Last couple of days in Aberdeen

Amanda, Alistair, cousin Laura, cousin Lyn and Lyn´s son Cameron (the cheeky one making us laugh!)

We had a busy couple of days at the end of last week.

On Thursday we went out to afternoon tea with Aunty Margaret and Uncle Eddie at the Gordon Highlander´s Museum, which was lovely. That evening we took Derek and Carol out to their local, the Ferryhill, for a wonderful dinner.

On Friday we headed to Inverurie and visited Alistair´s Granny with Uncle Ian again. Following on from that we met Ian´s daughters Lyn and Laura, as well as Lyn´s son Cameron. All the girls were at school. Once Aunty Kath had finished work we went to lunch with her and Ian.

That evening we had dinner at Valentine Drive and said goodbye to Aunty Cyn, Uncle Gordon, Jenna, David and Georgia.

Derek and Carol kindly drove us to the airport early Saturday morning and we have spent nearly a week in London.

We´ve had a great week here in London, but I´ve run out of time to blog tonight. :( I must get some sleep before we fly out to Tokyo in the morning.

Using Cameron´s choice of words as we were leaving Inverurie - ¨See ya stinkies!¨. Alistair, Laura and I nearly fell on the ground laughing at that gem :)

Visiting Baxters and Huntly

The whisky shop at Baxters - yes more whisky! Well, when in Scotland....
Dean´s shortbread factory in Huntly

While away for the weekend we also visited Baxters - home of lots of yummy food. They had a number of shops onsite, including an old store that now houses a wide range of whisky. It was surprising how many we had tried.

We visited Huntly, where Alistair´s Granny used to live. There is a big shortbread factory here, and the smell of the place was unbelievable - the whole area smelled like sweet sweet shortbread and it really made you want to eat it. We sampled quite a few types of shortbread there :)

Alistair's Granny

Today we went to visit Alistair's Granny at Blythewood House.

It was wonderful to meet the woman who I had only spoken to on the phone previously.

Alistair's uncle Ian was kind enough to come and pick us up and take us there.

Granny has asked us to visit her again before we leave.

Mum2, I hope you like the photos :)

Now where was I?

Ah, yes, Sunday in sunny Aberdeen!

We had dinner at Alistair's Aunty Margaret's house. The girls started with Buck's Fizz. Dinner was lovely and we had a veritable feast. It was great to catch up with Elizabeth too, and she really appreciated the Cadbury Dream :). I think someone tipped Aunty Margaret off on the Tim Tams, as she asked about them!

Monday and Tuesday were spent shopping on Union Street and surrounds. Tuesday night we had drinks at Derek and Carol's local, the Ferryhill.

Wednesday we went to visit Jenna in hospital after her ankle operation, then went and saw David and Mhairi at Valentine Drive. All of you who are not family probably need a family tree about now - I could do with one too, though it is all a lot clearer after meeting everyone.

We also went to the beach on Wednesday - look how warm it was! There was only the two of us, so we had to take photos of each other.

You can also see the Scottish winter version of kite surfing - kite snowboarding.

Yesterday we went for a drive and then had lunch at the Dutch Mill with Elizabeth. Last night was great with going to Elizabeth's work for dinner, then to see Bolt 3D, which was great. I giggled at Alistair, Derek and Carol in their 3D glasses.

Perth - Aberdeen

We spent our first night in Perth, at a lovely hotel called the Isle of Skye. We had a lovely carvery dinner and a fairly early night. The picture above is the view from our hotel room window.

The next morning we went into the centre of town for a great breakfast and the best coffee I'd had in a week! I'm really struggling with the coffee here - it's just not the same.

We did a little shopping and then took the coast road back to Aberdeen, stopping in Montrose for "lunch". Lunch was really just dessert!

We also stopped at Stonehaven on the way back, where it was very cold and windy and there was snow on the beach.

We went to Valentine Drive and had dinner out with Cyn, Gordon, Jenna and Georgia as well as Carol and Derek. Derek took some photos, so we'll have to try and get them.

Alistair and Derek had fun shovelling snow and trying to get Cyn's car out of the driveway. I'll get the photo that Jenna cheekily took of them at work.