Boo hoo! Back home.

Well it couldn't last for ever could it? It was such a nice week away that it did feel like we were gone for more than a week. Good job really as I don't have any more holiday left until Easter. That's bad!
Our final day in Ballater was just a bit of a 'get up and get out' really. We had to be gone by 10am but by 9:15 we were packed and ready to go. We were going to stop in the village for a coffee but I guess in off-season, nothing opens much before 10. So off we drove thinking we'll catch something down the road in Braemar, which looks like a nice touristy place. Well, there were plenty of tourists , but although we drove round the place twice, NOTHING was open and this was around 9:45. Loads of nice looking shops (closed) but we couldn't even see a tea shop. Damn them. The road is pretty bleak. So on we went. The next form of anything we came accross was 'Spittal of Glenshee local services' we'll give em a try, we thought. Wooooah. How wierd. You dive through a bit of a village and then to the Spittal of Glenshee hotel (which *is* the services). First impression is of a bad mock up of Crossroads Motel - 1970s dark wood cladding. Going into the hotel you are met with a disturbing mixture of all that is bad in Scottish decor (tartan tie-backs) with all that is bad about a ski lodge (pine cladding). The staff are wearing kilts (oh yeah so it must be Scottish!) with polo shirts and green knee socks, most of the ones we encountered were Polish - although that's not unusual in today's hotel business. There were (several) signs on the bar which said

Glass of Tap Water 50p
Water with meal - f.o.c.
Water for medicinal purposes (small glass) f.o.c.

The whole thing left you feeling rather that you'd dropped into 'The Shining' or some bad 1970s horror movie hotel from which you'd never leave! Strangely I can't find any comments about it on TripAdvisor or similar websites - so maybe noone does ever leave, or the American tourists who stay there think it's twee. Who knows!? Anyway when we got back to Conrad & Michelle's and we told them we'd stopped for a coffee there, the 1st thing they said was, 'oh that weird hotel' so clearly not just us who thought it peculiar!

After a fabulous venison lunch (and a bit of a gamble on e-bay) we left for part 2 of the journey. Much better, we did it in 3 hours 45 which got us home just on 7 and gave us the whole of Saturday evening, and Sunday to re-acclimatise to "southern parts". Obviously southern in this context meaning in relation to Scotland, we do still live in Leeds aka "northern parts" in relation to most of the rest of the country!