Lonely in London...

Well I'm not really lonely yet, John's only been gone for one day and I have lots of lovely friends here determined to keep me from turning into a hermit while he's away! So John has gone back to NZ (with a 2-week stopover in Malaysia to see the rellies again) to (hopefully) get a new visa sorted out. He'll be in NZ till late January, all going well with the visa. Here's a few pics from John's last few weeks in London (he also went to Brussels for a few days to stay with Damien but didn't take any photos!).

John's leaving dinner: Ally, Jake, Callum, Jeff, Louise, Mitch, Kelly and Henry.
Halloween party at Gemma's.
John and Kelly.
MC and Kelly.
The angel and the devil.
Freaky Mitch.
Devil and angel again.
John and Kelly.
Skanky angel and Gemma's leg.
Gemma and Kelly.
John the devil.
Oasis concert - Liam and Noel.
Oasis concert - Noel.
Oasis concert @ Roundhouse in Camden.
Huia's birthday at Vinopolis wine tasting: Huia, MC, Naj, Kelly, Liz's mum and Liz.
John's MFI workmates.
MC on the Millennium Bridge, with St Pauls in the background.
The Globe theatre.
MC on the Millennium Bridge with St Pauls in the background.
Casa Blue, cool bar on Brick Lane.
Fishbowls at Casa Blue.
Candles.
More fishies.
Liz and Huia at Vinopolis.

So that's the haps from the last few weeks. It's starting to get pretty cold here now and even snowed one night last week! I have a few things to look forward to while John is lapping up the NZ sun - going back to Disneyland Paris next weekend with Kelly, Mitch and Gemma and then only a few weeks till Mum and Dad arrive and 3 weeks off work!

The Scottish Highlands

Our latest holiday was a 9-day long road-trip around the Scottish highlands. We flew into Glasgow, hired a wee car (known as Elfy cos it was a Renault Elf) and set off into some amazing scenery, friendly Highlanders and very changeable weather conditions! I have uploaded all the photos but probably they haven't appeared in a very logical order so we'll give you a quick itinerary summary for anyone interested:

Day 1: Glasgow to Oban
Day 2: Oban to Glencoe

Day 3: Glencoe to Skye

Day 4: Skye

Day 5: Skye to Gairloch

Day 6: Gairloch to Inverness

Day 7: Inverness to Callander

Day 8: Callander to Glasgow

The first half of the trip was reasonably structured as MC had booked some B&Bs in advance but on the Tuesday before we left she ate something dodgy and spent the next 3 days in bed (and the toilet....!!) so couldn't book anything further, which meant the second half of the trip was quite spontaneous and we had to keep and eye out for B&Bs with vacancy signs out when John got tired of driving at the end of the day. It turned out to be quite fun and our B&Bs were fine, despite MC not being able to check out thousands of TripAdvisor reviews before booking!

The town of Inveraray, in between Glasgow and Oban. Pretty town (actually it was mostly just one street...). The rainbow you can see was one of the 20 million we saw during our trip!
Inveraray again, on the banks of Loch Fyne.
Lochgoilhead, another wee town on the way to Oban.
John being a monkey at Loch Lomond.
The bonny bonny banks of Loch Lomond.
Glen Coe.
Castle Stalker, again, on the way to Oban.
John and the view of Oban from McCaig's Tower.
A wee dram at our lovely B&B in Oban.
Pretty autumn leaves at Inveraray Castle.
The West Highland Railway at Glenfinnan (Harry Potter fans might recognise this bridge from the movies, minus the Hogwart's Express).
Beautiful scenery at Glenfinnan.
Commando Memorial near Spean Bridge (just out of Fort William).
John and the highest mountain in the UK; Ben Nevis (or a mountain close to Ben Nevis - we're not sure that we could see the actual Ben Nevis from this direction).
MC and Elfy at Glen Coe.
On the Isle of Skye.
Portree, the biggest town on the Isle of Skye. Our B&B is the pinky coloured building on the hill.
Skye.
On the ferry from Mallaig to Armadale in Skye.
Glenfinnan again.
Glenbrittle on Skye.
Portree harbour.
Skye Museum of Island Life on the Trotternish Peninsula, Skye.
Flora MacDonald's (she smuggled Bonnie Prince Charlie to Skye after the battle at Culloden) grave on the Trotternish Peninsula.
Kilt Rock on the Trotternish Peninsula.
Back on the mainland: the wee village of Plockton (if anyone ever watched the TV series Hamish Macbeth this was where it was filmed).
Skye.
Skye.
Sunset at Elgol, Skye.
Glen Sligachan and the Cuillen mountains in the background.
Cute hairy 'coos' at Applecross.
View from the Bealach na Ba (Pass of the Cattle) on the way to Applecross.
Another view from the Bealach na Ba (Pass of the Cattle) on the way to Applecross.
Eilean Donan Castle.
Plockton.
Somewhere near Torridon.
View from our B&B in Gairloch.
Up on the hill over Shieldaig.
More hairy coos.
Cute.
Inverness Castle.
John at Culloden, where 1500 Highlanders were slaughtered in a battle in 1745.
Culloden moorland.
Our B&B in Inverness.
Ullapool.
Glen Coe.
Fort Augustus.
Urquart Castle on the banks of Loch Ness.
Loch Ness. We didn't spot the monster.
Inverness.
Back in Glasgow - John was excited to see this pub (with very reasonably-priced food!)
Buskers in Glasgow.
Nice architecture in Glasgow. And a street with a cool name.
Glasgow town hall.
Glen Coe.

As you can probably see from the photos we had typical highland weather, sunny one minute, foggy and raining the next. But was a very pretty time to see the Highlands, lots of pretty autumn colours and we had 'The Tartan Top 20 Great Scottish Songs' cranking on the car stereo to keep us entertained on some long drives!