Blessed Car Loan

Ann (from Shambala) went away for 10 days & I was blessed that she lent me her fabulous (may be an excessive overstatement) car for the time. Having a car at Shambala is pure heaven. Imagine living in a community where you hardly ever get personal space. And not much is within walking distance. Getting the picture?
I occasionally got some free time to get out & about. But it was a bit icy on the roads & I was a wee bit nervous about taking the car too far. Went for a drive one day by myself around the Cairngorms – think I needed to blow off some steam.
Another day, Bec & I went for a drive to Inverness. Nice chill out day & a wonderful opportunity to buy some Scotland souvenirs before I finally departed. A relaxing day, even if we didn’t get to go to the movies.

Mini Road Trip - Ballater, Braemar & Cairngorms

The second mini road trip Bec & I took was a day trip south. We drove through the Cairngorm mountains first off. High & desolate with windswept grasses, the mountains were spellbinding. We came to an exquisite little river with an old bridge across & stopped to be mesmerised by the river's stirring. Beautiful!

Later, we thought we might just pop in & visit good ole Liz for a cuppa. But the Queen wasn't home in her country castle in Braemar. There were, however, lots of bobbies about, so we did a quick u-turn in the driveway & got outta there pretty fast.

We found a little castle just near Ballater, which was really cute & very closed. So we just got to take pics from the outside. There was no one else around & the surroundings were gorgeous. The sun soon set & I realised that we had nearly run out of petrol & hadn't spotted a petrol station that was open. We drove & drove till finally we came across a station that was opened only for the next 15 mins - lucky!

We then headed back to Shambala, quite a bit later than expected, another great road trip under our belts. Exhausted but thankful we had the opportunity to get out & about.