A holiday/educational trip.

Last week we headed north for a few days.  I had spotted that there was a workshop in Scotland that I really liked the look of and it wasn't too far from St Andrews, where A's best friend from uni and family live, so I suggested we could make a trip of it.  It was a very good idea!

Rather than driving all the way in one go, we decided to have a night in the Lakes.  We stopped at Wray Castle on the shore of Windermere, a place that is best summed up I think by the phrase 'delightfully bonkers'!  In brief it was built in the 1840s by a couple in the style of a medieval castle as a retirement home for the two of them, all 46 rooms of it.

Wray Castle from the outside.

There also used to be a purpose built ruin right in front of the place, blocking a wonderful view across the lake, although that had to be taken down for health and safety reasons, as it was falling down.  The NT bought the place for the land that it came with and weren't entirely sure what to do with the building, so it has had a number of inhabitants, including the Merchant Navy for a while, and it's only relatively recently that the NT has opened the building to the public.  Unlike most NT places it was pretty much completely empty, so they have done something a bit different with it.  There's a warren of rooms in the servants quarters that are done out as Peter Rabbit rooms, as there is a Beatrix Potter connection, since she stayed at the house a few times.  There are various rooms with big games to play; drafts, Connect 4, there's a table tennis table in one room and a full-sized snooker table that you can use in another.  There is also a large room with a considerable number of soft play type large building blocks.  K got very busy in there while A, M & I had a three-way game of snooker (ignoring fouls, otherwise scores would have been considerably higher!).

Castle from behind.

The front from above.

The orangerie, the war memorial, a hill and a big hedge walk.

K has plans to write a leaflet about this castle and grounds that she built, which I'm really hoping she will get round to soon.

In the adventure playground.

We had a bit of a play in the adventure playground and a bit of a wander by the lake before heading off.

On the Wednesday we headed further north and on spotting a sign for New Lanark I mentioned to A that I had visited there 20 years or so previously and so we decided to stop there for a break over lunch time.  We ended up spending a rather interesting 3 hours or so visiting the various parts of the site.  We learned about Robert Owen, who not only believed strongly in treating his workers well, but acted on those beliefs.  He provided free schools for children, not allowing them to work in the mills until they were 10 years old, as well as classes for older children and adults.  One sixtieth of the workers' wages was paid into a fund that meant that they could otherwise see a doctor for free when necessary.  The mill was originally powered directly by water and is once more a working but now with hydro-electric power.  Owen is considered one of the fathers of both trade unionism and the Co-operative movement.

The view from the roof garden.

As well as the visitor centre, we went into the mill workers houses, Robert Owen's house, and the school.

We arrived at Kilconquhar, where we were staying late afternoon and briefly saw C & D (A's friends from uni) and their youngest son, L (who is a year 6 months older than K).  

On Thursday, we went on a boat trip to the Isle of May, in the Firth of Forth, which is one of Scotland's National Nature Reserves.  It took just under an hour to get there, during which we learned a bit about the history of the place (it was home to the country's first ever lighthouse for example) as well as the wildlife.  One thing that was very interesting (and tied in nicely to an experiment that the girls had seen at Fun Club last October and read about in Aquila) was that diving birds such as the gannet have an extra eyelid that has the same refractive index as water, so that they can pinpoint fish in the water and target them.  Another was that after giving birth and feeding their young on incredibly rich milk for a very short period of time, only around 3-4 weeks, the females are immediately ready for mating.  However, there is a delay before the embryos start to develop and don't do so for another couple of months, once the females have regained the body weight they lost from feeding their previous baby.  (We were told that it was only seals and kangaroos that have this delay, but after bit of investigation it seems that this 'embryonic diapause' happens in quite a few other groups of mammals.  K has written an email to the ferry people, letting them know that they are misinformed on this point).

We had about 2 1/2 hours on the island which, at around 1.5 km long by 0.5 km wide, was small enough for that to be plenty.  We saw....

Puffins!

Lots of them!

Quite a few nesting shags.

Eider ducks.

And a lot of absolutely bonkers nesting razorbills and others on the cliff faces!

We also saw some seals bobbing about in the water, having a look at us as much as we were them.

On the Friday we spent some time at the place we were staying, taking advantage of the facilities.  M, A & I had a go at snooker again, and on the putting green course and then the girls went for a swim during the allotted slot when children who are over 8 and able to swim are allowed to go without adult supervision, as there is a life-guard on duty and there are various floats to play with.  We were joined by C & D for lunch, after which we introduced them to Pit before heading off for a bit of a coastal walk and a very good ice-cream.

On Saturday A, K & M dropped me off to hear Michel Odent speak at the workshop I was going to (fascinating and in a language that wasn't his mother tongue without notes!).  Then they went off to spend the day at The Scottish Deer Centre which wasn't too far away.  As well as deer, they saw otters, lynx, birds of prey, bears, wolves, wildcats and more.
 

One day old baby reindeer 'having booboo' as it's known in our house.

Otter.

M tolding me the next day about some of the things that they'd seen and found out about, including discussions about re-introducing wolves to Scotland, to help keep down the deer population which is destroying some of the natural habitat, but that it's understandably opposed by farmers, and also lynx, which is much less controversial and looks likely to go ahead soon.  She also asked me if I knew what the biggest threat to the native wildcat population was, which is that they are interbreeding with domesticated cats.

It was unfortunately time to head back home on the Sunday - a very long drive!  We had already decided to have a decent break en route and had picked out Corbridge Roman Town not far from Hadrian's Wall.  We had a look around the museum, which had a lot of artifacts and information about the place, but much of it we really didn't find particularly inspiring as it was all quite dry.  We spent some time wandering around the sizeable ruins before heading further south.

M in one of the granaries.

Considering that this was planned as a short break around me wanting to go to a workshop that happened to be not far from where friends live, it turned out to be pretty much one big education trip.  I'm sure that we're not the only ones that seems to happen to!