Inverness to Aberdeen

We left Inverness to go to Aberdeen, the town where Bill's great grandfather, John Gibson Scott, married his great grandmother, Mary Mae Mutch. They came to America together and stayed, therefore: Sweet William!

On the way to Aberdeen, the landscape changed from mountainous to rolling hills and fields.

We went to a Scotch whiskey distillery, Glenfiddich. Glen means valley, fiddich means deer in Scottish Gaelic, so... Valley of the Deer. This is why the Glenfiddich logo is a stag.

We learned more about whiskey than I've ever known!  "Scotch" is just whiskey distilled in Scotland. Single malt just means that it was from beginning to end, all made at one distillery. Whiskey only has three ingredients: water, malted barley and yeast.  This company has been owned and run by one family, William Grant & Sons since 1886.  It is the 5th generation that is running it now. Our tour was 90 minutes long and so informative. The grounds are beautiful.  We went building to building to learn about each step in the process.

We then moved on to taste test four different whiskeys, by age of the whiskey.  12, 14, 15, 18 years old.

Note: Just a tiny bit of each for me, just enough to get a tiny taste, And i still don't like it! But I certainly gained a respect for how it is made today. I loved that she only would pour for the passenger, not the driver. But she did give me permission to have a tiny taste of each of Bill's.

We moved on down the country roads and found a perfect picnic spot for lunch.

And we pulled into the lower corner of that field for our picnic in Curb Buster! (No curbs hit today!) But CB remains the name!

We arrived in Aberdeen with a surprise that they gave us an entire four room apartment in the "Skene House". We have a bedroom, living room, bathroom and kitchen, all for the price of a reasonable hotel room!

They suggested we try a pub up the street called McGinty's. Not what we expected, but we had a great time. The mushroom soup was the best I've ever had. There was a soccer game on several tv's arounf the pub. We love watching soccer now! We've watched a few games while here. Panchro and Ignacio will be proud!  This was England's premiere league, West Bromfield playing Arsenal.

We took a stroll around the city after supper.

Where is Dick VanDyke, the chimney sweep from "Mary Poppins?"

But, of course, here is my favorite photo of the whole day!  See her baby lamb behind her?!

And...the most significant part of the day? We are here, in Great Britain, to celebrate Queen Elizabeth 2's 90th birthday! Happy Birthday, Your Royal Majesty! Front page of the paper here: