Another rainy day in Aberdeen - will it ever improve? - led to another lazy morning enjoying the warmth of the cottage. We made another trip down to Tesco and, it appears, we have now been here long enough that we treated it just like any other trip to a supermarket rather than an exciting visit to some exotic foreign destination.

After lunch we dropped Mum off at Catherine and Adam's place. There is a funeral this afternoon of someone she used to know in Aberdeen.

Linda and I drove down to Stonehaven where our first stop was the ruined Dunnottar Castle.

Similar to Slains Castle that we visited a few days ago, Dunnottar is on the cliffs overlooking the North Sea. But comparisons end there. Donnottar covers a much larger area and is built on a promontory with the sea on three sides and a cliff on the other.

Fortunately, they have built a set of steps to help us get up.

Another difference is that there are plenty of interpretive signs to explain each building and feature. We spent a couple of hours there, wandering around and learning about the site.

From there we made our way down to Stonehaven where we walked along the harbour and waterfront.

Here is a photo of Linda on the boardwalk at Stonehaven.

And here is a photo of us at the same spot on our last visit to Stonehaven 15 years ago (almost to the day).

We decided that we should have fish and chips for dinner. Luckily, Stonehaven boasts the "worlds best fish and chip shop" (according to the shop itself) so we wandered down to The Carron Fish Bar where they served up what might indeed be the best fish and chips in the world.

The Carron Fish Bar also makes one other bold claim. It claims to be the birthplace of Scotland's contribution to world cuisine, the deep fried Mars bar. So I had to try that. And it was delicious.