I spent the week in the Scottish Highlands, then came home and bought cushions

Well, what do YOU do after a holiday?

It’s the last day of the October break here, and we’ve spent most of the past week in the far north of Scotland, including a quick stop at Dunrobin Castle, where we took this photo, which I will probably now show you at annoyingly regular intervals, because that’s how much I like it:

Look how pretty it is, though!

After that, we headed even further north, to the very top of the British mainland, where we stayed at the Ulbster Arms hotel (you can read my review of it here) and did all of the usual things people do in that part of the world: took cheesy tourist photos at John O’Groats, caught the ferry to Orkney, argued with a woman in the Tesco car park who decided to have a go at my dad for no reason at all … Just the usual, really.¹

Anyway, we got back on Friday, and, since then I’ve mostly been thinking about how much I wish I lived somewhere other than here, and buying things to try to make my house feel more like a boutique hotel.

I say “things”: it’s been cushions, really. Because everyone loves cushions, right? Well, everyone other than Max, who told me they’re not colourful enough, and immediately asked me to buy MORE cushions to replace them.

(He DID like the little ghost cushion I got in an attempt to turn myself into the kind of person who decorates for Halloween², though, and I’m glad someone did, because, honestly, that cushion is not NEARLY as large as Amazon made it look in their photos. I was a bit disappointed by it, really, but by then Max had already seen it (He named it ‘Ghostie Cushion’ and took it to bed with him that night), so it had to stay. Wish I’d bought the pumpkin one instead, though.)

Other than the random cushion-buying, however, the last couple of days have been mostly about unpacking, doing several loads of laundry, and attempting to get back up to speed with work, which has obviously been completely neglected while we were away. To make up for the shorter-than-usual newsletter, then, here’s a short video of Dunrobin Castle from my You Tube channel, which I randomly decided to attempt to revive, even though I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing over there:

You Tube seems to have reduced the quality of this for some reason, which makes me suspect I’ve probably done something wrong, and am just not cut out for this game, but if you like it, you can follow my channel here — or, as Max would say, “Smash that ‘like’ button, guys!”

Until next week,

1. It is not remotely usual for me to argue with people in supermarket car parks. Or anywhere else, really. But … it’s s long story. And probably not one that needs to be told here on the internet…

2. I lie, I’m just a shopaholic who wanted to buy more cushions