Visiting the Village Flower Festival

Our route today is much shorter than usual for us, this is due to making sure I got to Mass and the comparatively late time for Mass in Inverurie. The route looks like this:

In the last post I described leaving Inverurie heading towards Aberdeen. We arrived in Aberdeen at 12.30 pm and parked the car in a downtown car park. 

Aberdeen

Any Welsh speaker will recognise Aberdee(n) as being the mouth of the River Dee, puzzlingly Old Aberdeen is actually at the mouth of the River Don, the river we travelled along and over for much of yesterday.  The Dee actually runs into the new City which built took the name Aberdeen.
  

We began our visit in the east side of Aberdeen around Castlegate with its Mercat Cross and Gallowgate. This is the end of Union Square which then leads on to the central parts of the City. Some of the buildings have fascinating decorations on top, it is worth walking along looking up

Although Aberdeen's City Centre has all the Victorian grander familiar to us in Cardiff, the use of granite rather than other stone is what has led to the City's nickname - the Granite City. Statues of Robert the Bruce, Walter Scott and even George the Fifth are spread across the town. Having walked the streets and taken photos we decided it was time to head south for our venue for tonight, the tiny village of Edzell.

Edzell

My one abiding feeling about Edzell is keeping doubting that I am in Scotland. To all intense and purposes this village could be in the Cotswolds or even in Borchetshire. Its quaint gentility is reminiscent of many places in England, but it is so different from anywhere else we have been in Scotland.

Edzell is a Georgian-era town, built at the time that lots of the places it reminds me of where also built. The village was originally called Slateford until 1818 when the name of an older defunct village, near the castle 2 miles away was adopted. 

Perhaps the most famous site in Edzell is the Dalhousie Arch as you enter the village. It is striking and unusual. It seems very formal and daunting for such a quaint village.

A few metres into the village is our hotel for the evening the Glenesk Hotel and Country Club. We check in and are shown to our room, the one just past the billiard room!! And find a four poster bed and comfortable settee.

Directly opposite the hotel is the Inglis Memorial Hall, Inglis had been the head of the London Stock Exchange who donated money for the imposing Village Hall.

Today was the day of the annual village flower and produce show - again very Ambridge like - in the hall. So after settling in to the room we headed across and paid our £1 entry fee to the show. We also stopped for tea (for both of us) and cakes (for Drew) which were homemade and very tasty.

Following Drew and my first ever visit to a village show (those photos will have to wait until I can upload them to Flickr, there are plenty) we walked the length of the village taking in the many tearooms, nicely decorated homes and distinctive shops. 

It felt like we were immersing ourselves in the past of Jane Marple and vicarage tea parties, but here we were not in the english countryside at all, but in Scotland! What a lovely relaxing late Sunday afternoon, so different from the rest of the holiday, but so memorable too.

Doing a bit of blogging

We returned from our walk and I began to draft my blog post about the route from Ullapool to Pittordie House. In the spirit of staying in a country house hotel we opted to go down to the lounge and blog in comfort over a pot of tea, clearly village life is infecting us! The lounge was comfortably decorated, but among the images of Rabbie Burns were also images of Stan and Ollie, yes Laurel and Hardy, apparently the owners are great fans, so have images of them throughout the hotel. My granddad was a great fan, so it was nice to have them reminding me of him as I blogged away. 

At 6.30 pm we went up and changed for dinner and came down at 7.30 pm to eat. The food and its delights will be covered in my next post.