I get around…

No news or updates this time around, but I figured it might be an idea to map out where I’ve been on my travels out and about in Scotland (specifically those bits when I leave my home town, Edinburgh).

This is just a ton of links to previous blog posts featuring places you might be interested in if you ever visit. (Or at least, the places I figured would provide a bit of variety while I was prancing about dressed up!) The links (below the map) are provided in the order they were published.

1: Happy Bunny (Dunbar)

2: The Swimsuit Edition and
The Swimsuit Edition II: Boobwatch (Belhaven beach)

3: Fife, The Universe, and Everything (Crail, St Andrews, Cellardyke lido, and Aberdour railway station)

4: Girly road trip: A Stab At St Abbs (St Abbs, Alnwick, and Scottish Border)

5: Girly road trip: By Jupiter! (Jupiter Artland)

6: Feelin’ Hot Hot Hot (Prestonpans)

7: Scotland, I Am In You (Wick, John O’Groats, Loch Fleet, Loch Ness, and Dalwhinnie Distillery)

8: Strange New Worlds (Dundee, Balmedie Beach, Daviot Stone Circle, and Tarlair lido)

9: Strange New Worlds: Get Tae F…alkirk (Falkirk Wheel, and The Kelpies)

10: Dumbarton Rocks? (Dumbarton Castle)

11: Getting Over The Ups and Downs (Pentland Hills)

12: What’s In For You At Inverewe (Corrieshalloch Gorge, Inverewe Botanical Gardens, and Loch Maree)

13: Scotland’s Tropics: Epic Pics (Glasgow, Ailsa Craig, Logan Botanical Gardens, Mull of Galloway, and Castle Kennedy)

14: Three Days Of Twist-ing (Kingussie, and Loch Morlich)

15: Girly road trip: Need For Mead (Lindisfarne Island)

16: Girly road trip: Hello Mondo Lomond Hills (Bunnet Stane, Lomond Hills)

17: Forced Feminisation Photos (Hillend Ski Centre, and North Berwick)
and Getting Old Rocks! (Yellowcraig Beach, North Berwick)

18: Girly road trip: Stirling Work (South Queensferry, and Stirling)

19: Girly road trip: Mind The Gap (Hadrian’s Wall, Sycamore Gap, and Vindolanda)

20: Girly road trip: Benmore Gardens

21: Girly road trip: Dawyck Gardens

22: One last, epic, Scottish girly day trip (Eilean Donan Castle, Glenfinnan Viaduct, and Glencoe)

I’ve also been to other places that didn’t really merit their own write-up, but you can find their photos lurking in the gallery:

a: Loch Lomond

b: Loch Chon

c: National Museum Of Flight, East Fortune

d: Newcastle Upon Tyne

Whenever I do more trips around the country, I’ll update the map… 🙂

One last, epic, Scottish girly day trip

There are only so many interesting places I can get to in a day trip, and most of them I’ve already visited. At some point, it’s inevitable that I’d come to the end of my list of the furthest-away ones, and well, here we are… (any more will have to be much closer to home!).

In Twist-mode, the ‘day’ has to include time to get the warpaint and structural engineering sorted out, and then the driving, which takes up several hours before we get anywhere. It’s tiring, ya know?

About time I got a photo in traditional Scottish weather…

This time I wanted to conquer a few bits of the Highlands I hadn’t managed before: Eilean Donan Castle, Glenfinnan Viaduct, Glencoe, and the Famous Grouse statue outside Glenturret Distillery. Sadly, the last of these, the Famous Grouse, had been removed when they decided to use a different malt whisky as part of its blend (I located it in an uninspiring industrial estate, a far cry from the leafy idyll at Glenturret)…

There can be only one! (It’s amazing the effect Photoshop has on an umbrella…)

Eilean Donan is famous from films like Highlander or The World Is Not Enough. The old mediaeval castle was destroyed by the Royal Navy in the 18th century during the Jacobite rebellions, and rebuilt in the 20th century with the bridge added. You can see why it crops up in films from time to time: it’s surrounded by water and hills and from certain angles seems timeless.

Come on Eilean…

It’s usually a stopping off point for people visiting the isle of Skye, but my next destination was 40km due south, but a lot, lot longer by road. We were also racing against time to get there: at 10.30am a steam train crosses Glenfinnan Viaduct. Yes, it’s also known as “the Harry Potter train”, but I gotta tell ya: I could grunt and strain until my face went purple and veins throbbed on my forehead, but I will never give even the tiniest, mouse-sized shit about Harry Potter… (nor have I ever).

I was the only person on this hillside not looking at the train.

As expected, it was mobbed with tourists from around the world, making it exceedingly tricky trying to find a spot to set up the camera with a view of me and the viaduct, but with nobody else in the shot. Managed it though!

We knew before starting the journey that this would be a day of long drives, and short intervals of leaping out of the car to take a few photos before driving on again. It wasn’t restful, and we didn’t really have time to appreciate the surroundings (another time, in another guise, perhaps). It was great for photos, but not so much as a journey nor a day out!

Glencoe: making myself centre of attention?

The last stop was Glencoe, and by this point it was the middle of the day and all the scenic car parks were overflowing. If you ever want to come to this part of Scotland, make sure you get here early (or off-season). We drove along, hoping to find even the most absurdly small spot to park, as one grand vista after another rolled by. Finally, we found one, with deep ruts, pot-holes, and puddles. It would do.

And then two coaches full of Italian tourists rolled up and disgorged their passengers. In an instant, most of the vantage points were gone!

I managed to find a gap between two badly-parked cars where we could get a couple of decent angles without anyone else in the way. And it was so hectic, I didn’t have time to put my boots on (not that most people would notice or care!) What the hell – sometimes the only thing that matters is the end result, and with the dramatic scenery of Glencoe behind me, I call that a good result!

End with a flourish!

Girly road trip: Dawyck gardens

I went to Dawyck with a couple of friends, completing a trilogy of gardens managed by Edinburgh Royal Botanics around Scotland (the other two I wrote about are the sort-of tropical Logan Botanics, and the hilly Benmore Botanics).

When shades of green clash with each other…

Dawyck is much closer to home and thus makes a far more relaxing day out. The gardens were first planted in the 1600s and gained trees from around the world thanks to 18th/19th-century explorers bringing back various seeds.

I like to bring out the light amidst all the darkness from time to time…

Walking around the place you do get the impression that this stuff’s been growing here for a few centuries. The stonework has an air not of decay, but certainly threatening to become overgrown if it wasn’t for the groundskeepers.

Mmm tits Hey what a relaxing, tranquil little pool!

Most of it consists of trees, and I have to admit I can barely tell one from another. Sure, they’re broken up by water features and streams and hilly clearings, but for me, it’s just different kinds of greenery. Maybe it was the time of year we visited, or maybe it’s just the way the gardens were established, but I don’t recall seeing any flowers or colour.

I bring sacrilege and desecration just by being here.

There’s a neatly-maintained chapel which I think is still used (maybe?) by one of the families that used to own the land.

Tree-huggers will no doubt be sent into raptures by the oldest tree on the estate (about 400 years old), and all I can really say about it is: yup; it sure is big.

Got wood?

It was full of chocolate wrappers and cigarette ends; sometimes it’s really not worth satisfying your curiosity…

In amongst the trees and pathways and old, mossy stonework are a few more modern touches, like sculptures of… seeds? Snails? Just what the hell are those things? You have to let your imagination do the work, and you can probably guess where mine went…

My friends made me pose like this.
*(No they didn’t.)

So… that was Dawyck. It was an odd way to end this particular trilogy of garden visits, not having any particularly notable views or features or novelties. It simply made for a pleasant morning’s stroll.

And when you just want to chill out with friends, a pleasant morning stroll is all you need!

It’s not a stately haemorrhoid, it’s a stately pile…

Girly road trip: Benmore gardens

Sometimes you don’t need to put much effort into standing out from the crowd. When visiting a vast, wooded estate in Scotland, with forests and gardens, many visitors opt for sensible footwear, waterproof trousers, and warm jackets. I… did not.

Eh… whatcha gonna do, huh?

Benmore Gardens isn’t really on the way to anywhere, and it’s not an obvious destination in itself, unless you’re a completionist for visiting places around the country. It’s up in the hills of Argyll, which you can sort-of, kind-of glimpse from the Firth of Clyde on a good day.

Touching nuts?

As with any vast estate (this one’s 120 acres), you can guarantee it was never established by people being nice (in the 19th century it was bought by a slaveowner who’d made money off Caribbean sugar plantations). In the 20th century, though, it ended up becoming a western outpost of Edinburgh’s Royal Botanic Gardens, who look after it these days (same with Logan Botanics, where I’ve also been!).

These gates aren’t to keep me out; they’re to keep you trapped in here with me.

My way of standing out from the crowds here was a favourite of mine: a stretchy Black Milk galaxy-pattern dress. It didn’t seem – OK, it absolutely wasn’t – the most practical thing to wear, given the chilly, damp start when we arrived. But the day warmed up and after climbing up the hillsides I was glad of the boob window providing a bit of fresh air…

This gate marks the entrance to the Japanese-themed trees and I have to be honest, I couldn’t tell the difference…

There’s a lot to explore here, with sections dedicated to trees from around the world. My complete ignorance of arborial matters meant that as far as I was concerned, I was moving from one area of greenery and shrubs to another area of greenery and shrubs. I’m a city gal; what do I know?

I made sure to stay on the beaten path.

Walk around long enough and you’ll probably find a fernery, which had once fallen into disrepair before being fixed up in recent years. (You can walk about with a map if you like, but sometimes it’s more fun just to get lost and take wild guesses. I like to think this is good for the imagination.)

Is this the real life? Is this just fern-tasy?

Between the low, flat gardens, avenues of trees, curious decorations, hills to climb (and scenic views), Benmore provides enough variety to justify driving out for a visit.

Just make sure you dress properly…

I touched it; it’s mine.

In which I move from single-entendres to zero-entendres. This is an entendre singularity where subtlety breaks down completely and never escapes. Not proud of this; yet I’m not ashamed either.

Getting informal in the Formal Gardens…

The sundial: I tried dialling, but I kept getting the ‘line disengaged’ tone…

Girly road trip: mind the Gap

I returned to Northumberland with some of my writing buddies for another girly road trip. First time out, we visited Alnwick Castle. This time, inspired by more locations in the area drawn on a teatowel (don’t ask), we visited Hadrian’s Wall. (And how often do you think about the Roman Empire?)

I’d been there before, and knew that because we were all massive nerds, Sycamore Gap was the place to go; after all, it had featured in Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves and was one of the most familiar landmarks around. It would give us a chance to walk a short stretch of the wall (but a hilly one), and dress up for daft photos. I even went to a toy shop the evening before and got a tiny, dirt-cheap bow and arrow set.

Be there or be square! Oh… it’s a square…

The weather was decent, and the site was mobbed (a local charity group for disabled kids was also doing a promotional photo shoot there), so after our picnic lunch we had to arrange the camera in a way to hide all the other activities going on behind us.

I did the silly-bugger-version of Kevin Costner, my friend Karen opted for a somewhat Tolkein-ish Friar Tuck, and my friend Sarah dressed in black and wielded a spoon to play the Sheriff of Nottingham (and even agreed to have jam from her sandwich smeared across her cheek to mimic the facial scar).

Even though none of us resembled the original cast, passers-by recognised what we were doing instantly. One of them asked if we did this a lot? “No,” said Karen, “No,” said Sarah, “All the time!” said I…

Everything I do, I do it for you shits and giggles.

As I write, it’s still only a couple of days since the Sycamore tree that gave the gap its name was felled by a fuckwit with a chainsaw (currently thought to be a guy in his 60s who’d been evicted from a local farm; I might update this later once the truth is known).

It’s a sobering reminder that sometimes when you decide to postpone visiting a place “because it’ll always be there”, it ain’t always so. I’m just glad I got to take my friends there while it was still standing.

Left: an impressive bust. Right: If there’s chain links, I feign kinks.

Afterwards we headed to Vindolanda, a nearby museum with an outdoor cafe. We were greeted by a receptionist wearing a plethora of LGBT badges (and Tolkein stuff, and a Star Trek badge based on the newer series, not the good ones of old, but I kept my mouth shut about that). She was obviously delighted to see us (not sure how many crossdressers they get here) and I doubt we’ll ever meet a more helpful member of staff!

Infamy! Infamy! They’ve got it all in for me!

Vindolanda was a Roman border fort with a small support village attached. All that remains are the foundations and lower walls (and drains), but there’s a reconstruction of a wall and gate to allow experimental archaeologists to see how the soil and stones settle around the building works.

Quidquid latine dictum, altum videtur

Veni, vidi, induebar veste muliebri

Vindolanda’s gardens and museum make for a thoroughly pleasant summer stroll (I’ll spare you those photos; that’s not what this blog is about!). And there were enough recreated statues around and about to have fun with…

Puellae cupiunt habere deliciam

Time filled up really quickly, between the journey to the wall, the walk, the picnic, and pottering around the museum and cafe. We had enough of the day left to enjoy the outdoor exhibits before they locked the gates. We also met that helpful receptionist again, on her way out after packing things up for the day.

If I was a scared nymph of the village, how would I decorate my temple?

On the way home, along narrow country roads, I drove with the expectation that I’d encounter a load of dangerous drivers, and I wasn’t disappointed. Why do we always have to drive considerately for the benefit of the inconsiderate ones? Anyway, my passengers soon got used to me singing “wankpanzers!” to the tune of “Ghostbusters!” whenever we encountered a car built too big for the roads, or sarcastically faking orgasms at anyone overtaking dangerously. Sometimes you just gotta provide your own entertainment, ya know?

[This is my 100th blog post here!]

The figures on that fresco look thoroughly unimpressed with me…