The Duchess Returns

The headline from the local paper says it all: “The True Duchess of Sutherland returns to her Family Seat”. How they knew we were visiting Dunrobin Castle I’ll never know.

So, today it is a 5 hour round drive to take said True Duchess to visit the family home. It has been a long time in the waiting for this trip, but it was well worth the effort. The drive was fine, and once north of Inverness we were on roads that we hadn’t travelled before.

Dunrobin Castle is very much intact and well looked after. It is very impressive. However, despite having the Duchess along we both still had to pay to enter the place, although we did get “Senior” discounts. Over 60 is a senior here. The place is very accessible for the public to view a lot of it, and in general terms it is open and airy compared to a lot of old Castles.

It was slightly disappointing that there was not a great deal of Sutherland influence in the appearance of the place. Not much of the tartan, but there were a good deal of family portaits and photographs. There was one portrait of the 5th Earl of Sutherland which was a young Doc (Iain) all over. There were a few Kirsty lookalikes, with the Sutherland nose quite prominant.

We could access the gardens as well, which was fine until the rain really set in. Oh, did I mention the weather as yet ? You guessed it, raining most of the time.

We made good time back to Speyside and then decided to drop by a couple of the famous distilleries, being Glennfiddich and The Glenlivet. They are certainly aimed at the tourist trade. Very flashy and glitzy, which is why we had not had them on our list to do tours of. Still, it was worth seeing their set ups and watching a Japnese man spend hundreds of pounds buying up big.

We were home in time for our catch up with our hosts, who live next door. Colin and Penny. Great people who have provided us with a wonderful place to stay and who could not have been more helpful. We took in some cheese and oat cakes and a bottle of white. The white was quickly discarded as the Whisky came out. They had plenty of nibbles and had clearly set out the food to match the Whiskies that we had. We moved from spicy crisps (chips) through cheeses and finished with a number of different chocolates. The final count by the time we left 2 hours later was about 9 different Whisky bottles on the table and no food left. Great fun.

It was a quick bacon and egg meal for us, some telly and bed. Luckily there is no work for me tomorrow, so a sleep will be blissful (and needed).