Mid-life gap year Tanya and Craig

In our UK travels, we are consciously supporting small businesses that pay the Living Wage.  What is the Living Wage you ask?  It is a fair days pay that you can realistically afford to live on, for a day of hard work. The UK, like Australia and the US has a minimum wage that is inadequate. In the UK the statutory minimum wage is £7.70 for those under 25 and £8.21 for those over 25. This wage rate has been established through government negotiation with business, unions, etc.  The Living Wage Foundation ( www.livingwage.org.uk ) has established, based on the cost of living (basket of goods and services) a living wage. This wage is £9 for the UK and £10.55 for London where the cost of living is higher.  Why would companies pay more than they are required to? Simple, the reputational return on investment and the engagement and retention of staff is paying dividends.  Who are paying more? 1/3 of FTSE 100 companies are paying their staff...

When you visit Scara Brae on Orkney you are made aware that Scara Brae is “Older than the Pyramids, older than the Great Wall of China, older than the Incas or Aztecs”. It is 5000 years old, which in itself is very cool, but if you didn’t know better, you could be left thinking that this is the oldest settlement in the world. Of course there are older sites, the Lascaux cave art in France is dated at 14,000 BC and some Australian Aboriginal cave paintings are 40,000 – 70,000 years old. Scara Brae is significant because it is 5000 years old; a complete village and is so well preserved. Scara Brae is a neolithic, new stone age village that was uncovered (it was buried in sand) in 1850 during a storm. It is a village that was largely intact with workshops and tools; homes with furniture, running water and in-home food preservation devices. It is a series of eight interconnected dwellings accessed through small tunnels. The homes had a bed on either side of the room, a...

We loved Northwest Scotland, it is a beautiful place and rather than try and use words to describe it we thought we would let our pictures speak for themselves.  View of Enard Bay Hairy Coo near Loch Torridon W ild Red Deer near Applecross U llapool Harbour Knockan Crag Geopark (Geological National Park) where the continents containing Scotland and Britain collided 300 million years ago. The low cliff at Knockan (the Moine Thrust) expresses older rocks on top of newer rocks. It was here, in the early 1900s that Ben Peach and John Horne challenged the established thinking and first theorised about plate techtonics. Point of Stoer lighthouse designed by Robert Stevenson (Author Robert-Lois Grandfather) where we celebrated Tanya’s birthday Sheep at Point of Stoer   View over the Eddrachillis Bay   Hotwheels near Badcall   Smoo  Cave – limestone under Durness   Tanya back in Hotwheels ...

To a Scottish person, a Munro is a mountain over 1000m in height. To hike up one is to "bag" it. Every Scot can tell you how many Munros they've bagged.  Now a 1000m doesn't sound that high but the base of almost all Scottish mountains is close to sea level.   Yesterday we bagged our first Munro, Ben Nevis the UKs highest peak. Ben Nevis is walked by 12,000 people a year. In rough figures that is 400 a day. It is not walkable all year. Even without the winter snow, the almost constant cloud cover and accompanying rain mean that there are few great days to climb it.   We had checked the forecast and saw a window in the morning and knowing that thousands would attempt the climb we resolved to start early. The alarm went off at 5am. We started at about 5m above sea level and hiked the 1345m to the summit. The hike has three distinct sections: 1. The base to the saddle: the path winds its way through silver birch forest and sheep paddocks w...

Rugged, windswept, rainy and raw.   Stunning in its beauty. It has inspired me to both poetry and drawing; neither worthy of sharing but rewarding none the less. The vivid colours of the green mountains, orange kelps, grey stone, white washed buildings, and the blue lochs left a lasting impression.   The dominating features of the island are the layered volcanic mountains that have been sheered by glaciers defining both the lochs and coast. We were fortunate enough to have long spells of sunshine interspersed with rain showers. The principal town of Tobermory is a group of brightly coloured buildings clustered around a small harbour.   There we had our first tasting of peated and unpeated whiskies in the Tobermory Distillery. Later walking near our campsite on Loch Na Keal we could recognise the smell of peat. It is like a cross between coal and wet sheep and will always remind me of the Isle of Mull.

Conviviality is a beautiful term. It is a term we have heard many times in the past few months from European people for whom English is not their first language. To be convivial is to be social. Despite it being a word in English, it is a term that we don’t use a lot.   Convivial drinks is a drinking experience that is shared, usually in the afternoon or early evening ie pre-dinner. The alcohol relaxes and thus enhances the conversation.   When tasting wines at the cellar door or beers at a brewery, specific wines and beers have been described as “for conviviality”. They are to be drunk slowly and socially.   They are best described as inexpensive but good wine or full flavoured beer, often higher in alcohol. In Belgium they are likely to be served with a mild cheese square or dry salami dipped in mustard. In Germany they may be served with a pretzel; and in Spain it is accompanied by Pintxos.

What do you do on a wet day when you live in a van?  1. First answer, look for a nearby museum or art gallery.  We are in Lochgilphead in Argyle, Scotland, so fortunately the Museum of Ancient Monuments, just 8km up the road in Kilmartin is a good option. When the museum is done, you head to their cafe for a coffee and charge up the camera and computer.  2. Put your wet weather gear on and venture out. As we drove out of Kilmartin there were a number of standing stones and other monuments to visit. So we rain-coated up and ventured through sheep paddocks to look at the 6th century standing stones.  3. Drive on to a scenic destination where you can kick back with a view and read a book or do a crossword. Choose a destination that offers some activity if there is a break in the weather. The village of Crinan, overlooking the Isle of Jura, with not much more than a sea lock for the canal, a dock, some fishing boats, a small hotel with an art exhi...

Edinburgh is an old and planned city situated on a hill with a castle at its peak.   Its grey stone block buildings, all of a similar vintage cover the entire city, from the port to the centre.   One of the few places in the city where parking is free, we stayed near the marina. By chance, we visited during the Fringe Festival and the military tattoo was on at the same time, so the city was packed. The Royal Mile had been pedestrianised so artists could give previews to attract audiences to their shows. Every show had touts handing out pamphlets. The atmosphere was vibrant, chaotic and full of youthful energy. We walked up the hills to a number of vantage points to get great views of the city and surrounding country. The National Museum of Scotland is worth a visit. Their technology section is partway between a Science Works (hands on learning) and a traditional museum. It contained hot air balloons, Dolly the cloned sheep, formula one cars, robots and weaving ...

Many have said that Northumberland is beautiful and quietly exceeds one's expectations. Our three highlights were Hadrians Wall, the village of Lindisfarne on Holy Island and the town of Berwick Upon Tweed. We weren't disappointed.   Hadrian's Wall From County Durham we drove to Hadrian's Wall. Construction of the wall began in 122AD after the Roman Emperor Hadrian visited his northern most boundaries to see how they could be better defended from the Celts. The wall traverses the country along one of the highest ridgelines at the easiest point to defend ie where the country is narrowest. We had visited roman ruins in northern Bavaria near Wurzburg. These too delineate the reach of Empire, so our expectations were somewhat similar. The ruins in Germany have not been as well preserved as those at Hadrian's Wall.  There you can see outlines of buildings and walls, but in the UK the ruins are much more evident.  At Hadrian's Wall, the wall i...

Our entry into County Durham was from Whitby and the little north Yorkshire fishing village of Staithes.  Whitby is probably best known as being where Captain James Cook was apprenticed. There is a replica Endeavour in the harbour visible from the attic window where Cook would have slept. Having read more than one Cook biography it was interesting to see some of his personal effects, letters and voyage equipment. There are also some of the original botany drawings from his voyages. Staithes is a picturesque, sleepy, little fishing and holiday destination; set deep in a ravine. The road in and out is one car wide and with a gradient of 25% it is best to park at the top and walk down. The stone buildings are a few stories high and closely set together across narrow cobbled roads.       County Durham is northern England in its iconic best: green, productive rolling hills, interspersed with thick hedges of hawthorn.  Durham is a vibrant...