Category Archives: Rainbows

hailstorms & rainbows

26 April 2017 Vattetot-Sous-Beaumont, Normandy in transit to Plouescat, Brittany, France

We said our goodbyes to Isabelle this morning, somewhat bright and early, on our way to Plouescat Brittany, about 4.5 hours by car away. About a million kilometers. And 15 hailstorms and 27 rainbows. That was basically our drive. Those natural phenomena, plus the weird challenges of driving in France. It’s not too bad actually, but (and this isn’t just France) the speed limit signs are a challenge. Sometimes, I don’t even see them. Sometimes, I do. Sometimes, the GPS tells me the speed. Sometimes, she’s right. Sometimes, she’s not. It can be frustrating, especially when cars are… oh you know what? Driving in France isn’t that bad. It’s a little more chaotic than the UK, which is fairly full of rule followers (I fit in perfectly), but not too bad. Not even as chaotic as Italy. So I should stop complaining and hope I don’t end up with 47 speeding tickets when I get home. Hopefully I won’t. I am a rule follower (like the Brits, we are totally simpatico!), but sometimes… I don’t know the speed or the GPS is wrong… or I just panic for no reason. Also I don’t like driving 90 (kilometers, you guys) on tiny one lane country roads, despite the signs saying it’s legal. Blah blah blah. I’m boring myself to tears here.

We drove really far today. And we followed a storm the entire way (that’s probably some sort of metaphor… or maybe not), so we got loads of lovely rainbows right before we drove into hailstorm after hailstorm after hailstorm.

We ate baguette sandwich (GENIUS) lunch on the road. Delicious. And finally arrived around 2:30pm here in Brittany. 

This region so far has a decidely different feel to it. First of all, the architecture is totally different. Also, they are growing ARTICHOKES! I kind of want to take my machete and just whack off a few, but Husband says he won’t be able to help me out when I get arrested and “you’re on your own”. Also I don’t have a machete, but I swear that some of these artichokes LOOK READY. So I’d be doing them a favor. Also I’d of course leave a few Euro.

I want these!!


Really want!


After arrival and NO ARTICHOKES, we went to the grocery store for supplies and dinner, met our hostess who explained that yes, the wood stove is the heat… the wood is in the barn. With the washer and the garbage & recycling. Yay! So Husband built us a fire and we are now toasty warm. And that’s all I’ve got for today.

Church in Plouescat

Enjoy the rainbows and hailstorms, you guys.

whisky sunset

14 April 2017 Keiss, Scotland

I woke up pretty early this morning and noticed the bright light coming through the window blinds. So I went into the bathroom to check out the sunrise.

Scotland sunrise


Later, breakfast was had and we chatted with our B&B hosts, Ann & Marco, for a while. Ann is from a small town a few miles outside Edinburgh and Marco is from Sardinia. They are really lovely and they make it seem fun to run a B&B (a lot of work and some rude guests, but they love meeting people and having them stay). After a long chat about Scottish referendums, all the interesting people from all over the world that they meet, the behavior of chickens and the need for only one cockerel (fancy pants for “rooster”), the fact that having goats or other farm animals isn’t a good idea for them, the similarities between Alaska and Scotland, and whether or not to put a few drops of water into the whisky (I vote yes!), we went to Dunnet Head, which is actually the most northern place on mainland Scotland (Britain).

North!


We walked around and quickly realized we were “bogged out” and decided to drive over to Dunnet Bay and the huge beach there. We walked the entire length and back (just under 6 miles), explored rock formations, tide pools, dead birds caught in seaweed, and other junk caught in seaweed (there was a lot of seaweed). 

Beach creature

Holy rock

Beach


We found some interesting shells and stuff. The colors were amazing. There were bright yellow and orange snail shells, polka dot shells, purple shells, cool rocks, not yet ready sea glass, and other random things. 

Beach loot


Scotland provided us with a fairly nice day on the beach. It was windy, but not wwiiiiiiiiiiiidy. It rained a little bit, but we were later rewarded with a rainbow.

Rainbow

Rainbow selfie


After that, we had a pressing need for petrol, so headed over to Wick for that and groceries, then back to the B&B for our hotel picnic dinner and a little tipple of whisky (with a few drops of water) to end the evening. Again, Scotland rewarded us with a stunning sunset.

Scotland sunset


It’s our last night in Keiss and we have had a great time here (not withstanding a few slips and falls and the strong need to punch nature in the face). Tomorrow we head off to Inverness for a few nights, where we will be doing laundry because, yep, it’s time for laundry. For those of you keeping score, no we still don’t know what we are going to do in France (well, that’s not entirely true, we did decide on some vague ideas maybe), but we still need to book it.

Also, I forgot… the internet is slightly better at the moment, so I may actually get photos in here. I think we discovered the reasons why the internet was such a jerk last night… two teenage girls. They were at breakfast with their parents talking about how “you can stream all sorts of stuff over YouTube on the TV.”

Beachcombers