Strathaven as I said before is pronounced Straven and it is a small village about an hour away from Glasgow.
It is so beautiful here. The green green grass, and moss growing everywhere. The flowers are beautiful and blooming everywhere. I have a few pictures of flowers but I have lots on my camera which will not be posted until we are home in 3 weeks.
We started our day with breakfast made by Laura. She made "bacon rolls"...literally bacon on a roll. Scottish bacon is AMAZING. It makes our bacon taste pretty gross. It's a different cut of meat. It's huge. Here is a picture of it uncooked, it shrinks a little but not as much as ours back home.
After breakfast we were off to see the town. We walked. The weather today was nice probably upper 60s or low 70s. It's hard to know because they use Celsius..we are just trying to guess. It was slightly overcast today and did rain for a little bit so we bought ponchos.
These are wild roses that grow along the side of Laura's house. They don't have much of a smell, but they are everywhere.
This is a backyard view of the houses including Laura's
A picture of the view we had while walking through Laura's neighborhood.
This house had a random phone booth in their front yard. Houses about this size cost about $600,000 - $1,000,000.
This was a kids water park. They were kayaking in the little pond. It was very pretty. Pictures truly don't do justice.
This bit off green is a putt putt course. That is the entire putt putt course, it was about 9 holes I believe.
This is the Hastie Museum, the garden was so well kept and absolutely beautiful. It was actually closed but relocated somewhere downtown. It was very interesting. Strathaven has a Gala, and someone is crowned queen. Our friend Gail Warnock (Laura's sister) was the 2001 queen and she was in a book in the Hastie museum. She's famous :)
Laura and I with a beautiful church behind us.
Close up of the church. It was closed. But we are going to visit a church this week.
This was taken as we walked into the "City Center"...this is Strathaven's downtown. It is small and quaint. At this point we stopped into a pub The Weavers.
Inside The Weavers. That is the owner. She was so chatty and so nice!! The 4 taps in front of her face were something I've never seen before. She actually had to pump the beer out of those taps. It was cool to watch. We tasted the beer on the left of those 4 taps. It was warm. Beer isn't hot here like people often say, but it definitely isn't as cold as in America. It's room temperature. But some taps say ICE COLD so then you know it will be a cold beer.
We had this beer. It is the oldest beer in the world .
We didn't stop into the Tudor Coffee House but I thought it was pretty so I snapped a picture.
We walked down to a little stream and up to the Strathaven castle which is ruins now.
There was a little stream behind us, reminded me of Tennessee, but no mountains.
The stairs we walked up to get to the castle. My foot barely fit on each step, it was really slippery too!
Strathaven castle/ruins
Kevin took this embarrassing photo of me trying not to fall as I climbed my way up the slippery moss/grass in flip flops. Made me laugh...
If you can zoom and read the history it is very interesting. There was a woman that was built into the wall alive...they later found her bones.
View from the castle. It used to be all water
This museum was just 1 small room. The size of a living room- ish.
2001 Gail Warnock :)
When we were in the Hatsie Museum we read a letter that was written to Alex Taylor's parents from his best friend to let them know he had been killed by shrapnel in battle. It was a heart breaking letter. This picture below is Alexander Taylor bakery. The oldest shop in Strathaven. We peeked in and everything looked delicious but we saved room because we were on our way to lunch.
This is where we ate lunch. The Strathaven Tea Room. Gail used to work here. Remember there is no air conditioning in Scotland. But after it rained it really cooled down. In FL when it rains the rain is hot and makes it so muggy and hot...here in Scotland the rain was ice cold and it got more and more chilly with each little shower. The no air thing really doesn't matter at all. The windows are always open and they don't have mosquitoes like us but they do have "midges" pronounced "midgies" they are basically noseeums. However I get attacked by noseeums in FL but haven't been bit by a single midge since we've been here. Laura says this tea room hasn't changed in 20 years.
This was lunch. I had a bacon (the yummy huge Scottish bacon), brie, and cranberry panini. It came with crisps (chips) and coleslaw. Kevin and Laura both had the Lite Bite Macaroni and Cheese which came with chips (fries). The mac and cheese was delicious. We tried this dip they brought out for the chips (fries) called brown sauce. Brown sauce tasted like Worcestershire sauce and a little bit of curry and then maybe some sugar...it's hard to explain. It's something common here, it wasn't my favorite.
When we were on the plane from Dublin to Glasgow the Scottish woman sitting next to us told us that Strathaven is known for their Tablet. She went on to describe Tablet as being a lot like fudge but snaps in half very easy. When we were finished with lunch we had wanted to get strawberry tarts and tea but we were so full. We bought Tablet though.
Tablet is like fudge without the chocolate and not as creamy. It's gritty as if the sugar didn't melt all the way, so because it is gritty it breaks in half easily. It is really good. I mean who doesn't like a sugar, butter, milk cube? Ha.
This is Tablet.
We went into the wee sweetie shop to get Gail some candy to bring home. Laura got her floral gums. They look like mini dots candy and they taste like soap. Pretty disgusting but they like them over here for some reason, even though they say they taste like soap!
Next, we had a drink at The Drum. Gail used to work here so we had to get a pint.
Kevin had Famous Grouse Scotch and I had strongbow cider. Laura had a diet coke. All together it cost £6 (6 pounds).
This was a driveway on our walk back to the house. I just think the moss growing all over is so beautiful!
The flowers that grow everywhere are gorgeous. These flowers looked feathery and fluffy but pokey. I grabbed it, very pokey.
More flowers. They open upside down.
Scotland Police Car. This was in the parking lot before dinner. It was drizzling outside and pretty cold!
Laura's friends get together for girls nights and we tagged along. Kevin was the only guy. It was hard to understand anything they were saying because they talk so fast. We ate at Zucca, an Italian restaurant. I forgot to take pictures of dinner and dessert. But Kevin and I split a pizza that had tomato sauce, goat cheese, pine nuts, arugula..which is called "rocket" here, and drizzled with balsamic glaze. It was good. It was 12" but they brought it out not cut. They don't cut their pizzas so that was difficult. For dessert we had Black Forest ice cream. It was vanilla ice cream with Amarene cherries from Italy. The cherries were AMAZING. I don't usually care for ice cream but the ice cream was really good too!
Then we had tea with milk. Also very good!
This is 9:00pm and the rainbow was starting to fade.
It is currently 10:40pm and still not dark. It is only this dark because it is so cloudy out. We are home watching Blades of Glory on TV. Tomorrow we are going to Glasgow by train. Glasgow is really really busy right now because the Commonwealth Games are going on. There isn't even parking. That's why we are taking the train. The paper said there is an extra 1 million people in Glasgow because of the games, and there is no where to get a bed (hotel room).
It should be about 5:40pm in FL right now. But it is bedtime for us, Goodnight.
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