Last blog from Scotland

I know I promised more wildlife photos, but the deer we saw on our walk were pretty far off and with the replacement harddrive and Windows reinstallation, I do not have any kind of photo editing program to crop the image down. So sorry about that, but they just wouldn't look very striking without adjusting.
Meanwhile, we had a lovely dinner at the restaurant nearby. Seated in the sitting area by the fire for drinks and amuse bouche and to peruse the menu. Then seated in the diningroom (only the four of us and one other table of two women - clearly this is not high season in the Highlands). Lovely meal. And then back to the fire for coffee and chocolates. Quite civilized.
Today we went out for our last day driving about the hills. And lo and behold, it turns out that castles do come in other colors besides pink.

Crathes Castle has stunning gardens with very "Alice in Wonderland"-like yew topiaries. You can nearly hear the Red Queen ordering, 'off with her head.'

Now we are all warm and cozy in the lodge with Michael's chili cooking on the stove watching England play Ireland in Rugby.
Tomorrow morning we have to head to the airport at 6AM for our 8:15 flight to Heathrow then on to JFK and then on to Toronto. Packing will be a bit more involved now as Michael has purchased three bottles of liquor and untold numbers of jars of chutneys and jams.
Whether or not I blog from Niagra-on-the-Lake will remain to be seen since the weather forecast is for cold and rain (how lucky can we get) for our two 'outdoors' days on Monday and Tuesday. And I just don't think anybody will care to read that we are sitting in our rooms reading on our kindles. But we will see.