Summertime ☼

So exams are over, thank goodness for that! Spring was a stressful semester. Now just to wait on hearing about dissertation allocation, and then bring on 4th year...

Entering the Fort

But for now it is summer. Carl flew over for a couple of weeks in the beginning of June, and for the first week we went up to my parents in the Highlands for a short visit. First day, the weather wasn't great so we planned a trip to Fort George near Inverness, walking around like geeks with information headsets.

Funny Face :)

Cannons

We also visited the Clava Cairns and then headed back for the day to chill and relax on the sofa. The next day we, well mainly I, decided we were going to climb Ben Bhraggie, finally... seeing as we failed to do so the time before. I forgot how steep it was, and once we got up there, there wasn't really much to see anyway but fog, could barely see the statue! So we quickly marched back down and headed for a nice walk along Loch Migdale instead :)

The visit back home was short and sweet, but nice to see my parents and eat some lovely homemade food :) I also cut half my hair off, much to the surprise of my mother who was shocked how short I wanted it! 
It was time to head back down south again though, but not quite to Stirling. For Carl's birthday, I booked a Belle Tent for the weekend on the edge of Loch Tay, thought we would camp out and enjoy the outdoors and peace.

Camping at Loch Tay

I also challenged my fear of small boats and we hired a canoe for the day and paddled up and down the loch. We stopped off a few times for a wander, I reluctantly made my way out of the canoe back on to land each time, and we had a picnic on the shore. I actually felt quite relaxed after a while, think we will need to go canoeing again at some point.

Canoe Trip ♥

The weekend was soon over, and although I had a great time and felt really chilled out and enjoyed being a little cut off from technology and phones and internet, it also felt great to finally get back to the flat and have a proper shower, warm up and sleep in a normal bed again. 
Nothing much happened while we were back in Stirling. I worked a couple of shifts, and we just chilled out. We also saw the Olympic Torch on its relay around the UK. Really it was only a fleeting glance of the torch, but it was a nice, sunny day and we had a nice walk around town. 

The Torch!

 We also ventured up the Dumyat. It had only taken me 3 years and Carl, 5 years... But we finally did it! The walk was a lot better than Ben Bhraggie, wasn't as steep, although in all fairness, you do drive up to the halfway car park! And this was the view from the top...

Top of Dumyat

Carl's holidays were over though, and he needed to get back to Sweden and to work, and I went with him for a week. After another sleepless night, camping out at Costa in the airport and what seemed like a long flight, we finally got to Gothenburg. Just like in mid-semester I got to see Easter in Sweden, this time I got to see Midsummer; the celebrations, the flowers and the dancing, and eat a traditional midsummer meal (although I am becoming more tolerant of fish, I am definitely never going to be a fan of pickled herring!). The best thing about it was all the fresh strawberries, yum :) Carl's birthday was a chill-out day, although we did head to Liseberg, the theme park in Gothenburg, on the last day, and found out that Carl has well and truly turned into an old man who couldn't handle the rides any more. I don't think anyone has screamed "I hate you" so much to me while we were spinning around, back and forth, up and down in the air! I had a good day though, despite getting rained on, but what did it matter? Once we got wet, we were wet and it didn't make too much of a difference! 

I was really sad to have to leave. Going to the airport was hard, and having to leave Carl and seeing Carl having to leave to get to work while I stayed behind to catch my flight wasn't great. But it was a great 3 weeks we got to spend together, and it's been a long two months in between, but only one more week to go and I will be flying back to Sweden to see him. ♥

E x