hello scotland.

Havent blogged in a while - oopsies. But i have a good excuse, there was the crazy whirlwind of christmas fairs and party bookings at the shop. Then i had a very special visitor for lands afar that I had to take some time out and show her the luvverly sights of bonnie bonnie scotland.

We only had 3 days to cram in as much of scottishness as possible so much planning was needed and first stop was Stonehaven and the Ship Inn for some good ol grub followed by a trek up to dunnottar and its pretty amazing views of the coastline. purty.

Dunottar Castle 

A quick drive up north brings us to the sleepy town of Grantown-on-Spey which is a great base for visiting Aviemore and the Cairngorms. And thus day 2 begins with a big, greasy but amazing breakfast at the Mountain Cafe in Aviemore. They have french toast that look like steaks!! We also have dilemma of what to do, visit the reindeers, ride the funicular to the top of the cairngorms, visit a distillery, drive up to inverness and try and catch nessie at play?? The guide at the tourist office suggested we do one thing and stick to that as we didnt have time but we thought bugger it, lets try and get up to the top o the mountain and zoom back down and squeeze in the glenfiddich distillery on our way home to the "deen".

And that is what we did and we were not dissappointed. The mist and pea soup that was cloaking aviemore in a thick foggy cloud was breaking up and the views were pretty sooper dooper. 

Loch Morlich iced over in the gorgeous morning mist

 

Pretty Totes Amaze views of the Cairngorms up the top

A quick zoom zoom back down the mountain brings us to the glenfiddich distillery and we were just in time to catch the last tour of the day. Which amazingly was free and you got some free shots of whisky too - boom! Besides it was quite mind boggling seeing how the all the whisky in the world is created from that one factory.

some rather large kegs filled with fermenting yeast and stuff

the distillation room - look like giant genies.

All in all a pretty damn good day finished off with a hearty meal at Howies and mind boggling drinks in a church. What us aberdonians have come to accept that most places of worship have now turned into bars and pubs is an alien concept to the rest of the world. c'est la vie.

Our final day was a little more chilled out with some crafting and painting at I Heart Art studios finished off with Nandos (yummers and incidentally was finer than the meal at howies!) and the panto - oh no we didnt, oh yes we did!! and it was brilliant. I have not been to the panto since i was 10 but it was pretty good. Even mitchell was chortling away and our canadian friend got most of the jokes despite all the local references of hobos getting their heads stuck in bins and banjo lady.

And then we had christmas to look forward to - yay!! Unfortunately not much crafting or vintiquing has been happening but its a busy time of year and i have been busy stuffing my face and vegging in my new PJs.