More Whisky and Rain

….and here is the weather report from Scotland: rain

My daily blogs have truned into a bit of a weather report I’m afraid, so, sorry about that. Suffice to say from now on every day is wet, unless I say otherwise.

This morning we went to Strathisla distillery at Keith (that’s a town, not a person). It is the home of Chivas Regal. Apparently, every bottle of Chivas has Strathisla in it. They didn’t push the Chivas line too much, and it was really about their single malts. They, and about 4 other “sister” distelleries all have their own single malts as well as contributing to the Chivas blend.

Today was a distillery tour as opposed to a straight out tasting. We had been on such tours before on Islay, but it was good to do another one and have the whole process explained again to refresh our memories. Plus, these old buildings are beautifull and great fun to walk around. The smells from the mash turns and heat from the stills makes the whole process come alive.

Our sample drams warmed us up to confront the outside again. We headed to the town of Abelour and found a lovely little cafe that did great soups. That was lunch. It was then home again for a quite afternoon of gathering our belongings and once again packing up. I decided a fire was a good idea, but first I put the telly on to have the World Cup Rugby as a bit of background. As you do, I put the remote down on top of the wood burner as I set the fire. I got a great fire underway, and after a bit I thought I’d change channels…ummmm, where did I leave the remote. Oh, bugger, it was now melted into the top of the wood burner !! After many attempts with a egg lifter, some scraping with a knife, I got most of the leftovers removed. Not a great way to end our time here.

Dinner was at the Craigellachie Hotel, the Speyside Inn. It was a lovely place and excellent food from their Aussie chef. Luckily that had plenty of candles lit as the the electricity flickered on and off a few times. As we waited for them to take our dessert order, they went out and stayed out. Umm, excuse me, could we pay and leave ? Sorry sir, no eftpos machines are working. Oh, we can pay cash…..so, after the waiter adding up with his phone what our bill was, we got out of there. I have visions of people asleep at their tables until breakfast time waiting for their bills.

TRAVEL DAY

I promised not to give a weather report, and I won’t. See below picture. This is on the A9, the major road from Edinburgh to Inverness.

It was a tiring drive south, but we did get to catch up with Lexie Turnbull who was marred to Doc’s great friend Jim Turnbull. Lexie’s son Ian wasin fact staying with us the night Kate was born. He didn’t even realise we had gone to the hospital ! Lexie was in good form, fit and bright. She is 87.

We arrived at Ian and Morag’s at about 5pm, a long day, but it is great to be spending our last few days with friends. We will also catch up with Rob and Lorna before we go.

A couple of bridge shots to finish….an old one and a new one (the later being the new Firth of Forth road bridge)