Can someone turn the heating up?

It's 5 degrees today. There was snow at 7am - we of course slept til 9am because it was so cold (0 degrees overnight). I love this weather. Apparently, it's going to snow again tomorrow.

We haven't really been doing much of late. Get up, clean stuff, swear our heads off because 44 people left in one morning. Yesterday was 23 people. They were a set of four bands on tour. Guess how much four bands can drink? We know because we cleared the empties - 7 garbage bags full. *sigh*

Anyway, for your entertainment today, we give you Angus MacLeod.

























This was Angus' room - as you can read, he was a bagpipe maker. There was a fire, and he died, about a two centuries ago.

Unfortunately, he likes to turn up now and again. Like when you're asleep in Room 14. People get woken up by a Scot in a kilt telling them there's a fire. When they run out of their room, there's no fire. Then they go back to their room, and there's no one there.

I live in a building with a ghost. I'm pretty darn satisfied here.

Quite a journey

Six months ago, Felix and I sat down to buy ourselves an anniversary present. It was one year, so traditionally that means paper. We bought two plane tickets.

Move to now and we're here. It's a little surreal at times, but otherwise fun. Oh, and it's 10 degrees tomorrow. Hope you're all enjoying your suffocating heat...

Nice weather we're having here

12 degrees, clear blue skies, warm in the sun.







And the view - you gotta love it.

(Taken from The Law)

Pretty out of it

Did you know that the Opposition Leader in Australia is Malcolm Turnbull? I didn't until today. Ooops.

On the other hand I did notice that the Secretary of State for Scotland, Jim Murphy, is the spitting image of Tony Abbot, he of the "Noooo, religion and politics do mix, honest!" ideology.









































Freaky isn't it?

Welcome to Dundee!

As usual, rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated. I caught a nasty cold that turned into virus, which sent me to bed for five days straight, followed by one day sightseeing, one day bed rest. Bleurgh.

Right now, it is a very sunny 16 degrees, and Felix is off at the Magic release day, and I promise he will not be allowed to blog about it. We have a bagpipe band playing outside and all's right with the world.


















My dad is at home asleep, and dreaming of this. Trust me on this.

The hostel we're staying in is amazing. No other words necessary. Now for the tour...


















This is my ballroom. I now it's not finished, but it's a ballroom. You may now be jealous.



















Here's the kitchen, with the ovens arriving shortly. I can't wait for that to happen. Just a hours after I took this picture it was chaos, mainly through three women feverishly trying to meet their 6pm finishing time for Yom Kippur - they used four saucepans and two frying pans! It was amazing to watch.


















Here's the dining room - although now the new server is set up, it's the chosen room of the nerds with the wi-fi laptops (myself included).



















This is the main hallway - usually full of the house slaves workers. We tend to just hang about and slack off.




















If you're looking for Felix - he'll be here at night. Turns out he's a shark and I didn't know. He foolishly beat me, so I must have vengeance soon.


















This is ideal for me, so I was delirious with joy until I walked in...



















...apparently, it'll have furniture soon.

I couldn't manage to get a decent shot of either the bathrooms or our bedroom. The bathrooms are small, but perfect - all brand new with heated towels racks, just lovely.

The bedrooms are either private rooms, such as the MacLeod Suite (sadly, there can be more than one bed, it has three) or dorm rooms. As members of the cleaning staff (in exchange for free accommodation) we're sharing a 10-bed dorm with 6 others. I'd take a picture of our room, but - scarily - we're the tidy ones. Really. It's a small disaster area, except for where we sleep. Scary.

The best thing about this place for me? The stair wells.















































You can see just what kind of place this was - a townhouse built in the 1550's when you look at them. They're very steep and unfortunately there are a lot of them. To get from the ground floor to our room requires five flights of stairs, but they're so pretty you just don't care.

























People just walk by with no idea how cool it is - I really like that bit.