Week beginning April 6th
On Monday we visited one of Mum and Dad's favourite properties, Mellerstain. Scotland put on the perfect weather for a visit to a country house! We could have had a picnic.
The girls went rolling down the lawn that slopes down to the lake. Down there we relaxed in the sunshine for an hour, watching the frogs frollic.
They were a bit brown and wary for the girls, but they still were able to touch them, they seemed tame!
From there we walked around the property, and found this quaint cottage next to a brook.
We explored the house which was lovely, Mum and Dad love the proportions, as they are perfect. The front rooms have an amazing view across the lake.The colours are beautiful, sadly no photography was allowed inside. We ended this idyllic day with a drive through the countryside, coming across this gate, a lot of sheep but little else.
Tuesday saw us at Stirling Castle, the principle Royal Residence of the Kings and Queens of Scotland. Mary, Queen of Scots gave birth to her only child here. Our guide was the typical Scot, red hair, ruddy face and an accent to enjoy. "Thut cuncloods yea wee tur" ("That concludes your small tour", for those that need the translation).
It was fairly windy up on the wall of the castle, looking across to Bannockburn and the memorial to William Wallace.
Inside the castle, there were some great activities for the girls to do, including dressing up in costumes worn in the 1500's. They were most interested that back then ladies wore no underpants, just lots of skirts.
They got to sit in the "thrones" in the Great Hall.
From Stirling, we just had time to explore the ruins at Linlithgow Palace, on the way home to Edinburgh. This is where Mary Queen of Scots was born. It is a ruin, but you can see how grand it must have been when intact.
Lexie got to unlock the massive solid oak door to let us out, with the key seen below.
We ate dinner with some work colleagues and I commenced packing as we fly to Heathrow late tomorrow afternoon.
Justin worked the next day, so I finished packing and the girls and I went back to the old part of town. There were plenty of buskers.
We didn't get far, as a great street performer caught our attention, Super Scott.
He was a good juggler of knives and torches on top of a ten foot pole, but his comic comments made him very good. We spoke to him after the show, he has busked in Melbourne at Southbank, so you may have even seen him. Justin drive us to the airport with plenty of time to spare. We fell into bed by the time we got to the Hotel, 2km from Heathrow. The triple glazing meant we didn't hear a thing.
We relaxed at home the next day after returning. We heard later that a gunman was captured in Vimercate at a local shopping centre. He had shot 3-5 people in Milan and escaped on a Vespa (?) to Torre Bianchi. We were blissfully unaware, with the doors and windows all open as it was a beautiful day. I did hear the helicopter overhead though.
The next day my folks were due to arrive at 8 am, but due to an inability to communicate with each other due to technical issues, and a chapter of other errors, we missed each other at Malpensa Airport. They finally turned up at my place at 3.30 pm.
By this stage they had met half the local shopkeepers in the square near our house! It is so nice to have them here. They spent the weekend recovering from the flight, even though they got upgraded to Business Class Melbourne to Singapore. Girls back to school on Monday.
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