Enchanted Castle

From http://ianrstewart.blogspot.com/

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.

Greetings from murky Aberdeen

From http://ianrstewart.blogspot.com/

Not many hours of daylight at this time of year and when it's overcast - like now - or raining, it's even worse. Thankfully, so far, we haven't had the heavy floods they've been reporting in west central Scotland - and SW England - but it's still very gloomy.

Just over 4 weeks until we head for Oz - hopefully a lot brighter there. I looked at the programme for the outdoor Moonlight Adelaide cinema (http://www.moonlight.com.au/adelaide/) for when we're there, and there's a couple of things on that might have been quite interesting, but they're on days when we're already booked to do other things. All that remains is sing-a-long Grease - can't see us doing that!

Last week, for the first time for many years, I actually managed to play squash 3 times in one week. OK, it was only doubles, but it was better than doing nowt. Ironically, at the weekend, when the sun was shining gloriously, I did nothing. We had a lazy Saturday morning and we knew Luca was coming over to stay some time in the afternoon. In the end, Jo ended up driving over to Costco to meet Gary and transfer the precious cargo over, whilst I watched the televised football. On Sunday morning, I agreed to forgo golf and look after Luca whilst Jo went to church. As it turned out, Gary came over about 10 am to pick him up, so I was soon on my own again. A nice walk down to the shops to buy the papers, then a quick visit to the clubhouse to read them was all the exercise I managed all weekend.

We've got a lot of series recorded on our Sky box to watch just now. Not that you need to record them nowadays - they're all on the new catch-up facilities which you can just download at any time. The best, though, is series III of The Killing, which started on Saturday night with two episodes - looks intriguing already. We've also been watching House of Lies, about a team of Management Consultants - quite funny, but lots of flesh and pretty crude too.

Oh - and I re-joined the library on Saturday. Amazingly, they still had me on their records after what must be 15-20 years. I thought I'd give it a go anyway, so I took out one CD (PJ Harvey - Let England Shake); one DVD (Il Divo); and one book (Chic Murray biography).

I'm just finishing off a book Gary gave me - Louise Wener's autobiography - Different for Girls: My True-life Adventures in Pop (aka Just For One Day: Adventures in Britpop) - she writes really well, so it's not surprising that she changed career path from pop star to writer. I've got some holiday reading lined up now as well - I bought a Michael Connelly (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Connelly) book that was on offer in WH Smith, and I'd already acquired a 2nd hand Stuart MacBride (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_macbride) that I spotted in Homebase the other day (50p!). On a whim, I also bought from Amazon Steak Diana Ross: Diary of a Football Nobody
by David McVay. That lot should keep me going on Kangaroo Island for a while!

Some bugs going around just now. Feeling a bit under the weather - hope it clears soon. Perhaps it's just S.A.D.?