Happy Holidays

Have a very Merry Christmas.

The Spirit of Christmas at Glamis Castle

Today we went along to Glamis Castle, I just love the place, it is totally magnificent and even the gardens still look good at this time of year. They have a special programme of Christmas events and the place was so busy, there were even three coach tours in.

Comrie

In Memory of my fantastic Dad, who died 19th December 2005.

Carse of Lennoch


Drummond Earnoch

Strowan Woodland Cemetery

Through lashing rain and sleet and snow I made my way to the village of Comrie today, having first picked up my mother in Perth. Comrie is just after the town of Crieff, less than an hour south west of Blairgowrie. Comrie means 'the meeting of the waters'. There are several ways to go but I went the A85 from Perth. We were visiting a place called Strowan Woodland Cemetery where my father's ashes are, he died very suddenly three years ago without warning whilst enjoying his morning coffee and scone and spookily his passport actually expired that day. My father and his parents came from Dundee but his parents moved to Comrie and farmed at Carse of Lennoch. My parents met and married in Comrie and initially farmed at a place called Drummond Earnoch. My mother's parents owned a hotel in Comrie called The Ancaster Arms and her father actually ended his days running a guest house in Dundee. I have a photo of the hotel somewhere which I must look out and one of my grandfather who always wore a kilt.

From a visitors point the area around Comrie and Crieff makes a great day out. There is the Crieff Visitor Centre , the stunning Drummond Gardens and the Glenturret Distillery now known as The Famous Grouse Experience
The list of things to do is extensive and it is well worth researching the area if you are coming on holiday eg. Perthshire A beautiful drive back to Blairgowrie is along the A822 through the Sma Glen which brings you back onto the A9 at Dunkeld.

Where's Santa?, Christmas Shop & Refurbishment Update

Paid a visit finally today to a newish shop in the town called Gallimaufry in the High Street, it is a real emporium of Festive Goodies, just lovely.

Every year Santa goes around the town with his sleigh and tonight was our area, so I was totally gutted when he just whizzed past this evening with a wave, he usually stops, maybe he was holding onto his sweeties because of the credit crunch!! I was hoping to bring you a photo of him, so I shall just improvise instead, might catch him in the town on Saturday.

After a week of cleaning up the dust and putting all the furniture etc back after our improvements the house is finally back to normal, just a couple of finishing touches and I shall post some pictures of the two redecorated bedrooms, I'm very pleased with them, massive improvement.

Sunset and Chandeliers

Had the fun job of cleaning the chandeliers in the dining-room, beautiful to look at but a nightmare to clean especially when balanced on top of a ladder removing all the glass drops. Cotton buds are excellent for cleaning between the inticate leaves.

There was a lovely sunset last night, very similar to the red of the sky I posted in January.

Christmas Fayre

I was very disappointed this morning when I looked out the window as after the severe weather warning we had got for snow there wasn't really very much, I love a good snow storm and being snowed in, brings back happy childhood memories. My room improvements are nearly finished thank goodness and my new furniture for one of the bedrooms arrived this morning.

This evening there was a Christmas Fayre at Hill Primary School which I naturally had to go to and actually I enjoyed it very much, my goodness it was busy I swear you could hardly move. It was very well done and is a superb fundraiser for the school. Also at the Fayre was GMTV's Lorraine Kelly, she lives quite near Blairgowrie, so I just had to get a picture. What a lovely lady and she looks fantastic.