My On-Line Journal
Winter 2004

March 16, 2004
March 7, 2004
February 26, 2004
February 19, 2004
February 17, 2004
February 9, 2004
February 7, 2004
January 31, 2004
January 24, 2004
January 16, 2004
January 11, 2004
January 4, 2004

January 4, 2004

Hi everyone!

Well, we survived, and what's more, the guests all really enjoyed themselves. Phew! It's been the busiest holiday season the hotel has ever had and a really long week with really really long hours for everyone, but today all but three rooms have left so we get a bit of a breather now, and we really need it. We've got a bad cold going around. Sonia and Hannah got it first, followed by me, Andrew (who also has a fever) and today Trixie and Jo both have it. It started with just a sore throat and some coughing but becomes a horrid stuffed up nose, achy yicky stuff. I'm more or less over it now, after drinking sooooo much water and tea and taking echinacea and multi vitimins. The worst was last night at the guests' request, we brought over Hannah's Kareokee machine and I found it really hard to keep myself from getting up to sing and hurting my voice further. And of course, I did get up and I am still a little horse this morning, but it was worth it.

The group of guests we had were really great. There was one really large party that was all there together. One woman had her 40th birthday on New Year's Eve which was celebrated in style. What was really sad is this woman, who for 40 with three children looked amazing, is dying of cancer. You really wouldn't think it to look at her. She looked so happy and healthy and as I said, much younger than her age. But apparently her doctors said she won't live to see her 41st birthday so her friends got together and brought all their kids here for an amazing holiday! None of them wanted to leave and they were all making plans to come back again.

Working with the kids all week was lots of fun and I think that of the staff, I feel I had one of the easiest jobs, but maybe for people who don't like kids they wouldn't think so. There were, of course, some really stressfull moments, like when I got ten kids for t-shirt painting, most of whom were under 4, when I expected only 3, or when we got stuck with a six month old boy for Monster Club who screamed bloody murder for half an hour till he fell asleep! But the kids all enjoyed themselves, we did a lot of really interesting activites and we got lots and lots of tips this morning (yay!) Plus last night after Monster Club the mother of the screaming baby (who was really quite good last night comparatively) gave Hannah and I 20 pounds each! Imagine being paid for baby-sitting and then getting a $40 tip on top of that! Not bad eh? ?

I am getting quite stir crazy though. I went out yesterday to let a parent know their baby had woken up and realized it was the first time in a whole week I had been outside other than going from building to building to get into the playroom. I'm looking forward to some time off, as we all are. We don't have any guests Monday or Tuesday, then we have a few more guests for I think 3 days and then we shut for our holiday. I'm still not sure what the plan is for that. We don't know if we can all get time off at the same time or where we all want to go (I personally would prefer to stay in Europe, but as I said before, if everyone else wants to go elsewhere, I'll go too) but we'll probably get that all sorted soon enough.

The computer seems to be behaving itself. Maybe AOL just needed a break for a bit. In 45 min I've managed to read all my e-mail, look at all the pictures my dad sent from Christmas (they look really good. Thank you) and write this e-mail. Maybe I'll even get to send some replys to individual e-mails, or maybe I shouldn't push my luck. My kids activity this afternoon is circus and clown stuff again as we have some kids that just got here yesterday. Only seven kids for that and only eleven for kids tea (which I have off tonight) and probably not many for Monster Club. Hooray!

I think that's about all for now. I hope everyone else had a really great holiday! Hopefully I'll be posting some pictures soon, but I still have to figure out how.

Love Jeannie

PS Sarah, if your computer doesn't die on you and geocities cooperates, could you post any mass e-mails I manage to send through on to my journal? Don't worry about all the codes if you can't figure it out, just the paragraphing and stuff. thanks You're Welcome!

January 11, 2004

Three Weeks

Hi everyone,

No, I'm not ripping off a copywrite of the Barenaked Ladies, (who no one has heard of here but they use the music from one of their songs in a commercial) we're going to be closed for three weeks starting on Monday. Yay!... sort of. Most people are going on vacation for these three weeks, but for a few of us, myself included, no such luck. Well to be honest, I could have gone on vacation now, but I get four weeks paid vacation per year and I'd rather use it at some other time, say when Sarah comes up to visit, or maybe to go home in June for Kat's wedding. We'll have to see.

Anyway, so while we're closed, I'll still have to do work, mostly answer the phones, take bookings, deal with the piles of accounting work that's growing daily, stuff like that. Trixi and Jacky will still be working too, and I think Davina and Virendra will be sticking around for most of their vacation.

So what else is new. We managed to get through the crazy holiday package days without too much trouble. I'm now much more comfortable dealing with people, both on the phone and serving them, though I'm not working in the restaurant anymore, at least not for a while. It's just too much presure until I learn exactly how you're meant to serve wine and how to wipe crumbs off a table without spilling them into the guest's lap, stuff like that. Sonia's looking for some more staff right now, especially people with restaurant experience so that Jo and Naim don't always have to do the morning and evening shifts.

I haven't left the hotel a whole lot lately, both because I've been so busy with work, and because I had a really bad cold. We all caught it, that's one of the problems of having your staff all work together, we all get sick together too, but it wasn't bad enough to keep us from working. I just pitty some of the guest who must of overheard us all sneezing and coughing at the breakfast table. I'm feeling much better now, just a little scratchy throat in the mornings and a little sneezy through the day, but it's getting better.

We also have the new staff lounge to enjoy. It has a microwave, kettle, bar fridge, tv/vcr, couch, and exercise equipement in it so we hang out there almost every night after work. I also go over there to eat my dinner and watch movies since almost everyone else is working when I get off right now. Plus since my tv is still fried, I can go there to watch movies. It doesn't have a tv signal and the vcr sometimes gets a bit fuzzy, but it's pretty good and it's a great place to relax.

There are a few more expressions slipping into my vocabulary that I think may be stuck. Like I keep saying that things are "brilliant", very British thing to say. Or that I, or something is "nackered". I thought originally that nackered meant tired, but it's more like warn out, or even broken. It can be used when talking about, say and appliance that isn't working. And I am getting a bit of an accent, though what kind I'll never figure out.:)

The weather the past few weeks has been everything that I was promised when I came to Scotland. Rainy and cloudy, though not windy because we're really protected in the Glen. It's pouring right now, though we did see the sun for a little bit this morning. It was still raining though. And it hailed a little bit this afternoon. No real snow that stuck for any amount of time since the winter solstice. Very depressing, and rarely does the temperature sink below zero. Sounds great, doesn't it! It really just doesn't feel like winter without Sackville NB's famous blizzards and incredibly low windchill temperatures. People look at me like I'm crazy when I tell them it's sometimes -40 with windchill and we got about a meter of snow last year. They can't even imagine how we can live with weather like that.

Well, that's about all that's new for now. Thank you Sarah for posting my mass e-mails on my web site, it saves me a lot of time and frustration. Oh, and I added a bit more to "Lost and Found", one of my Unfinished Stories if anyone's interested.

Lots of Love

Jeannie

January 16, 2004

Hey all!

How are you doing? Things are going really well here. I have quite a bit of news today. First off, as of Monday we are without our Restaurant Manager/Head Chef. The tension and lack of communication between him and the Head Chef became intolerable and they couldn't work things out. We sort of knew it was coming so that's one reason Trixi and I took the day off to go in to Inverness. We had a great day out and bought SO MUCH STUFF!!!! The post Christmas sales are in full swing here as at home and so almost every store had a sale sign in it. We stayed away from the clothes, neither of us are much into the UK fashions, which are very strange in my opinion, but that's not a very good opinion. We did get three older movies for ? and we bought two 1000 piece puzzles for the staff lounge, so that was really good.

Shopping in Inverness is really awesome. It's kind of like the waterfront in Halifax, except bigger and more confusing. There's one big shopping mall, but mostly it's all little independant shops all lined up. The streets don't make a whole lot of sense, but it's a whole lot of fun getting lost and figuring out where you are. The kind of bad part was that we got to the bus station 2 hours before the bus did. So we sat and chatted and froze for a while. It may not be as cold as it is in Canada (I heard it got down to -45 wind chill in the valley yesterday!) but the rain and the cold is really awful.

So Jo and Hannah are off in Ireland, not the Canary Islands because Jo's Visa won't let her travel out of Europe. And despite my promise to never get on another plane other than to come home, guess what I'm doing next weekend? Yup, getting on a plane! We're going to London for four days, fun eh? The flights are really cheap, less than half the cost of the train, so I gave in and said I'd fly again. I don't know what I'll do if my ears don't pop again, but maybe with the shorter flight it won't be so bad. We're staying at Sonia's flat while were there and I'm really excited to see more than just Heathrow in London. :)

More good news, Virendra got his Visa application approved today, so now he has a 4 year student Visa! We had a big celebration after work with sparkling wine. It actually tasted really good. I think even my mom would like it. :) It was called Asti.

More good news, we have a new staff memeber coming up in a few weeks. Her name is Emma and she's from Australia. She sounded really nice on the phone and seems to have a lot of experience and stuff. So eventually she'll be taking over Naim's job.

I think that's all the news. Things are going well in the hotel. We're getting a whole lot of work done while we're shut. I was down in the stables this morning. Yay mucking out. We've been booking a whole lot of rooms for the coming months too. We're going to be really busy when we re-open! Should be fun.

That's about it for now. I should get to bed.

lots of Love

Jeannie

January 24, 2004

*Note from Sarah* Sorry this took so long to get up, my computer has been rather strange lately.

Hi everyone,

We had a really warm day today, though the rain hasn't really let up for long. A few hours of sunniness here and there, that's about it, but it was about 14 or so today so I can't really complain. I'd much rather have the ton of snow I've heard you had in Nova Scotia. How are things in New Brunswick? Other than Ivy, I haven't heard from any of you in a while.

Oh, for any of you who read my journal/e-mails and Sarah's Journal, I don't think Sarah's question about which you like better is a fair one. I just wanted to state that for the record.


Oh, and we have all kinds of pets living in the staff cottage all of a sudden. We were really worried about the parrots who live in the conservatory (killed Mrs. Plum with the candlestick?) Because it's really cold in there as we're closed still for another two weeks. So I guess I'm the one who came up with the bright idea to move them into the cottage where it's always at tropical temperatures anyway. So now we have parrots in the cottage, which is fine most of the time, but on Sunday when Trixi and I had the day off and they were singing away and going crazy while we were trying to sleep, it wasn't so great. And now, as of a few minutes ago, we have a yorkshire terrier living with us. Scooby Doo, Hannah's dog that she is selling, he's a cute little dog, but Hannah doesn't really take care of him very well and apparently he and Oscar, Sonia's golden retriever, got in a fight so now he's living in the cottage. Great.

Other than that, we're starting to get excited about going to London. I'm a little worried about my ears, but it should be fun anyway. We're trying to get tickets to see a musical, Chicago seems to be the most popular choice, which would be really cool. We're also planning on going to Mme. Tusauds and the London Eye and of course, shopping. I can't wait. I'll try to take lots of pictures.

I should go do some exercising and a little work on the puzzle and get to bed. I hope everyone has a good day!

Lots of love

Jeannie

January 31, 2004

Hi everyone, I'm back!

Well, to be honest, I've been back since Monday, but I've been super busy so no time to e-mail. We had a great time in London, didn't get to do half of what we wanted, of course, but what we did was great.

Before we left though we had a huge problem with Scooby. He was bitten by Oscar (a big Golden Retriever) and we finally decided that it would be best if we could take him with us to his new family a month early. So that meant spending all day calling the vets and his new family and two different airlines before finally working it all out. So much for a quiet day at the office.

The trip up was okay. The plane flight was short but coming down was absolute agony. Luckily it only took one day for my ears to pop this time. Traveling from Gatwick airport to the train station and then on the tubes to the flat was.... interesting and stressful to say the least, but we made it safe and sound. Devina nearly got stuck in the doors but everyone got on eventually. The flat was a really cool 3 story place with a wroght iron spiral staircase running up the whole way. Very cool. It was decorated and fixed up in the 70's so it was a bit retro, but stylish.

That night we met up with Trixi's friend Shaun when we went out to dinner at, of all places, TGI Fridays! Yup all the way to London to go to a restaurant we have in Halifax. But it was really cool because I found out that Brits don't eat much Mexican food. They couldn't even pronouce Nachos, never mind fajitas! So it was cool to introduce them to that and they really enjoyed it. We also got to see these two barmen practicing for a competition. It was almost like juggling/dancing except with pouring drinks at the same time.

We went to bed early that night so that we could be up bright and early the next day. Even though we were on vacation, we still had to check the e-mails and answer the phones. A bit of a drag but it was okay. Sonia's getting a bit better with computers, slowly but surly. She went off to pick up her son Neil at his school while Devina, Vi, Trixi and I were shuttled around by Shaun. I now know the London tubes pretty well. :) We went to Buckingham Palace (just the outside). We went in through the Canadian gate too. :) We walked through a park with lots of waterfowl, including Canadian Geese! We saw Big Ben, Westminster Abby, and went to a South African bar for lunch where I drank my first lager. It was okay, surprizingly enough, but I'm getting a bit more of a tollerance for the taste of a lot of alcohol like wine and a tolerance for spicy food as well! Maybe I'm becoming more of my father's daughter. :) We also did a little shopping in Covenent Gardens where there were two busker shows going on.

That night we watched a few movies and had take-away (take-out) and went to bed early AGAIN. So much for staying up all night in London, oh well.

On our last full day we went to the London Dungeon where we got to see all the horrible things people used to do to each other, though it wasn't terribly scary. We ate at an Indian place (more spicy food) and a bit of shopping. I bought a lava lamp, a dressy watch, a dressy handbag (purse, which is what they call a wallet) and a nice top. We tried to get tickets to see a show, but they don't do shows on Sunday in the whole of London apparently. Oh well. Next time. Trixi and I were determined to go out that night so we asked around and found a pub right around the corner from the flat. We stayed there till it closed at... 11:30. Much dissappointment so we asked a person who worked there for a place nearby that would be still opened and found this small little latin dance club. It was pretty cool, we had some interesting drinks and had fun getting rid of weird men who tried to pretend to be from places they were obviously not from, including one Italian? guy who tried to tell me he was a French Canadian from Toronto. Oh the craziness. We stayed up really late that night and had to get up at 5:45 in the morning to pack up and get back to Gatwick airport.

The flight back was better on my ears, they did actually pop on the way down after much pain so that was good, and we got to see more of the land becasue it was much clearer. And guess what we got to come back to? SNOW! And not the piddly stuff we had before, we had about a foot of good snow. I was very excited to say the least. We've had midly cold weather (not below -10) which everyone seems to complain about but I think is just fine, especially compared to the Maritime weather.

Since we got back we've been very busy. We found out Roz, the woman whose job I've been doing for the past while during her vacation, is not coming back. She has her own business and wants to lessen the stress in her life. Totally understandable. Jo and Hannah are planning on leaving the end of February to go to Edinburgh. I wish them luck and I hope they do well but we'll miss them for sure. And Iain's thinking of going too because the hours don't really suit his family life. So everyone's leaving! It's pretty sad. Trixi and I are going to be lonely. The new girl, Emma just got here today though and she seems really nice.

We're in the middle of renovations, mostly floor related so the hotel's in a bit of a mess. Plus we've been doing so many bookings! We've taking more deposits than last year's January. Yay us! Hopefully that will continue. I've been asking about when I can take my vacation and hopefully I'll be able to come home in June for a week or two and then go back, plus I'll take some time when Sarah comes up.

Thank you to everyone who e-mailed me, I'll try to get back to you as soon as I can, but we're getting ready to go out to Elgin tonight so I have to get going. I hope everyone is well.

Lots of Love

Jeannie

February 7, 2004

Hello readers,

It's your Scotland correspondant again, typing after a few too many hours down at the stables in the cold without proper clothes on so I now have a touch of frostbite on my hands. So why am I typing? Because I have time and stuff to talk about mostly, plus maybe if I keep my fingers moving, they'll warm up faster. If anyone went to look at my pictures and couldn't find them, I'm sorry. I forgot to put the new album on "public". Silly me.

The weather here has been very very strange. For the past while it's really felt like spring since all the snow melted and the flowers started coming up. Now that was a real shock to my poor Canadian view of what the seasons should be like. There are even some daffodils growing around one side of the hotel! Yesterday though was crazy! Except for my first three weeks in Scotland when it was nice and sunny all the time and I thought people had been lying to me about Scottish weather, we have had a fair amount of rain as advertised. However, the reason that the volume of percipitation in Scotland is not much greater than it is in say, Toronto, is that it doesn't really pour or even rain heavily very much. It's just piddly little rain mostly. Yesterday was the exception. I was down at the stables early in the morning after a really bad night of sleep, so slightly grumpy, and it was raining a little, like normal, but that was fine. You get used to working in it really quick. Plus it was fairly warm so that was good. Soon after I got down there, the sky opened up and it poured. We expected this to pass, but no, it wasn't until around 1:30, when I had to go back up to get changed into my uniform and work inside that it stopped pouring. It was incredible. All the streams and rivers are overflowing and we have a serious flood in the cellar. It also caused some electrical problems today, but it's all fixed up now.

Today was another weird day. I decided to get up at 9 and go for a walk around Rychraggan because it's an absolutely beautiful walk. As the guests who walked it today said to me, it's like you've stepped into a faerie world. So, not knowing the weather (sometimes not having a window is a real pain) I went out deciding if it was sunny I'd go for a walk, if not I'd go swim or work out in the staff room. It was nice and sunny with blue skies and not too cold so I set out. When I got to the start of the path I turned around and saw a huge black cloud coming over the hill, but figured it would take a while to get here. They forcasted snow for today, but it didn't feel cold enough. Apparently, it was. I got near up to the top of the hill and actually watched the snow come over the hill and into the glen. It was really cool! So the rest of my walk was done in the snow, but I didn't mind at all.

I worked for two hours in the hotel and successfully served lunch in a hotel without power (the power problem I mentioned earlier) and the guests really didn't seem to mind. The conservatory was nice and bright anyway because there are windows all around. We all expected the snow to be short lived, but no. It's still snowing off and on as I write.

Next it was back down to the stables. More walking around in the mud and the cold, and apparently my mittens weren't enough because they're still not back to normal. Oh well. So much for me being a tough Canadian. I swear these people think Canadians just don't feel the cold or something. If ever I say I'm cold, their answer is, "But you're a Canadian!" :) Well if the South Africans ever complain of the heat I'll just say "But you're a South African!" and maybe then they'll understand. Or maybe not. :)

My big news today is that I'm going traveling tomorrow. I have tomorrow and Monday off, and since having two days off in a row is so rare here and only happened because I have Sunday off this week and Monday off the next, I'm not going to waste this oppertunity and I'm going traveling. It took me a while to decide, I had all my touristy books and leaflets all over my floor, which, if you've seen the picture of my room, meant the floor was absolutely covered. I finally decided to go to the Island of Skye over to the west. It seems like a fairly popular place to go, especially for people who like Scottish history, like me, and there's a bus there on Sunday, which was a major factor in my decision. So I'm hopping on a bus tomorrow morning and staying at a hostel over night than hopping back on the bus on Monday afternoon. There are some walking tours and bus tours that go on all year round so I have to find out times and stuff tonight so I can plan what I want to do a little.

In other news, and I know this will interest Sarah more than anyone else most likely, I have deffinitly found the ring stones from "Outlander" on a map I was looking at yesterday. They're really close to Culledon and to Castle Stuart so I'm going to go out their some day when I get a day off and see them up close for my self. Exciting! The map also had a few other interesting monuments and pictish ruins that I'd like to look at when I get a chance.

I think that's just about all that's new from my end. Keep the e-mails coming, I love to read them. I'll write again after my trip to let you all know how it went.

Lots of Love

Jeannie

February 9, 2004

Note from Sarah. Jeannie's been updating a lot lately! I'm trying to keep up. We'll see how it goes!

Well, I just got back from my wirlwind tour of Skye! It was, overall, a really good trip. I left on Sunday morning a little worried because it was threatening to snow again. I got down to Drumnadrochit (using two feet and a heartbeat, much to everyone's amazement) with plenty of time to spare despite my worries about missing the bus. I was taking the bus to Kyleakin (pronounced Ki-lee-kin or Ki-lee-hin with an h as in Huey, depending on who you talk to) which is the first "town" you come to when you get to Skye. I use the word town very lightly, it's more of a village, or rather a few houses, three hostels a couple of hotels, B&B's, one pub that was open and that was about it. The fact that I was the only one getting off there should have tipped me off that this was not the best place to see in Skye, but it was where I was planning on going, so that's where I went.

I checked into the hostel and found out that I had missed the tour that day, and they don't do them every day this time of year. At the hostel a few doors down I was told their tours only go on Saturday and Wednesday. So that plan was out of the picture. I decided to do some walking around on my own. They have a few marked walks in town, one to a beautiful castle ruins, one on the salt marshes, one to a war memorial and the other I believe had something to do with the fishing docks. The markers for this walk were these amazing stone carvings that were beautifully painted. Must have taken ages to make them.

I decided to go up to the castle ruins first, an interesting walk on a "path" that crossed the beach and had me waiding through seaweed, but I liked the adventure and danger of it. The wind up by the ruins was incredible and the castle was quite beautiful. I also learned why the bar next to the hostel was called Saucy Mary's. Apparently there was some Norweigen princess who lived in the castle and that was her nickname. Why, I still don't know, but an interesting bit of history. After the ruins I decided wouldn't it be fun to try to climb some of the lower hills around and make my way back to "town" that way rather than crossing back on the beach. First, I must tell you that I left my boots at the hotel because they were covered in mud and other such things from the stables and I hadn't had time to clean them before leaving. I should have broght them even if they were dirty because that would have saved me treking through brush and bog and getting we up to my ankles. I did manage to startle a deer which was interesting, though if anyone saw me trapesing about on those hills they probably had a really good laugh. The problem was it was really hard to tell from one step to the next if you were going to step onto solid ground or sink up to your knee.

So with sodden shoes and feeling a bit like I'd made a mistake in coming to Skye, I headed back to the Hostel to lie down. I finally had made up my mind I was leaving on the first bus in the morning and that unplanned trips are not my thing at all. I went out to grab a bite at the pub when I ran into a girl who was also staying at the hostel. I knew there were some Germans and Austrailians staying so I expected her to be one of the two nationalities. I said "hey" something that I guess is done only in Canada, because she gave me this look and said "you're not from around here, are you" I kind of thought, of course not, I'm in an international youth hostel, but just said I was from Canada, to which she replied "no way! where abouts?" I figured she was also from Canada and said Nova Scotia, again "no way!" and when I asked where she was from she said she was also from Nova Scotia! When I asked where, she said Halifax, but in the way that I say I'm from Halifax, in that used to talking to people who don't know Nova Scotia type of way. I told her I was from Sackville and it turns out she's from Bedford, closeish to the theatres! So that's how I met Reem.

We went off to eat some food at the pub which was amazing I have to say. And my parents will be happy to hear that I ate my coleslaw, something I never do, and it was quite good. It didn't taste all pickley which is the way I remember it.

Then we went back to the hostel to do a little laundry, I wanted to dry my shoes but they decided they didn't want to be dry and kept kicking the door open. While we waited for our clothes we played two bad but fun games of pool, each of us won one game. But we can blame our bad playing on the fact that the pool balls here are very strange. They're only yellow and red rather than striped and solid without numbers except the 8 ball. Plus they're smaller and lighter. So that's our excuse and that's what we're sticking to.

That evening we decided to go over to Kyle on the mainland because we thought there might possibly be more life over there. The bus over the bridge, much like the PEI Link, but much smaller, only cost 15p. Pretty cool. There wasn't much more life over there. One pub was open, it was smaller than the one in Kyleakin, and, being a Sunday, there weren't many people and it closed before 11:30. So fine, we went back to the hostel and Reem stayed in my room because some girl in her room nicked her blanket.

It was really great talking to someone from home. I could talk about Hurricane Juan without explaining what a hurrican was, or talk about something that happened in Point Pleasant Park without explaining where and what it is. It turns out that Reem is my age, only a few months younger, has very similar views on life, likes shopping in the same stores in Halifax ie. Diomios, JWD, Little Mysteries etc., and was all around a very cool person (and I'm not just saying that because she's now going to be getting all my mass e-mails. :). It was really great just to be able to talk to someone about the differences between home and here. She was in the middle of a whirlwind tour of Britan on a break from Dal where she's finishing up her degree in Immunology. She had an interview at the University of Edinburgh for their PhD program, which she managed to get into. Yay Reem! She was supposed to stay at that hostel a second night before moving on, but after that first rather boring day, decided not to.

But the big question in the morning was what next! We thought about going further into the island to Portree because it's bigger and has more stuff. Unfortunately the only bus up would leave at 12 the bus back to Inverness would leave at 3. Not enough time to warent going all the way up there. A girl working at the hostel suggested we hitch up. Okay, neither of us had ever really hitch hiked before and we were in a place we don't know very well, but we were assured that people hitch there all the time and as long as we were going together we'd be fine. So... we did it.

The third car stopped for us and it was a really nice older gentleman who knew all kinds of stuff about Skye and the mountains (which were absolutely breathtaking by the way) and he went out of his way to bring us to Portree. So first hitch hiking experience a success, though I still won't be making it a regular part of my transportation.

Portree was lots of fun. We had an amazing breakfast at this really cool cafe with hot chocolate that was to die for. Everyone we met was so incredibly nice to us and really helpful too. I spent way too much money, but that's not a big deal because I won't be spending much for a long time. One really interesting thing was when we walked into a music store and there amungst all this Scottish music was a Natalie McMaster CD! I was tempted to buy it, but had decided I wasn't spending any more money on myself but I kind of regret it. It would be nice to have some music from home.

The bus trip back was just as beautiful. I saw tons and tons of sheep, of course, some highland cattle, very cute, and more deer than I've ever seen in my whole life! There were just so many on the hillsides and I guess because most of the hills and mountains don't have trees you can see them whereas in Canada they're hidden. I must have seen over a hundred on the trip up and back and that's not an exaggeration. The drive through Skye is kind of like driving in Cape Breton except, well, imagine driving up in the Highlands of Cape Breton, now take away the trees and add some fences (small pet peeve of mine), now double the size of the mountains and add some snow on the top and make the tops of the mountains more pointy and that's kind of what it's like.

Another thing that I found really cool was that all the signs are in Gaelic (here, said kind of like garlic only without the r) and in English. Even the signs for no parking and "no fouling" (pick up after your dog) are in both languages. I still want to learn to speak it but have yet to find an oppertunity.

Anyway, I'm back at the hotel now. Naim has left at last and things are more or less the same as when I left, except that Jacky got a haircut and has no hair now. It'll be nice to sleep in my bed again. Well I'm off to go watch I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here.... I know... I know, I'm watching a stupid reality show, but with four channels there isn't much choice.

I hope everyone is doing well. I'll try to send some replies to people who e-mailed me later in the week. Talk to you soon!

Lots of Love

Jeannie

February 17, 2004

Hi everyone,

It's amazing how we seem to go from zero to 60 at this hotel. We're either totally empty, or totally full. Well, that's been my experience thus far, we'll see what happens in the coming months. Looks a lot more random in March and April.

We had a really nice Valentine's Day here. We took a really long time decorating the restaurant with pink overlays, floating candles, some ribbons, roses, name cards, the works. It looked fantastic. We were really pleased with ourselves because Sonia went away for the week on a cruise around the Canary Islands leaving us to do our best to run the hotel on our own and I think we did pretty well. No major disasters and the small problems we had, we dealt with. Like for instance the night that Emma was sceduled on her own for dinner because we only had four people in for dinner, but then I took in two couples from off the road and we couldn't leave her with the restaurant on her own with eight people. So Jo ended up coming in on her day off for about two hours and I came back after a short break to help end off the night. It was a bit.... unorganized, but we did manage to get everything done and keep everyone happy.

Things have been going pretty smoothly all in all. I'm getting much better at dealing with problems rather than freaking out, and really I think Sonia leaving us with the hotel was one of the best things for us. It forced us to deal with any problem as best we could, rather than just relying on her to fix all the problems.

Even though I went to Skye only last week, my traveling foot is getting rather itchy. I have Thursday off this week and am planning on finding those standing stones if it's the last thing I do. I'm really determined now that I know vaguly where they are and know that there is a bus that runs somewhat near them. I just have to find out which bus and where to get it and get off and everything. I'm planning on leaving really early in the morning so I'll have lots of time to explore and get lost and figure out where I am before the last bus comes back here.

I've been spending a whole lot of my hours out of work in the staff lounge either working out (I can now lift 60 lbs, yay me!) and watching movies. Mostly I've been watching old episodes of Buffy and Faulty Towers. And to answer my parents' question, the one I'm most like is Polly. She's also a "general assistant" which is more or less my "title". The guests find it a little strange that they see me down at the stables and then later I'm up serving them lunch then next day doing kids tea or at the front desk or doing circus tricks out on the tennis courts like yesterday. They find it really strange that we all have so many different jobs, but really, I wouldn't have it any other way. There are some jobs that I prefer over others, but I like the fact that I never get bored because I'm never doing the same thing two days in a row.

Puddles, the cocker spaniel from the house, just came into the computer room with me. He was outside barking so I let him in. He comes in to the hotel with the guests all the time, even though he knows he's not allowed in. He's very obedient though and does go out when you tell him too. I actually like the cats a bit more at the house though because the dogs aren't really indoor dogs. They stay in the porch or run around the stables and they're kind of smelly. The cats on the other hand really have the run of the house and are incredibly clean, though they do occasionally get worms from keeping the stables free of mice.

Well, that's about all my news for now. I'll try to write again after my adventure in Inverness.

Miss you all!

Jeannie

February 19, 2004

Hi everyone,

First off, for everyone who doesn't get Sarah's e-mails about updates, yes indeed, I have finally managed to get some photos incorrporated into my journal. However, as with the photos on my photo page, I am unable to rotate them so a few are sideways. No worries, just tilt your computer screen and you'll see them just fine. Another unfortunate thing, like Sarah pointed out, is that they're a bit too big and they do occasionally overlap some words. Once again, due to my meager program, I can't resize the pictures either. I'll get it all sorted out one day though. Emma and I are pushing to get photoshop out here. We have it on the main desk computer. Horray! I'll try to put photos on more regularly now that I know I can. Though I think the big showing of all the pictures huge slide show that will take hours thing will have to wait until I get home. I'm sure you're all looking forward to that. :)

So, what's so new in Jeannie's life that she's bothering to e-mail everyone after sending a huge e-mail only a few days ago? Well I'll tell you. I had the day off today and as I mentioned in my last e-mail, I decided to finally go off in search of adventures closer to home and look for the standing stones near Inverness, hoping beyond hope that they were the same ones from Dianna Gabaldon's novels. So I set out really early this morning, caught the 8:00am bus out to Inverness with Virendra with no idea how to get to where I wanted to go. Again with the unplanned trip. I never learn. It was a beautiful day today, a little on the chilly side, I'd say about -7 or so, but not a cloud in the sky and the sun, when it broke through the mist, was really warm.

After wandering the streets of Inverness for a while in search of breakfast, the tourist bureau or anyplace warm where I could pretend to be shopping, I did manage to get an egg sandwich, my staple when eating at cafe's here, at a take-away cafe because I wasn't paying enough attention in my rush to get warmed up. So back out on the streets, all the shops were still closed, I stuffed my sandwich into my bag and found the tourit bureau. I browsed there quite a while till the feeling came back into my fingers, I had foolishly left my gloves at home thinking it was still going to be as warm as it was yesterday, and I bought a great pin with a Canadian and Scottish flag crossing each other. When I was warm enough I asked about how to get to the Clava Cairns, the standing stones I had seen on a map. The lady at the desk was very helpful and even gave me a photocopy of the bus schedule.

Getting on the bus proved a bit harder than I imagined. With the busses here you have to say where you're going and you pay accordingly as opposed to the flat rate we pay in Halifax. When I told the driver I was going to the Clava Cairns, he had no idea what I was talking about. I ended up describing them as "big rocks". Great English Jeannie! It turns out that I could have just said Culloden Fields and walked to the turn off, but live and learn. I walked for a mile and half according to the sign, down a narrow one lane road passed some small little houses and farms, a few B&B's and a really cool train bridge, and at last came to the Clava Cairns. There wasn't a visitor centre or anything, just a few plaques and of course, a donation box and many many fences. Grrrrr. At first I thought it was locked, but luckily there was another entrance so I didn't have to jump the fence. The cairns were amazing. They're a bit hard to describe, there are three of them, basically large circular piles of stone with a circular chamber in the middle. The two outer ones had passageways into the centre, the middle one did not. All three were surrounded by about 10-13 standing stones each, some of which were over 10 feet tall! Most are broken and all are worn down, but no wonder considering they were put up approximately 2000 BCE! They're not sure what they were used for, they think they're burial sites, but they can't say for certain.

The good news is that they were amazing to see! It was cool to imagine that, although there are only a few trees surrounding them and they're otherwise surrounded by farmland and a road, they were probably once in the middle of a big forest. The bad news is that they aren't the standing stones from the Outlander series. They're not on a hill and the fact that the circle stones have these cairns in the middle, plus the fact that they're three of them, kind of rules them out. The placement on the other hand is perfect. They're really close to both Culloden Field and to Castle Stuart. I read on a web site last night that other people have been trying to figure out in the stones from her novels are real or if she made them up. They aren't sure. Is there anything about that in her big guide to the series Sarah? Note from Sarah: She made them up, as she was never in Scotland until after the second book was published. I think.

On the way back to the main road I met up with a guy from California who is just doing a whirlwind tour before going back to the states. He's worked in Britan for the past few months and was a really nice guy. I knew he was from North America because he said "hey" and as Reem pointed out to me, that's a very North American greeting. He was hitching back to Inverness and I was going to Culloden fields so we didn't talk long, but it was nice to talk to him.

Culloden battlefield, unlike the cairns, has a huge visitor's centre with lots of information, a gift shop, a video presentation, and a restaurant. After walking through the exhibit and seeing the video, I walked out on the battlefield, which is now populated by fuzzy black sheep with funny horns, and I saw all the graves to the different clans. It was quite interesting. I recommend it to anyone who comes up here. I knew most of the history stuff already, thanks to Dianna Gabaldon and Sir Walter Scott, but it's a bit different to actually be there.

In the gift shop I bought a pipe band CD, mostly because it was playing "She Moves Through The Fair" over the speaker when I was trying to decide on one. It's really good. I also bought a "learn to speak basic Gaelic" tape. :) Kind of silly, but I've really wanted to learn at least a little Gaelic. I had the choice between two and I'm kind of kicking myself for choosing the less expensive one now because it's not half as good as the other one, but I'll get a little out of it. I now know how to say and write "How are you?" in Gaelic. It's spelt Ciamar a tha thu? But said "kimar a how?" Oh, and what my Grandad used to say was the answer to Ciamar a tha thu? is Gle mhath, said gle va and means very good.

I had a really nice meal in the restaurant, some potato and leek soup and shortbread cookies with Irn-bru, a real Scottish lunch. :) While I waited for my bus to go back to Inverness, I wrote down some really good ideas for "Lost and Found", one of my unfinished stories that I've been working on, so look for an update in the next few weeks at www.geocities.com/jeanniecee/unfinished.html

So back in Inverness, I did some shopping, found a really cool store with wonderful stuff from some of the same people that supply to Little Mysteries, and I bought a really cheep little walkman to listen to my new learning Gaelic tape, and a few other little things. Oh! One thing that was really annoying, and I apologize for this, my camera battery died while I was down at the cairns. It's my own fault for not charging it last night but I thought it could make it through the day. No such luck. I have only a few pictures of the cairns, and one of the cool bridge, but none of Culloden or anything else. I was really disappointed because I decided to cross the Ness River on the foot bridge in Inverness today and I saw a really good photo oppertunity, but no such luck. Oh well, there will be more chances.

In other news, Iain has his last day tomorrow, we're all really sad about that, but he's hoping to go back to driving a delivery truck. He's promised that if we ever get a day off we can go with him and see some more of the Highlands. There was a guy from Germany in today for an interview for Iain's job. I don't know if Sonia's going to hire him or not yet. Also, I have two days off in a row next week! We're really quiet and now that Sonia knows I've got the travel bug, she's letting me get out and see stuff. So I'm putting off my plan to bike around the glen and I'm going to try to go somewhere next week. I'm not sure where yet, any ideas, let me know. :)

Well, this CD is coming to an end, letting me know I've been typing here too long and my eyes are liable to turn square soon so I should sign off now. I'll try to get more picutres up as soon as possible.

Lots of Love

Jeannie

February 26, 2004

This is your corrospondent from Scotland, Jeannie Chiasson.

As I said in my last e-mail/entry, I had two days off this week and had to take advantage of this. So where was I on Tuesday night? Right here on the computer trying to figure out where I was going to spend these lovely two days! At about 11:00 I was about ready to give up and just jump on the first bus that came into Drum. Trixi and Jo convinced me that Fort William would be a good place to go so with no knowledge of how I was going to get there or where to stay or what to do, I went to bed.

Next day dawned nice and snowy but the sun soon came out. Despite everyone's reservations about me once again traveling while it was snowing, (I must point out that by 10:30 or so, the roads were totally clear of snow and it was nice and sunny) I figured out which bus to take and found a hostel to stay in.

So off I walked to Drum to catch my bus, had to run to catch it but luckily other people were getting on so I had time, and off I went to Fort William. After nearly getting off at Fort Augustus by mistake, we came to a town that, to me, was called Ben Nevis, a town I had assumed was near Fort William. The driver got a little annoyed at myself and another passenger when we didn't get off the bus as it was indeed Fort William as they are one and the same place.

I found the hostel without much difficulty, much to my shock and amazement, but couldn't check in until 4, so I left my backpack and went off exploring the town after a nice cup of free tea. Tea is good, but free tea is better. :) Fort William was a beautiful little town with lots and lots of shops on one street called High Street, just like all the other main streets in all the other towns that have lots of shops on them. Basically, regardless of where you are in Scotland, if you want to shop, look for a street called High Street. Anyway, there was also a really nice museum I went into that was small but very excellent. It was well laid out and had lots of really interesting things. I did a little shopping, some walking, then decided since I still had about an hour or so before I could check in, I was going to walk to the Inverlochy Castle. I had a little map that I got at the hostel and it didn't look that far. After two wrong turns and about 45 minutes later, I found the castle. It was mostly ruined and the history about it wasn't all that interesting. A few people lived there, then it was abandoned for a long while, then someone else owned it.... not show stopping stuff, but the view was spectacular.

Ah, the views. The mountains were more beautiful than you can imagine. And that's just what you'll have to do, imagine them. Why, you may ask? Well to make a very long story short, I thought my battery had a lot of power left in it, but I guess it didn't. I don't have one single picture to show for this adventure because my battery was totally and utterly dead. I even tried to go an buy a new battery, but they didn't sell them charged. They also don't sell chargers. So I bought a few postcards and am planning on going back one day with a fully charged battery in my camera.

After a quick snack back at the hostel and some hot chocolate, I went out again in search of some real food, not just rolls and peanut butter, as yummy as they were. I found a pub called "Gruel and Grub", appealing name, eh? It had a really good looking menu though so I tried it. It was a really nice place. Lots of vegetarian selection, like most restaurant here, and contrary to the name, fairly classy. And shocks of all shocks, I decided to have a glass of house white with my meal. Yup, I'm drinking wine. Still not a huge fan, but I'm trying to learn more about it so I can tell guests about it.

It was around 7:20 by the time I finished (everyone, including me now, eats dinner really late here as I've probably mentioned before) and I heard that there was a cinema nearby. At the cinema I had two choices, Scary Movie 3, and not having seen the first two and not having any desire to see this one, I choose Looney Tunes Back in Action. It was really really funny. I was the only adult there without kids and I think I laughed the most out of everyone two. It's a must see, but okay as a rental probably.

So it was just after 9 when I got out, two early to go to a pub and I wasn't really sure I wanted to go to a pub, so I went back to the hostel to see what everyone else was doing. There I met a guy who was from, of all places, Halifax. He was born in Ontario but grew up mostly in East Hants and then moved to the city to go to Dal. I ended up sitting and talking with him and a whole lot of other people in the common room all night and had a great time. I even had a few beers, another really strange thing, they weren't great, but not horrid either. I did discover one strange thing though, when two Canadians get together in a foreign country, all they talk about is home and how different things are from here. Maybe it's just because it's the one thing we know we have in common. It was nice to once again meet up with someone from home. It's crazy how that keeps happening to me. :)

Next morning I was feeling a little clumsy and my feet were killing me from walking around in my boots all day on hard pavement. So rather than going hiking, my original plan, I decided to venture up to the cable car ride that goes up to the ski hill and have a look around. I'd heard the view was quite spectacular. I had a few hours to kill before the bus was due, so I did some more shopping. I bought a few things for people that I'm pretty proud of, I know I have a long time before I come home, but I saw these things and just had to get them. I also got myself a pair of cheep but wonderfully fuzzy slippers, something I miss from home, a nice new emerald green sweater on sale, some postcards, some candy and one more thing.

I went into a second hand bookstore because I just can't pass them without going in. The man working there looked a little surprised, but was very nice. We started talking about Nova Scotia and how it's really more Scottish than Scotland, and I mentioned that my mother's maiden name is Crosby and that we know it's Scottish, but not a whole lot beyond that. It's not like it's Cameron or MacSomething, where everyone automatically knows it's Scottish so I didn't expect him to know much. But he did, he said, Oh, Crosby, that comes from a little village by the name of Crosbie down in Lancashire under Glasgow. He went and found a book of Scottish names and sure enough, Crosbie is from that area and the Crosbies were apparently followers of The Bruce. So there you go. I have roots. :) Now I want to go down there and find this town and some more history and stuff. Yay for knowing where your family came from. Now if I could just find out why they immigrated.

Anyway, on the bus to the Nevis Range was a guy that I had talked to last night from New Zealand. We ended up going up in the cable cars, or gondola ride and spending most of the day together. It was quite nice to have someone to talk to. The view was amazing, absolutely breathtaking, I wish I had a panoramic camera, type view. It snowed a little while we were up there but I really pitied the skiers because there was very little snow on the ground. After some tea and coffee we went back down the hill, this time with two other people, one of whom was from Winnipeg, more Canadians, yay! and back on the bus to the hostel.

I was really tired by this point and I thought I had 4 more hours to wait for my bus. I was trying to decide what to do, when I realized there was an earlier bus leaving in ten minutes so I caught the early bus back, and it was a good thing too because we're getting even more snow tonight, possibly up to 5cm!!!!!!!!!!!!! and so they're closing lots of roads.......... Yeah. I know. Silly Scottish people who can't deal with a little snow. Drop a snow bomb on them like what you guys have at home and I wonder what would happen! They would be digging themselves out till Spring!

Anyway, I had to walk back from Drum, which I don't normally mind, but my feet are so incredibly sore! I think I'm going to go soak them for a bit to see if that helps. But it's back to work tomorrow morning, bright and early. I hope everyone's doing well. I'll try to get to individual e-mails tomorrow. I'll also try to post some more recent photos tomorrow if I get a chance.

Lots of Love

Jeannie

March 7, 2004

Hello from your Scotland correspondent! I hope everyone is well and I promise that I will get around to all the individual e-mails... eventually.

First before I get into the more recent events I have a few retractions and additions to my previous entry/e-mail. First off, I have to apologize for saying that the Crosby side of my family is Scottish. My aunt let me know that it is in fact Irish and although that name is also over here, in a different form, that part of the family is Irish. The Currie side is, however, Scottish so I'll be looking that up next.

Also, I realized later that I didn't say what the "one more thing" was that I bought in Fort William. It was another Gaelic book and tape at the second hand store. It was only ? (knocked down from ? by the clerk) and it has a drawing of Nova Scotia on it amongst other Gaelic speaking places. Strangely enough it's only a drawing of the main-land and leaves Cape Breton right out... but they can't be perfect.

Another question about the last e-mail was what was "missing" from my subject line. The thing that is missing is the power in my camera and therefore any pictures I may have taken.

And now on to my more recent adventures. I'm not sure if I mentioned last time that I had plans to visit another cairn that's fairly close by on my next day off, but I had that plan for some time. On Friday I finally decided to follow up on this plan. After breakfast I packed a small lunch and set off on one of the hotel bicycles. I judged from the map that the site was about 8 miles away, I'm not sure if that's really how far away it is or not, but it's about right.

The road is really hilly with lots of ups on the way up so my legs were really burning. I took lots of breaks to take pictures, drink water, to chat with a local with a dog who looked a lot like Ceilidh right before a hair cut (not a Wheaton though, the lady said he's a mutt) and to straighten the handlebars on the bike which were not tight enough and kept twisting to the right every time I climbed a hill. Biking on a really narrow road is really scary, luckily there's not much traffic so it's not as bad as at home, but I also didn't have a helmet so it was a bit nerve wracking at times.

The mountains were, as usual, amazing. One in the distance had a bit of snow but for the most part they're just covered in planted trees and fences. Still beautiful though. I followed the river for the majority of the trip. I nearly chickened out and went for a walk in on the trail created by the Forestry Commission that was about a quarter of the distance, but I decided to keep going.

The Corrimony chambered cairn is a bit smaller than the clava cairns and there's only one. The circle of stones around is pretty much intact though, twelve in total. Like the ones at Clava, the entrance to this one faces roughly south-west. The major difference is that the entrance is more like a tunnel and then the centre is open like in the two chambered cairns at clava. So to get into the cairn I had to crawl on my hands and knees. I was a bit afraid the rocks would collapse, even though they have put up support beams to prevent that. I ended up a bit dirty with sparkles all over my hand from the rocks. It was absolutely amazing. It's just out in the middle of no where in what was someone's field but is now all fenced off so people can go in. Very interesting. I was looking at the map and these things are all over the place! If I went to one on every day off I have from now till I go home and did nothing else, I don't think I'd even get to all the ones in this area!

Anyway, there was a sign for a reforestation nature walk thing so I decided to investigate. I biked down a really old single track falling apart road that turned into a dirt road after passing through a "cow gate". The road got really steep at one point and I had to walk it as my bike would not shift gears nor would the handlebars stay straight. At the top was another gate, one I couldn't open, with one of the weird step things that they have around gates so that people can go in but animals can't, and neither can bikes. So, feeling fairly secure that none of the local farmers would be interested in stealing my purple hotel bike, I left it there and continued on foot. About 5 minutes into the trail I finally found a sign that said the path is only accessible on foot. Too bad they didn't have one of those signs at the gate!

The trail was beautiful. It's an area that was clear-cut that they're trying to partially reforest. Some of the trees are already quite big and what isn't covered in trees is covered in heather, of course. I can't wait to see the mountains when the heather's in bloom. I took lots and lots of pictures, but they don't do it justice at all.

All that walking in the wide open spaces made me think a whole lot. Maybe too much. And so by the end of the trail I was a bit depressed, asking the questions that are too big to answer, and then it started to rain. I had a bit of my peanut butter and honey sandwich and started back for home. Just as I was rounding a bend, the rain let up and there was a beautiful rainbow! Needless to say, that cheered me up a great deal.

The ride back was much easier, more downhill, fewer pit stops, plus I'd figured out the gears a bit better, and the handlebars. I had one stop at an old abandoned house with a really interesting old graveyard. Lots of Frasers in it, but no James Frasers. :) One thing that made the ride home nearly unbearable was the seat of that bike was soooooooooooo uncomfortable! I felt like my sits bones were going to break through my skin! I'm still a little sore even today. The other problem was along with being loose, the handlebars were too low so my back was a bit the worse for wear.

All in all, another good day out. People here still seem to think I'm a bit crazy to keep going off on these adventures alone at every opportunity I get, but I keep saying, I'm here to see Scotland, not to sit in my room all day. As for the alone part, if I waited until someone else had the same day off as me, I'd never get to go anywhere. Besides, Scotland, especially the Highlands, is pretty safe.

I'll try to add some pictures to this and other entries as soon as I have time. Maybe tomorrow morning before work if I get up early enough.

Lots of Love

Jeannie

March 16, 2004

Hi all!


We also went ten pin bowling, a slightly different game from ours at home. The balls are MUCH bigger, with little finger holes in them, and you only get two throws, not three. The scoring was also all computerized which I found a little less fun, but after a rough start, I didn't do too badly. The whole week was a ton of fun. We can't wait till Shaun comes up to visit again when the fishing is better.

We have a few more new faces around the hotel now. Sebastiaan came about a week or two ago, he's from the Netherlands. He works mostly in the garden and down the stables. Yesterday, a couple, also Dutch, came up for an interview and were hired on. They're both going to be doing restaurant and reception type work from what I can tell. They're both quite nice as well.

Today we had a very interesting day. We had a big photo shoot for our new brochure. So we spent all day running around and setting up little shots and laying up food and then we took some of the kids Sonia teaches and I did circus tricks outside with them and we had to pretend it was nice and warm even though it was drizzling and a little cold. It was pretty fun though and I can't wait to see the pictures! I think they're going to look amazing, I don't know how we'll chose which ones to use! And then of course this evening all the food we made for the photos had to be eaten so we had a feast tonight. I'm soooooo stuffed! I seem to be losing the bit of weight I put on earlier though. My kilt is fitting me a bit better. I think it's from all the biking, walking, swimming and weight lifting I've been doing. I'm getting much fitter now that I get out of my room more:)

Sarah and I are trying to book all out flights and things for May and June. It's very exciting. I can't wait for Sarah to come up here. Everyone here is wonderful, but I miss having people from home. I miss not being the only Canadian, and since the girl from Ontario decided not to work here and we're now being overrun by Dutch people, we need a bit of balance in the cottage. :) Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone! Be kind to snakes. :)

Jeannie

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