Inverness, UK

After breakfast we took a walk down to the water. The Firth of Forth was less than a block away from our B&B. The water was COLD and our host at the B&B said that he thought we were crazy for wanting to go down by the water that breezy morning. He assured us that he'd send an ambulance if we weren't back in 10 minutes! ;-) 

After walking in and out of the water a few times the tingling sensations subsided and we enjoyed walking together on the beach. The tide had just gone out so there were lots of interesting shells scattered across the beach and Jason even found a hermit crab (as seen in the photo) and Erika found a jellyfish.

Pottery House B&B

 After getting cleaned up, we headed north toward Inverness. The views on the drive up through the mountains were amazing, but somewhat hindered by the rain showers passing through. We didn't mind as most of our trip to Britain was beautiful weather!

View of Loch Ness from B&B window

We arrived in Inverness and worked our way toward our B&B. We stayed at a lovely place called the Pottery House. It was situated on a hill with a beautiful view of Loch Ness out our window.

Pitlochery, Scotland

As we drove from Edinburgh north toward Inverness we stopped for the afternoon in Pitlochery. This was a very charming little town where we walked the streets and checked out the little shops. We stopped at a cute little shop called The Sheep Shop and that's where be bought the cutest little sheep for our niece Briana. Jason also considered buying a kilt, but decided to wait for Inverness where the largest tartan and kilt manufacturer was located.

Heathergems creation process

We had lunch at a very interesting little cafe and took the opportunity to embrace our inner-Scottishness--we tried haggis. For those unfamiliar with haggis, it's a bunch of stuff you don't want to know about from sheep and goats ground up with some oatmeal and cooked inside a sheep's lung. Check out this link for a recipe, if you dare! We tried haggis balls which were rolled in breadcrumbs and deep fried. They were served with salsa. After each taking a bite we each admitted that they really weren't bad--not a favorite, but something we'd try again when back in Scotland.

Near the cafe was a factory called Heathergems. We decided to pop in and check it out. We found that this company cleans the steams from the heather plan, dies them different colors, compresses them to make them as hard as stone, and makes jewelery from them. It's an interesting process which we watched through the windows of the small workshop, and the showroom of jewelery for sale was breathtaking. It's amazing to think that the beautiful stones were once plants. Erika treated herself to a beautiful necklace with a Heathergem heart.