Four seasons in one hour

Not much happened really.  I went out for a few hours drive in the morning, hoping to find some of the ruins that tend to dot the landscape in my previous experience of England and Ireland, but they seem less common in the Scottish Highlands.  Perhaps the sort of people prone to the building of casual castles and cathedrals didn’t spend so much time around this part of the island.  There are some spectacular old castles, to be sure, but they are more formal tourism sites now, rather than the “side of the road” style I tend to prefer.

And when I say I went out for a few hours, it turned out to be all day as the roads tend to be a bit windy and indirect, and people have a habit of parking lorries in the middle of them or closing them entirely from time to time.  I did manage, more through good luck than good management, to meet up with a fair contingent of the party at a local distillery The Glenlivet, where we did a wee tour and had a wee dram.  It’s quite interesting actually, and it’s always fascinating to hear how particular spirits have to be (by law) made in certain ways in order to be called certain things.  Whiskey is made from barley, water and yeast – and it turns out the great majority of the flavour and colour actually comes from the barrels rather than the ingredients.

Other than that, there was a lot of driving around under grey and often wet skies – until popping out into the nice weather that apparently hung over Grantown-on-Spey all day – but for not much photographic rewards.  Hopefully more opportunities will present over the next few days.

Lichen growing boldly on a centuries old gravestone.

The Avon River running through shallows at the side of a road.

We are continuously amazed by the switches in weather.  It’s not so much “four seasons in one day” so much as “in one hour” – or at one stage yesterday, “simultaneously”, as we watched rain fall through the sunlight onto colourful spring planter boxes.  Between the weather and the 20-odd hours of daylight, it’s no wonder it feels like it’s taking a little longer for us all to adapt to the travel this time around.