Another Scotland Adventure

We had a free weekend at the beginning of May and decided to go on a spontaneous adventure.  We didn't have a plan so we let fate decide where we were going to end up.  (And by fate, we mean the first place we could find a room at the last minute.)  We headed south to Ayr, a small city on the Firth of Clyde that we had stopped in briefly a few years back. 

Ayr

 Ayr is the birthplace of Scotland's National Poet and Favorite Son, Robert Burns.

Robert was actually born in a little village called Alloway just south of Ayr.  His childhood home has been restored and is part of a large museum and monument area dedicated to the poet.

Poet's Path

On the footpath from the Burns home to the museum is a series of weather vanes that illustrate one of his famous poems, Tam O'Shanter.  

For any poetry enthusiasts or High School Honors English Teachers that may be interested, you can read Tam O' Shanter here, in either original Scot tongue or translated to more modern English.  And if you are really interested you can listen to a reading of the poem here.

For everyone else, I will give a super brief summary to help explain the pictures.  Tam's wife, Kate, is nagging about his staying out drinking and telling him it will be the death of him.  Tam doesn't listen and stays out with his friend Souter Johnnie drinking at the Public House in Ayr after work.  A storm comes in while he is drinking and Tam finally has to give in and ride home in the rain on his trusty grey mare Meg.

As Tom approaches the Auld Kirk (old Church) in Alloway, he comes across a strange scene.  A party is going on with the devil playing the pipes and witches dancing around the dead who have risen from their graves.  The party is in full swing and no one notices Tam as he sits mesmerized by the scene, until he becomes captivated by a young wanton witch in cropped shirt and yells out "Weel done, Cutty Sark!" (well done, short shirt).  The music stopped and the witches came after Tam, who was still dumbstruck by the scene and slowed by intoxication.

Fortunately for Tam, Meg had more sense than he and bolted for home.  The young witch made a lunge for Tam just as they topped the Brig O' Doon (Bridge over the River Doon), but she came up short and grabbed Meg by the tail instead.  Meg kept going and bore Tam safely home but lost her tail in the process.  It was believed at the time, that witches could not cross moving water.

It was a neat experience to walk along the actual path that the tale was based upon and see the Auld Kirk and Brig O'Doon.  Robert Burn's parents are buried at the Auld Kirk and you can see the Tombstone in the photos above.  We learned a few new things that day, like that Robert Burns wrote the words to Auld Lang Syne.  He did not publish the song because he was not happy with the melody that he had written.  A colleague rewrote the melody to what we are familiar with today and published it after Robert's death. 

The Burns Monument and Memorial Gardens stand on a sloping site on the north bank of the River Doon overlooking the Brig o'Doon.

      

The Burns Monument, a 70 ft high temple of Grecian style was built between 1820 and 1823.

The base of the monument is triangular, with each face looking towards one of the traditional divisions of Ayrshire: Kyle, Carrick and Cunninghame. The roof is supported by nine pillars, representing the nine muses of Greek mythology.

The Statue House, built in 1832 specifically to house a series of life-size sandstone statues of characters from Burns' work by the self-taught sculptor, James Thom.

  On our previous trip to the area a few years ago we took pictures of a castle ruins from the road.  After reading more about the area we found out that we could walk through the ruins, so we headed south to Dunure to go check it out. 

Dunure Castle 

 Dunure Castle today stands in ruins on a rocky hill on the Carrick coast, overlooking the Dunure harbor.

The site dates from the late 13th century; the earliest charter for the lands dating from 1256, but the remains of the building are of 15th- and 16th-century origin

The late medieval "beehive"-shaped dovecot of Dunure Castle dates probably from the 15th century. It would have held some 200 nesting boxes and would have supplied the castle with fresh eggs and meat.

Beautiful Ayr Beach

While shopping in downtown Ayr we noticed a lot of police presence in the area.  Shortly they started roping off the streets.  We finally found someone that knew what was going on.  Prince Charles was in town for a parade by the Queen's Own Yeomanry, of which he is the Royal Honorary Colonel.  As he left a reception at town hall, he ended up crashing a wedding also being held in the same building.  Can you imagine the stories and pictures they now have from their wedding day? 

News article

Back at Lochinchard

We have been working on a few projects around the house.  We bought 2 church pews and John tore one apart and rebuilt it to make a corner bench for our front entryway 

The 2nd bench we are using in our dining room

CJ found an old desk and painted it to make it her new vanity.

We have been working on getting the office put together.  We decided to go with a travel theme to showcase some of our favorite pictures from around the world.  We bought a world map cork board so that we could mark the places that we have been. 

We made the stairway our 

"Friends and Family Hall of Fame".

 We really enjoyed going through all the pictures from the past 15 years.  It made us realize that we do take a lot more pictures now, but we hardly ever print them out.  Going through them did make us miss all of our family and friends that much more, but now we get to look at your beautiful smiles on a regular basis! 

CJ has been doing some art in her free time to fill up empty space on our walls.

After all of our travelling and the wonderful pictures we have taken with the new camera, the inspiration is flowing!  So look for more paintings to come in the near future.

Spring was a beautiful time in Helensburgh,

the trees and flowers were in full bloom.

We have spent a lot of time working in the garden, weeding, cutting back and cleaning it up. (We might be done by next spring in time to start the process all over again)

We are ready for grilling, cocktails on the patio, sunsets at 11pm and fires in the chimnea, bring on Summer!

Our next blog will be out shortly (we hope) of our adventures with our friends Carl and Dee Dee visiting from Florida.  We traveled many miles around Scotland and England by car, ferry and foot.  We took a lot of photos along the way, so it should be a good one.  Now it's time to change out the sheets in the guest bedroom and get ready for our next house guests, John's parents. 

Sending much Love to our Family and Friends,

John and CJ