Rainy London & Stunning Scotland

Hello everyone - I'm back again. Somebody uncork the champagne! ;)

I've just about got over my cold although it has taken a LONG time. Plus I can relax now as I've got through my trip to the dentists this morning - all the way by car, through the congestion charge, to Highgate, North London and why North when you live in the South? Well, it's the same dentists and dentist my parents have been going to since they were married (1967) and lived in North London, so all my sodding life (careful, sorry) I've been going up there. So yes, the dentists are good but it can't stop me hating them. Why is it that teeth so small can produce so much pain and work? Luckily I was ok today, just a small filling and so small injection but other times have been hell and why do I ask? I don't stuff my face with sugar, I'm actually going through quite a good patch of having NO sugar whatsoever!

The detox is going well, too well. I have had a few food dreams though but I'm really enjoying it. Last Saturday my mum and I went to see her neice Saskia at Docklands (Canary Wharf) and had to break the detox as there are no restaurants who cater for detox dieters - even the salads are packed full of cheese, chicken and bacon, so I had fish cakes and chips and mum had a vegetable tart and chips. No wine. Water. We were good. But my Dad has been so unhappy recently that we thought maybe we should have a small Chinese take-away. Which we did. And wine. We were not so good. The next morning I couldn't move - I felt that ill and was so happy to be straight back on the detox! It is definitely a way of life and I recommend to anybody. It has been 15 days now, it would have been 16 if we hadn't broken it on Saturday, but one day is fine (I think!)

The weather is cold and wet. It fell down in Kentish Town this afternoon on the way back from the Dentists - I've never seen rain like it! So a second in the series of old photographs - again taken in Scotland February 2004:

Gavin Maxwell's Sandaig, where he lived with his famous otters and wrote his book 'Ring of Bright Water', the house burnt down in 1966 claiming the lives of one of his otters, his ashes and one of his other otters are on the site of the house in a small stone memorial.

The view from our Scottish National Trust cottage overlooking the Kyle of Lockalsh

Same Loch - where an otter swam right past my bedroom window (I waved!)

The mountain back drop of the Kyle of Lockalsh

The starting track down to Gavin with the surrounding mountains

The Kyle Woods

Didn't have to go far for a glimpse of Scots pine trees!

And the sun going down over the Kyle of Lockalsh

I have also been updating my openstudio blog here and there but keep forgetting to add a link so go here. . . NOW!

OPENSTUDIO-UK

Comments please.

Thank you and goodnight!

Emy xxx

P.S Just heard that England are losing the match with Croatia - as in 2:0 losing, thank God, I HATE that game and please, please, PLEASE England DO NOT QUALIFY FOR THE EURO! I thank you . . . .!!!!!