I have so enjoyed being in this part of Scotland for the summer. I love the gentle forested hills, the sparkling rivers, and the stunning coast with its layers of misty blues.

I will find out in a few days where my contract will be for next year. Fingers crossed it is here, as there is so much more to explore, but anywhere in Scotland will be fantastic. 

I have spent some more time in the local village of Aberlour recently, firstly doing the walk up to the Linn Falls. This takes you past the distillery, and you can just get a glimpse of it through the trees.

You can see one of the huge copper stills at the back of the distillery, as always the smells are amazing.

The village itself is very pretty, it is a planned development built in the 1812 by Charles Grant, and named after one of his sons.

Its full name is Charlestown of Aberlour, and there is a smaller village just up from our campsite, named Archiestown, after his other son.

As well as being the site of a great local Co-op,  butchers and deli, it also gives you access to the river and the Speyside Way.  There are many of these beautiful bridges over the river here.

Like many of the places round here Aberlour hosts a Highland Games, and I was lucky enough to be able to visit, as I have had weekends off.

It was amazing, all of the surrounding towns and villages support each others’ games, so there were dance, athletic competitors, and pipe bands from the local area. This meant there was a great attendance and atmosphere, and thankfully fantastic weather.

My favourite part was definitely the pipe bands, there is just something about pipes and drums that touches your soul, and the drum majors were particularly impressive.

The Highland Dancing, and ‘heavy’ competitions such as tossing weights and hammers were also wonderful to watch. I can finally say I have a seen someone toss a caber, and it is very impressive!

I have also been being creative during my time off, and have painted lots of stones to decorate the campsite. These are some of the types of campers that we have had visit this summer, and they are on display near our facilities block.

I got chance to do a little bit of caravan upgrading as well, with fablon covering the kitchen area. You can see the original surface in the second photo. I have also bought new fleeces and cushion covers for the colder evenings. It is starting to feel very autumnal here now. 

Sadly my trip to Dingwall, that I wrote about last post, did not end well. It  was the week of Storm Floris, and although I got there OK on the Friday, the weather was bad again on Saturday, so I decided to come home, getting a split pole in the process of taking the tent down.

I have another welfare weekend planned next weekend, at one of our coastal sites, so hopefully that will go really well, and I can share the photos of that, along with some more coastal trips in my next post. 

Meanwhile I hope you are having as much fun as I am. Thanks, as always for visiting, and putting up with the less than frequent posts!