Scotland & glad tidings!

It's a week ago now that we arrived in Pitlochry after our 3 day stay in Fife with Jason's parents. Now that we are back home a week ago seems like a year! I'd only ever passed through Pitlochry on the train and I didn't really know what to expect. I've been to Inverness and Cromarty but not Perthshire or the Grampians. I was surprised most by the extraordinary diversity of trees and the large area of woodland. There are so many different trees all growing together, oaks and beech nestle beneath extremely tall firs and redwoods. Some of the countries oldest and tallest trees can be found in Perthshire. I'd love to visit the Yew tree which could be up to 2000 years old!

The picture I took above is of some woodland close to the hotel where we were staying, the Atholl Palace Hotel. The hotel was an old hydrotherapy centre for the Victorians, and later a school. It seemed just the place where Hercule Poirot would appear, waddling into breakfast to tell Hastings their had been a murder! As the Highland Tennis Tournament was being held at the hotel last week (the 2nd oldest tennis tournament in Scotland in its 115th year) it felt even more like the setting for an Agatha Christy mystery. So it was a very pleasant place to stay but not for those who love the ultra modern!

We stayed in one of the turret suites which is supposedly haunted by a Green Lady as http://scottishghosts.webs.com/apparitionsaf.htm reports:lace Hotel, Pitlochry

The Atholl Palace is a large castlellated Hotel, built in 1875, it is reputed to be haunted by a 'Green Lady', and her spectre has allegedly been witnessed by staff and guests in one of the bedrooms and the the corridor ourside the room. It is believed that this bedroom is no longer used by guests due to amount of complaints Management received the following morning!!!!

Another account however said the ghost actually haunted our turret room which had been put back into use as a guest room! Either way I didn't notice any spooky going ons and Jason of course doesn't believe in such nonsense :-) Anyway the room was lovely. I took lots of pictures including ones of our room and you can see them all on my Flickr page.

We did quite a lot of walking in Pitlochry around the town, to the black spout waterfall, through Faskally forest and around Loch Faskally. We also visited the Salmon ladder and "Salmon Viewing Chamber" which made me feel a little uncomfortable, but it was the fishy kind of Salmon they wanted to view not the happy kind :-) Over 4000 salmon have used the ladder already this year to get around the hydro electric dam. All very impressive.

Good News

The picture below is of a small waterfall in the grounds of the Hotel, near to a "Ducklings Crossing" sign which isn't really anything very special apart from the fact that it was where Jase and I decided it would be a good idea to get married! It wasn't so much a proposal by either of us; we're not very conventional, more just walking along the drive and talking and the next thing I know we've agreed to get married. So sorry to disappoint anyone who wanted tales of hot air balloon rides and down on one knee proposals. But for me it was the most magical thing in the world and it happened in a truly beautiful and extremely peaceful place.

Pitlochry was always going to be somewhere that I'd want to go back to and explore more, but now it will be even more special to both of us.

I can definitely recommend Pitlochry as a place to go on holiday, there is a theatre, great walking both through woodland and mountain, lots of water for those who like fishing and boats and loads of wildlife. The food was great too - the hotel did a fine steak and an amazing starter called the "wee beastie" which was small balls of haggis deep fried in batter. They were lovely. Because I've done my back in again I was on strong pain killers so couldn't really drink but I did manage a wee scotch, I tried the local Edradour 10 yr single malt. It was a lovely scotch, quite flowery with a bit of vanilla, very smooth but had a real peppery kick to it. When I need a new bottle of whisky it'll be a 10 year Edradour that I'll go for I think.

Home

Since getting back home I've been really busy with work. I have a new contract with the Metropolitan Police, as a recruitment consultant for their Diversity team. It's the Equality Act seminar on Thursday that I have been organising for Inclusion London, plus I have a few other things in the pipe line that I am working on. By the end of this week I'll need another holiday!

I'll leave you with a picture I took of the Firth of Forth.