Ben Aigen Hotel The Moray

Today we encountered a Heiland Coo Bull and his wife and baby. We approached cautiously to take photo's and immediately the bull moved towards us letting us know he was protecting his investments. Here are a couple photo's of this family.

We went to the top of the Caringorm Mountains (the 6th highest mountain in Britain). We took a funicular to the top and it was quite something, about 50 degrees at the top and quite windy.

Grantown-on-Spey, Scotland, United Kingdom zumwalt

... river crested the banks causing problems for these little towns who were fast and furiously sand bagging.

I am attaching a photo of the Elgin Abby and the story goes the prince burnt down the Abby because he was mad at the minister. The prince "showed remorse" and nothing happened to him!

We went to a whiskey distillery and now understand how the ...

... a local and asked directions. He responded and I could not understand a word of what he said. Our driver later said "did you understand what he said?". No I said not a word, but thankfully Gordon understood. Amazing we speak the same language yet it was not understandable!

We passed by Balmoral Castle today and the Queen is in residence for her ...

Rothes is the little Scottish village where the Glen Grant Whiskey Distillery is located. It is part of the Speyside Whisky Trail, where the largest concentration of Scotch whisky distilleries is located in Scotland. This large valley is popular among distillers because this is where most of the barley is grown for the distillation process.

The distillery has a nice garden and a gift shop.

Dunno if I mentioned that the left hand front brake on our car had seivzed on the first day so Matt clamped the brake line & was using the other brakes. This was proving to be an issue as the front brakes kept locking up & we weren't stopping.

We headed to Aberdeen to find somewhere to get a new brake calliper & had no luck - Matt then bought some new brake pads but when he got the wheel off, he realised ...

... of duty/customs issues but the whisky store can.
After our distillery tour we went and got settled in at Fernbank. Karen, the owner is hilarious! She is so funny! We had some tea with her and chatted for a while. Then we headed down to Dufftown city centre and walked around. We grabbed a beer and a really weird bar. Super tiny, but they had McEwans. And I had my 2nd scottish delicacy that I had promised myself I would ...

... and it worked! So we ended up talking over dinner and then all of a sudden we were asked if we could move to the back of the restaurant where the couches are. As the restaurant soon became a nightclub, it started to get busier and busier and soon this dead place was all a buzz. As it started to get busier and we started to have more beers Dave whipped out his white tape and soon enough we had VIP written on the ground in tape. To make it a bit more official I ...

... doing this we were a bit squashed by all of Roxy's 20kgs. On the Tuesday whilst Anna and Simon both worked we had time to go and visit Inverness and Loch Ness but to Cesca's dismay we couldn't spot Nessie the monster. On the way back to my parent's house in Yorkshire we took a couple of minor detours. The first was to try to visit Roslyn Chapel (from The Da Vinci Code) but unfortunately the road was closed leaving us an ...

I got home on Jan 7th. Home is now my parent's house in Cullen, Moray, Scotland Haven spent 2/3rds (ok I'm lying...its more than that but I'm trying to kid myself) of my redundancy I am now in the position of working out what I want to do. First thing to do was to sign on....yes, your author is now a certified government artist (drawing the dole...boom boom!). If by chance my Job-seekers Adviser is reading this I can confirm that I'm working less than 16 hrs ...

... Scottish struggle for independence and in the 15th and 16th centuries was frequently raided and plundered by western clans. Repairs followed, but the castle fell into decline and in 1689 Urquhart Castle saw its last drama when a small garrison supporting the Protestant monarchy of William and Mary held off a much larger Jacobite force. The garrison later left, blowing up much of the castle as they did and so it was left to ruin. Its now an odd shape ...