16 - 17 February: The gardens of Drum Castle and Castle Fraser

On the weekend of 16 - 17 February we decided to explore a couple of the castles in 'our own back yard'. Both Drum Castle and Castle Fraser are less than a 30 minute drive from our house.

Drum Castle

Dating from the 13th century, Drum Castle was owned by the Irvine family for over 650 years. The castle features a 13th-century tower, the oldest intact in Scotland. Drum Castle is an excellent example of how grand families extended and gradually changed their original defensive homes to match their requirements. This is reflected in Drum Castle's blend of building styles, with its medieval tower, Jacobean mansion and Victorian additions.


The castle is closed to the general public during the winter months, so we could only admire the castle from the outside. According to the information available online, the castle includes superb furniture, fine paintings and magnificent views from the battlements of the Forest of Drum and the countryside beyond. We plan to go back later to take a look inside and hopefully get a guided tour too. For the moment a virtual tour of the castle is the closest we get to seeing the inside of the castle.

While we visited Drum Castle, the boys were thrilled to have plenty of time to play on the great children's playground. The playground was not very big, but offered challenges for children of all ages.

After the boys had played on the playground for quite a while, we took the opportunity to explore the magnificent woodland trails. The terrain was quite varied, even within one fairly short trail. We had a great day out and even discovered 'Nessie' in the woods.















After our arrival in Scotland, we soon noticed that there is a lot of moss on fences and other wooden structures. It seems that the climate is quite moist, even through winter, which allows the moss to grow all year round. Having moss on branches that have fallen on the ground (ref. 'Nessie' above) was not such a big surprise, but seeing moss on the branches of the trees was quite new to us. And such vast quantities! Some trees were more or less covered in moss. When we later visited Crathes castle, we even discovered moss growing on one of the hedges!

 

 

Castle Fraser  

Built between 1575 and 1636 by the 6th laird, Michael Fraser, Castle Fraser is the most elaborate Z-plan castle in Scotland. Z-plan is a form of castle design common in England and Scotland, which has a strong central rectangular tower with smaller towers attached at diagonally opposite corners. The castle was modernised in a classical style in the late 18th century, with a new entrance inserted in the south side and sash windows throughout.

Castle Fraser retains the atmosphere of a family home and still contains the original contents, including Fraser family portraits, furniture and collections. The interiors represent all periods of the castle's history, from the Medieval stone vaulted Great Hall to the Regency Dining Room.




The castle is open between Easter and October, so we have to come back later in order to see the insides. However, the children had a great time in the Woodland Secrets play area and exploring the 18th-century walled garden. I was very pleased to see spring flowers already in the middle of February and looked forward to an early and warm spring. I could hardly have been more wrong....

While we were visiting the castle grounds, we also took the opportunity to go for a nice, long walk in the surrounding woodland. Once again the amount of moss fascinated us. I wonder how long timber can lie on the ground before it is covered in moss and unsuitable for sale....?

Winter holidays - Urquhart castle/Loch Ness and Inverness

Having spent the greater part of the day at the extremely interesting Fort George, we headed south to Loch Ness. Without consulting with the children, I made the decision to stay clear of Nessieland and the other very touristy stuff. Instead we focused on the historic site of beautiful Urquhart Castle (pronounced "Urkhart". Listen to pronunciation at http://www.pronouncehow.com/english/urquhart_pronunciation)

Urquhart Castle

We arrived at the remains of what was once one of Scotland's mightiest strongholds. It has a magnificent location on the banks of Loch Ness,. Though we looked for Nessie, he was nowhere to be seen and we concentrated on the castle instead.

The present ruins date from the 13th to the 17th centuries, though it was built on the site of an early medieval fortification dating. Inside the castle ruins are displays showing the development of the castle in this time period.


Urquhart Castle witnessed considerable conflict throughout its 500 years as a medieval fortress. The castle's history from the 13th to 17th centuries was particularly bloody. The castle was seized by  Edward I of England, known as ‘Hammer of the Scots’ due to his heavy-handed treatment of the Scots, in 1296. It later played a prominent role in the Wars of Scottish Independence in the 14th century, coming under the control of Robert the Bruce after he became King of Scots in 1306. Folowing King Robert Bruce’s death in 1329, Urquhart remained the only Highland castle holding out against the English in 1332.

Soon after the English threat evaporated the MacDonalds, Lords of the Isles arrived, raiding the castle on several occasions in the 15th and 16th centuries. The castle passed back and forth between the Crown and the Lords of the Isles. The castle was granted to the Clan Grant in 1509, though conflict with the MacDonalds continued. Their last raid, in 1545, proved the worst. The Islesmen got away with an enormous hoard. One of the displays inside the castle shows the 'MacDonalds takeaway menu', which included

• 2000 cattle and hundreds of other animals
• 12 feather beds with bolsters, blankets and sheets
• Tables and other items of furniture  
• A chest containing £300
• Brewing vats, roasting spits, pots and pans
• The castle's cannon and 20 guns
• Gunpowder, suits of armour
• The castle's iron gates
• Three great boats, in order to take it all away

When the last soldiers marched out in 1692, they blew it up to prevent its use by Jacobite forces. The castle soon fell into decay. Part of the Grant Tower crashed to the ground in 1715 during a violent storm. But attitudes changed  and the castle was passed into state care in 1913 and opened to the public. Urquhart Castle is now one of the most visited of all Scotland’s castles.

Inverness

From Urquhart Castle we travelled to Inverness, to take a look at the 'capital of the Highlands'. Even though it's the largest city in the north, it is more like a town in atmosphere, with a compact and easily accessible city centre.

Then name Inverness comes from the Scottish Gaelic Inbhir Nis, meaning 'Mouth of the River Ness'. Highland Council has made a commitment to give equal respect to Gaelic and English and this was the first time we saw street signs in Gaelic.

We also discovered a gallery called Gallery Håkon. We were quite intrigued by the fact that the gallery had a Norwegian name. A search on the internet later revealed that this was in fact the gallery of Norwegian artist Håkon Søreide.

The heart of the Highlands

Visiting Inverness we soon realised that this was truly the heart of Highland Scotland. There were a number of excellent hiking shops selling top quality hiking gear at a very reasonable price . We were of course extra lucky to arrive when  the sales were on, and ended up with quite a few bargains.

The other main thing to attract our attention was the vast number of kilt shops. Outside the kilt shops were big signs with lists of clan names. The signs said that if your name was on their list, then they could supply you with your clan kilt. The number of names on their lists was extremely impressive to us as tourists, seemed they covered just about all clans of Scotland.

Inverness Castle and the Macbeth murder

While we were in Inverness we also visited Inverness Castle, towering on a cliff overlooking the River Ness and the city centre. This red sandstone building was built in 1836 by architect William Burn to serve as the County Hall of Inverness-shire. It is built on the site of an 11th century defensive structure. This earlier castle was supposedly the location where Macbeth murdered Duncan I in the Shakespeare tragedy ‘Macbeth’.

The present Inverness Castle houses the High Court and council offices and is not open to the public. However, the grounds are open and you get a great view of the city and the River Ness from the castle gardens.

Winter holidays - Elgin and Fort George

The boys had time off school 7 - 11 February. The first couple of days the boys and I explored the neighborhood, while my husband was at work. Saturday morning we set off on our first exploration of Scotland outside of Aberdeen. This post covers the first day of the holidays.

Elgin and its cathedral

Our first proper stop was Elgin, with its beautiful Cathedral, or what remained of it.  Elgin Cathedral is a 13th-century cathedral and the ruins is all that remain of one of Scotland's architectural triumphs (ref. Eyewitness Travel). The cathedral was once known as The Lantern of the North, but was severely damaged in 1390 by Alexander Stewart, son of  King Robert II and known as Wolf of Badenoch, in revenge for his excommunication by the Bishop of Moray. The times in which he lived were barbarous, but even by their standards he stood out, and was feared over a considerable distance.

Effectively redundant from the time of the Reformation in 1560, the sandstone cathedral was little used during the next 100 years and was virtually abandoned thereafter. Further damage came in 1576 when the Regent Moray ordered the lead roofing to be stripped. Gradually parts of the structure collapsed as a result of unchecked decay, and it was not until the early 19th century that Elgin Cathedral received the respect it deserved as a fine piece of medieval architecture.

Despite the rough treatment, Elgin Cathedral is still beautiful and from the top of the front towers you get a pretty good view of Elgin and its surroundings.

Elgin Cathedral was also the place where we became members of Historic Scotland. For just over £80, the whole family gets access to over 70 of Scotland's top heritage attractions, access to special events etc. For us this was a no-brainer, after visiting 3-4 attractions we would have saved the membership cost and at the same time we would be supporting a good cause.

After our visit to the cathedral, we went in to the charming little town. With its cobbled marketplace and crooked lanes, Elgin retains much of its medieval layout and still has a relaxed atmosphere.

Fort George

After our visit to Elgin, we drove to Fort George, one of the finest examples of European military architecture (ref. Eyewitness travel).
Following the 1746 defeat at Culloden of Bonnie Prince Charlie, George II created the ultimate defence against further Jacobite unrest. When the fortress was completed in 1769, the Highlands were peaceful but it was maintained in readiness for action that never came, and has remained virtually unaltered. Visitors today can see historic barrack rooms which are a time capsule of the domestic life of the Scottish soldier. This is part of The Highlanders’ Museum, which is the largest regimental museum in Scotland, outside of Edinburgh. It covers three floors of Fort George’s former Lieutenant Governors’ House. The museum has roughly 20,000 artifacts and an estimated 10,000 documents and photographs.

Fort George is the only ancient monument in Scotland still functioning as intended (a working army barracks) but still welcoming visitors. The fort may contain a museum, but it also keeps updated on the needs of its visitors. We noticed that the old phone booths have also been upgraded with new functionality.



The fort is positioned strategically on a peninsula in the Moray Firth ('firth' is what would be known as a 'fjord' in Scandinavia) and was intended as an impregnable army base. As you can see from the picture, it follows the shape of the peninsula and has canons positioned to reach any ships sailing up the Moray Firth. It also has an impressive defense system to stop any  attackers on foot.

The stone used to build Fort George came across the Moray Firth from the Black Isle. The barracks and the garrison chapel are made from beautiful red stone. The stones are of different shades of red and the size of the stones vary quite a lot, creating a very beautiful structure.

It's unclear who designed the garrison chapel, but according to Historic Scotland it was probably the famous Scottish architect  Robert Adam, whose family construction company built the fort. The chapel blends in nicely with the style of the other buildings of the fort, standing out only slightly with its square and round towers.

Once inside the chapel we were very fascinated by the stained glass window behind the altar at the end of the chapel. In addition to the traditional motif of an angel playing the harp, there is an angel playing the bagpipes,see top right-hand window. 

I doubt if you get that anywhere else in the world!

Activities for the whole family

Soon after our arrival in Westhill I started to look for activities for the boys and me; my husband was fully booked with work and didn’t feel he needed additional activities.

Physical activities and music for the boys

With the help from the school and the community centre, I fairly soon managed to get the boys signed up for badminton and piano tuition. We were unable to find out where/when the boys could play soccer (or football as it’s called here), but a few weeks after the boys started school, another mum told us how the boys could join the local soccer team. It turned out most of the boys in their classes were on the teams and they really enjoyed playing. After Easter we quit badminton, allowing the boys more time to play with their new friends in the neighbourhood and a less hectic Tuesday afternoon for us as a family.

Getting mum back in shape

Soon after our arrival I started looking for a gym or similar so I could get back to exercising on a regular basis. I ended up with a women only gym where you work out on machines in a circuit, giving all you’ve got for 30 seconds and then recovering for 30 seconds before you move on to the next machine. This way of exercising was new to me and I was not really convinced when I joined the gym. However, it did not take long for me to realise that if you give it all you’ve got for 30 seconds, you get tired and you get stronger. I’ve got my own ‘personal trainer’ in the chip I insert into the machines, pushing me to give all I’ve got every time. I also jog before and after my workout sessions at the gym, regardless of weather. I do hope it will get a bit warmer soon though, we’ve been having hail showers in late May….

Piano tuition for oldies

In addition to exercising, I’ve started having piano tuition for the first time in over 20 years! I don’t practice as much as I’d like/should, but having lessons helps me prioritise practicing on a regular basis and in a more structured fashion than I normally do. I feel that my playing has improved quite a bit since I started, though it’s not nearly enough to impress anyone. But it sure gives me a lot of enjoyment.

Mum – the artist?

Soon after we arrived I joined a 10 week daytime drawing/painting class, which ended in May. Even though I don’t have any pieces I feel are 100% complete after the course I really enjoyed it and I felt that I learned a lot just by working on the basics in techniques and colours. I do hope there will be another class after the summer holidays.

We were a rather small class, with two men and eight women. As we got to know each other better there was a lot of encouragement and support between the members of the group and we had a lot of fun trying to master new techniques. Towards the end of the course I learned that when you’re over 60 you get a discount on the tuition fee. Turned out I was the only one paying full price.

Mum – the tour guide

As we’re in Scotland only for a year, we want to make the most of it. Most weekends we travel in Scotland, trying to cover the most typical Scottish/UK experiences. By the end of the year we hope to have covered most of Scotland, including the most important historic sites, have had typically Scottish/British food (haggis, fish&chips, afternoon tea etc.), seen pipers in kilts, attended highland games and seen as much as possible of the Scottish fauna and flora. We’ve come quite far on this list already.

I spend quite a lot of time planning our trips, including finding background information about the places we go/the sights we see, I’ve hardly ever been so well prepared. The boys are very keen to learn about Scottish history, so we’ve spent quite a lot of time reading. We’ve found some excellent books that the boys can read themselves, or we read them together. Our favourites so far are ‘Famous Scots – Robert the Bruce’ (quite funny, we need to buy more books in that series), ‘Robert the Bruce and all that’, ‘Mary Queen of Scots and all that’, ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie and all that’, and we still have more books in the same series.

I’ll write more about our specific trips in my upcoming blog posts.

An alien in UK - Life offline

Among the things at the top on my list of to-do’s after we arrived in Westhill were getting a UK bank account, a UK phone number and broadband connection. It did not take me long to realise that these things were more urgent than expected.

UK bank account

The first thing I set about to get sorted was to get a UK bank account, as I’d been told this could be a bit of a hassle. This turned out to be true. I also soon realised that I could do very little online shopping until I had a UK account, including ordering broadband and topping up my SIM-card.

The requirements for getting a UK bank account was, in addition to the necessary ID papers, that you could show documentation of you UK residency. As I had no employer who could provide me with the necessary documentation, I needed a utility bill with my name on it. Unfortunately the bills had come in my husband’s name. The solution was to ask for the next bills to be sent in both our names and in the meantime get a UK bank account for my husband. Until the necessary documentation arrived, I used my husband’s card and account. Problem solved.

I imagine foreigners moving to Norway experience similar problems, I just haven’t thought about this before. When things are running smoothly, you tend not to think about them, it’s when they’re not working that you realise the complexity of it all.

One thing that I’m fascinated by is how much in the UK society is paid either by cash or by cheque. In Norway I hardly ever have any cash, as I use my credit cards for almost all purchases. And I’ve never used a cheque in all my life. When I received a refund in the form of a cheque, I hardly knew what to do with it. I took the cheque to the bank and it turned out they had special machines to handle cheques. A friendly lady showed me how to insert my cheque into the machine and then told me that the amount on the cheque would be credited to my account. And it actually did. This was a completely new experience for me and I was mighty impressed.

UK phone number

As soon as I started interacting with school, the gym, the community centre etc., everyone asked for a contact number. When I only had a Norwegian number to offer them, they were not too keen and did not always take down my number.

After a lot of research when it comes to coverage and pricing of calls to Norway, I ordered a SIM-card from Lebara. When the SIM-card arrived in the mail a few days later, it turned out it was a standard SIM and my mobile required a micro SIM. Without Lebara’s SIM card I was unable to call their customer service and after a week of waiting for them to reply to my email, I gave up and ordered a SIM card from Vodafone. After I received the correct type of SIM-card, I spent 2-3 days trying to top up the pay-as-you-go card. It turned out this could only be done with a UK bank account, my Norwegian Mastercard was obviously not good enough, but their cryptic error messages were not very useful either. In the end I managed to top up the account with my husband’s UK Visa Debit card at the local ATM-machine, very simple and convenient.

After testing and making sure everything was working the way it should, I started using the Vodafone number this as my contact number. I spent very little time at home, but after a few days I discovered that the coverage at home was so poor I was lucky if I got any reception at all. I ended up walking a few hundred metres down our street before the reception was acceptable. I had some rather cold phone calls to family and friends in Norway. This wasn’t a solution I was happy with, as it meant that I wouldn’t be able to receive any calls when I was at home.

I used my Norwegian SIM-card over the next few days and discovered that O2 was the one with the most stable and consistent signal, so I ordered yet another micro SIM. This time my efforts were crowned with success and I’ve been happy with the service ever since.

Broadband connection

From the date I ordered broadband from BT, it took four weeks to get Internet access. The first three weeks were spent waiting for an available BT technician. In the end it turned out they did not have to send out a technician, they just had to do something on their side and we were good to go. The only problem was that we had not received our broadband hub or the phone handsets we had ordered when we ordered the broadband and phone subscriptions, so we could not use our services. A week later the broadband hub was ready for delivery, but the handsets were still missing. I cancelled our order for the handsets and the broadband hub was finally delivered to our house. While we were offline I discovered how much I’ve come to depend on being online. While we were waiting to have broadband installed at home I would go to the library every day to use their WIFI network. If I needed to use the Internet outside of their opening hours I just had to wait till the next day, contributing to things taking longer than normal. Now I can go online any time I like and I LOVE IT!

School uniforms - a new experience

School uniforms were a new experience for the boys, but they do not mind wearing them. As a mum I find it very convenient and I also think it makes it easier for the kids. We never have to wonder what the kids are going to wear to school and my impression is that it reduces peer pressure.

In addition to reducing peer pressure when it comes to clothes, it's claimed that uniforms emphasizes membership and group identity, fostering a community spirit. It's also said that it instills a sense of pride and discipline in students. My boys certainly are proud of their uniforms. When we went to Norway in the beginning of May to see their class mates in Norway, they both wore their uniforms to show the kids what they looked like.

Identical clothes are easily mixed up

I also believe it's true that there is less stealing of clothes in school, as everyone is wearing the same clothes. The only thing you need to be extra careful with is to remember to name all your kids' clothes. If you forget to put their names in their jumpers and they take them off on a nice, warm day, you may not get the same jumper back in the afternoon. Even if you do put their names on the name tag your kids may still take the wrong jumper home. In the first three months we were here, our youngest son came home twice with the wrong jumper and we still haven't been able to locate where his jumpers went. One of the jumpers he came home with was even a size smaller than his own ...

When searching the Internet I've found many good reasons for wearing school uniforms, and also many reasons why it's not a good idea.

Little focus on phones and toys

I don't know whether it's the school uniforms, but the boys have told me that mobile phones is not something that's talked about at school. This has also affected our discussions at home.

In Norway the boys first started talking about wanting their own phones when they were in year 1. As the kids have grown older, the number of kids with mobile phones has increased and the pressure of having their phones has increased correspondingly, as have our discussions at home. In addition some of the kids have very expensive phones like iPhones or other smartphones, so the kids no longer only want a phone, they want a smartphone. While we've been here it hasn't really been a topic.

Another positive aspect of school life here is that kids don't bring toys to school and they don't talk much about their toys either. In Norway kids bring popular toys to school, including expensive toys like Nintendo DS/Gameboy or similar. This creates peer pressure and lots of parents are nagged into buying the most popular toys at the time. Sometimes toys are stolen at school, which is very sad for the children affected.

Winter in Scotland

When we landed at Aberdeen Airport Dyce on 12 January 2013, it was the first time the boys and I had been to Scotland. My husband had been commuting all through 2012 and had been to Aberdeen every second week after the summer holidays, but for the rest of us it was a new and exciting experience.

A small car and lots of luggage

After we got our luggage, we went to get our rental car. It turned out there had been a mix-up and we got a small car instead of a station wagon. This was a Saturday, so the people with the right level of authority were not present and apparently nothing could be done. The car was too small to take all of us and our luggage, so my husband took the car and most of our luggage, while the boys and I followed by taxi. Luckily it was only a 15 minute drive to our new home in Westhill, a garden suburb to Aberdeen.

A cold welcome

The house was as expected, but it was very cold. The outside temperature wasn't more than a few degrees below zero, but the house was constantly cold for at least the first 5-6 weeks. For a while we thought there might be something wrong with the radiators, as we had turned all of them up to their maximum but it was still cold. We had to wear slippers or woollen socks and thermal clothes inside. I also bought a couple of extra blankets we could use in the living room. 

After a while we discovered that a lot of heat was lost through our mailbox. Our mailbox only had a flap on the outside of the door, so the mailbox contributed quite a bit to the heat loss. When we started closing the doors to the kitchen, living room and dining room , the heat loss was limited to the hall and the temperature in the other rooms became much more comfortable. I later noticed that the boys' piano teacher had a mailbox with two flaps, one on the inside and one on the outside of the door. Her house was not as cold as ours.

"Adverse weather procedures"

There was very little snow when we arrived in Westhill and as it turned out there would not be much snow all winter. Most of the time the snowfalls were extremely light, but on a couple of occasions we had 5-10 cm snow during the night. The result was chaos on the roads, as the Scots are not very used to snow.

On one of these occasions the school was closed for two days, due to "adverse weather". We had been warned when the boys started school that we would have to listen to the radio and call a special number if there was snow during the night. By entering the correct pin code we would receive a message from the head teacher, informing us whether the school was closed. or not This was the "Adverse weather procedure". As Norwegians we are used to regular snowfalls, so this was an exotic experience.

Green winter

With very little snow, there were not many opportunities for the winter activities we are used to. The boys went tobogganing less than 10 times all winter and skiing was never an option in our neighborhood.

Having very little snow was good for us adults though. Our hire car came with summer tires, winter tires was not included. My husband drove to work on summer tires and managed to stay on the road through the few days where there was a little snow on the road, though I heard on the news that a lot of others weren't quite as lucky.

The challenge of driving on snow with summer tires

One snowy day I decided to take the car to go shopping. I spent an hour getting out of the driveway!  There are two main reasons for this:
1. I'm not very good at driving on snow (actually, I was pretty crap, as it turned out). The wheels started spinning on the slippery surface almost immediately after my foot touched the gas pedal.
2. There was no shovel or spade in our house, I only had a broom to get rid of the snow around the car. That was NOT particularly efficient.

After almost an hour I was still struggling and had taken my coat off because I was hot and rather embarrassed at my hopeless driving. Fortunately a couple of neighbors took pity on me and helped me push the car onto the road, where there was hardly any snow at all. When I left our street and got onto the main road it had been salted and there was no snow, as expected.

By the time I got home our friendly neighbors had removed all the snow in our driveway too, so parking the car was no problem at all.

A year in Scotland - an opportunity for new skills and experiences

Having lived abroad as a child, I had so many happy memories from our years abroad that I had always wanted to do this again after I moved from home. Luckily my husband wasn't a stranger to the idea and at one stage we did some research on the possibilities of going to USA or Svalbard (not exactly the same, but still an interesting place to go). However, finding a job for both of us was an issue and if one of us was to study instead of working it still required a fair bit of research. I guess the urge wasn't strong enough, so all this amounted to nothing.

When the opportunity of going to Scotland came up in June 2012, we decided to go for it. Since our initial research we had had two children and I knew that taking a year off work wouldn't mean the end of my career. I had 12years of experience as a Project manager and felt confident that interesting projects would come my way when I returned too.

Preparing to move - and to return to Norway

From our decision to go to Scotland was made towards the end of June, lots of time and effort was put into preparing the family for the move. I had to notify my employer, the school, the gym, the floorball coach (our eldest boy), the "activity school" coach (our youngest boy), the music school (both boys), the doctor, Folkeregisteret etc. We also had to find tenants for our house, prepare our start-up in Aberdeen (choose school, where to live, find a house etc.) and our return (to school, the gym etc.).

There were so many little things that had to be done and I was afraid of forgetting something important. I consulted my parents who are experts in this field, as they have been through this process many times before. Mum gave me a useful book written by one of her expat friends from her first stay in Cambridge, and that made me a little more confident as it was full of details and experiences from her stays abroad. I also consulted one of my friends, who lived in India for two years in 2009 - 2011. He gave me useful tips, but just as important he also gave me lots of encouragement.

Christmas holidays in Australia and starting a new life in Scotland

So, here we are and we managed to get the most important tasks done before we left. The remaining tasks (getting a mobile subscription for me, broadband access, bank accounts, finding activities for the kids and me etc.) were handled when we got here. In the middle of planning the move and handover at work, I also managed to plan our Christmas holiday in Australia. The one month trip to Australia was planned a very long time ago and the tickets bought as soon as they were out, which was March 2012. It was a fantastic holiday, but that's another story.

I'll let this be my intro to my first ever blog, from now on I will focus on all the fantastic things we experience during our year in Scotland. And there will be photos!