OCH AYE THE NOO

Sunday and we are still in Aberdeen which is good.
The weather has mostly been crap but hey, it's winter in Scotland so what would you expect. By all accounts it's been worse in Toronto with the worst storm in recent history having decimated the city and NZ has had the usual rainstorms and floods between Christmas and New Year (why anyone would go camping in a tent at this time bewilders me).

We've eaten a lot. We've drunk a lot including a bottle of Taylor's LBV 2008 port and watched a lot of TV. The television in the UK is vastly superior to the offerings in Canada but I still think that NZ has the better balance - fewer channels but better quality.

When the weather allowed we've been walking. I've been into the city a couple of times which is only a short walk away from where we're staying. Aberdeen is a striking city built of granite. It boasts the second largest granite building in the world which is an architectural marvel. Generally the granite structures and houses are sombre and obviously gray. I don't mind this. Maybe it's the Scottish Methodist in my family background. There's not much overt signage on retail stores which is good. A 300 year old building that now houses a pub, a chemist or a boutique has only a small discreet sign outside. From a distance all you see is the granite building. I like this.

Now I'm no oil painting, ask the Old Girl but Aberdeen must have the greatest percentage of ugly people per capita in the world. I swear to god at one stage, in a shopping centre I thought the place had been invaded by Visigoths.

 I've heard Aberdonians complain about the recent influx of foreigners to the region - Poles, Russians, Chinese, Africans etc. but to my mind this can only be good as the gene pool definitely needs adding to kind of like in the way that the Appalachian mountains need to be invaded.

Tomorrow will be another hunkering down day as another storm is coming in but hopefully Tuesday (New Year's eve) will be good enough to drive down to Stonehaven for lunch at a restaurant that the Old Girl's cousin used to own and then out on the town in the evening.
Recently, (well since the millennium actually) we haven't bothered about staying up to see the new year in but this is Scotland. Hogmanay. We might have to have a kip in the late afternoon to make sure we are awake at midnight.

Lang may yer lum reek!