Edinburgh - February 2009 (6 nations Scotland v Wales & Italy)

It's no secret that I am a big fan of Scotland and I always enjoy getting up to Scotland as much as possible.

We'd been talking about seeing Scotland play in the 6 Nations for a while...and so, it was that Samantha bought a couple of tickets for the opening match at Murrayfield, Scotland v Wales and we decided to head up to see Sctotland play.

Of course, first match against Wales, unlikely to win all things considered but still, should be cool anyway.

The day started with Welsh and Scots mixing on the Royal Mile....everyone was wearing kilts or tartan, even the Welsh! There were Boyos everywhere...and at the game the red of Wales was everywhere...almost outnumbering the dark blue of Scotland.

And loud, blimey, the Welsh sure can sing.

Anyway, the Welsh kept their Grand Slam aspirations going by winning the match pretty comfortably, despite a late Scottish raid on the line.

The day was so cool, with such a brilliant atmosphere that I decided to travel up to Edinburgh a couple of weeks later to see the good guys play Italy in their 3rd 6 Nations match.

This time I travelled up alone but it was still great to see Scotland play. The atmosphere pre-match was again first rate...this time with Italians wearing tartan kilts. Go figure!

The match wasn't the best but all the same, a great win by Scotland and another very enjoyable day out in Scotland.

Stirling - February 2009

As part of travelling to see Scotland play Wales in the 6 Nations, we decided to head up earlier and check out Stirling - a town roughly speaking, between Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Stirling is an ancient Royal town built around a large castle. In fact, we stayed in the former stables of the castle, just below the castle walls and only a short walk to the castle entrance.

The castle itself is pretty cool really and we had a good wander around the castle which is in quite good nick.

Afterwards, we had a drive around the local area and we had a wander up to the Wallace Monument which had some brilliant views.

There had been quite a bit of snow falling so we then drove up towards the snow covered hills and bought some Scottish Macaroon and tablet. Essentially, these are sugar filled treats but interestingly, Scottish Macaroon is made from mashed potato with sugar added. Surely only the Scots could work out a way to use potatoes in this way but perhaps I am selling the Irish short as they know a thing or two about potatoes so I am happy to stand corrected. Not bad at all though, I can assure you.

Finally, how about this for a town name - Bridge of Allan. Brilliant! This town is very close to Stirling and we had a really nice meal there at a Greek restaurant.

All in all, we enjoyed visiting Stirling and especially the castle.

London - January 2009

Here are a few pics from our trip to London in January 2009.

We needed to go to Australia House so Samantha could complete the preliminary details for her application to become Australian.

Kenny loved it there...it's a wee bit cold here in Britain, but he's still having a good time, as you can see with his smile outside Aussie Battler House!