Tag: photos
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Cooling off in the Dee
The temperature has reached a top of 26C today. I think this is the hottest temperature I’ve ever felt in Aberdeen. We had no choice but to cool off in the river. We cycled up Deeside Way a short way and walked down to the River Dee near Allan Park. There are some nice swimming […]
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Swimming at Potarch Bridge
We went for a swim at Potarch Bridge today. It was smashing and I realised that it’s the first time I’ve been wild swimming in summer in Scotland. Usually I just do the idiotic thing and submerge myself mid-winter for bragging rights. After all, what’s the point of doing something if you can’t brag about […]
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Tomintoul
We went to the village of Tomintoul today. Many times we’ve driven through it and I’ve always thought it looked cute and wanted to linger but usually we’re en route somewhere and haven’t had time to stop. Today we made a special visit just to see Tomintoul. Tomintoul is about 60 miles west of Aberdeen […]
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An adventure in Strathdon
There are two mighty rivers in Aberdeen: the Dee and the Don. Both start some 80-90 miles west in the Grampian Mountains and flow into the sea at Aberdeen. The Dee is quite well known thanks to Queen Victoria and Balmoral Castle which is in the Dee Valley. The whole area is known as Royal […]
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Bon Accord Baths
I visited the Bon Accord Baths today: a previously council-run indoor swimming pool in central Aberdeen, constructed in the 1930s in Art Deco style. The council closed the pool in 2008 and since then the building has become derelict. The council tried to sell it in 2015 and amid a public outcry at potentially losing […]
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Picnic at Craigievar Castle
It was a very warm bank holiday in the UK today and since both the kids and I had the day off we went for a picnic and a walk. I’m not a fan of hot sunny days like this. Give me dull, muted lighting any day so I wanted a forest walk where we’d […]
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Through the blue door … River North Esk, Angus
About 50 minutes south of Aberdeen is an outstanding walk along the River North Esk. It starts at the Gannochy Bridge, an 18th-century vaulted arch bridge about a mile north from the village of Edzell. You can park in Edzell and walk from there or there’s parking beside the blue door itself and also around […]
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Siliconing the bathroom
I don’t like mould that grows on silicon in baths and showers and doesn’t come off. I’ve tried vinegar, bleach, elbow-grease, baking soda, and regular shower cleaner but it stubbornly remains. In the past we’ve paid a plumber to come and remove it and reapply fresh silicon. But over time the mould returns and we […]
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Pastries, broccoli, tartan skirt, and carrot lox
Foodstory Café in Aberdeen have started making sourdough pastry. Their sourdough bread is already well-known in Aberdeen for its deliciousness so we decided to sample the sourdough pastry, strictly for academic purposes. Foodstory is still only open for takeaways but not long now – they’ll be allowed to open fully at the end of this […]
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Snow in April
I planted sweet peas outside last month and whenever I plant out sweet peas in March it snows in April. Sure enough, the snow came on Monday and each morning we’ve woken to a winter wonderland. Here it is this morning. There’s more today than on Monday or Tuesday but it feels warm so I […]
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Cross-country skiing on Deeside Way
It snowed a bit more overnight last night and Aberdeen put on a brilliantly crisp and sunny day for us. Rather than going for my usual run around the park I decided to try some cross-country skiing on Deeside Way. A few years ago we all got some cross-country skiing gear from the second-hand sale […]
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Sunshine and blizzards
Aberdeen put on a beautiful day today with bursts of sunshine mixed in with intermittent snow blizzards. It was a perfect day. There’s more snow on the ground than I think I’ve ever seen in Aberdeen in the almost 7 years we’ve lived here. It’s lovely soft stuff that makes brilliant snowmen. We all had […]
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Shopping by bike and cat photos
Last weekend I cycled to Nature’s Larder to get some supplies. It’s a wonderful whole foods shop on Holburn Street. What I love about cycling is I can park right outside just a couple of metres from the door. You can’t do this with a car as there’s no on-street parking in this part of […]
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A dream come true
Today was a good day. It has long been a dream of mine to ice skate outside in a natural environment and today I ticked that off my list. Aberdeen has had several days of sub-zero temperatures, freezing the water in lakes and ponds. We found what is really just a puddle of water on […]
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Prince Albert’s Cairn
I love Sundays. This is the one day of the week when none of us is working and there are no extracurricular activities to take children to. We like to spend our Sundays walking in the hills somewhere in Aberdeenshire and perhaps because there’s a bit of royal mania with the latest release of The […]
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Christmas Fair at Crathes Castle
We went to the Exclusively Highlands Christmas Fair at Crathes Castle today. It’s a food and craft market that runs every year in the weeks leading up to Christmas at different locations around Scotland, usually castles. They sell only stuff that’s made in Scotland which especially appeals to me so we go every year. This […]
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A walk at the Finzean watermills
We went for an amazing walk and picnic today at the Finzean watermills. They’re quite tricky to find because the road doesn’t appear to have a name (it’s referred to as an access road for the Forest of Birse) and there’s no obvious postcode for the mills, so print and follow the directions on this […]
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Glasgow in autumn
We’ve come to Glasgow for the weekend to submit biometric data (fingerprints) for our permanent residency application. We’ve been waiting to do this since March when everything closed down. The centres began opening again in June and we’ve been waiting patiently for Aberdeen to reopen but as of this writing it still hasn’t. Every month […]
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I broke my phone and photos of the autumn colours
My last blog post I wrote and published from my new phone when I was out and about in town. As I walked back home, tragedy struck when I dropped my phone, smashing the screen. I had bought a spigen phone case for it because these had always protected my iPhone very well but they […]
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Potarch Bridge
We visited a lovely bridge over the River Dee today called Potarch Bridge which is about 40 miles west of Aberdeen. It was built by the engineer Thomas Telford in 1811-1813. This is the same Thomas Telford who built the Caledonian Canal and many other bridges all over the UK. I do love an old […]
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