Perhaps it’s because she is pretty much a city girl, but Beverly found watching the lambs romp around the green fields of Scotland one of her favorite parts of our trip. There is something very maternal about this image of a few sheep & their lambs playing on a beautiful spring morning.

Perhaps in my earlier post I should have said “Scotland is the land of Sheep & Castles”. This particular lady was posing for us & showing off her nice coat & sexy legs. All she needs is some nice pretty stripped woolen socks.

Nearby, these adorable kids were playing.

You can’t drive far in Scotland without seeing a Castle. Some are ‘new’ (using the term ‘new’ rather loosely) , some are old, some are beautiful homes, some were designed as fortifications. Dunnottar Castle on the east coast in Kincardine near the town of Stonehaven falls into the relic category. At least to me, Dunnottar looks like a castle is ‘supposed’ to look. (Perhaps that’s why I took so many photos…) It sits on a large promontory overlooking the sea. It’s beautiful, yet somewhat ominous looking. At one time it was essentially a very small village for the members of the family of one of the most powerful families in Scotland. Dunnottar was one of the homes of the Earls Marischal, from the 14th century when Sir William Keith, the 1st Earl Marischal, built his Tower House, also known as the Keep. It also holds quite a history having been visited by William Wallace, Mary Queen of Scots as well as many other including John Rogers & Beverly Straub. I would love to have seen it a few hundred years ago.

Since Dunnottar was so photogenic, I’ll go ahead & post a couple of more images… This one was taken looking out the “master bedroom” window.

And one more for today. This is a shot of what was once the ‘smithy’ or black smith shop.

(If you look closely, you’ll note he was a romantic & decorated his shop walls with flowers.)

There is something quite spiritual about a walk in the woods.  In these days of urban sprawl I find it’s truly difficult to really remove yourself from society & just listen to the sounds, observe the colors, sense the scents of nature.  So often when you try, you discover the sound of a nearby highway or a high flying jet overhead leaving its mark in the sky. Walking in the Ballochbuie Forest you are able remove yourself from all the urban distractions & hear only the breeze in the trees, smell nothing but fresh clean air, see nothing but clear skies overhead. No matter if you are an author, accountant, photographer, or monarch it’s so easy to get distracted by all we are trying to get done & forget about what we truly are.  Over one hundred and fifty years ago Henry David Thoreau escaped to Walden & wrote: “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” At the same time across the Atlantic, Queen Victoria was building her place in the Highlands of Scotland to escape to the woods. The need to experience nature is universal. We all need to protect these places that allow us to return. For those that don’t have the resources to own a 50,000 acre estate & open it to the public, (thank you Queen Elizabeth),  consider contributing what you can to an organization such as the Sierra Club in America that helps to balance our ‘progress’ & protect our wild places.