The North East again escaped the worst of the weather last night and so Jo and I were able to join Gary, Carole and Luca at the Enchanted Castle (http://www.theenchantedcastle.info/) evening at Crathes. It was principally lights and sounds, with a few entertainers - magicians and firethrowers - plus a BBQ (hot dogs and veniburgers). We were all ever so slightly disappointed that there wasn't more of a Christmas Fayre feel about the event - we half expected local food producers with tastings as well. The first 2 floors of the castle were open to visitors, but, apart from a couple of little Christmas trees, there was nothing especially festive going on in there.
Images and music - Fantasia, Harry Porter etc - were projected up on to the castle wall:
The next bit was good - we went in to the walled garden, which was nicely atmospheric with low level coloured lighting and spooky music, and from there on to a walkway through the woods. There was a smoke generator in one of the buildings, adding to the atmosphere and Gary and Luca posed outside it:
Carole wasn't allowed to dodge the camera either:
Luca then went to inspect the magic, sparkly, rotating toadstools:
The strange things round everyone's necks were proof of payment:
A juggler was playing in the middle of the woodland walkway:
We managed to get a shot of all of us in front of one of the famous cultivated hedges:
Luca then tried, after a little coaching, to spin the plates:
All in all, it wasn't a bad way to spend a couple of hours - but we reckoned it was probably about a fiver's worth, which was half what they charged - unless, of course, you are a concession. The girl at the entrance was a little hesitant when she suggested Jo and I might fall in to this category, but we assured her we weren't at all offended!
More of these photos on my Facebook Timeline.
Jo suggested we stop off on the way home and pop in to the bar of the Douglas for a swift half. This at least gave Ross some glasses to clean on what was another quiet evening for him behind the bar!
Oh - and our new mattress arrived on Tuesday, so that's 2 nights we've slept on it now. It's different - bigger, a bit softer and not so rigid at the edges. So far, so good.
I also managed to get tickets for the Newcastle - Man City match on Saturday 15th December. It's a lunchtime kick-off, so it's quite easy to do the journey there and back in a day, but it's going to be a hectic weekend, as we've got our squash/golf group night out at the Banchory Lodge Hotel on the Friday night, then have our Christmas lunch with Gary, Carole and Luca on the Sunday before we go to Oz.
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