For the first time in this trip, I was woken by the sound of my alarm. It wasn't hideously early but it was earlier than everyone else wanted to wake. I snuck out quietly and drove to George and Margaret's place as they were in possession of something I needed - a subscription to Sky Sport UK. By 8am I was settled in front of the Crusaders v Blues match.

We were top of the table, the Crusaders nearly bottom so a win to the Blues was nearly a foregone conclusion - as I confidently shared with George. Sadly, it was not to be and we went down 27-29 after a close encounter.

By the time I returned to the cottage, Linda and Mum were up, breakfasted and ready to go. Our destination today was yet another castle but this time not a ruined one. We were off to Glamis Castle, childhood home of The Queen Mother. It also features prominently in Shakespeare's Macbeth.

Our first stop was the Castle Gift Shop where we spent too much time and too much money.

The castle is still lived in by the 19th Earl of Somethingorother, head of the Bowes Lyon family. He kindly sent a minion to give us a guided tour of much of the castle but he requested that we didn't take any photos so you'll have to make do with me describing it instead. The tour took in many, many portraits of dead Bowes Lyon ancestors, a few too many ghost stories of dubious provenance and a stuffed bear. Linda loved the period furniture and furnishings. The tour itself took over an hour and was quite enjoyable.

After the tour we enjoyed a very nice scone and even nicer sandwich in the castle restaurant.

We spent some time in the castle gardens where we were allowed to take photos. The gardens were nothing special but they did contain some sculptures telling the story of Macbeth, including this one of the Witches.

We did get some good photos of the outside of the castle.

Glamis is over an hour's drive from Aberdeen so by the time we got back to the lighthouse we just had enough time to shower and pretty ourselves up before heading out to the Atholl Hotel and the main event is the day - Jeannie and Margaret's 80th birthday party.

This was a gathering of nearly 40 relatives and was much appreciated by all - more than one person commented to me "we don't get together very often and when we do it is usually for a funeral".

This was a great opportunity for Linda to catch up with relatives she rarely sees. In attendance were her mother, 2 aunties, 5 uncles, 10 cousins and several cousins once removed as well as the partners of many of those. The title image of this blog post is of Linda and ten of her cousins (many more couldn't make it), while the photo below is of the generation above, her Mum, aunties and uncles.

The party eventually broke up around 11pm. We gave Andy a ride home and then made our way through the sea mist back to the lighthouse - definitely no dolphin sightings tonight. We finally got to bed around midnight.