Just synced my pedometer and it seems I have walked 26000 steps today – no wonder my feet are damn sore. I worked for the morning – well a full day really as I have been waking up so early – and then headed off from North Bloomsbury toward the West End. I walked down to see my friends the mummies at the British Museum. I couldn’t visit London without calling in. I had a lovely time. The beautiful carved walrus ivory of the Lewis Chessman reminded me that I really must learn how to play chess. I was thinking about the ruling British Empire as I wandered through the rooms of Ancient Persia. The amazing Oxus treasure had me thinking about the arrogance of the British in having all of these treasures – often stolen from their countries of origin. But then I guess the other side of that is that at least they are protected. The Great Court of the British Museum is pretty impressive and as I wandered through the lower halls the stark modern architecture seemed perfectly fitting as I stood and attempted to decipher the hieroglyphics of the Rosetta Stone.

I headed further down through Covent Garden toward the massive structure that is Nelson’s column. It was exceptionally colorful tonight in Trafalgar Square. The four lions were covered in clambering children with the most enormous blue chicken roosting over the city. There was spider man, various star wars characters and very cool young trendy rappers entertaining the thousands of people in the English sunshine. I visited the BP portrait prize and had a lovely time listening to gorgeous music amongst the Tudor kings. Da Vinci and Monet had me heading for home through the millions of British lads having a great time with their Friday night drinks. Oh I do love London.

Had a lovely time in Cambridge. The conference was really good. About 350 delegates from every imaginable country. Churchill College was a lovely place to stay. Had a great room with a King size bed overlooking a central courtyard garden and it was gorgeous in the morning with the mist over the green Cambridge countryside.

It was really busy. We presented on the first day and really enjoyed all of the presentations. I chaired sessions all day Wednesday and Thursday and ran a workshop with Annie from Qatar on Thursday afternoon. Annie had me in stitches telling me about her Zumba classes in Qatar. The windows are all blocked out so the women won’t be seen but the instructor is a male – she amused me no end demonstrating her Zumba moves on the floor of Churchill College. Zumba in Qatar led us in to an English barbeque for dinner – really struggled to get my head around that one as well. It was a lovely setting on the lawns of Churchill but the poms really should stick to high tea.

Wednesday night, sitting at long tables in the stunning Harry Potter hall of Caius College, I was definitely waiting for the howlers to fly in. Caius was founded in 1348 and has produced thirteen Nobel Laureates. The dining room was amazing with long tables set with candles, the choir singing above us and hundreds of years of senior fellows watching us from the walls. The stain glass windows included one honoring John Venn, the inventor of the Venn diagram.

We organized to meet Tom from Adelaide, and Benny from Plymouth, for a quiet one at the Eagle pub on the way home. A 14^th century drinking house, it has a ceiling that has signatures of RAF pilots from all over the world who returned from the Second World War and signed their names on the ceiling using cigarette lighters, candle smoke and lip stick. After the biggest pot of cidre ever, we staggered home in the dark across cobblestones and Roman streets and came across a bus heading to Churchill.

Went on a walking tour of Cambridge before returning to London, which was lovely. We visited St Catharine’s College with its beautiful gardens. The 31 colleges that make up the University of Cambridge are all stunningly beautiful, with King’s College chapel the centerpiece of a stunning medieval city.

Notes to self:

1. Buy new lovely little MAC computer at least two weeks before one leaves the country
2. Always set up new computer before you leave the country
3. Don’t lose hard drive on the plane with all of your work on it including presentations
4. If you are going to lose hard drive lose it on Heathrow leg not Dubai so can easily be retrieved
5. Remember to send nice email to Dubai QANTAS man to thank him for looking after hard drive at QANTAS Club
6. Take screen shot and send details of server log on to one self
7. Don’t eat College food
8. If you do eat College food make sure nice English loo is close 
9. Have good son at home who is not a mac user but is a good computer hacker to find all work 
10. Remind oneself why one really had children – one is an ATM so children should be computer hackers
11. Do have dropbox set up for emergency loading of presentations

The most spectacular weather of my trip with the sun beating down. Jane and I were trying to work out whether it was the 5pm G&T or the sun that was responsible for our ruddy complexions – definitely the sun.

We had a busy day today work wise and it reminded me a little of ‘Call the Midwife’ as we trudged the dirt roads of Colonsay with our back packs on our back. We stopped at the gorgeous apricot sanded beach with the most turquoise coloured water. It was completely deserted apart from the cows – entertaining to have a pristine beach with cows sitting all over it. Another visit and then a trip to the Colonsay micro brewery – apparently the world’s smallest.

We walked to most of our ‘house calls’ and then got the car to drive to the causeway to Oronsay. The views to the Island of Jura were beautiful as the sun streamed down over the mountains across the water. The all creatures great and small theme continued as we walked across the spongy sand toward the wee island of Oronsay. The Island is completely cut off by water for all but about four hours a day. No cows this time on the beach but the chooks and sheep were having a lovely time in the sun.

The hotel was built in 1750 and is just gorgeous. The sun sets here so late and I am sitting here in the lovely library after having had a great after dinner stroll. It doesn’t get dark until about 11pm and is light really early.  The Island really is just so tranquil and peaceful and it was so clear today that from a high point the coast of Ireland was visible in the distance. The birdlife here is amazing and there is even a flotilla of Spanish wild goats.

The Iron Age forts and duns are dotted all over the Island; and the artifacts in the wee museum describe human habitation back to 7000BC

The Little Bay or Oban sits on a perfect horseshoe shaped bay with the Isle of Mull in the distance. The mountains of Morvern and Ardgour surround the beautiful Firth of Lorn and you can understand why people have been here since mesolithic times. For us, it is our port for the ferry to Colonsay. I am feeling quite exhausted. Have been fitting in my Scottish gallivanting around work, so hence the days have been exceptionally long. We have had really full days in Inverness and back in Glasgow but I am really excited about tomorrows trip; although slightly apprehensive as everyone that I have told that I am going to Colonsay reminds me of The Wicker Man. Again fantastically comfortable small Scottish hotel tonight. Beside my bed is a decanter of sherry which I think is a very civilised change to the usual bottle of water. I can still hear the wee laddies and lassies practicing the pipes so a sip of sherry and off to bed. Jane has warned me that the lovely stillness of the bay and sound of the pipes is lulling us into a false sense of security – beyond the castle and the bay is the wild Scottish sea and then I think you hit Greenland.

I already feel like I am at the very edge of the world but our three hour ferry ride tomorrow will surely take us to the very edge. Just over a hundred people live on Colonsay. I have been told that it is as close to paradise as most people will ever get so I am excited (as long as there are locks on the door so the wicker man doesn’t get me)

I enjoyed my drive to the north of Skye. Stopped at the Grand Design grass roofed house that looked so different to what I expected; quite tiny, and on a very small plot of land, but still pretty cool. The drive through Portree with the colored houses hugging the port continued the great scenery. A stroll around the town and the history of Flora McDonald and Bonnie Prince Charlie reminded me that I was indeed on the path to the Jacobites and the wonderful, if somewhat macabre, tales of the uprising. Flora was buried in Kilmuir cemetery and a visit started my journey on the path to Culloden Moor.

The drive back from the wee island was easy and stopped for a while at Glen Shiel, the site of the battle between the British and the Jacobites that occurred in 1719. It was slightly fitting that amongst the hills of the battle there was a large YES sign and the Scottish flag. I have become quite interested in the upcoming referendum for Scottish independence and it has been the topic of conversation amongst lots of people that I have met; most have said they will vote YES. The general consensus is that they are all well and truly sick of Westminster – I was thinking maybe we should join forces with Scotland. It has intrigued me that everyone here, on hearing my accent, wants to tell me how disgraceful Tony Abbott is!

I arrived at the wee loch late afternoon and expected to see the beastie out for an afternoon swim; but alas Nessie was elusive.

Cill Chuimein or Fort Augustus is a pretty village on the edge of the wee loch and I had a comfortable bed in the lovely Bank of Scotland building. I quite enjoyed watching the boats out the window going up and down through the series of locks. Had great fish and chips at the pub and had a long walk along the canal thinking of the Jacobites who captured the fort just before the battle of Culloden.

The drive along the loch was beautiful but the wee beastie was shy, as surprisingly, the only sighting I had was on the numerous tourist signs.

I find Drumossie Moor an evocative place and yes I am still convinced that I was there at the battle of 46. I told Jane how at home I felt in Inverness and she asked me whether it was because it was like Bendigo or whether it was my past life – my past life of course. Well I have always had a strange reaction on the Moor and this time was no different. The Moor is a peaceful place in some ways but there is a certain eeriness and feeling of dread that seems to cling in the air if you stand and listen. The young pretender escaped but the reprisals through the highlands are legendary.

The landscape around me is probably the most beautiful I have ever seen. As I walked across the top of the Quiraing I kept thinking of Lord of the Rings. For someone not real good with heights it was a challenging walk but the views were stunning.

The legend here says that once you have visited you are never completely free. It really is a mystical place and as I looked to the massive form of the Old Man of Storr I waited for the giant to pull itself free from the hill and stand with a mighty roar. His thumb, which sticks out from the ground is 2385 feet so one can only imagine what a massive hulk of a man he is. The legends here are fantastic and as I look out of the window in the loveliest small hotel, on a road that hugs the coast, I am positive I can see the faeries on the hill in the distance. With great giants, faeries and silkies in the water there is indeed a feeling of something not of this world.

I had a lovely dinner here. The chef and owner is Australian and has won numerous awards for his fantastic cooking. The salmon was so good. The hotel is tiny with about five rooms and sits in a wee glen surrounded by fantastic scenery and lots of sheep. There are knitting baskets throughout the hotel with guests invited to knit a few rows. The dining chairs are covered in hand-knitted covers and there is a basket in my room with a half finished piece in the most fabulous Scottish wool.

I walked down to the shore (or should I say slipped down on my bum) and felt like the only person that had ever been there. I had a mama and twin sheep that trotted beside me the whole way. I am not sure whether they were protecting me from the faeries or the giants but they were very friendly. The babies kept brushing up against my leg and I felt very grateful that I ate gorgeous Scottish salmon for dinner and not the lamb!

I have filled my hot water bottle, made a wonderful pot of tea and will knit a few rows before dreaming of giants who walk this magnificent land.

It feels like the most remote place I have ever been. A lovely drive from Fort William to Kyle of Lochalsh and to Skye. The Isle of Skye has an almost primeval feel about it. Soaring mountains, wooly sheep; tiny crofters cottages nestled into the hills. Milovaig is on the most westerly point of Skye and looking out the window I can see a dozen seals sitting on the rocks. I walked about 25km today to the lighthouse and over the most remote hills. I am totally intrigued by the sheep. The lambs are a crack up to watch; they are so cute. Last night driving back from the stunning Three Chimneys restaurant I had to stop the car three times in the freezing cold as the sleeping sheep were all over the road. They had no intention of moving. If you could picture me on a tiny road, no houses, no lights, driving a manual car in the pitch black, and these amazing looking sheep, with their lambs, just snoring peacefully despite me and my car. I had to  get out of the car and literally push them off the road; they gave me the most foul looks.

The Three Chimneys was stunning. A gorgeous white washed house; similar to most others in this remote part of Skye. Everyone who I have met told me that if I had a chance I should try and eat at the Michelin starred restaurant in the middle of nowhere. I emailed them and luck had it that they had one vacancy at their kitchen table. While they have a beautiful restaurant; with conventional seating, the kitchen table is literally that. A table for six in the middle of the restaurant kitchen. The eight course Taste of Skye menu was beautifully presented and the company really lovely. At the table was a delightful young female psychiatrist from North Carolina, an economist and banker from Chicago, and two German mathematicians who were living in Edinburgh. It was such fun watching the chefs at work and we were free to wander around watching and chatting. I can’t imagine what it must be like to try and cook in an incredibly busy restaurant kitchen with six nuisances peering over your shoulder. It was fantastic watching our food be cooked and seeing how calm and organised the kitchen was – nothing like Gordon Ramsay. We had beautiful food:

Loch Bracadale brown crab parfait, apple, mull cheddar and sorrel; Colbost skink, Marag Dubh and talisker crumb with croft egg yolk; Loch Dunvegan lobster and prawn gratin, fennel bree; Sconser king scallop with asparagus, blood orange, and seaweed dressing; Black Isle black face lamb flank and Haggis with needs and ransoms; Lochalsh venison with rhubarb, ginger and crowdie, and Cairnsmore goats cheese, poached pear and pecan crumble. For our last course we had a lesson in making soufflé. The hot marmalade soufflé with drambuie syrup and mealie ice-cream was gorgeous and I can’t wait to practice at home.

Sue, I think we need to send Jack to work there. There were lots of lovely young chefs that all reminded me of Jack and it would give us an excuse to visit – not that one needs one.