Rapunzel Diaries 10: Observation Tower at Flanders Moss

The best towers are those that you come across unexpectedly. The best towers are those you can climb up. So the very best towers combine the two. We went to Flanders Moss near Aberfoyle on holiday. Apparently the biggest area of raised bog in the UK.

Now I don't know about you but I expect a bog to be pretty flat and a bit wet. And it was horizontal and very damp but joy of joy hidden from us by the wooded approach to the bog but soon revealed was an observation tower from which to view the wet and very flat bog. Hurrah for the bog people thinking vertically.

Fairies...quite literally

I'm rather partial to a spot of wild swimming when I get the opportunity. It doesn't get much better than swimming in the Fairy Pools of Glen Brittle on Skye. There is a whole series of plunge pools, eroded away by the mountain stream coming off the Cuillins. We swam there last week. Gorgeous, gorgeous , gorgeous.

My adrenalin was so high that I didn't even find the water cold. It's just the best feeling to see life from a different perspective both literally and emotionally. The buzz is a high one.

We had just moved onto our second fairy pool when two blokes turned up. One of them asked us if the clear bristling water was really cold - we lied and said it was just fine. His friend encouraged him to get in there. He popped his trunks on and got his........ fairy wings out. What a brilliant moment. We all gave him a round of spontaneous applause and wondered why we hadn't thought to pack our own wings. It rounded off a wonderful wild swim.

Enterprise in the middle of nowhere

We had a lovely surprise on a walk we did on Skye last week. We were in the middle of nowhere with a little cottage in the distance and we came across a wee self-help café.

Hot water, coffee, tea, cold drinks in flasks and cool boxes all at £1 a shot. We tucked in. Alas the home baking had already been scoffed.

Shimmering beasties

Lots of adventures over the last two weeks on our holiday to Scotland. Came across these beautiful beasties - I can assure you they are real sculptures, even though they look quite surreal. They are the Kelpies near Falkirk. Apparently kelpies are mythical horses with the strength of ten which reflects the industry that once dwelt in and around Falkirk. They rise out of the water near the river and the canal and are breathtaking.

Swimming cap torture

The children went to their swimming lesson yesterday. We were sat at the side waiting for it to start, calmly. There were two little girls on either side of us, both nearly in tears. It wasn't the anticipation of the swimming lesson nor the fear of the water that was upsetting these girls but the dreaded placing of a rubber swimming cap over a full head of hair by a parent who has absolutely no idea how to do it quickly and effectively. It was torture to watch. I couldn't even intervene as I have absolutely no idea how to do it either.

Two dads trying to pop a very small object over a very large surface. The hats popped off, caught the children's ears, trapped their hair, contorted their faces. It teased. Just as I thought they'd done it, it would spring up and off again. The girls were definitely not impressed with their Dads' efforts. There was thumping......one Dad by his daughter. There were raised voices.....the girls remonstrating their Dads to do it properly. And eventually the heads were covered after 10 minute Herculean efforts.

Eventually the swimming teacher (oh wise and wonderful cap fitter that she is) simply popped one hat over one little girl using the correct 'getting the bloody swimming hat on' technique. It was done in seconds. I was impressed. Perhaps the technique should be taught one week in the lesson.

I popped a ponytail in H's hair and off she jumped in, capless.

Engineering in sugar and chocolate

How do you eat your chocolate tea cake?

First comes the delicate removal of the red and silver foil from your Tunnock delicacy. Don't press too hard in the wrong place or it's all lost in a squashed crumple.


Do you eat it up in one or three big bites, savouring the biscuit crunch, cloud-like marshmellow and sumptuous milk chocolate almost in one glorious instance? Then having eaten it so quickly you have the chance to grab the remaining tea cake before anyone realises. My husband (who usually eats so slowly)

Do you, feeling very naughty, deliberately cover your lips and environs in the white sticky weightless sugar, creating a white moustache and goatee beard and await a reaction from those around you? My eight year old son.

Do you make a little doorway through the fragile chocolate into the white cloud and then twist your tongue around the marshmellow and empty the dome, leaving the chocolate roof balancing, hanging there with no support. Then destroy it while attacking the biscuit floor?  All a good exercise in teeth and tongue control. My seven year old daughter and sometimes me.

Do you deconstruct the delight. Carefully and skilfully chip away the delicate layer of milk chocolate over the white fluffy dome and then lick away the marsh mellow before chomping into the biscuit base? It takes time to do it right. Me (who usually eats so quickly).

God I love 'em.

Sock it to you

We have a windsock in the garden. A multi-coloured one. It's great because not only is it pleasant to see it fluttering in the breeze but I can tell how windy it is and from which direction it blows. I then know how many layers or hats to put on when I venture out.

Today: breezy, bit dull, wind from south-east: jacket needed and umbrella.