckily he wasn't injured, but his cousin (my cousin) Buddy has had health problems most of his life because of the chemicals (and probably some of the things he saw... I think he was special ops), and one of dad's best friends recently died of throat cancer because of his exposure to agent orange. It's amazing that anyone willingly signs up to be a part of that, so I'm happy to give them their due. Seems like Veteran's Day should be a bigger deal than it is, because so many people have sacrificed so much for us to celebrate it. It almost passes us by with no fanfare unless you're in Arlington. Most people just seem to look forward to the sales. It seems disrespectful. I guess in their own way, the television stations paid tribute, at least they showed war movies all day.

I slept in a little and then spent the day catching up on things like laundry and dishes. I started transferring my blog to a word file for people at work to be able to read about my trip... was going to just direct them to my blog but then I started to get paranoid about what I may have written in past blogs... I think I've pretty much left work alone, and I think most of the people on that list are cool people... but I decided not to risk it.... Then I started to catalogue my dvd's. I have so many that if I had a house fire or something, I need to have a record in order to recoup the money (plus it's getting harder to remember what I already have, and in a weird way I like to keep a record of the movies I've seen and the books I've read). I got to about the second shelf and stopped, but that also includes a drawer of DVD's I haven't watched yet and so far I have catalogued 159 movies, some of which are compilations. Day went by fast... I'm sure I did more than that.

Now I'm going to make some hot chocolate (dessert), take my bath, finish Undead and Unwed, and go to bed early... sorry... I started laughing as I typed that... I always have good intentions... I'm going to go to bed early... I'm so exhausted... and then the next thing I know, it's 11 pm or midnight and I'm still up... but I always say it...

Why is chocolate so good??? Gah... I was drinking my hot chocolate last night and it was extraordinary (dark chocolate)...