In which Sid and Doris visit a Duke and a convalescing postman.
Inverary Castle is the home of the Duke of Argyll, head of the Campbell clan. In any normal year coaches full of eager sorts would pour through the house and garden. The house is a must see, especially as bits of it have been filmed for an episode of Downton Abbey (an Upstairs Downstairs story set in 1927).
The castle is a big house, it is not for fighting though much of the decoration is in the form of muskets and halberds in jolly rosettes on the wall. The family lives there. The son of the current Duke and Duchess has just been retired from being a page to Her Majesty as at 16 he is now too tall. This stuff still goes on, though the Duke no longer sits in the House of Lords. The family is fortunate to have the income from 66,000 acres and some other diversifications. Despite showing Lego dragons to entice in the child market the tourists will not have made much contribution today.
Doris drives via Holy Loch to Dunoon where we take the final ferry of the trip, crossing Loch Long to Gourrock. The ticket shows we have bought a ticket for a car up to five metres long. This is an outrage. At 10′ ¼” Teal is 3.06 metres but no 40% discount was available, even though we asked.
We are now on a mission to have ice cream lunch at the justly world famous Nardinis. Opened in 1935 it looks perfect Hollywood Art Deco. They are only doing take aways for those without a booking. Sid and Doris o/d on sugar walking along the seafront where Glaswegian bikers come to rest before some more hoolying.
Sid drives across Galloway to our own castle for the night. Friars Carse is on the River Nith and popular with salmon fishers. Once the home of the Riddell family it was bought by Post Office staff to provide subsidised holidays and convalescence for employees, in memory of posties who died in the wars. So a Kindness and Ingenuity award. When not full of post persons they let rooms to outsiders to bring revenue to the cause.
We have had a look at the Hermitage where Robert Burns wrote. [It was a bit damp and grey in the woods so here is a photo from their information sheet, taken in dryer times – D.]
We have seen the river at dusk and are now keen to see what postmen have for dinner.