Day 3

Let us see.

I got up at 10.00 am this morning... That was nice. I did wake up shortly at 5, and the sun had risen completely, but I managed to go down for another 5 hours. Took a while to get going... Went up to the corner shop to buy a newspaper or two. More attempted bombings in London yesterday, but supposedly no-one was hurt. Go to Yahoo news if you want more, I can't be bothered to tell you.

At about 2.30 or 3.00, We set off to Castle Campbell. It's partially ruined, but in a bit better shape than Urquart Castle. They were having a wedding today, so a few of the best photo opportunities were spoilt, but I still got a bunch of decent pictures (even a few with me in them!). Then we set off for the wee village of Dunning, and went to the church there... the steeple is 800 years old or so, and they just recently brought the Dubbins (sp?) cross into the steeple to keep it out of the elements (and away from those damned yobs). It's even older than the steeple, the era of Constantine, I think. Pretty incredible in itself, and still so much of it is so far not understood. For instance, the the short bit that goes across the long bit of the cross is lopsided, but they have no idea why. I, of course, have my own ideas that popped into my head while I was staring at it, but nothing official. ;) When I looked at that cross, it's almost like I can feel the energy of everyone who was ever involved with it, all people who saw it, or prayed at it, or carved it. It's pretty spectacular, when it's that bloody old, there's a lot of energy there. It was the same way with the 800-year-old steeple. It's actually quite ugly, just a big square tower with a pointy roof, and the mortar is shot, and it's got 800 years of wear to contend with, but it was amazingly hard not to look at it. Of course, I felt all that energy too.

After that, we wandered about the graveyard for a while. It may seem odd, but I really liked it. No matter the noise of the village, it seemed incredibly peaceful. I would spend so much time there if I lived in Dunning. Of course, hardly anybody lives in Dunning.

Then we just wandered off home. After all that, I filled up a roll of film, so we're going to drop it off at... somewhere that starts with an 'M' tomorrow morning. Apparently, there's no 24-hour Walgreens around here. It's just now 8.40, and the sun is starting to turn orangey. It'll be a while yet before it's down. I may figure out how to post some pictures sometime in the next few days, but if not, I'll scan the best ones in when I get home and post them then. I suppose that's about all I've got to write about, so, until tomorrow,

-Patrick

PS. Mom, did you want me to pick up another british atlas or not? I can't recall. ^_^