Monday, June 29, 2015

Scotland

My husband and I decided that it would be wonderful to spend a Christmas in Scotland.  We arrived in Moffat 2 days before Christmas Day.

We stayed in a really beautiful hotel that is in the middle of town.  I thought that the hotel would look wonderful on a sampler.  The hotel was originally owned by Lord Hopeton I think it was.  


One of the wonderful pubs in Moffat.  This is The Balmoral.  We had a couple of meals here.  You could say we had dinner at Balmoral :).  The locals were really lovely there.

 
Another building that would look wonderful on a sampler.  This was across the road from our hotel.  


War a Memorial in the middle of the town



 I love nutcrackers and have a few.  This one was a whopper.

 
Loved the window display in this shop.  The peacocks did it for me.


My DH loved this saying.  I wonder if he's trying to tell me something lol.  It's not working.


Our room in the hotel.  Loved sleeping in a four poster.  It was really a lovely room.


Moffat is on the Boarders and is a Milltown.  Bought some lovely knitwear here.  Loved the loom with the Blackwatch tartan.  Love tartan.  My DH bought be a beautiful Moffat tartan shawl which is grey, black, with a little bit of red through it.  He also bought me a lovely Blackwatch shawl that's like a cape.

Moffat is where all the Moffats no matter how it's spelt come from.
 

Christmas Day in Moffat.  It was a very misty day.  Had to take a photo of the Church of course.


A girl who loves samplers with sheep had to take a photo of some.  Added bonus was the Moffat sign.


These are the black sheep of the family lol.


We had to stop to take photos standing besides the a Welcome To Moffat sign.


On Christmas Eve we took a drive up past Glasgow to see something that was high on my DH's list.  It was to see the Falkirk Wheel.  These are the Furies.  Totally amazing.  Actually every thing there was amazing.


This is the Falkirk Wheel.  It was snowing btw.

The Falkirk Wheel is an amazing bit of engineering that joins two canals that are on different levels.


Check out the cogs and wheels.


What happens is that there are two of these carriages for a better word.  The barge floats into this section and there's probably another barge (but not necessarily) in the other carriage which is on top of the wheel.  Then the whole wheel turns so that the carriage that was on the bottom ends up the top where the other canal is.  It's really awesome to stand there and watch the whole process.  It creaks and groans as it slowly turns. It takes about 10 minutes to get from he bottom to the top.

It would have been wonderful to have gone for a ride on it, but because it was Christmas Eve, it was totally booked out for Children with Santa parties.


Another photo from Moffat.  Loved this photo.

This is Lockabie where the awful plane crash was.  This was also Christmas Eve.  We were on the hunt for a Celtic FC jumper for one of our sons.  It was getting near closing time so we had to hurry as this was our only chance of getting one.  Love the sheep.


Lockabie.


Wherever we went in both Great Britain and France,  there were lots of these wind farms everywhere.  They always remind me of The Day Of TheTriffids.  Rather ery when you see a red flashing light in the gloom of the mist.
 

Beautiful Scotland in the snow and mist.

I hope you have enjoyed our trip.  We both had a wonderful time and hopefully we will be able to go again at another time.  It was a wonderful 6 weeks. 

3 comments:

marly said...

Thanks for the tour. That wheel is amazing!

Margaret said...

So so cool! What fun to be in Moffatt with your name. :D Lucky you to get a tartan shawl and all that lovely stuff. Love those sheep! The Falkirk Wheel is fascinating! I can't imagine being away from home for 6 weeks. Wow!

Patti-Rocky Mtn Stitcher said...

My husbands family is from Scotland before moving to Nova Scotia and Liverpool and as many times as we have visited I haven't seen the wonderful places here. Next time! I love how you see a sampler motif as you go lol thx for sharing.