Stirling

Weekend of 7/8 November we visited Stirling, approx 2hrs south of Aberdeen.

When we left the house we saw the first frost on our front lawn and ice on the windscreen that had to be scraped off - actually we just turned the engine on and waited for the car to heat up. The car was freezing to get into until it warmed up. The car temperature gauge told us it was 0 degrees outside - so that's the coldest I've ever experienced...however when we're in Switzerland Mase tells me that the temperature will get to below 10 degrees - so that will be a interesting.

Anyway, we drove down to Stirling early Sat morning in mist and cloud, so thick at times we couldn't see more than 10m either side of the car. We were to stay with the Maher family and visit Stirling Ecc for the weekend.

Before we arrived for lunch at their place we visited Stirling Castle (built in the 1500's) - one of the oldest and largest castles in Scotland. It was a strategically important place as it guarded the lowest crossing point of the River Forth, allowing access to central Scotland (knew you'd want to know that). Anyway it's quite an impressive Castle - built high on a volcanic rock and visible for miles from all directions. It looks very speccy at night when it's lit up and I can well imagine it being the residence of many generations of Scottish royalty. In fact the kids and I were reading about Mary Queen of Scots recently and she was crowned Queen of Scotland there when she was only 9 months old (many other coronations, baptisms and deaths also occurred there)! She was beheaded at 35 years old. We didn't go into the Castle as we wanted to go for a walk in Alva Glen before heading to the Maher's house for lunch.

We then drove to Alva Glen (slightly North of Stirling) and went for a gorgeous walk through the glen (valley) along a burn (river). The walk was a bit muddy in places but well worth doing. We saw a couple of waterfalls - one of which is my favourite of all that we've seen so far (pictured below). The walk trail was to take us to Smugglers' Cave and this meant we zig zagged up the hill and then down again to the Cave - good exercise. The Cave was quite amazing - not what I'd generally class as a cave - but at the back of the rock face (actually two rocks with quite an overhang) you could glimpse a waterfall and then the water turned and gushed out a small gap between the two rocks and into the Alva Burn where it pooled a little and then flowed down the glen burn (that's as close to Scottish as I've got!). While we were there we found part of the skeleton of a deer - a hoof and foreleg with the hair/fur still on it, we looked at the cloven section of the hoof - and a jaw bone with a few teeth, ribs and an assortment of other bones...then we headed back with the kids running ahead for their favourite part of the walk - the descent!

Having cleaned our muddy shoes in the puddles and on the grass we headed for the Mahers and lunch.

Luke (10, nearly 11) and Zoe (8) rushed out to meet us - Sam and Jo disappeared quickly. We then met the rest of the family - Linda (Shaun's wife) and Joshua (6) and later we met Joel (13yrs) when he came back from youth group.

The children had a great time together and we enjoyed getting to know Linda and Shaun a little more. We walked through Dollar Glen (Dollar is the town where they live) which is near their house and enjoyed the gorgeous views over the countryside (unfortunately we didn't take our camera on the walk). We got a photo of everyone when we got back though.

I have to say that this is the only place we've ever stayed at where we've been welcomed with fireworks. Shaun had bought some fireworks (it was Guy Fawkes Night the previous night) and so when it was dark we all went outside to watch him set them off in the backyard (legal in the UK). It was freezing!!! I was rugged up in Jo's rain jacket, gloves, scarves, thermal socks, jumper and was still freezing - Linda lent me a fleecy jacket and we huddled next to the fire. The kids had a ball - watching them shoot up, whizzing loudly, some catching in the trees or firing off wildly over the fence! They also had some sparklers which the kids flashed around all over the place.

Sunday we drove into Stirling to attend the meeting there. The Ecclesia has lunch together every Sunday, followed by a public lecture at 2.30pm. Here's a few photos of the hall (with Trevor Maher beside his car) and the sunday school rooms. I didn't get a photo of the creche but on the door there's a sign that reads "We shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed" - very amusing! The main hall is downstairs with sunday school rooms/seminar rooms and a kitchen upstairs. A flat next door was bought some time ago and leads to toilets and other sunday school rooms and the creche.

The exhort was about remembrance - interestingly the church next door was having their remembrance day service at exactly 11am, so the meeting was delayed so we didn't start singing and interrupt their minute of silence. The contrast was made between the remembrance of soldiers who died for their country (never to rise again) and the remembrance we have each week of a man who died and rose again to life.

We met quite a few more of the bre/sis while we had lunch and I enjoyed hearing some of the life stories of the people there. One older bro (Harry) told me how he met his wife (Barbara) by coincidence and was consequently introduced to the truth by her.

After lunch a few of us went to the park with the children before the lecture. I was talking with a group of the teenage girls and one of them said 'I just love your accent - I could listen to you all day' - it was quite an unusual moment of realisation as I think of them all as having accents and not me!

The public lecture was fantastic - John Gill looked at the natural water cycle and explained how it worked and then went on to show the lessons we can take at a spiritual lesson. Sun shines on ocean, evaporation occurs and water is formed in clouds which then deposit the rain back on the earth and so it goes on. The Sun (essential for water cycle) represents Christ, the ocean represents the nations, the clouds are those believers who are drawn out of the nations by the teaching of Christ who then pass on that message of hope (the rain being doctrine) and so the process begins again...we looked at quotes to match each step and the children in the audience were involved and read out verses. Sam was able to follow it and really enjoyed it (as I did). What an amazing God we have - He can use nature to teach us spiritual lessons if we look hard enough!

After the public lecture we walked to the Wallace Monument (photo alongside) - built in honour of William Wallace a Scottish man who became a national hero when he led the Scottish to victory at the Battle of Stirling Bridge in 1297. It's built on top of a hill and is very conspicuous in the carse (local area) of Stirling. Having read a brief history of his exploits it is easy to see how he became a hero to the Scottish people - he killed hundreds of Englishmen and led numerous brave attacks on them, despite being outnumbered. He was quite a gruesome man - apparently one of the Englishmen killed in this battle was skinned and Wallace used a wide strip of his skin to made a leather strap for his sword! The English hated him and murdered his girlfriend, later his wife, his father and mother which of course fuelled his desire for vengeance....I'm very glad we don't live in those violent times!
The children (including Joel with red scarf) tried to scale the monument...

Anyway it was getting dark (nearly 5pm) and cold - so we headed back to Maher's to pack and head back to Aberdeen.

Got in about 8pm and it was freezing outside - poor kids weren't happy about being woken from sleep, carried in thru cold, dressed in pj's and then put into cold beds...

PS - 5 weeks to go - looking forward to December 17th God willing!!

PSS - one thing I'm looking forward to (amongst many others) is some nice kent pumpkin - they only have butternut or pale-yellow fleshed pumpkins here and they're awful