The weather threatened to ruin our day but we still decided to drive out for about 1 hour eastwards towards Stirling and visit a Japanese Garden.
Adam bought tickets online and we arrived having passed through various rain showers on the way. However when we arrived the skies had miraculously cleared and we could enjoy our impromptu picnic in the car park before visiting the Garden.
One of the rules the owners stipulated meant that not all of us could tour the garden at the same time. Dogs were forbidden so Sarah and Finn visited another area of the estate. While the rest of us toured the garden.
The Japanese Garden’s history goes back to the beginning of the 20th Century when the owner of the Cowden Estate decided she wanted a brand new approach to the garden design and imported a Japanese gardener to design and maintain her patch of Scotland. She managed to keep it up to scratch until the start of the second world war, but then it went into decline.
In 2015 the current owners revived the project based on the original layout and it finally opened in 2021. I think we all really appreciated the beauty of the garden and how it had been laid out.
Sarah and Finn swapped with Adam and everyone managed to make the tour despite the dog unfriendly rules.
Our tour of the garden over we drove to the nearby town of Dollar. Adam described it as typically Scottish Conservative. The town had a private boarding school and golf course. The town contained a number of tea shops and one pub and all the houses seemed neatly cared for.
We stopped in a cafe/bookshop and sat outside to drink our beverage of choice in the sun. Next to us a small group sat chatting and I overheard the following conversation. “Uncle George has a certificate in confined spaces.” To which a companion replied, “How did he win the award.” “He was locked in a cupboard for a couple of hours.”
A few questions immediately jumped to my mind, why would any one want a confined space certificate, who awards these certificates and can you get a degree.
Amazingly I looked up “confined certificates” on the web and found the following –
A confined space certificate is issued to individuals who have successfully completed training on the safe entry, work, and rescue procedures in confined spaces. Confined spaces are areas with limited or restricted entry and exit, not designed for continuous occupancy, such as tanks, silos, manholes, pits, pipelines, and process vessels OSHA.com+1. The certificate demonstrates that the worker understands hazards, safety protocols, and regulatory requirements under OSHA standards 29 CFR 1910.146 for general industry and 1926 Subpart AA for construction.
We returned home and enjoyed the rest of the sun sitting in the garden. Sarah cooked us a nice vegetarian curry.
