Well, we weren't awoken by any ghosts!

Balintore Castle was built in the early 1860's as a hunting lodge for the Victorian elite. Even at the time, it was only occupied during summer and fall. The original owner died ten years after construction, and it went through several owners until the last one used it regularly until the 1960's. 

It was then that it began to deteriorate. 

Hiking near Balmoral Castle

Scotland's Balmoral Castle is the summer residence of the Royal Family. Queen Elizabeth loved spending time there, and she was there when she passed away in 2022.

Ruth had wanted to do some walking on the estate grounds, however it's very expensive. 

Castles and seaside!

On Monday we took a drive up to the northeast coast of Scotland. We had a couple of castles marked off that we wanted to see as well as some attractions along the coast itself.

It was a really windy day though... glad we weren't driving a motorhome!

Researching our upcoming cruise

For those of you who missed the news a few weeks ago, we are going to be on the Princess Emerald doing a 16 day cruise to Greenland and Iceland departing on July 31st.

Our friends Glen and Steve have done a lot of cruises, and a couple of weeks ago she sent me a few ideas regarding how to make your cruise better.

Quails, chickens, and dogs

We've never had to look after chickens before as part of our house sitting responsibilities, and of course never quails as well!

But our daughter Lindsey and her family have chickens, and so we've kind of seen what's involved... and it's not that difficult!

Dunnottar Castle and the town of Stonehaven

We have been waiting for a nice day to get to the coast and visit the beach town of Stonehaven, and we finally got one yesterday. And, Stonehaven has several fish and chips places, one of which does gluten free!

And of course we did the walk to Dunnottar Castle...

It's quite the schedule we've got for the next two months!

I'm pretty good at keeping track of our schedule in my head, just knowing what's booked and what's not. But I actually had to make a list this time to make sure I don't forget to book something.

Yesterday, I booked our return flights from Tirana, and managed to figure out how to fly direct into Southampton!

Booked some more flight tickets!

I got sidetracked yesterday morning while doing more travel research, and then we met up with Helen and Tony in the afternoon and I never got back to doing yesterdays blog post. 

But, I did get our flights booked to Tirana, Albania... with a stopover in Bologna, Italy!

The Best Experiences You Can Have In Baja California Sur

Located in the extreme north-west of Mexico, the Baja California Sur peninsular is already firmly on the mainstream tourist map.

Destinations here like Cabo San Lucas are renowned for their water sports, luxurious hotels and endless entertainment options, and as such is one of the most popular vacation spots for tourists heading to Mexico. However there’s much more going on in this region, and those who want other kinds of experiences can find plenty of opportunities which range from deep-sea fishing to flying through canyons on an exhilarating zip-line.

We're thinking of a return to Albania!

I finally got through to the dental school that was advertising free treatments, but they weren't interested in my problem. They only deal with minor fillings and such, which seemed odd to me considering they said the students are in their final year of school.

Anyhow, I ended up calling the closest dentist to where we are staying, explained the situation, and was given a 2:00pm appointment.

I have sore tooth!

There are a lot of wooded walking areas within a half hour drive of the house, so we chose one of them and drove over there. 

While we didn't get any rain, we didn't see the sun either...

Booked more flight tickets!

Saturday was pretty much a rain day here in this part of Scotland! In the morning, we said goodbye to our hosts as they were headed for a ten day holiday in Turkiye. 

Then, we waited for the rain to let up before finally heading out for a walk with Loki, although we ended up getting wet anyhow. Yes, we do have proper rain gear, so it didn't matter.

House sitting near Aberdeen for the next 11 days

Yesterday we drove from Glasgow to Aberdeen with a short detour along the way to stop at a waterfall.

And, we met out host family and their dog Loki who we will be looking after for the next 11 days.

Today is moving day!

Friday the 13th... and we are moving up to the outskirts of the small city of Aberdeen (pop 224,000) for our 12 day housesitting assignment looking after Loki the chocolate lab, and some chickens.

So, we've got almost a three hour drive ahead of us, plus we want to stop and do a walk to a waterfall, and a stop in Perth to see the house my great aunt used to live in.

We had a great day doing things we shouldn't have been doing!

Wednesday was another day of nice weather. We actually had one older local man comment to us that we should enjoy it because "Scotland's weather isn't always like this". 

We had picked out three different things to do that looked interesting.