Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 185
Rothesay Castle Next castle on the list involved catching a boat from Wemyss Bay to Rothesay on the Isle of Bute. I had visited Wemyss Bay earlier this year and had noted in part 153 of this blog that I had this trip on my list of things to do. The crossing took around thirty-five…
Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 184
Ardrossan Castle In complete contrast to the beautifully restored Dean Castle, the next one to visit on my list was Ardrossan Castle. To get there, you have to drive into town, and then take a side road and it’s situated on the outskirts on a hill, overlooking the Firth of Clyde. There is a small…
Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 183
Dean Castle Took a trip down the West Coast and managed to visit four castles in twenty-four hours, with a fifth on the way back the following day. I will blog about each one in turn, starting with the first on route, Dean Castle. Set in a country park in Kilmarnock, this 14th century castle…
Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 182
Kinderdijk Windmills Last leg of the Rhine journey on way to Amsterdam and a flight back, allowed for a stop in Kinderdijk in the Netherlands. In previous posts I have mentioned some of the windmills I’ve visited in Scotland and noted these in Part 110 and Part 135 of this blog series. This time I…
Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 181
Wish You Were Here In Part 76 of this blog, I wrote about seeing the Australian Pink Floyd during the 50th anniversary of ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’ album. I noted I hoped to see them again, and I did just that the other week. 2025 is the 50th anniversary of the ‘Wish You…
Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 180
Museum Wallraf Having visited the Ludwig, I managed to fit in the Wallraf on the same day. This had a different vibe and was so worthwhile. Again, I’m only scratching the surface here. As with all the galleries and museums I’ve visited, there is so much to take in. So, in keeping with earlier posts,…
Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 179
Museum Ludwig While in Cologne, I discovered two art museums in close proximity to each other and with limited time, these were the obvious ones to visit. The first of these was the Museum Ludwig, which was perfect given my love of modern art and the collection it houses. The second was the Wallraf, which…
Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 178
Cologne Cathedral If there is one thing you need to see when visiting Cologne, it is Cologne Cathedral. At 157 m (515 ft), it is the tallest twin-spired cathedral in the world, the second tallest church in Europe after Ulm Minster in Germany, and it is the third tallest church building of any type in the world.…
Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 177
Koblenz The weather had been very hot on this trip, but on arriving in Koblenz, the rain came down in an absolute deluge. With limited time, there were a couple of things to see, so despite a little flooding here and there, it was a matter of getting on with it. The town is a…
Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 176
The Clydeside Distillery Took a trip through to Glasgow on Friday last week to visit the Clydeside Distillery. I started the day by taking some time to wander around Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. I saw the Dali again as usual – see Part 139 of this blog – along with Van Gogh’s Portrait of…
Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 175
Lake Windermere This summer I made my first trip to the Lake District. Staying in Windermere, England, it was a short walk to the town centre and then down towards the lake itself. I was really taken with the area. It wasn’t too busy, though clearly most folk there were tourists. It has a real…
Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 174
Castles of the Middle Rhine The Upper Middle Rhine Valley, between Rudesheim and Koblenz, is a UNESCO World Heritage site known for its castles, fortresses, and vineyards. As a huge fan of castles this was the highlight of highlights. I’m not going to list the castles here, as apparently there is more than twenty-eight according to…
Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 173
Imperial Cathedral of Speyer Leaving Strasbourg, I returned to Kehl, and then back on the boat, with the next stop Speyer in Germany. The highlight here was a visit to see the Imperial Cathedral of Speyer, which is one of the world’s finest and largest Romanesque cathedrals and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was…
Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 172
Strasbourg Back on the Rhine, the next stop was Kehl, in Germany. From there a bus journey took me over the border into France and the city of Strasbourg. This has to be seen to be believed. I can imagine looking up the word picturesque in the dictionary and see the name Strasbourg. It is…
Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 171
Piano Revisited Looking back through this blog I see that in Part 33 from February 2023, I noted, “…something on my bucket list is to play the piano for the public in a railway station. We have pianos in stations here for anyone to sit down at and entertain the public. I thought doing a…
Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 170
One Hundred Thousand Words A milestone has been reached in this blog series. After publishing I always cut and paste a copy of my latest post into a word document as another backup. That word document containing all the posts from Inside the Fiction Factory to date, now amounts to a little over a hundred…
Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 169
Ancient Egyptian Collection I make a point of visiting the National Museum of Scotland, Chambers Street, Edinburgh a couple of times a month. It’s one of my favourite places and although I have only an hour for lunch, I manage to get around most of it during the year. There are always changes of course,…
Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 168
The Black Forest On leaving Basel in Switzerland, next stop was Breisach in Germany and from there a bus up into the Black Forest, which is quite amazing to see. It’s been the background for many a fairy-tale that came from the brothers Grimm and although a number of the stories they collected came from…
Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 167
Kunstmuseum Basel Along with the various excursions to towns and villages around Scotland this year, there was also a trip to Europe, travelling down the river Rhine. A flight to the Netherlands and from there a plane to Basel in Switzerland, resulted in spending two days before setting off, taking in the sights and sounds…
Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 166
Tutankhamun My first encounter with Egyptian history was at the British Museum in London in 1972. I was a young lad then, and my father had taken me on my first trip to London to see the loan exhibition from the Department of Antiquities of the Arab Republic of Egypt to mark the 50th anniversary…
Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 165
Kinneil House I took a trip over to the Kinneil Estate in Bo’Ness over the weekend. I had no idea there was so much history dating over a period of 2,000 years on display here. There is a house, a museum, the Roman Antonine wall, renaissance wall paintings, James Watt’s Cottage, a Roman Fortlet, and…
Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 164
Monkeys I visited the Primate exhibition being hosted by the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. This originally opened back in 2016, but I didn’t manage to catch it then. It has since toured the world and is now back home until November this year. Entitled, Monkeys: Our Primate Family, there are more than fifty…
Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 163
Inchmahome Priory This has been on my list for awhile, so I was excited to finally head up to the Lake of Menteith and see the Inchmahome Priory for myself. The remains of this Augustinian monastery are located on the largest of three islands in the lake, which means access is by boat. I’m becoming…
Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 162
St Fillan’s Church Next door to Aberdour Castle is St Fillan’s Church. He was a 7th century abbot of Pittenweem. Coincidentally, I visited Pittenweem last year as noted in Part 134 of this blog. As with all the early Saints, their back-story is scant and surrounded in myth. According to the guide book, St Fillan’s…
Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 161
Aberdour Castle There are a number of locations that were used in the filming of the Outlander series, and I visited another one recently. Aberdour Castle is one of the oldest in Scotland and well worth a visit. It is a strange combination of preserved buildings and ruins, along with a restored walled garden and…
Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 160
Glasgow Transport Museum As noted in Part 139 of this blog, I’m a big fan of Dali and always like to view St John on the Cross in the Kelvingrove Art Gallery in Glasgow whenever I can. I managed to fit in another visit, before heading over to the Transport Museum. This is one of…
Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 159
Edinburgh Futures Institute I’ve attended two cyber security in-person conferences this summer as part of my day job. It’s always good to get away from my desk and hear what is current in the industry. Even better when I’m an attendee and not a presenter. Don’t get me wrong. I do enjoy presenting, but it…
Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 158
Croatia I took time out to head over to Croatia, staying in a small place called Mlini. It’s a beautiful place on the coast and a half hour boat ride from Dubrovnik, which was my main reason for the trip. The television series Game of Thrones used Dubrovnik as the main filming location for King’s…
Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 157
In Between The Gaps I was lucky enough to receive an Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) of this new novel by T.L. Dyer. These ARC’s feature towards the end of the writing process, shortly before the novel is due for publication. They act as a final sanity-check for the author before the public at large can…
Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 156
Canine Connection I often cut through the grounds of St Cuthbert’s Parish Church while out and about during my lunch hour. Aside from being a useful shortcut from the bottom of Lothian Road into Princess Street Gardens, it’s a picturesque and fascinating corner of historical Edinburgh and well worth a visit. One feature to keep…
The Fiction Factory 