Still Raining

We have been in Scotland almost two weeks now and it has rained every day except two. Bob and I decided to go out fishing on Loch Lubnaig on Monday, and planned to have a BBQ lunch with Stella and the rest of the family. It looked good when we left in the morning, but ended up raining pretty much all day, and poured rain while we were out on the Loch fishing in the late morning. We didn't see a fish much less catch one. We still had a small BBQ and I think everyone enjoyed themselves despite the rain.

Tuesday was the nicest day yet and we had a full day of sunshine as we visited Kelburn Castle. The scenery, gardens and countryside was amazing. There are miles of walking paths there and it would take much more than one day to see it all. It was the first nice day where I could get some more pictures and I have placed them all on the Picasa page. The gardens had some really amazing trees including a couple yews that are estimated to be over 1000 years old, and an absolutely huge tree called the Weeping Larch that covered 1/4 acre. Its branches grew into the ground and back out again in a tangled, twisted mass. They also had the outside of the castle painted up in what the call The Graffiti Project, which is quite cool to see (don't worry - it is temporary):



Today it rained pretty much all day again, but we decided to take the day off and Sharon and I both worked all day while the kids watched movies and played the Wii. I managed to get a full day's work in, most of which was spent writing Python scripts to automate a lot of grunt work that needs to be done before Friday's release which I hope to accomplish from here.

I'm hoping for a better day tomorrow as Bob and I are heading out for our last kick at the can fly fishing. It should be lots of fun if the weather holds. We are heading out on Loch Rusky, which is a private loch but we were invited out for the day by our ghillie from last week after a rather disappointing salmon outing. I'd better get some sleep!

Trout #2

Today I went fly fishing for a couple hours with John and his girlfriend Heather. We didn't head out until after 10:30 so the timing wasn't all that great, but it was nice to get out - especially on Father's Day! After a very unproductive but relaxing outing we were just heading in for the day when I hooked into a fish just as I was about to reel in my line and exit the river. After a wild fight, I pulled in this monster:



I was hoping my next fish would be bigger, not smaller! But it is better than nothing, I guess. And I caught it on the same caddis pattern as the last one. Here is a picture of the fly I caught it on, which I tied the night before:

Happy 80th Birthday, Grandpa!

This past Saturday was my grandfather's 80th birthday and we celebrated with a bit of a family get-together in Mitchell's Bay, Ontario. Everything went quite smoothly as family get-togethers go and apart from a few logistical snafus, it was a relatively good weekend. Unfortunately, in all the pictures I took I never got one shot of the birthday boy!

We decided to stay the night at the local campground in the tent-trailer. It rained the entire drive down but the day turned out to be not so bad, and by nightfall the weather was simply amazing. I took the kids fishing, although it was more like 2 hours of dad untangling 4 different fishing lines from one another, followed by Drew falling into the water and getting soaked and muddy. I also had a chance to have a few beers and visit with family I hadn't seen in quite awhile, and the kids got to roast marshmallows. I was even able to start a fire with no paper out of the scrap wood from the last tube amp cabinet I brought (thanks again, Boy Scouts).

Everyone else went to bed before midnight (although not to sleep) and I just sat outside in the dark by the dying fire for over an hour. The sky was perfectly clear and full of stars and it was absolutely peaceful. I just wished I'd had a few more pieces of scrap wood so I could have enjoyed it a bit longer. ;)