back to life, back to reality

We've just been on a minibreak to Perthshire for a few days, visiting Aberfeldy, Dunkeld and Pitlochry. I left my camera in my bag most of the time (failing to get even a single photo in lovely Dunkeld, where we browsed art/shops/antiques/the cathedral, ate stovies and got hustled at pool by some old men) but here are a few things I did snap.

We had a very nice day wandering around in Aberfeldy and visiting the shops. I got some books and photo frames (not pictured) in the charity shop, some notebooks and that great cowboy card (all wrapped up in handmade woodcut bicycle paper) as well as a lovely chat about printing in the Temple Gallery, some buttons in one antique shop and these adorable Russian dolls in another antique shop.

I am not sure about their "antique" status, but I do love them very much.

Look how tiny the smallest doll is! Tinier than my fingertip!

Whenever we are in Pitlochry, we always visit the amusements. Graham so nearly won me this black pony in the grabber machine, but its leg got caught in the hatch on its way out! I was very sad to leave it behind :(

The horsey game always keeps us entertained while we gamble away 2 pence pieces by the cupful.

I liked this sign. I did have ice cream once while I was on holiday (rum and raisin - mmmm!) but did not have any candyfloss or popcorn. I put my finger in a heart-rate monitor just beside this sign. It told me I needed to exercise. I think it was right.

We stopped to say hello to the scary chip man. He does not put me in the mood to eat chips at all! That said, I did eat some chips shortly after seeing him...

..when we enjoyed a very lovely dinner at the Moulin Inn just before getting the train back to Glasgow. Because I drank quite a lot of their own brewed-on-site ales, I had a lovely nap on the train :) You can also see from this picture (by what was once my fringe) that we got rained on quite a lot. It didn't rain all the time though and the sky was clear enough for us to do some stargazing and even spot some shooting stars.

We arrived back in Glasgow/reality with a hideous bump as Graham rolled over during the night to discover one of the cats had puked under the covers on his side of the bed while we were away. Ming! Sigh... The holiday was short but sweet and it's back to work tomorrow unfortunately. I want another week off, please!

Apologies for my lacklustre blogging of late. I've totally lost my blog mojo and it's been a bit like getting blood from a stone these last few weeks. Not to worry though - I have devised a cunning masterplan to get my blog juices flowing again. Prepare to be dazzled and amazed by my vintage craft book collection...