Winter holidays in Scotland 2012 December

Here are the Christmas photos from Scotland as promised. I love the emptiness of the mountains in Scotland, there's something very peaceful, very calm about taking long walks in the hills like that. I hope you like the photos. Shame there was no snow, the temperature hovered around 5 degrees, just too warm for snow I'm afraid. The rat you see in the photo is Sylvio, I hope to give you a little taste of rural Scottish life in this post and I'll leave you with a thought - you can get a nice cottage out here for as little as £40,000. Crikey. That's a small house (a bungalow, no neighbours, we're not talking semi-detached or terraced houses here), complete with a little yard for less than S$80,000 in stunning countryside with lovely scenery. The only downside is living in the middle of nowhere - but if you like fresh air, the countryside and nature, then Scotland is the place for you.

There are less people in Scotland than Singapore! There are 5.31 million people in Singapore today whilst there are only 5.25 million people in Scotland. The area of Singapore is 710 km2 whilst the area of Scotland is 78,390 km2. You get the idea - Singapore is incredibly crowded whilst Scotland is relatively empty. That's why land is cheap and you can get a nice house on a big plot of land for so little money. Might I be tempted to one day retire somewhere like this - to sell off my London flats and then get a nice house in the countryside and live off the profit? That's a thought.

That is the sign in both English and Scottish-Gaelic.