Just about to head back to Maidstone after spending 3 weeks with great friends. Highlights from these 3 weeks Scotland - the West Coast is well worth a visit, scenery is fantastic. Distillery tours are good, but you only need to do one as the process is the same everywhere, just go in and do the tasting! (I can hear the howls of protest at that comment). I also saw Drummond Castle Gardens listed in the top 20 gardens in England and I can see why. Sywell Airsho...

Well out of Scotland now and dropping into Chesters Roman Fort for a look at Hadrians Wall before heading back to Upton. There is always something impressive about seeing Roman ruins, puts my wall building skills to shame. The English Heritage guys were running archeology schools for the kids, I can just see them going off to the nearest cemetery and digging up graves when they get home! Saw someone catch a decent size fish whilst we were wandering around. It w...

Last full day in Scotland before dropping down into Northumberland. Main place to visit today is Alnwick Castle Gardens after a drive from Hawick. Gardens are fairly recent but extensive, although I think the sandstone on the large fountain is a little stark. The walled garden at the top was good and their Poison Garden was a nice feature. Lunch was at the tree house which any kid would love to have in the backyard. Now onto Widdrington and our B&B for the...

A big day today, down to Stirling to see the castle then onto Hawick via the Falkirk Wheel. Whilst the clouds had started to lift there was still plenty of water around and we even saw snow on a couple of the hills! Stirling Castle was impressive both due to its age and it's position in the landscape, unfortunately it is one of the most touristy spots we had been at on the trip with busses and people everywhere. That said we still hand an enjoyable 3 hours just...

Only a short trip down the road to Kingussie today a town that turned out to be one of the flood affected ones (have a look at the photos and the URL http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-28739164). Went out to the Speyside Centre (up towards Nethy Bridge) to see some of the local birds and try and find a walk or something. As it turned out we came across a rather large country estate with its own coffee shop so we spent most of the afternoon there and going on ...