Crathes Castle

Went to Crathes Castle "en famille" today.  Fabulous weather and some of the mixed borders coming into flower.  Here are just a few pictures of girls and flowers!

Ellie's Birthday Party

Last Sunday saw Ellie's birthday party at the indoor bowling at Inverurie.  We were so glad we had chosen an indoor option, the weather was atrocious, cold, windy and wet!  The P7 girls enjoyed some competitive bowling with Julie managing to dream up prizes for every eventuality and more importantly, every participant!

Alford Bistro

Isobel's Birthday part two!  We celebrated Isobel's birthday with a meal out at Alford Bistro.  The food was, as ever, fabulous and still great value for money!

Some photos taken by Ellie and Isobel.

Rhododendrons

The garden has, needless to say, taken a bit of a battering this winter and spring, the azalea bed behind the hous has come off worst in all the snow and frost and large sections are looking very burnt, it remains to be seen how well it recovers.  

Most of the rhododendrons have however done quite well and other than being late, are flowering reasonably well.  A few photos of some of the best are attached.

Birthday Girl

Happy birthday Isobel!  14 years old!!  We had to have two celebrations today, a morning one for Isobel and then an evening one for Ellie to participate in as she has been away in Amsterdam on a school trip and only got back at 6.30pm. As can be seen, Geoffrey Bear got in on the morning celebration!

Isobel had a great selection of presents, highlights being an ipod touch and a Kindle to make her voracious appetite for books a little more affordable! There was also her friend Sarah's party to go to where they had several hours of getting dolled up in their finest followed by a professional photo shoot.  All great fun.

There's So Much Snow, Be a Shame Not To Use It!!

Well snow in a normal winter can be a pretty rare commodity..........so when you have it as it is now, it would be criminal not to use it!  So Ellie and I did our duty and went back up to the Lecht and worked our way round all the runs, including the Buzzard and the Falcon (Harrier wasn't working). Clear blue sky and no wind, absolutely alpine.  Its pretty tough, but someone has to do it.

Even bumped into our old friend Sam Shaw, pulling a few mean Telemark turns himself!

Walk Round Old Coast Path to Ardmaddy

Lost track of what we did on which day now but did have a wonderful walk round the coastal path to Ardmaddy.  The path is extremely overgrown now and quite a scramble with a lot of trees having fallen across the path over the lat few years.  Views were stunning.  Even had some time to stop for a quick round of Pooh Sticks at the bridge at the top end of the Ardmaddy Gardens.

And of course only a really cruel father would take a picture of his daughters as they leant over the bridge playing Pooh Sticks

Trip to Easdale

The first Sunday of the holiday saw us taking a trip across to Easdale for a bite of lunch and some stone skimming (well we do have an ex-world champion in the family).  Unfortunately the ex-champion decided to slip whilst trying to re-capture her winning form and ended up sitting in a rock-pool.  We decided to repair to the Puffer bar to allow her to thaw out and enjoyed a throughly unhealthy lunch including venison burger and chips (consumed with mayonnaise and tomato ketchup).

Suitably fueled and Ellie sufficiently dried we headed off for a walk round the island including some serious skimming practice!

Holiday Baking!

The Great British Bake Off has a lot to answer for!  The days of having a simple sponge cake are long gone!  If there aren't several different colours and flavours in the one cake it just doesn't cut it!  So here are a couple of highlights from the holiday baking!  Isobel's rainbow cake and Julie's slightly more toned down orange and lemon cake, both wonderful to taste!