Brodie

We stayed at Brodie Castle for 10 days looking after things for my friend Lynda (property manager). A great experience for the kids, learning about the inner workings of a place like this. They had good fun with Michaela, Lynda’s daughter, also. I did not write up our daily activities at the time so am just going to pick things off the camera and wax lyrical about them

Started off at Findhorn with a lovely frothy soya ‘nocaf’.

Buddha continued to follow us around and I loved the little angel in the original garden by original caravan.

Things got a bit medieval at the castle that first weekend – here’s Charlotte armed with a mace and yes, if you listen at this door in the bedroom you can hear the people in the gift shop:

Here’s the three dogs – Monty, our Toby and Candy in the foreground. Grew really fond of them during our stay. Monty is 18 and I know he’s not got long for this world – he wasn’t able to do the long walks with the other two but loved to get out into the shrubbery garden for a little sniff around. Toby and him became quite good friends.

Had a day out on the Black Isle. Visited the organic brewery and saw how beer is made and bottled:

ooh big fossil shark teeth in Hugh Miller’s Cottage and then outside the older part:

Michaela and Charlotte in Borders, Inverness:

Had a meet with the home ed group at the Abriachan Forest near Loch Ness. Was one of those strange days where you combine various friends. Nicola had rented a holiday cottage nearby (we visited her there afterwards) so came too – a great forest that, lots of fun stuff. Below is the ‘Ark’ treehouse.

Nicola got stuck down this hole – I didn’t brave it

we avoided these things, thankfully…

Had a look at Loch Ness on the way back – didn’t see the ‘beastie’.

Next day we were driving down Highland roads to Landmark:

Had a fantastic evening run on Findhorn beach with the younger dogs:

Nicola, Blair, Jennifer and Kyle came in by to see us at the castle on their way back from holiday. Kids had great fun on the x-box and also sword fighting in the play fort. Davie got massacred! So we were up to five dogs that day – they all got on really well which was good. Went into Inverness to see Pirates of the Caribbean 2 later on and then had a Chinese takeaway.

another day at the beach we spotted the Black Pearl!

And finally on the way home we visited ‘Macbeth’s Hillock’ which is quite near the castle and according to legend is where he met with the three witches. Know I’ve missed lots out but it’s SO HOT and I’m tired… will possibly ramble on about other aspects of trip at a later, cooler date