My two week holiday is almost over and I’ll be reluctantly heading back to work on Monday, although the best thing about the summer months are the constant bank holidays.

The week in Ayrshire was fine, although I was a bit bored on some days. My parents are so used to being up there now, sometimes I think my mum hates having to come home. However, there’s not a lot she can do about it until my dad either retires or drops his days again. The company he works for are going through a rough time, more or less like every other company these days, and there is talk about redundancies. If they are looking for volunteers, my dad may offer since he is so close to retirement. It means they will have to compensate him though for the remaining time.

The weather was great while I was in Ayrshire and we only had rain one morning which was amazing! The sun was out almost every day, although it was still quite chilly down on the coast. We visited a lot of historical places, including Souter Johnnie’s Cottage which you can read about over at Caledonia Heritage. There are a lot of farms around where we were and the scenery is gloriously green, made especially so by the sunshine and we drove around the countryside a lot. I saw the Google Maps car twice!

The town of Ayr itself is still very depressing looking and I’m afraid the sunshine makes it worse! The old buildings would look amazing if money was spent rejuvenating them but they are so dilapidated, they look terribly dingy. The closed shops just making everything so much more gloomy.

While we are on the subject of depressing, it breaks my heart why I see historical places defaced by idiots who have no respect for our heritage. Thankfully, our criminal system seems to agree and the chap who vandalised the Burns Cottage in Alloway at the start of Homecoming has been jailed. When we visited Dean Castle Country Park in Kilmarnock, I was dismayed to see the rubbish that had been tossed in the stream. Have some pride, folks! Historic Scotland and the National Trust work hard to maintain these places and they don’t need mindless idiots increasing their costs.

On the subject of Homecoming, the press are taking potshots at it and claiming it has all been a failure which I think is a real shame. Yes, some events have had to be cancelled because local authorities have failed to comply with safety standards, but you can hardly blame that on lack of interest. The sad fact is the event is coinciding with a recession and people have so much worry on their minds just now. Tourism is expected to be hit, but hopefully more folks will be staying in Scotland this year, and they can actually experience their own culture for a change. We can’t do anything about the weather but when has the weather really stopped you from doing something you really wanted to do?

The Homecoming Events are so widespread it’s hard for everyone to participate but I’m certainly looking forward to The Gathering in Edinburgh in July. I’m sure the Festival and the Fringe will really kickstart things for a lot of people. It pisses me off how the media always has to look at things from a negative point of view.