A whole lot of hike

The weather has been kind of up and down lately but we've definitely had a lot more bright sunny days than bad days. Of course with the volcanic ash it was touch and go for about a week with what the weather would be like outside, but that all has seem to get much better over the past week.

So I've found myself hiking more lately and taking in the weather. Last week we hiked down South from Aberdeen and did a pretty hard (at least for me) hike up a mountain and then back down. I think the hike was about 3 or 4 hours long but some really great views and it was a little chilly that day but mostly sunny. Unfortunately in my rush to get out the door that morning I some how managed to leave my camera behind, so I didn't get any good pictures that day.

Yesterday we hiked Raemore, which is in Banchory (pronounced Ban-cory) and is kind of South West of Aberdeen. It was an easier hike than last weeks but still about 3 hours long. It was up a mountain as well but it didn't seem to be as steep as last weeks, so I think I enjoyed it a little more. The weather, however, wasn't that great yesterday and we got drizzled on most of the day with cloudy and overcast the whole way. We didn't mind getting wet though. I did remember to take my camera though, so I got a few pictures.

This was our hiking trail, of course going down the mountain

One of our fantastic views. You can tell how overcast it was. All that vegetation in the picture is Heather that hasn't bloomed yet.

Tyra and I (one of my American friends here)

We passed a pasture with horses in it while we were finishing up our hike and these horses just came right up to the fence to greet us. I didn't use my zoom....they were that close to us!

Pretty horses

And for those of you that I remind of the long hours of daylight that are fast approaching..........we are now at the point where daylight is here wellbefore 6:00 and it's not getting good and dark until after 9:00.

So the long awaited trip to Barcelona, Italy and France is finally here. I've already had several request to take lots of pictures and post all about it. I can't promise I'll be able to post a lot of pictures, but I'll definitely hit some of the highlights and post as many pictures as I can!

Auctions, hiking and volcanic ash skies......

Auctions, hiking and volcanic ash skies...........that's what I've been up too!

Taken on my hike Tuesday at Glen Dye

So it's been a busy week. Tuesday I took a fantastic 2 1/2 hour hike with a group of girls from AWA. We stopped off at this little cottage and had our packed lunches and toasted spring with some champagne. It was a great time. It was a little windy and chilly up where we were but all in all.........a beautiful day. I snapped a few pictures while we were out hiking. The area we hiked had a lot of sheep on it and they weren't scared of us at all. They just sat there and stared at us as we walked by. Some of them were literally less than 50 feet away. But as one of my hiking buddies said, "I've never dodged so much sheep crap in my whole life". lol

See how close the sheep were and there were some that were even closer

Little creek we walked across. See all the little white specks in the background.......sheep!

Same little creek, where it flows into the river

We were kind of put in the mountains some. There was still a little snow in a few places

Wednesday we had our long awaited charity auction for the AWA group. Each year the group has an auction where members bring in odds and ends of things they want to donate and we group them with similar things and auction off the "lots" to raise money for our selected charity for that year. We had a great turn out and lots of goodies. There were some great bidding wars and everything auctioned off. We did a great job of raising 2600 Pounds for the charity. And to put that in dollars it's about the equivalent of $4000. So a great turn out for a great cause! This year our charity was Grampians Women's Aid (which help women & children coming from domestic abuse homes). We had been planning and working hard at getting things ready for the auction for a few weeks now, so it was nice to finally have the auction and see that the hard work "paid off". Yay to the fantastic group of ladies of AWA for donating things and then buying things in the auction to go toward a good cause.

And today we woke to find out that it was cloudy and overcast outside. But not due to bad weather, but rather volcanic ashes that were floating in the area above Scotland from a volcano in Iceland. It's wrecked havoc on a lot of European countries because it's got the airports shut down due to visibility and danger of malfunction by flying in the ash. Thankfully we aren't flying anywhere right now but it's really quite scary to think that it might take several days for it to clear off well enough for planes to get back to flying over Europe.

We hiked along side a river for a little while too

So an exciting and busy week here at the Bartulla household!

A nice day for a hike

We have daffodils even growing in our flower beds around the house.

The weekend was really nice! Gave us a sense that spring is finally here. Now having said that I am skeptical that I have just jinxed it by saying so!

Both Saturday and Sunday the temperatures got up to the upper 50's, the sun was shining and it couldn't have felt better to be outside after a long, cold winter! Saturday we brought the smoker out and cooked burgers for lunch and ribs for dinner. We sat outside and soaked up some rays and had a few beers. I felt like for a second I was back home, but not so hot! You can tell though that we are getting acclimated to the weather. Jeff was braver than I and actually wore shorts for a few hours on Saturday. Even the neighbor commented on his bravery of wearing shorts. I rolled up my sweats and wore a short sleeve, but shorts are not in my forecast, at least not yet.

Sunday we decided to take a hike down to the shore and walk along it for a couple of miles to the little village right down the way from us. It's called Johnshaven and it's a little harbor town. So we hiked about a mile from our house down to the shore and then walked along the shore till we got to Johnshaven. We played along the shore line for a bit and then hiked back. It got warm enough on our hike to shed our jackets. We'd never done the hike toward Johnshaven so it was nice to enjoy the scenery from the shore line. We passed the little creek that runs by our house and where it eventually empties out into the North Sea. We passed by the really neat school in Johnshaven that you normally can't see from the roadway. And we took in a few patches of daffodils that have finally bloomed. All in all I think we hiked about 5 miles (my best guess). Might have been more, might have been a little less but I think it was pretty close to 5 miles. What a great way to spend a Sunday! We decided that we need to do more hiking this spring and summer.

This is at the Benholm Mill, in their parking lot. Lots of daffodils

We passed the Mill on our way to the shore

I hear everyone say that when the daffodils bloom, spring is here. I hope they are right!

Once we got down to the shoreline I turned around and took a picture of the hill behind us. We live just on the other side of those trees, up the hill......about a half mile past the trees.
This very same creek runs by our house, but this is right before it lets out into the North Sea. It's much prettier here, I think.

This is the shoreline with its low tide. Lots of rocks. One day I'll have to get down there when its high tide so you see more of the Sea and less of the rocks. Of course after living here for nearly a year, I am still not sure when high tide is.

This is the really beautiful school from a distance. You can see the top of it through the trees from here but from the road it is completely hidden.

As we got closer, this was the best picture I could get. This was with my zoom, we were still quite a ways away.

I love this little old overgrown bridge. I didn't seen see it at first, Jeff is the one that pointed it out.

This wall stretched almost the whole way from where we got in the shoreline at to Johnshaven. No telling how old it is but it was 4 to 5 foot tall (varying in places). Though it was broken down in a few places it is still standing in most places.

I've heard Aberdeen called the granite capital of the world because there is so much granite here. You walk down the beach and there are just chunks of granite laying there. I found this worn smooth piece of granite (on the left). It sparkles with sparkly bits in it. And then I found this piece of turquoise (on the right) while walking along the rocky beach as well. This picture doesn't do either justice.

Just when you think spring has sprung....

At the beginning of last week I would have swore that spring was here. We were having really beautiful sunny days and it was getting in the lower 50's and not very windy. Nice days! Several days when out and about we just needed a light jacket. Such a welcome relief! Even some of the daffodils around town started to open up.
Then.............out of no where last week we get snow! Wind, rain, snow............and just over all bad weather! Such bad weather that a lot of places South of Aberdeen lost power, including us. We went without power just long enough to need to toss everything in the fridge but thankfully saved almost everything in the freezer. The freezer is in the garage and with all the snow and wind it was pretty cold outside so I guess that kept the freezer cold enough. Needless to say I wasn't to thrilled about not having any heat during that power outage.
Jeff was offshore so I lite a fire and bundled up and slept in the living room. And I was ever so grateful when the power did come back on!

So that was last week. This week it's been kind of rainy and cold, a little windy. But today it's beautiful again and the sun is shining and it's a bit warmer outside today. I'm not going to say spring is here.........as I fear I will pretty much jinx it! But I am hoping the daffodils will finally open up around the house and I can snap some good pictures. I need the sun too, just so it's not a rainy gloomy picture! :)

I know back home things are starting to warm up and you all are not looking forward to the summer months. I haven't forgot about those 100+ temps and the humidity that makes you feel like you are melting away. I think when we finally do return home that our first summer there will feel like we are gonna die. lol

Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter!