Scottish Highlands and Islands...... oh and England too....

So very sorry that I have been neglecting you all. I will now try to recap what has been going on for the last two weeks.....

I arrived in Scotland on Sunday. Edinburgh is a beautiful city especially the parts I was in.....
now this just shows how much I have been neglecting you.... I wrote that over a month ago and never finished it. Some time I will have to write a really long account of what I have been up to but for now I have only half a hour so I will tell you what I have been up to in the recent past.

I have spent the last week in London in a wonderful flat with some wonderful people (Frank and Jess) in a wonderful location (Pimlico right by the River Thames just down from the Britain Tate, an art gallery which houses some lovely statues and some fantastic paintings by William Turner). It's in the City of Westminster so Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey are right down the road and Buckingham Palace is around the corner....not that I have been there! NOTE I love the Tube - it is so great it will get you anywhere if you just have a little patience and a Tube map.

For the last week I have been packing my bag each day and heading out to explore the "Big Smoke". There are so SO many museums and art galleries that I really haven't go to go to all of them. Like today I went back to Trafalgar Square (I was there a couple of days ago but you really can't take in that much in just one visit so I have been returning to places like Kensington Gardens and the British Museum) and wandered around the National Gallery. My favourite part was seeing the works of Turner and Constable also the Impressionists and Van Gogh (it isn't "Va Go" even though that's how it sounds). It is really amazing to see these paintings in real life. Paintings that I have studied with Julia and Gubs (my art teachers). They always said when we were studying a painting, 'When you go and see such and such' and here I am really seeing these paintings up close!! It is so great!!!
Now I know, not just believe, that it is real that so many years ago Turner put paint to canvas and created 'Rain, Smoke and Speed'. It makes history so real. You can see proof of history all around you when you are in London. I love it. I then went to the National Portrait Gallery where I saw lots of famous people most of whom are dead now. It was great to see portraits of past kings and queens, once againg it makes the past real not just a story in a book or dates on a page but a physical thing that has lasted through the generations. It was nice to place the different people to an era especially all the scientists who made such amazing discoveries in the Victorian era. I get to use all sorts of things that I have learnt in school or through books or what people have told me when I remember what so and so did. For example Leonardo da Vinci or Michael Faraday.

Just to let you know that I am very happy at the moment and having a great time. I was in a blue patch last week but that is just the way travelling goes - you take all of it on, the good and the not so great. I love and miss every single one of you and hope that some day you will be able to have an adventure like mine.

All my love Acushla.

P.S. If you don't send me your addresses I can't send you a post card. So please email your address AND POST CODE (somebody gave me their adress with no post code which isn't particularly useful).
P.P.S. You might like to know that I get reminded of you when I listen to certain songs - Sasha when ever Jack Johnson comes on. (sorry I have to go!)
Bye! xoxoxo