Scotland in the snow

Some good friends of ours haven't been married for 30 years and decided to rent Gargunnock House near Stirling to celebrate. They very kindly invited us to stay.

This was last week - the one where the UK had the worst snowfall for 30 years. Everywhere ground to a halt except, of course, Scotland where life continued normally. We did the usual walking/visiting/drinking things and had a good time. We visited Doune Castle on the advice of others in our party who went the day before. This castle is where they filmed "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"...

"Hello, two tickets for the Castle, and a pair of coconuts please."

The lady sighed a little, reached under the counter a produced a pair of half-coconut shells. She looked me straight in the eye - "Were your friends here yesterday? They took it very seriously."

We declined the offer of the shells and walked around to the sounds of American Tourists clip-clopping in the distance.

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