Scotland Visit 2009

This summer my wife Mylene and I were very lucky to have a visit from Tony and Megan Ivey from the US of A. Tony and I share a passion for smallscale modelling and have exchanged emails from around 1998 or 1999? We lost contact for a while as I spent a little time living and travelling abroad and moving from house to house before settling in Scotland again a few years back. So when I heard Tony and his good lady wife were planning a visit to Alba I was well looking forward to meeting up with the guys.

In the grand plan of life my wee wife through no fault of her own unfortunately lost her job in the spring of 2009 meaning life became a little hectic for myself working months straight to keep things ticking over. So by the time the guys arrived I was well strung out and it was a great relief to finally get a break. It also gave me a chance to catch up with some old friends. The guys were only here for a short stay so we planned to take them to the usual tourist traps. From left to right Mr Ian Hanratty, Megan and Tony Ivey and wee Mai Provan

We took the chance to take some touristic photos of the castle!

This time I managed to sneak into the photo (nice pic Ian). This is the entrance to the castle. Once you reach this point you have already been robbed by the cashiers for your entrance fee.


In true Scottish fashion I'll have a moan about the price for entry into our historic buildings, they are lovely places but boy do they screw you for your pennies! I feel sorry for the tourists coming to the UK as the fees everywhere are extortionate!


The gang all happiness and smiles. That's the way we like to see you!

I try to get as many people as possible into my photo's. Here a couple completely oblivious to the camera. I would guess they are Polish? Answers on a postcard

Mylene working her charms on her new best pal.

The 2 Megs: I thought it was really decent of the Edinburgh people to name 1 of their main attractions in the castle after our visiting guest Meg.






My wee wife with Grey Friar's Bobby.


The Iveys on the Edinburgh skyline.








A shot from within the little chapel at the top of th Castle.

Here we are in the Heart of Lothian on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh.

For those of you who are not aware of the ritual surrounding this place the custom is for you to spit in the centre of the heart on your 1st visit to the spot!

We had a great day.

We managed to pick Calum Melrose up later on and Tony got a change to have a look through his excellent WW2 German models afterwards Ian invited us all back to his place for some pizza and beer. Guess who was driving :-(