Edinburgh Archives - Kidding Herself

Noss Head Lighthouse Keeper’s Cottage in Scotland

The Internet is a wonderful thing.

You may have noticed the limited range of places we write about. Moscow. The centre of Moscow. The edges of Moscow. The very occasional journey outside of Moscow. A number of articles about Mama’s hometown, Stevenage. The backlog of posts about where we used to live, London. The centre of London, the edges of London, the… OK, you get the idea.

Mama, in fact, is a travel blogger who doesn’t actually like travelling much. Well, it’s a niche.

But thanks to the World Wide Web, she can armchair travel as much as she wants. Mama enjoys other people’s trips to far flung places quite a lot.

Plus, it allows her to keep in contact with all sorts of people in all sorts of places, to share a laugh, to see what they think is happening in the world, to peer into the tiny details of lives and living situations very different from hers. Even, in some ways, to participate.

Which is what happened when her friends bought Noss Head Lighthouse Keeper’s Cottage, in the North East of Scotland, close to Wick and Inverness and their airports and train connections, and twenty minutes from the very top of mainland Britain, John o’Groats itself.

Now Mama had not previously given much thought to the existence of Scottish lighthouses, or lighthouses in general. She might be the product of a proud island nation and the daughter of an enthusiastic amateur sailor, but she’s never lived within sight of the sea, the boat she is most familiar with is a Mirror dinghy, and her sailing has all been done on lakes. Very small lakes, mainly.

So previously she did not know that Scottish lighthouses were frequently built by one or another member of a family of engineering-minded Stevensons. With the exception of Robert Louis Stevenson, who benefited from lighthouse building being quite a lucrative business on the rocky north coast of Scotland and became a writer. Yes, that Robert Louis Stevenson.

‘I dreams of cheese! Toasted mostly! Oooh arrr Jimlad! Shiver me timbers! Pieces of eight!’ says Mama, helpfully.

This is what Robert said about the Stevenson Scottish lighthouses:

‘There is scarce a deep sea light from the Isle of Man to North Berwick, but one of my blood designed it. The Bell Rock stands monument for my grandfather; the Skerry Vhor for my uncle Alan; and when the lights come out along the shores of Scotland, I am proud to think that they burn more brightly for the genius of my father’.

Alan Stevenson, the uncle, was the one who oversaw the construction of Noss Head Lighthouse and surrounding buildings, and Noss Head has some interesting features. The diamond-shaped windows in the lantern room were a new design, subsequently employed in future lighthouses. He also went a bit overboard with the architectural detailing on the cottages and outhouses, which means that some of them, although not the Noss Head Lighthouse Keeper’s Cottage itself, are grade A listed.

The Noss Head Lighthouse is still in operation, but has long been automatised, which is why you get to stay in the keeper’s cottage rather than the keeper. Cool, huh?

Mama has a somewhat proprietorial feel for the place, despite living very much at the other end of Europe, as she is part of a brainstorming group her friends use to make sure that their meticulous holiday cottage planning is on point.

The discussion about the type of biscuits to include in the welcome pack was a particular highlight, not least because Mama discovered there is such a thing as Blue Stilton and Walnut Shortbread.

In fact, when you walk into the cottage, contemplate Mama being quite proud to have contributed (a very very small part) to choosing the best colour of curtains to create a warm and inviting atmosphere; deciding what kind of saucepan would suit visitors best; searching for interesting books about lighthouses to add to the sitting room bookshelves; stress testing the cottage’s website and the information provided for guests; and working out how to make the cottage child friendly without compromising the aesthetic for adult guests.

Currently debate is buzzing about Noss Head Lighthouse Keeper’s Cottage fridge magnets. You are very welcome.

Kitchen at the Lighthouse Keeper's Cottage

Overall, Mama’s friends richly deserve the enthusiastic comments about the attention to detail in the visitors’ book.

Now, obviously you want to be comfortable and have a cool place to stay on holiday, and with this holiday cottage you are clearly sorted. But presumably you also want to get out and about and see a bit of Scotland while you are there. Luckily there is certainly plenty to do, in terms of taking in spectacular coastal views and rockpooling along beaches around Noss Head Lighthouse, and also in the surrounding area.

The beach near Noss Head Lighthouse in Scotland

Caithness is plentifully supplied with castles, including a ruined one you can see from Noss Head Lighthouse Keeper’s Cottage itself. As well as the views, there are opportunities to see all sorts of wildlife and birdlife from puffins, through hairy cows to seals. There is ancient history in the form of prehistoric stone towers called brochs. And this being Scotland, there is a whisky distillery. More than one, in fact. And a gin distillery. And a vodka distillery. And also a brewery.

Plus, many small craftspeople crafting away and prepared to sell their unique items of knitwear, pottery, ironmongery and so on. A number of the paintings in the cottage are by local artists, to give you an idea of what is out there.

If you are really lucky, the northern lights might come out to play. If you aren’t lucky, the chances of a cloudless night are good, giving you the opportunity to stargaze away from the light pollution of most towns, cities or villages.

More than this, the North Coast 500 road trip route goes right past the Noss Head Lighthouse Keeper’s Cottage.

Even though Mama blanches at the thought of travel, she does have a sort of fascination with road trips and similar. She quite enjoys the thought of packing up a car, an RV, a canal boat or even the Trans Siberian Express, and being gently wafted from place to place, waking up somewhere new every few days, yes, but with somewhere convenient to stash all the extra changes of socks, snacks, extra camera batteries, two tablets and a kindle, five more pairs of pants than the number of days we are staying away for, my bedtime cuddly toy, a couple of books, the wellies, the flip flops, the swimming things, the umbrella, the thermos, and the crafting activities so she doesn’t have to lug them all around with her.

Or worse, leave them at home.

So when Mama finally decides it’s time to go, the journey will be EPIC, and driving round the top of Scotland on the NC500 sounds pretty perfect, with moorlands, lochs, Highland glens, white sand beaches, hamlets, fishing villages and oodles of Scottish wilderness to explore.

Aside from the breathtaking scenery, after years of city living she actually rather enjoys the infrequent occasions she gets to fling a car round country roads. The fact that Papa is generally closing his eyes and gripping the edges of his seat in fear is revenge, Mama thinks, for years of her putting up with Muscovites and their overly breezy attitude to lane changing at speed.

Even the idea of trying to shift Papa’s opinion that whisky tastes a lot like moonshine vodka sounds quite appealing. And you get to stand at the very top of a country, at John o’Groats and contemplate taking off and seeing how long it might take to get down to the bottom and Lands End, just for the fun of saying you did it. Mama wants to go to Vladivostock, for much the same reason. End to end, baby. It’s a (very long term, and probably hypothetical) goal. Especially as her fitness levels are not going to see her climbing any serious mountains any time soon.

Although there are a few of those Northern Scotland too. Bagging one of the Munros is a thing, and there are 37 of them on the NC500 for you to choose from.

Noss Head Lighthouse Keeper's Cottage in Scotland

So, if you want a quirky holiday cottage in the Highlands of Scotland, a quirky holiday cottage on the NC500, a quirky holiday cottage near John o’Groats, or just a really comfortable (and quirky) holiday cottage somewhere scenic, you really should consider the Noss Head Lighthouse Keeper’s Cottage.

Like we are.

Just to be clear, we have not received any financial or other incentive for writing this post. We just like our friends and think their lighthouse cottage is way cool.

More information

Noss Head Lighthouse Keeper’s Cottage website.

The cottage is 2.5 hours drive and 100 miles from Inverness.

It takes five or six hours to drive from Edinburgh or Glasgow. Buses and trains take longer. You can fly into Wick airport, next door to the cottage from Edinburgh or Glasgow.

If you are coming from England there’s a sleeper train from London to Inverness, or you can fly into Inverness airport. Then hire a car.

Pin for later?

The Noss Head Lighthouse Keeper's Cottage is a comfortable, quirky holiday cottage on Scotland's NC500 coastal route, only 20 minutes from John o'Groats.

Heads of Ayr Farm Park, Scotland: more than just chickens and pigs.

Today we are hosting my small Scottish correspondent again, and this time his post comes all the way from the West coast of Scotland, just down from Glasgow, in Ayrshire.

Seeing as we had our caravan holiday was right next door to the Heads of Ayr Farm Park, Mummy and Daddy said we could go after we had given the caravan keys back at the end of our stay.

So of course, we got there too early and the man said we had to wait a little while. Not a problem – we had snacks!

“Biskits!”

Oh, that’s my younger brother L. He is just a little boy. I’m a big boy – I’m 4! Herself is looking at me witheringly. It’s nice not to be the youngest, I tell her!

Eventually we got tickets, and some animal food

“May have some?” Well done L. It’s important to remind parents that just because we have eaten our own body weight in apples, it doesn’t mean we don’t have room for more. Unless, of course it is something the parents want us to eat

But no, L, the yummy looking edibles are strictly for the animals – they’re yukky.

Next we discovered that there is a play area right inside the Heads of Ayr Farm Park gates! But spoil sport that she is, Mummy said we should go see the animals first.

Luckily we were easily distracted as there’re birds next to the playpark, and just a little further up the hill are meerkats.

“Tha’s not a tat!” There’s no sneaking anything past my little brother!

Then we found some animals we could feed – little horses, (ahem, miniature ponies says Mummy). They were a bit licky! Watch out!

Right next to the ponies were slides, but Mummy and Daddy, who had a good idea of how much there was still to cover, only let us have one shot.

“Like big slide ‘swell” L does not share their anti equipment stance.

Daddy found some little goats, (which I am surprised Mummy is not calling miniature ruminant animals) so we fed them too. Not as licky as the horsies, I am pleased to report!

The goats were next to the inside animals, so we went to see who was being so loud! It was a white birdie with funny hair (a cockatoo, coughs Mummy). There were also rabbits, and mouses, baby chickens, guinea pigs, a tortoise, rats and even more birdies (Mummy has given up). For the connoisseurs of the more exotic, we also found some snakes too – a little orange one and a big big big yellow one (Mummy has got nothing).

“There’s lizzy’d ‘swell” And a lizard, yes, thank you little bro! And, apparently, lemurs.

We washed our hands and had some lunch at the picnic benches. There were lots of picnic benches! But if you haven’t brought sandwiches there are also places to buy food on site.

Then we found bouncy pillows, a bit like a bouncy castle!

“I no like bounce.” Sometimes small children are a bit of a bind.

At this point, Mummy looked at the map and found MORE animals, so we went off and admired more goats, a VERY fluffy sheep and… seagulls? They’re not ‘pposed to be there!

Then we saw alpacas and llamas and really big camels (I am looking at Mummy, but apparently she agrees on the terminology)! These enclosures had a tube to roll food down instead of giving them food in your hands. Wheeee!

“We play park now?” Persistence is everything in little brothering.

And rewarded. There’re lots of places to play at the Heads of Ayr Farm Park. Trampolines, slides, castles and even pirate ships and diggers. Lots of sand play areas too with buckets and spades provided! (There were also indoor play areas but it was a very sunny day so we didn’t go in).

“That a big mouse!?” No, L, it’s a wallaby! You can walk through the wallabies field for a final encore. Now that is a way to finish a day!

All in all, I can heartily approve my Mummy and Daddy’s choice of holiday campsite. Location location location is everything, and being next to the Heads of Ayr Farm Park is definitely worth the repetition.

The images in this post were kindly supplied by the Heads of Ayr Farm Park as we had so much fun we forgot to take ones suitable for the blog! Our visit was totally independent of the attraction, however, as are our views.

More information

The farm park’s website.

This is what the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has to say about the rise of the urban seagull.

Address: Heads of Ayr Farm Park, Dunure Road, Alloway by Ayr, KA7 4LD

Opening: 7 days a week 10am to 5pm, from March to the end of October. Some indoor attractions are also open in winter.

Admission: Adults: £11, Kids £9.50, Family £30 – £45 (depending on how many people you are bringing).

Getting there: From the A77 you can either exit just after Ayr at the Alloway turn off (there are signs for Heads of Ayr) if coming from Glasgow. Drive through Alloway and onto the A719. The farm park is 2 miles further on. Or you can leave onto the A719 at Turnbury if coming from the South. The Heads of Ayr Farm park is five miles on the left.

Pin for later?

Inchcolm Island and the Forth Bridge by boat

Nobody is ever going to go to Scotland for the glorious sunshine, although we have experienced at least two whole days of lovely blue skies in our total of two visits to nearish Edinburgh so far.

Sadly, the high summer’s day we decided to take a boat trip up and down the Firth of Forth to admire Inchcolm Island and the Forth Bridge was not one of those days.

But despite the brisk winds, the flurries of rain and the fact that we were having to wear both a thick jumper and our winter coats, this remains one of Mama’s favourite bits about our trips to one of the Venices of the North. Which is why she is writing about it almost three years after it actually happened.

It may be that she is more nostalgic for the summer holidays of her youth spent mainly in full body waterproofs in the Lake District than you might expect.

Especially because those holidays also involved messing about in boats. And as everybody knows, boats are much more interesting when there are a few waves and a whole lot of spray, which is what we got on this occasion in Scotland.

Papa huddled inside the undercover cabin. Mama stood out back with her face in the wind. And the rain. Did I mention the rain? Of course, she had me strapped to her chest as a makeshift bodywarmer. Sometimes Mama finds having children comes in handy.

The Firth of Forth is quite something from a boat, or indeed from any prospective at all. It’s really an enormous estuary with Edinburgh at its mouth and it is easily able to accommodate multiple ocean-going oil tankers passing each other at a distance. By which I mean, it’s big.

And this is why the Forth Bridge, the railway bridge first crossed in 1890 connecting the north side of the Forth to the capital of Scotland is such an engineering marvel. It is still the second longest cantilever bridge in the world, and was the first of its kind when built, says Mama nodding sagely as though either she or I have the faintest idea who cantilever is or why we should eat it.

But I do know it is so fabulous it is has just been declared a UNESCO world heritage site, along with the Kremlin and Red Square, the Taj Mahal, the Pyramids, Stonehenge, the Great Wall of China, and, apparently, the whole city of Liverpool. Cool, huh?

It’s also responsible for Papa realising he’d been in the UK too long. Making small talk, someone referred to their job as being in its futility much like painting the Forth Bridge, and Papa found himself nodding sympathetically, fully understanding the obscure reference to the fact that as soon as you finish painting one end, you have to start again at the beginning again.

Which is a myth, apparently. They use specially formulated paint to protect the cutting edge but fatally rust prone mild steel, and as a result it doesn’t wear off that quickly. Still, that didn’t stop Papa feeling traumatized. In fact, the Forth Bridge may be responsible for our move back to Moscow!

Of course, there is no chance that my Brilliant Big Brother will take and interest in all this because of his obsession with the natural world.

Luckily, the Firth of Forth boat trip held plenty of interest for him too, mostly in the form of numerous sightings of grey seals basking on rocks, buoys and Inchcolm Island itself.

Although we also saw a puffin flitting around the boat thanks to his animal obsessed eyes too.

The boats set off from South Queensferry, which is either a short train ride away from Edinburgh proper, or reachable by a dedicated coach journey laid on the by river trip organisers. South Queensferry itself is a very pleasant sort of town for someone who wants to get away from big cities for a while. If you are early you can wander around the High Street. There’s a fish and chippie that sells deep-fried Mars bars and everything, as well as more rustically attractive shopping experiences.

Or, if that doesn’t appeal, maybe pottering about on the rocky seaweed-infested shoreline will. We could certainly spend hours down there. Just make sure you wash your children’s hands thoroughly afterwards, says Mama darkly, who once had to weather tag team explosive vomiting after she didn’t. The Firth of Forth is pretty but it’s not that clean.

Anyway. Once you have admired the elegant red struts of the Forth Bridge and the wildlife and the choppy ride, you will be deposited on Inchcolm Island and marooned there.

There is something quite thrilling about this to Mama, who along with all Brits of a certain age, was forced to read the trapped-on-a-small-island-with-your-school-chums survival manual Lord of the Flies in school. Did we go feral and start beating each other around the head with conch shells? The anticipation would be rampant except that… how exactly is that different from a normal day out with kids? Everybody else can probably just get excited about the prospect of eating all sorts of unlikely live insects courtesy of Get me Out of Here…

Luckily, before it came to that, Mama broke out the sandwiches, which we ate inside the ruined monastery. It’s very scramble-able and picturesque and a whole bunch of fun to look round. Because of course, what else do you do with an island in the middle of an estuary but build a monastery?

Well, build military fortifications, that’s what. Bunkers and whatnot. Gotta protect the Forth Bridge from invaders.

We missed out on that because as well as poking around on Inchcolm Island’s sandy beach (WASH YOUR HANDS. Luckily there are fully plumbed toilets by the landing stage), we also discovered the path round the back of the monastery which leads you to the rockier, less built up island area and the end of the island, where the seals lurk.

Unfortunately we did not get to see the seals from land. Papa, who was the first to find the footpath, came back after a few minutes looking shaken and warning us to stay away. So obviously Mama had to take us to have a look.

No sooner had she stepped onto the broad green inviting walkway than she understood his fear. It was nesting season for seagulls, who turned out to be extremely unimpressed by anyone coming within any kind of distance of their young and totally unafraid to dive bomb en mass those that do so.

Being attacked by waves and waves and waves of large raucously shrieking birds who have no fear of humans after years of nicking their packed lunches is quite an experience. Mama made it to the top of the incline on the off-chance it would be a momentary inconvenience, realised the whole area was covered with the angry sea birds and beat a hasty retreat.

Never let it be said that our family is not occasionally sensitive to conservation issues and leaving our animal brothers and sisters in peace.

Anyway, after that it was time to get back on the boat again. More waves, more seals, no more puffins, another look at the Forth Bridge, the chance to compare it to the prosaically modern road bridge, and if you are lucky and get there quick before it is finished, the privilege of watching the ALL NEW, almost ethereal, road bridge go up. We may be a hundred and twenty five years on, but it is still damn difficult to get it right. Perhaps you will be there when they discover they are two millimeters off in being able to assemble there flat packed 21st century bridge kit, and everything!

All in all, a highly recommended day trip if you are ever in Edinburgh. QE2 smooeetoo is what Mama says. If you want boats, you want this one.

Although if you really want to go on the best British Isles cruise, you probably want one that goes all the way round.

More Information

Maid of the Forth boat trips.

This is what the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has to say about the Forth Bridge.

Address for the launching area: Hawes Pier, South Queensferry, Edinburgh, EH30 9TB

Trip times: The boats run between from February to the end of October. There are between one and three sailings a day, depending on the time of year and whether or not it is a weekend.

You can also do a boat trip without getting off on the island (but that would be a mistake).

By car: There is a large free car park next to the pier.

By train: Edinburgh Waverley to Dalmeny Station (South Queensferry). Then you walk down the path from the station to the Hawes Pier going under the Forth Bridge. You could even have a go at going over the bridge on the train to North Queensferry and coming back again to Dalmeny if you wanted to really get your Forth Bridge fill.

By bus: Stagecoach 40/40A from Edinburgh Princes Street. Get off the bus at the Police Station (bottom of the hill) and it is a 10 mins walk along the High Street of South Queensferry to the pier.

Dunstanburgh Castle, Northumberland

The walk up to Dunstanburgh Castle along a section of the Northumberland coastline is one of the best bits about it, or would have been had we not chosen it to break up the second day of our journey from the centre of the known universe (London) to the barabaric wilds of nowhere (Edinburgh) on the windiest day EVAH.

Dunstanburgh Castle is a massive ruined fortification begun in the early 1300s by someone who wanted to set himself up in opposition to the king.

This did not go well for him.

But the castle went from strength to strength, being an excellent place to harry the Scots from, until the Wars of the Roses, when fierce fighting for its control between the supporters of the red flower and supporters of the white flower led to it falling into disrepair and eventual decay.

People really felt strongly about horticultural matters back in the day, huh? Good thing we don’t get het up enough about inconsequential disagreements to go about fighting each other over them now.

But back to the approach, through land owned by the National Trust.

Firstly, its fabulousness is because the path runs along the seashore. Now, it’s not a sandy beach, nor even pebbles, just rocks and I have no idea whether or not it is particularly good for swimming, but the rocks are very scramblable and, even better, there are lots of rock pools! We had an excellent time for about an hour climbing around looking for small seawater creatures. Found some too! Couple of snaily things, a few shrimps, some wriggly water bugs and a dead crab. Plus, the oyster catchers seemed not to be expecting us and let us sneak up quite close before flapping away.

Secondly, there are sheep. SHEEEEEP! ‘Nuff said. But these sheep do not just stand there chewing grass at you, they come down to the beach, climbing impossibly along a precipitous track to get there. Cool!

Thirdly, the gorse was in full bloom when we were there. I’ve never seen gorse before and its flowers are bright yellow. My favourite colour! It’s pretty startling in this landscape. Gorse is great.

Fourthly, when you do emerge from the water’s edge, you get an excellent view of the sprawling ruins in the distance over fields of gently rolling grassland. It’s very picturesque.

And basically, the rest of the hike is you getting closer…

…and closer…

… and closer and noticing new details and angles, and getting to take lots and lots of photos of the same thing. If you are Mama.

But there’s that word. Distance. Some things are small, Mama, and some things are far away, and Dunstanburgh Castle is quite a walk on half a packet of rice cakes. Especially when the aforementioned wind is so strong that you can stand there with your arms outstretched and lean into it and not fall on your face.

Mama and my Brilliant Big Brother did that a lot at first.

Some while later (an eon later in my opinion), Mama was finding that strong gusts made it hard to catch her breath, and had a moment’s doubt about carrying on. But the castle was demonstrably nearer (a bit nearer, Mama), and having come so far, she thought we might as well push on.

By the time we were on the final approach, Mama was carrying me, which is unheard of, and I was wailing, which isn’t, but in honour of the occasion I was keening, ‘wind, wind go away, come again another day,’ over and over again in a small unhappy voice. A version I composed myself, people! And even my Brilliant Big Brother had stopped bounding around the fields in the hope of flushing out more sheep from behind some gorse.

Still, we really were very close now, and Mama was hopeful that the still imposing stone walls might provide some kind of shelter.

But in fact, worse was to come.

Because the thick walls of the gatehouse turned out to be funneling the wind through the tunnel-like entrance and magnifying it to a very high degree, as well as whipping up stinging grit into our faces and eyes. Mama just about made it through, with a determined sort of head down trudge, and she hauled me along after her with My Brilliant Big Brother in her windshadow. But he only got half way before his hat was whipped off his head, and as he turned and grabbed for it, the wind caught him and he was blown right back outside.

He was not happy. He also could not make it back through on his own. In fact, on his own, he could barely stand up.

Luckily, just as Mama was about to plunge after him, a kind passer by rescued his headgear and helped him negotiate the opening, and we all retreated to the shop to recover our shattered equilibrium. Mama even splurged on two chocolate insects in an attempt to cheer us up.

Unfortunately this didn’t really work and once we discovered that being inside a former tower did not really lessen the windiness in any way, we refused even to attempt to explore the rest of the ruins, preferring instead to squat in the lee of one of the walls and stare mournfully at the tunnel we would have to go through again to get out.

So we decided to cut our losses and leave.

The fact that the howling gale was behind us on the way back did not really make it any less unpleasant, and we were all three thoroughly miserable for the length of the journey. I think Mama had it worst though as she had to carry me, complaining, the whole way and put up with my Brilliant Big Brother, his enjoyment thoroughly destroyed, hanging on her arm, complaining, too.

At the end of this very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very long walk was Craster village.

Craster’s main role in life is to be a pretty fishing village supplying its centrally placed smokehouse with seafood worth making very smelly. It clearly has something of a seaside holiday cottage industry as well, but is far enough off the beaten track that it does not consist just of amusement arcades and frozen fish and chip shops. We were spoilt for quality food emporium choices, really, given its size but in the end its café was just what we needed. We refueled on the sort of food we enjoy, and Mama had kippers. Which, she remembered half way through, she doesn’t actually like very much, but when nearly in Scotland and actually at the source of such things, how could she not?

By the time we got back to the car, we had already turned The Day We Nearly Got Blown Away into an exciting and memorable adventure in our minds, and certainly we were so thoroughly tired out that we were perfectly happy to be stuck in a nice warm and above all unwindy car for another half a day. Not even getting stuck in a traffic jam outside Edinburgh because somebody’s lorry had been even more unfortunate than us and had actually blown over and was blocking the road could upset us now. Although I think Mama was less thrilled, given how much the car was shifting about in the wind on some of the more exposed sections of the A1, and having driven 700 miles to get away from such nonsense as sitting in queues of cars.

Anyway.

If you do not choose ridiculous weather to visit in, or if your children are old enough or fat enough to be able to stand on their own two feet in a gale, Dunstanburgh Castle has a bit of everything. A nice gentle walk with good views, interesting rockpools to splash about in, ancient ruins to explore, pleasant and not overly touristy places to have lunch, and locally caught seafood. Should you go, and you should if you are in the area, you will almost certainly enjoy it more than we did.

Unless it is raining.

More information

Dunstanburgh Castle’s page on the English Heritage website.

Dunstanburgh Castle on the National Trust website.

This is what the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has to say about cycling into the wind.

Address: Dunstanburgh Road, Craster, Alnwick, Northumberland, NE66 3TT

Opening: Mon – Sun 10am to 6pm during the summer, until 4pm in autumn and spring. In winter it is only open at weekends.

Admission: The National Trust and English Heritage have done a deal seeing as how you can;t get to the castle without walking through NT property, so Dunstanburgh Castle is free for both English Heritage and National Trust members. Otherwise it’s £4.90 for adults and £2.90 for kids over 5.

By car: Dunstanburgh Castle is 8 miles north east of Alnwick, and well enough signposted from there that Mama did not get lost trying to find it. There is a decent sized reasonably priced pay and display car park in Craster. The Castle is then a 1 1/2 mile walk.

By public transport: There are two buses which stop in Craster, the Arriva service X18 and the Travelsure 418. The nearest train stations are at Chathill and Alnmouth, both of which are a good 7 miles away from the castle, apparently.

Falkirk Wheel, Falkirk, Scotland

‘I’m sorry,’ said my Amazing Big Brother’s teacher to Mama recently, ‘that I can’t make everything about animals.’

Sometimes, when Mama feels that my Amazing Big Brother’s interests have been driving the family outings rather too much, she tries to make a special effort to accommodate what she thinks might be particularly cool for me.

Hence the Falkirk Wheel.

Mama has this fond notion that I am a budding engineering genius, mainly because she feels I take after the practically-minded Papa and I do not have quite the same aversion to construction toys and anything involving manual dexterity as my Amazing Big Brother.

Which is how we found ourselves standing at the bottom of this elegant looking metal structure, which allegedly lifts canal boats high up in the air to the next section of river in the sky, wondering how on earth it actually works. Because Mama’s theory prior to seeing it that it just goes straight up like an elevator was quite clearly wrong and unfortunately I might be able to slam a few building blocks together but this is quite out of my league. Currently.

Luckily we did not have long to wait to find out. To make sure that the Falkirk Wheel is in use for the perhaps surprising number of people come to look at it, there are regular boat tours which start and end with a trip round the Falkirk Wheel and progress gently along the subsequent canal in-between times.

Which you may need to book in advance if you, like we, go on a reasonably fine day in the school holidays. While we were there the queue was looking like a few hours wait at least until the next slot and Mama decided against it.

Instead, after we had seen the Falkirk Wheel do its thing, we climbed up to the higher stretch of the canal to see what this contraption looked like from the top.

Waaaaaaaay cooooooooooooooool, in Mama’s opinion, she who spent a good deal of her formative years reading speculative fiction. Mama considers that the Falkirk Wheel from above is an excellent model for what some kind of futuristic transport system you could accelerate down and disappear in blizzard of sparks and a few licks of flame should look like.

And at night, it gets all lit up. Imagine how excited Mama would get if we let her go and see that!

We were more impressed by the tunnel and enjoyed the ten minute walk through and back where we could shriek and make echos to our hearts’ content. Until Mama, after an incautious question from my Amazing Big Brother, told us all about canals, HORSES and canal boats, people lying on their backs to walk the boats through the tunnels, followed by a very lengthy excursion around the industrial revolution. Which sounds smelly.

Also, locks, the workings of and why the Wheel is an improvement, despite the fact that traditional locks are, Mama says firmly, a pretty damn nifty bit of engineering genius in and of themselves. A topic of discussion which was aided by the fact that back down below they have kept one of the eleven originals replaced by the Falkirk Wheel to, presumably, better contrast its method boat elevation with that of the older model.

Which you are probably still wondering about.

Well, the clue to the operation of this feat of man’s triumph over nature is in the name. The Falkirk Wheel does not so much lift the boats up, as spin them around. It is genuinely awesome. The first three or four times, anyway. I’m not sure it needed to be photographed from every conceivable angle myself, but Mama clearly disagreed, and so we got to see it in action quite a lot.

What’s particularly impressive, Mama thinks, is that you can move a boat up and one down with the same operation. From which you will gather that Mama is very lazy and admires efficiency of effort above all things.

Although she does rather wonder why, a fair old while after the canals became obsolete as a serious method of transportation, Scotland has gone to the trouble and, more importantly, expense of building the thing. Still. What I say is that sometimes science and engineering just are, and we should marvel at them. Some people question the point of the space programme too, and that’s clearly crazy talk.

However, it wasn’t all improving educational experiences. The other reason why Mama thought I might like the Falkirk Wheel is because of the water play ground in its shadow. The main damp inducing area wasn’t quite ready when we were there just before Easter, but a glorified multi-level paddling pool, with its own locks and pumping stations was.

We got quite thoroughly wet.

Luckily Mama had anticipated this, which was why she had saved this bit for last over our strenuous protests. A change of clothes was thus only a short squelch back to the car away. In even better weather, Mama thinks that parents should just go straight for the swim wear, or at least make sure whatever the kids are wearing it dries easily.

There is also a dry playground too, if your children are less enthusiastic about getting sodden than we are. And other attractions include various woodland paths, some of which will take you to Roman remains. Allegedly. We were too busy sploshing about to want to take advantage of this or the café and various hot food vans dotted around.

But Mama called time in the end and then we tried to action the third reason why Mama had chosen the Falkirk Wheel for me, which was that it is close to the gigantic horse-like Kelpies sculptures. Yes, that’s right, GIANT HORSE-LIKE STATUES!

Sadly, Mama, who considers the signposting to the Kelpies from the Falkirk Wheel somewhat inadequate, got lost trying to find them and we ended up in Stirling, which is, apparently, quite some way away in the other direction. When we eventually did get back to the Kelpies there was a lengthy queue for the car park, so we bailed and only got lost twice more in the way back to where we were staying, resulting in a lengthy detour round an oil refinery.

Which shoots real flame out of its chimneys! Not sure that this wasn’t more exciting than the Kelpies, to be honest.

Anyway. Mama is now considering a trip down to see the Thames Barrier in action. Admittedly when she last did this she concluded that watching paint dry was more exciting, but this was possibly because she was an unimpressable teenager at the time and because she didn’t have the prospect of a a trip down the Thames on a river boat to sweeten it, which Mama has decided is the best reward for travelling to a more Easterly London location.

And the highlight of the day for my Amazing Big Brother?

The frog that was sitting on the walkway next to the Falkirk Wheel when we first arrived.

You can’t keep the next David Attenborough down with man-made genius at all, can you?

More Information

The Falkirk Wheel’s website.

This is what the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has to say about the Falkirk Wheel.

Address: Lime Road, Tamfourhill, Falkirk, FK1 4RS

Opening: The Visitors Centre and boat trips are open from 10am to 5.30pm March to October. The site and play areas are closed by 8pm.

Admission: Access to the site is free. The boat trips are £8.95 for adults and £4.95 for children (3+). You can get lunch/ tea deals too. Booking via the website can only be made prior to the day you want to go. Otherwise you need to phone or show up in person to book tickets.

By car: For some reason the Falkirk Wheel is insistent that you should use junction 8 of the M9 from Edinburgh, which has the advantage that it will take you past the Kelpies. However, other exit options are available, and unlike the Kelpies, as Mama can attest having driven all over the area trying to find them, reasonably well signposted, especially if you head towards Falkirk. From the North, the website recommends exiting at Junction 9. From Glasgow you should take the M80, then the M876 and exit at Junction 1.

The carpark costs £2 a day, but is extensive and very convenient.

By public transport: There is a rail station in Falkirk, and the website recommends a taxi or the #3 First Bus route.

Museum of Childhood, Edinburgh

People, or at least lists of child friendly days out, keep suggesting London’s Museum of Childhood as a suitable destination to Mama.

Mama does not really believe in this recommendation.

She is a bit over toys. Don’t get me wrong, the rise of things like adult colouring books show that everybody likes indulging their inner three year old at times. And indeed Mama herself enjoys a good sticking opportunity, a reasonably challenging jigsaw puzzle and the zip wires in the playground.

Plus, she LOVED the World of Illusions.

But toys no longer have the same pull of nostalgia that they might have done if every day she weren’t having to avoid treading on them, worry about whether this or that set is complete, scrub dried on glue off the table, listen to the robot shout rhyming demands for me to play with it every five seconds until she removes its batteries, or repeat the same mind numbing game of snakes and ladders over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

Mama also considers that if she wanted to watch us get wound up into a froth of frustration over not being allowed to play with and take home the really cool things we see all around us, she could just take us to the local toy shop for a few hours.

So it might come as a surprise that one of the first places she took us to both times she has been in Edinburgh was its Museum of Childhood.

The thing is, it’s right on the Royal Mile.

In fact, it’s right on the Royal Mile in such a location that if you have come by train, crossed Waverley Bridge and entered the famous length of street, wandered up to have a look at the castle, wandered back down again, admired the Cathedral with its crown like cupola, its stained glass, its war memorials and its cafe, slogged past a thousand tacky souvenir shops, admired the architecture, boggled as Londoners at the idea that, apparently, many of the top floor flats in the buildings surrounding you are unoccupied, explored a few side streets, investigated how the streets are on top of each other in places rather than side by side and so on and so forth, then you will reach the Museum of Childhood at almost precisely the moment when us small children are about to rebel mightily at the thought of doing any more of the sort of idle rambling around a city that Mama and Papa used to enjoy before we turned up, leavened only by the street performers, who have a lot in common with those at Covent Garden and are therefore definitely worth a 20 minute look see.

And it’s free.

So Mama can be excused from popping in, she feels, in an attempt to break up the day and have a fighting chance of pushing on to Hollyrood House and the Scottish Parliament at the bottom of the hill. Or sidestep off the Royal Mile altogether and take in another excellent Edinburgh museum, the National Museum of Scotland.

And whaddayaknow. The Museum of Childhood is certainly not totally without interest. Each room has a theme – games, books, dolls, trains and so on – and each room has a corresponding set of toys to play with, so we mostly did that, while Mama strolled round and looked at the stuff.

Plus, the Museum of Childhood has the most freaky looking mannequins we have ever come across. Definitely one for connoisseurs of the art of making full sized wax models of humans, although Mama rushed me through the school room full-sized mock ups on the grounds that she didn’t want any of us to be having nightmares that evening. Wise choice.

Of the toys, we liked the fishing game, the board games and the tea set but our favourite by far was the puppet theatre, where we took turns elbowing each other out of the way to put on increasingly elaborate shows for Mama with the three available characters.

Mama was enthralled by the playlettes of course, but also seemed pretty taken with the published book written by a nine year old in the 1800s, the doll house furniture and the many many dolls themselves, most of which rivaled the mannequins for worrying expressions and starey eyes.

On his visit, Papa had his nose glued to the trains. And even we sometimes left off playing to come and look at the exhibits. We enjoyed quizzing Mama about the things that she said were straight out of her childhood games, and she enjoyed trying to impress upon us just how modest a set of random plastic tat children of days gone by were willing to put up with.

It wasn’t convincing, that talk. Well, how could it be with floors and floors of toys to prove Mama wrong? And the shop. The shop you have to walk though to enter or leave. Now that’s what I call handy.

Mama seemed a tad less impressed though. She prefers to spend her tourist dollars in the café. But then there isn’t one at Edinburgh’s Museum of Childhood. This matters not a jot, however, because, spiritually refreshed for more sightseeing, you should have ample time to track down some haggis or similar once you are back out on the Royal Mile before your children reach breaking point again.

The Museum of Childhood in Edinburgh, then, is perfectly placed to provide a distraction should you find yourself trundling through the middle of Scotland’s capital with small people to entertain. Enjoy!

More Information

The Museum of Childhood’s page on the Edinburgh Museums website.

This is what the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has to say about the seven deadly sins of electronic toy design.

Address: 42 High Street, Royal Mile, Edinburgh, EH1 1TG

Opening: Monday – Saturday 10am – 5pm; Sunday 12pm – 5pm.

Admission: Free

By public transport: By train to Waverley Station, and then head towards the Royal Mile over Waverley Bridge. You want to be heading away from the castle down the hill. The numbers 6 and 35 buses stop nearby, or you can get any number of buses which go over North Bridge and bisect the Royal Mile.

By car: Allegedly there are car parks in Edinburgh, including some pay and display spaces near the museum.

Edinburgh’s Camera Obscura and World of Illusions

If you are ever in doubt as to whether or not your smalls will enjoy the Edinburgh’s World of Illusions and its Camera Obscura all you need to do is hang out on the street outside for a bit and let them play around with the fairground mirrors the attraction has set up along the walls.

Look Mama, I’m really small! And! Terrific Big Brother’s really tall! You are (even) fatter, HAHAHAHAHA! My body has disappeared! WE’RE UPSIDE DOWN!!! Our heads! Our heads are unimaginably huge and our legs are really skinny!!! That’s the FUNNIEST THING I’VE EVAH SEEN!!!!!!!

At which point you go in, if only because you are starting to feel as though you should give them the talk about how body shapes and physical attributes should not be quite so wildly amusing as they appear to be.

Once inside you are encouraged to book straight in for the next Camera Obscura show. This is probably because it’s at the very top of the five floor building, which is listed and therefore has no lift. It’s definitely best to get the climb over with and work your way down rather than have all those stairs to keep looking forward to.

Which, by the way, also means the place is pushchair unfriendly. They pack a lot into a smallish venue at the World of Illusions, and while there are generous (unlocked) cupboards for your coats behind the counter, it’s going to be difficult for them to store five hundred wheeled baby carriers. Bring the sling for those unambulatory children.

There may or may not be a short wait when you get to the Camera Obscura, but this is not a problem as there is a balcony up there too where you can look out over the very striking Edinburgh rooftops.

You are at the top of the Royal Mile here and at one of the higher points in this multi leveled town and so if you are into your cityscapes, this is an excellent place to indulge yourself. Especially because of the striking splodgy stone used throughout the city and, of course, the fact that the World of Illusion (with its Camera Obscura) is right by Edinburgh Castle, so you can have a good gander at those imposing walls too.

The show itself will depend a bit on the weather – the brighter it is, the better you will see. It was a decentish day when we went, so everything was pretty clear.

Now, I’ll be honest, I am not sure what is so fabulous about looking at a slightly faded image of the outside world we were just admitting on the balcony projected upside down onto a table aside from the fact it has been going since the 1850s.

I mean, I have a camera of my own which makes films, cartoons and inserts my face into computer games, and I can turn my Mama pink or stick funny hats on her too!

But the woman wielding the controls had a good line in patter and we all enjoyed the tricks she, and then later we, got to play on the people walking down below, so our attention did not, in the end, waver.

Incidentally, if you are walking the last 100 metres up to the castle do look upwards and smile! People up there will be messing with you and it’s nice to acknowledge it!

After that it was time to go and play with all the illusions. Which are not at all just based around doing it with mirrors. Although some of them are. One of Mama’s cherished memories is of watching my Terrific Big Brother bounce off one of the genuinely confusing panels in the mirror maze before he realised that not all corridors are what they seem.

And then do it again round the next corner.

We were also highly entertained by the puzzle that made it look as though our severed heads were being served up on a plate and by the room which allowed us to swap places. I was the giant! My Terrific Big Brother was tiny! But were were still the same size really! Endless entertaining photo ops for those who do not mind putting their kids’ images on the Internet.

Entertaining photo opportunities abound, in fact. Unfortunately, Mama was having too much fun to remember about taking some for the blog.

We also thought that the shadow generators were cool – you throw a shape, the light flashes, and there is your shadow fixed on the wall! And you can do it with different colours and cutout shapes later on!!

You can also paint with light, paint with pixels, and manipulate a photo of yourself so that you are older, younger or belonging to a different gender. And… look, the list goes on and on, and it’s very varied.

Our very favourite was the computer games projected on the floor. You do it all with your feet! Jumping! We’ve come across these before, but the World of Illusions took it to a whole new level, with football, a PG version of Grand Theft Auto, fish squashing opportunities and more.

But we were also thrilled to see the mechanical automatons. The *singing* mechanical automatons. The singing mechanical automatons of the type which Mama usually declines to put 50p in to get to work. The singing mechanical automatons of the type which Mama usually declines to put 50p in to get to work and which here were FREE. Coulda watched those for hours.

And my Terrific Big Brother was also pretty taken with the objects hidden in sometimes quite famous paintings, reproduced on the walls throughout the World of Illusions. Just goes to show that sometimes even the oldies are the best.

Which you can certainly see in what caught the adults’ eyes. They were particularly impressed by the electricity based illusions. Bless. They really are that old that a bit of artificial energy generation is thrilling. It’s so quaint! Mama also enjoyed making mini video clips of herself dancing around or pulling faces, which then got speeded up and put on a loop. So nice to see her entering the 20^th century at last.

They also liked the ones that messed with your head. The way you could shake hands with yourself if you stuck your hand just right in that hole, or boggle as your left hand became your right if you put them in this. I dunno. My sense of self is only a few years old. I’m discovering new things about it every day! Do your own hands ever get overfamiliar? Apparently.

In fact, the Edinburgh Camera Obscura and World of Illusions is that rare rare thing, though, a place which is equally as enthralling for both adults and children alike, where everybody can enjoy playing around for hours on end.

You know all those really good interactive bits in museums which are for the kids, and which adults have to all be mature and let the little darlings run off steam before they drag them back to the dead fly catching exhibits? Where, maybe, the adults’d like to join in but can’t because there are SO MANY small bodies in the way and potentially judgmental peers all about so they just have to stand around staring gloomily at their phones instead?

It’s like that but with adult participation positively encouraged without them without having to wait for late openings. Everything is even at adult eye height as well as kids’! Or at adult eye height with a box nearby for us to stand on. There were, in fact, adults there without any children at all! Radical!

And best of all, there is no obvious educational point to any of it. I mean, I daresay you could get all enthused about light, physics, computing power, psychology and so on and so forth but you don’t actually have to. Minimal explanatory placards! Very liberating once in a while. Wooohooo!

Basically Edinburgh’s Camera Obscura and World of Illusions is a LOT of fun. Highly recommended and definitely worth the price of admission.

More Information

The Edinburgh Camera Obscura and World of Illusions’ website.

This is what the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has to say about making 3D pictures.

Address: Castlehill, The Royal Mile, Edinburgh, EH1 2ND

Opening: Every day 9.30am to 7pm (NB there are slightly shorter hours in winter and longer hours in summer).

Admission: Adults: £13.95, Children 5 – 15: £9.95, Under fives: free.

By public transport: From Edinburgh’s Waverley station, go over Waverley Bridge and up the Royal Mile towards the castle. The Camera Obscura and World of Illusions is on the right just before the castle. There is also St Andrews Square Bus Station off Princes Street, and local buses 23/27/41//42/45/67 to Market Street and George IV Bridge stop nearby the attraction.

By car: Apparently there are car parks in Edinburgh. Mama cannot comment on their ease of access or price, however.

Scottish Owl Centre, West Lothian

Almost the entire point of going to Scotland as far as my Amazing Big Brother is concerned is visiting the Scottish Owl Centre, conveniently situated midway between Edinburgh and Glasgow on the M8.

Owl slide at the Scottish Owl Centre — This slide is whizzy! And very cool.

This is because of the owls (surprise!).

There are a lot of them though. Big ones, medium ones, small ones, really really small ones, white ones, grey ones, brown ones, ones with speckled feathers, stripy patterns, spots, owls that hide away in burrows with alarmingly long legs, fishing owls, owls from hot countries, cold countries and tropical rainforests (Tropical! Rainforest! Owls! Says Mama, delightedly), owls with black eyes, yellow eyes and orange eyes (there’s a story behind that), owls with signs on the doors suggesting you stay weeeeeeell back so that they do not savage your little fingers, hooting owls, screeching owls, owls which make other hauntingly beautiful noises while you eat your sandwiches and play happily in the sunshine, and lots of owls who are, apparently, getting ready to hatch out new baby owls before our very eyes.

Which is reassuring from an ‘are the owls enjoying themselves in those cages’ kind of way.

And all of these owls had that thousand yard solemn unblinking stare and did that distinctive wiggly head movement as they watched me go by.

Tropical owls at the Scottish Owl Centre — Tropical owls! Tropical! Owls! Wanting to eat me for lunch! Cooooooool!

My Amazing Big Brother is convinced this means they are trying to get a bead on the aerodynamic possibilities of swooping down and carrying me off like a mouse.

Sometimes it’s quite worrying being small. But it certainly added a bit of spice to our visit.

Burrowing owl at the Scottish Owl Centre — This one will probably not be able to make off with me.

But despite the variety of owls, the Scottish Owl Centre is not really a full day out, even if, like my Amazing Big Brother you insist on going round twice, very very slowly, getting Mama to read all the placards. In fact, it will probably only take you forty five minutes to an hour tops to saunter around all the owl enclosures, although there is also a giant fast tube slide and a small crawlabout maze to occupy you next to a picnic area, and some oldschool educational displays in a covered space, which do an excellent job of conveying really quite a lot of information about owls, their habitats and habits in a simple, but fun interactive manner. We particularly recommend the one where you have to stick your hands in squidgy wet artificial snow and play hunt the voles. It’s FABULOUSLY gross.

British owls at the Scottish Owl Centre — My Amazing Big Brother got all of these right – can you?

Luckily there also is an excellent and quite extensive adventure play area right outside in Polkemmet Country Park, where the Owl Centre is situated. There’s a sandpit with its own built in sand toys, a wooden castle, various climbing nets and structures, a zipwire, and swings.

Playground at Polkemmet Country Park — Please be as amused as Mama is by the can of Iron Bru.

There’s also a real life steam engine parked and ready to climb over, although much to our disappointment, you couldn’t actually turn the handles, stoke the fires or set it moving.

Steam train at Polkemmet Country Park — Choo choo!

Tickets for the Scottish Owl Centre are valid all day so you could pop in and out after playing there, and there are also woodland walks to had, although much of the park is taken up by a golf course, which Mama says might spoil things, although I think she might be quoting Churchill there.

Why would you want to pop back in, I hear you ask?

Because the highlight of your visit to the Scottish Owl Centre will be the thirty minute flying shows that take place twice daily in winter and three times in the warmer months.

It’s not just that wherever you sit in the covered flying area you will feel (but not hear, their silent flight not being a myth) an owl swoop millimeters past you, or, if you go to the show where you get to lie down on the floor while the owl skims your nose, over you (which frankly is thrilling enough), but that the handler’s chat which accompanies the display is packed full of genuinely interesting tidbits of owly facts as well as a fair amount of background into the history of the place and its work as a conservation centre.

Grey grey owl at the Scottish Owl Centre — Release the owls!

The particularly nice thing is that each show is different, with different owls, different information and even different handlers, so Mama and my Amazing Big Brother think it is well worth sticking around for more than just the one. I, on the other hand, was enthralled for the entirety of the first show, but I did find that my three year old attention had wandered a bit by the end of the second one. This was the reason that we didn’t go back for the third.

I think our favourite bit, though, was when we got to HOLD THE BIRDS! One of my Amazing Big Brother’s most prized possessions is the photo of him with an owl on his arm from our first visit here, but that time he was only my age so he had to make do with a smaller owl. This time, he was determined to hold a really big one, and so he did, even though it was so heavy he could barely manage it on his own.

I took one look at the size of the Milky Eagle Owl’s beak and declared myself quite happy with the exceptionally cute White Faced Owl, whose parents Mama had only just that minute been admiring. You have to pay extra for this privilege, of course, especially if you want the centre to print you off a photo, but we are convinced it is well worth it.

White-faced owl at the Scottish Owl Centre — This was my owl! Isn’t it cute!

Plus, if you have any burning owl questions still left unanswered, this is the time to ask them. The advantage of this small venue is that the people manning this attraction are fully involved in the work of the centre and very happy to chat about it.

There isn’t any food outlet on the Owl Centre site, barring some tubs of ice cream in the reception foyer. The café in the grounds of the park (which otherwise gets rave reviews, Mama understands) was also closed when we went. But you can take sandwiches. There are certainly some attractive places to eat them both inside and outside the centre and the website for the Polkemmet Country Park also boasts a site you can hire for your very own barbeque in the spring and summer months.

All in all, a child less relentlessly fixated on the animal world than my Amazing Big Brother might not think that the Scottish Owl Centre is quite worth a drive of two days with an overnight stop at an unrevamped motel in a service station off the A1 to get there, but my Amazing Big Brother certainly does. I’m not joking – he’s been going on and on about in the three years since our last visit and clearly did not accept Mama’s description of quite how far it was as any kind of barrier for a weekly trip.

Mama and I are a touch less enthusiastic, but we both agree that if you are in the area and the weather is even halfway decent it is definitely somewhere you should have on your list.

More Information

The Scottish Owl Centre’s website.

This is what the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has to say about eyesight.

Address: Polkemmet Country Park, Whitburn EH47 0AD, Scotland

Opening: Feb, March, Sept, Oct, Nov: 11.30 to 16.00 (flying displays 12.30 and 14.30). April to August: 10.30 to 17.00 (flying displays 11.30, 13.30 and 15.30). December to January: closed.

Admission: Adult: £7.50, child (3-15): £5.50, family (2+2): £24

By car: Leave the M8, which runs between Edinburgh and Glasgow, at junction 4a. The Centre (and Polkemmet Country Park) is clearly signposted from there on brown signs. The Centre is probably about 45 minutes from both cities. The car parks in the park are FREE!

By public transport: Apparently, buses which run through Whitburn and Harthill pass the entrance to the park.

Deep Sea World, Edinburgh

Today we have a guest post from far far far far far away from the centre of the universe (London). Mama says it is Kidding Herself’s nod to Burns Night. I have no idea what she is talking about, since she forgot all about it until now.

Hi I’m R and although I’ve never met Herself, apparently my Mummy knows her Mama because of the inter-webs.

Anyway, we were in Edinburgh for a week and thought we would share with you one of our adventures. Edinburgh being, apparently, a bit far for Herself to travel for a day out on a regular basis. Despite what her Gallus Big Brother seems to think, having been here once and liked it.

He probably liked it because they went to the same place we did, Deep Sea World which is situated beneath the Forth Rail Bridge, across the other side of the river from Edinburgh proper.

Deep Sea World is decidedly fishy. You can tell this immediately you walk through the front door because you are greeted by a delightful aroma. Admittedly this made Mummy feel a bit sick (something to do with her currently growing a tiny human I think) but there’re some tanks that go all the way to the floor near the entrance which I think is compensation enough. I enjoyed sitting in front of these and pointing at all the different fish (the day involved lots of pointing at fish). There really were lots of them.

However, there were also lots of tanks that I was to small to see into properly which I was less amused by. Of course, says Herself, who is wise to the vagaries of aquariums. She recommends growing.

Still, we had a good look at a whole range of varied fish, piranahs, seahorses etc, then we ventured down into the main attraction, the big glass tunnel.

This has a moving walkway on one side and a normal path on the other side. Mummy, feeling a little lazy, parked my buggy on the moving walkway while we looked at even more fish and, wait for it, SHARKS! I liked the SHARKS and all the fish. Again I couldn’t easily see into the tank from my low vantage point, but the tunnel arches right above the walkway so I did get a good look at anything swimming overhead. Fish mostly and did I mention the SHARKS? ( I was rather keen on the SHARKS). Nevertheless, I got bored half way round on our second circuit so we ventured back up to the main level in search of lunch.

Mummy had thoughtfully packed a lunch to bring with us. Gran ate from the café though. She says the food was a little expensive but had decent portions. I was happy with my sandwich and snacks. Mummy let me escape from the buggy for a bit of walking around after lunch but as it was quite busy I had to wear my backpack reins.

After lunch, we went round the big tunnel another couple of times and pointed at more fish and SHARKS. Then we tried out the shop. There were assorted cuddly sea creatures mostly with tags stating that they were only suitable for over 3s, and also the normal souvenir stuff of mugs and pens etc and sweets. All overpriced, Mummy said. But Gran bought me a bag of of squirty bath creatures so I didn’t come home empty handed!

To finish off with we went along to have a look at the other big aquatic draw, the common or harbour seals. These occur naturally in the Forth Estuary that Deep Sea World is attached to, but given that it is a socking large expanse of water, it’s nice that the centre has enticed a few up close for our entertainment, and, according to them, the purposes of conservation. I watched around half of the seal feeding show thing, but it was a bit busy and Mummy said I was too heavy to sit on her shoulders for too long so we missed the end.

All in all it was a reasonably enjoyable two and a half hours we spent there. Mummy said that its probably better for children who are a bit older than me because in the end fish are all pretty much the same to me (except the SHARKS). Mummy also notes that we went during the school holidays so it was rather full of other children! Be prepared to elbow them out of the way is what Herself advises, being that much older than me. I have listened to this advice carefully. Mummy will doubtless be so proud next time we go.

More Information

Deep Sea World’s website.

This is what the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has to say about ‘SHARK Summer’, New Jersey 1916.

Address: Battery Quarry, North Queensferry, Fife, KY11 1JR.

Opening: Weekdays: 10am to 4pm. Weekends: 10am to 6pm.

Admission: Adults and over 13s: £13.50, children over 3: £9.50, family of 4: £44.00. You can save if you buy in advance online.

By train: North Queensferry Station is a short walk from Deep Sea World and is served by trains on the Fife Circle Line from both Edinburgh Waverley and Haymarket stations. The journey takes about 15 minutes.

By car: Deep Sea World is just off the M90, 20 minutes from Edinburgh, 50 minutes from Glasgow and under 2 hours from Aberdeen (according to the website). There is free car parking on site.