A Day Oot In The Countryside

On Saturday we took a drive down to Mugdock Country Park. With a flask of tea made for afterwards and a few homemade cookies bought from a church charity jumbo sale that we were set to go out for a couple of hours. Buying the cookies was heaven for my ocd. The triggers and the thoughts were just getting more and more irrational by the second. I wont even get into the thoughts and the images, I wont give my ocd bragging rights!

Once we arrived at Mugdock we set off on one of the trails. No idea which direction on the trails to go, several fork in the road turns and eventually feeling slightly lost. The rain was on and off and on again slightly heavier than the last time and then it was off for a few minutes then it was back on again even heavier. Thankfully we were under the cover of trees for part of the time and not too badly soaked. Hardly soaked at all. Typical Scottish weather and for the views of the Scottish countryside I guess the best way of taking it in is with the Scottish weather. Without the rain you might feel like your in another country all together!

I felt so much more relaxed out in the countryside. I loved every moment but I did struggle on the last 20 minutes of our walk when we were trying to find our way back to the visitors center. We should have taken the time to go into the visitor center to buy that 20p map of the trails before we started. Definitely worth remembering for the next time. I would really love for there to be a next time!

Unfortunately I forgot to lift the camera before we left. I just had the camera on my phone to take these photos but I wanted to be able to share the day out. As I am writing this, it is my 7th day out of the house in a row. I was only out for a moment, then in the car to go to the store to get my prescription filled. I am loaded with the cold and I am struggling to breathe and I can't find my inhaler. Although, my husband found it minutes before we left the house to get my new inhaler, but my older inhaler didn't feel effective at all, so it was just as well that I went for a new one. I don't know if today should be counted as a day out because I was only out of the house for a half an hour at most.

Tomorrow will be my 8th day out in a row if the 7th is to be counted. Treatment tomorrow. *gulp*

A castle in the distance.

We only spotted one conker. The squirrels must have gotten there first! We put it back on the ground after the photo so the squirrels could come back for it. Don't want those cute balls of fur to go hungry during the winter!

Getting closer to that castle. It took us about 40 minutes from when we first spotted the castle in the distance until we reached it. Either we were walking in circles the whole way there or it just looked closer than it really was!

Lochness monster?

Nope, just a duck!

Had to get a photo of these mushrooms. They looked so odd, almost jellyfish like.

Finally, we reached it but slightly too tired to walk around in it. Next time, expect photos from the inside.

This is just one of the castles on the grounds. 5 years in the UK and castles are still a novelty!

The first thing that I noticed when I spotted this tree was the horseshoe shape. How cool is that :)