Browsing Tag

Scotland

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Easter in Edinburgh – 1st day

April 23, 2014

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My friends and I took the opportunity to take a short vacation up in Scotland, more specifically in Edinburgh, because of the 4 day long weekend. I’d been there before in the early noughties for Hogmanay and it was very different to see the city in the sun, as opposed to covered under a layer of snow.

Edinburgh is a beautiful city, its Gothic charm and history is very appealing to my aesthetic sensibilities. Although we got there at lunch time on the Friday we still managed to walk around and explore a great bit.

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As a lot of walking was going to happen the most sensible thing to do is to wear sensible shoes I can actually walk on. I thought it was the perfect opportunity to road test the Shoeps shoe lace replacement, by Gumbies. The laces on these Converse were getting a bit manky so I just binned them and put the Shoeps on them. They did really well, after walking for miles they didn’t snap and are really comfortable. Now I want to have all the colours so I can make a Shoeps rainbow on my shoes! What else did I wear? Easy: Dress – Yumi (second hand), Cardigan – Fat Face (not a brand I usually shop at but I had to pick it up one time at the airport when I realized I had put my cardi in the checked baggage, d’oh!), Shoes – Converse All Star (found brand new with tags in a charity shop in Lisbon, aeons ago), Long Sleeve tee – Primark

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As always, I have lots of material to show you. Will be posting over the next few weeks, hopefully. Have you ever been to Edinburgh too?

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Flowered Up

June 17, 2013

Whenever I visit nice gardens I am left wishing I had a green thumb and could grow beautiful flowers and plants.  One of the advantages of living in England and the fact that it is wet all the time is that plants grow everywhere and I see green a lot more often, as it is a lot easier to grow them in a cooler and wetter climate. The following photos were taken at Kellie Castle, on my latest visit to Scotland some months ago.

Our back garden looks a bit sad in comparison, don’t you think?

Details: Cat Ears Felt Hat – Ebay, Dress – H&M (via Ebay), Shoes – Schuh Outlet on Ebay, Cardigan – vintage, Tights – H&M

Maybe I should just check some garden tips and try my hand at making it look like this:

As it is Monday I am adding this to Patty’s Visible Monday over at Not Dead Yet Style.

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Welcome to Crail

May 29, 2013

A while ago as some of you may remember, I traveled to Scotland to visit my friend Sebastian who was living in Crail at the time. I didn’t know what to expect but I was pleasantly surprised at how beautiful and calm the place was. The town is quite small, most of the houses were built in the 17th or 18th century and it has a lovely harbour, from where you can see the Firth of Forth. Wandering the streets is a real treat for the eye, lots of beautiful little details to look at and despite being somewhat touristic in the Summer, it seemed to me rather unspoiled. I stayed at a lovely B&B, Selcraig House. The accommodation is simple yet comfortable and Margaret, the lady who runs it is genuinely nice and friendly.

 

Making silly faces is my specialty.

We stopped for some tea at the Crail Harbour Gallery. The caramel looking thing on the plate is a sugary treat called tablet, which is very popular in Scotland. In fact I’d never seen it anywhere else before.

I have never met a friendly cat I don’t stop to say hello to.

 If you ever find yourselves around those parts, I definitely recommend a visit to this charming place.

Have you ever been to Scotland?

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Things that creep me out.

April 13, 2013

I love technology as much as any other person. I am one of those people who cannot live without her smart phone and spends most of her waking life looking at a computer screen. After all, it’s because of this technology that I can keep in touch with my husband in America and my friends back in Portugal every day, not to mention writing this blog and reading all the other fab blogs out there. Saying this, I discovered I can be equally be creeped out by some technology.

A few months ago my friend Sebastian and I visited a Post War bunker in Scotland, which has now been deactivated and turned into a museum – Scotland’s Secret Bunker. I’ve been trying to put my finger on what was it that bothered us so much about it but spending time in a tunnel under 10 feet of tungsten reinforced concrete with no sunlight may have been one of the reasons.

Apparently there was a Russian incursion in British airspace in the 80’s (in the heat of the Cold War, if that’s possible) and it was detected with this equipment.

The mismatched mannequins in ill fitting uniforms also helped create that creepy atmosphere. Nothing more disturbing than walking around a tunnel, being stared at by empty plastic eyes.

In the several rooms you can see the War Rooms, throughout the decades – the rooms where the enemy was monitored and decisions were made. As this place would be hermetically closed to avoid fallout contamination in case of a nuclear war, there were also sleeping quarters, canteens and offices. No windows, obviously.

As we progressed through the museum and the eras, the whole idea of why that bunker was built really sank in and it really bothered me. The rooms, the objects, everything was ugly and disturbing. This was a place where function is everything and there is no beauty to be seen. That also made me uneasy.

They had some giant Bic pens there as well.

Mostly what felt particularly creepy was the obsolete technology present in this place, that seemed somewhat crude to my modern sensibilities, even though some of it wasn’t that old. It is something I had never felt before regarding old stuff – I love old clothes, old decorative objects… but this place? Brrrrr.

That was old technology and the Cold War and all that paranoia… The future can be equally disconcerting, if you’ve been watching some post apocalyptic, revolt of the machine Sci Fi in the last few years. In the advent of Artificial Intelligence (apparently the Singularity will happen sooner than expected) there is nothing that creeps me out more than seeing videos like this, starring Big Dog, Cheetah Robot and PetMan. It does makes me wonder about the future.

What about you? What gives you the creeps?

 

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Crail, Scotland

May 29, 2012

You may recall that some time ago I spent a weekend in Scotland. I stayed in Crail and from there we traveled around to a few other places. For now I will be sharing the photos taken in Crail. Sorry it took so long to share these but life and other travels have been getting in the way!

Crail is a small town, with a little harbour and quaint stone houses. Most of these date from the 17th and 18th century and wandering the streets is an absolute pleasure as everything is very clean and beautiful. Hope you enjoy these as much as I did taking them.

I am currently in Florida enjoying warmer weather but I’ll be back by the end of the week with a load of new adventures to show!