Last day of our girl’s trip

 June 15

We had planned to have a special breakfast at the castle.  We had pictured fancy china  with a royal flare. After last night, we knew we weren’t getting that so decided not to spend $20 on a not so special breakfast. We found @ few places where we could t@ke pictures and pretend there were extensive gardens and we were ladies of the castle. I asked if they had any information on the history of the castle.  Most of it was on the architect. Turns out that it was built in the late 1800’s by a whisky baron as just a showy house. It was comendared during WWI as a training facility for the navy. Then was turned into a hotel.

We thought it was a 2 hour drive each way to a farm with  Clysdale horses.  Would be cool to see but not worth that long of a drive.  Then Marilyn finds one that is 45 minutes away.  Perfect! Blackstone Clydesdales. We will have an hour tour of the farm at noon.  They have 30 some Clydesdales. Four of them are expecting. They also have several hairy coos. We were able to pet the 10 day calf. Her mother’s milk hasn’t come in so it is being fed by hand.  Another of the cows had a stillborn and needed some TLC as she was quite depressed. 

My favorite. All white and so regal.

 

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The one who had a stillborn and was depressed.

The farrier leading the one he was done with:

It’s old cut up carpet for his yard

We asked for a suggestion for lunch and we’re advised to go to the 1906 in Cumnoch just down the road. It was a wonderful suggestion. Connie and I had steak pie that was delicious and came with a big puff pastry on top. We are wondering why we didn’t start having those before the last day of the trip. They were out of sticky toffee pudding. We probably didn’t have room for it anyway. 

On to our whisky and chocolate tasting. We find the Clydeside distillery and have about 20 minutes to wait until our tour. Melodie and I walk to see the murals that are near by. We find that they were just painted the week before. 

The tour was informative on the differences between single malt, single malt blends,  The pairings with the chocolates from sugar snap sweets were the best. 

We drove the hour to the airport hotel in edinburough. Dropped off our things and Melodie and Marilyn returned the rental car. It did us well! It was close enough that they were able to walk back to the hotel. 

We’ve been carrying a little 4 bottle whisky sampler that the host at our BnB in Sterling gave us. Saving it for that perfect time. Well, the time is now. They were terrible! Couldn’t even finish them. Now we’re wondering if he was just trying to get rid of them or what.

We’re all packed up ready for an early departure in the morning.