Zoë Bowyer

Day 1 – Travel by ferry to Scotland. Drive to Spean Bridge to pet-friendly guesthouse. Very pleasant, with fresh flowers all over the place. Gracie makes herself at home and jumps onto the bed. Eat in guesthouse restaurant – yummy food.

Day 2 – Eat smoked haddock for breakfast then climb Ben Nevis. Get drenched at top. Gracie barks loudly that she wants to go down again because she is cold. We attract the attention of a handsome Spanish man with very white teeth and travel back down the mountain with him. Back at the guest house we turn all the heaters on to dry our clothes and open the windows so we can breathe. Retire to bed with blocked sinuses.

Day 3 – Chase the Harry Potter train trying to get a decent photo. Take ferry over the sea to Skye. Arrive in Portree and purchase Tourist Hats from the Tibetan Fair Trade market so that locals know to treat us like idiots. Go for walk to the Old Man of Storr. Gracie thinks it is the best bit of the trip because the place is hootchin’ with rabbits. Eat in fish restaurant which is out of fish and chips. Very yummy mackerel instead.

Day 4 - Pissing with rain and wind howling. Put on Tourist Hats and drive around Trotternish peninsula in rain visiting many pleasant places. Arrive at campsite in lashing rain, drive around, eventually pick a spot. Man at campsite says that camping in this weather will be a true test of our relationship. Survive camping on the rainiest, windiest day of our holiday. Must be true love.

Day 5 – Plenty of opportunities to wear our Tourist Hats with visits to the wind-battered Neist Lighthouse and a dander from Glen Brittle. Tourist Hats had to be removed for a large section of the day in order to eat Magnums and bask in the sunshine.

Day 6 – Tourist Hats hardly on at all as sun blazing all day. Took a boat trip to Loch Coruisk, went for a walk, had a picnic. On return to campsite had showers as totally minging from days of camping. Put on skirt. Went out for very, very fancy dinner at The Three Chimneys. Gracie guarded the car while we ate.

Day 7 – Another Tourist Hat free day. Visited Coral Beaches but couldn’t get access to the turquoise water as it was surrounded by seaweed and shells. Paddled to cool our feet. Walked around the Quiraing on the Trotternish Peninsula. Gracie thought the Quiraing was great because it was hootchin’ with rabbits. She was disappointed not to be let off the lead, this was because she couldn’t be trusted after her visit to The Old Man of Storr.

Day 8 – Looked like another Tourist Hat free day, until we left the Isle of Skye and arrived by the not so bonnie banks of Loch Lomond. Pitched our tent in a campsite then changed our minds and erected it on a beach by the Loch at about 10 pm. Midges a real problem here and had to wear both Tourist Hat and Midge Net Hat. Slept in Tourist Hat.

Day 9 – Woken by Park Ranger telling us that we couldn’t camp where we were. Depressed by unwelcoming officials. Curse their midge-ridden-rotten Loch. Should have stayed in Skye! Get dressed and go for a walk along part of the West Highland Way. Then ferry back home.

These boots were made for walking

Originally uploaded by ZMB.

I recall when I was wee, I got a pair of shoes that I loved so much I wanted to wear them to bed. I think I might sleep in my new boots tonight.

Yesterday I listened to Spirtiualized - Songs in A&E 5 times. Once while visiting the Fairhill Market, once while doing the rounds of the local charity shops (coincidentally managing to meet a heap of my family - Granny in a car on Mill Street, then Granny again with Auntie T on Church Street, Mum in Barnardos and Hannah outside Oxfam), twice while contemplating doing some housework (and reading a Good Housekeeping encyclopedia from the 1960s containing tips on doing housework) and once while doing the housework (not following the Good Housekeeping tips).

Then Gracie and I headed out for a walk. At Harryville bridge we ran into a fellow dog walker, though on this occasion he was without dog and had obviously spent some time in the pub. He kept us chatting awhile. We eventually made our excuses and trotted on down Railway Street, over Stick Bridge and down towards the river past the old squash courts. This is when it started raining. We walked on and did our usual walk, despite the lashing rain. At some point I regretted that I was wearing jeans and not waterproof trousers, at another point I realised that my walking boots were letting in water. I congratulated myself on choosing a marvellous raincoat as my top half was the only part of me that was dry when I got home. Gracie was so wet Dave thought she had been swimming.

But the leaking boots are a problem. Especially as I am heading off to Scotland next weekend for a week involving a lot of walking.

A while back I was asked for permission (via Flickr) to use one of my photos to advertise the Chillifest in the Open House Festival programme, I gave permission and sent my picture plus a better picture that hadn’t been posted on Flickr to them (the one they eventually used), along with my mail address - so they could mail me a copy of the programme. The pictures were of one of the stalls at last years Chillifest.

The programme arrived last week and I now have a very big head. Every time I looked at the programme I smiled.

It’s not the first time I have had pictures published in print, I have had a few dodgy experiences with finding that local groups have used my pictures without crediting me correctly, but it’s the first time that I have been asked, have given approval and have got to see the result.

So, if you are interested in the festival or the brochure you can order a copy of the programme at www.openhousefestival.com

I have been craving cake for days - I am female and cake cravings are entirely normal. When I got home from work I decided that I would have to do something about it and recalled a cake that Auntie Ganching had made with chocolate and marmalade - Store Cupboard Chocolate-Orange Cake. The recipe is from How to Be a Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson and starts off by saying that it is the sort of cake you can make in a few minutes once you get home from work. A few (rather a few!) minutes later and I had a chocolate cake in the oven. Most of my dithering was over whether or not to put in marmalade, cloudberry or pear & ginger jams. I decided on a mixture of marmalade and pear & ginger. It smells good. I will report later as to taste.

Also on the menu is pizza, which I must now assemble.

Update:

Both pizza and cake were yummy.

Matty aged ten

Originally uploaded by ZMB.

This is for my family - if you want to access my photobox photos in order to get high quality prints send me an email or leave a comment and I will send you the password for my gallery.

Dennis the Menace

Originally uploaded by ZMB.

Yesterday morning I got a lift with The Nurse to Rathlin Island. The Nurse travels out regularly and is ferried over by local boatmen. In this case we (The Nurse, the assistant nurse, myself and Gracie) were taken by Dennis the Menace and Gnasher. Gracie the Vibrodog vibrated the whole journey.

We arrived on the island at 9.15 am and it was gloriously quiet, apart from Gracie’s excited barks which seemed to echo around Church Bay. I was worried that she would wake the locals up to the fact that we were there.

We were greeted at the harbour by a nice dog who wound up following us for our entire stay on the island. Unfortunately, she freaked me out when she went chasing after a sheep on the road. She became an extra burden on me, but was very bidable when I made her walk behind me and later scolded her for looking at sheep.

We walked to Rue Point, the walk took us about 3 hours but would take someone who doesn’t stop every five seconds to take a photograph a lot less time.

I felt soothed by my time on the Island. It wasn’t too busy and I was at peace with my thoughts. The only sounds were the sounds of birds and the sea. Even better to be there before the ferry arrives with all the day-trippers.

Mourne Wall

Originally uploaded by ZMB.

Damn, looks like the hills are going to be riddled with extra people - Off The Beaten Track

Part of me thinks this is good, another part of me is feeling very selfish and like I don’t want to share.

Gracie

Originally uploaded by ZMB.

I got the results of the OU photography course I completed last December -

94%

Visual Awareness - Excellent
Technical Quality - Outstanding
Written component - Excellent

Naturally I am very pleased with the result.

Over Looking

Originally uploaded by ZMB.

…Like taking Granny out for a spin to the new museum in Ballymena.

I started off this bank holiday weekend with a huge list of things I wanted to do. Now it’s Monday and I feel that I haven’t done all that much. But the things I have done have been very positive, like seeing my granny, sowing seeds for the cold-frame and knitting. Knitting keeps me calm and not so bothered about the stuff I haven’t done.

I had seen Heike’s site before but not all the pictures of Ireland loaded properly for me, now it is working - photographs of Ireland.