SBoardman.co.uk

My blog has been pretty quiet over the past couple of weeks because I have been busy getting married!  K and I were married on the 19th February and we went up to Scotland for our honeymoon.  My mother- and father-in-law sent us to the Gleneagles Hotel for a few nights which was quite frankly amazing.  First we went the spa but there was a mix up with our booking so in theory we had missed it, however, the staff were amazing and before we had chance to even raise a tiny complaint we were told we could choose any treatment we wanted and could have champagne by the pool as well!  Naturally we chose the most expensive treatments and had them early the next morning, subsequently leaving us far too relaxed to do anything for the rest of the day!  It was the first time I’d ever been to a spa for a proper treatment and I thoroughly enjoyed being forced to lie down and do nothing for two hours whilst a nice Scottish lady covered me in salt and made me smell nice things.

I took a fair few photos over the course of the weekend despite the weather being properly Scottish with rubbishy grey skies.  Fortunately I was able to set up some really nice black and white shots which worked pretty well.

This is looking onto the southeastern side of the hotel, the conservatory on the right is where we had breakfast every morning (a massive affair with huge choice of cooked and cold stuff).  And the window second from the right on the main building is where we sat for a fancy meal at The Strathearn Restaurant which was very fancy (I had the for cheeseboard dessert and was spoilt for choice!)  The main image is the view from our room looking out onto the conservatory, on our first day we could just see the mountains with a dusting of snow but sadly there was too much mist the next few days.

This was our estate room because we were given because we were honeymooning; it was ridiculously comfy and we even got free champagne!  I had envisaged this shot before we got to the hotel having nosied on the website, a really nicely lit HDR that accurately represented the mood of the room which I was really pleased with.

On Tuesday we went to Blair Castle and had a look round, they had a giant entrance hall with deer antlers running around the room, I grabbed a quick shot of them (below) just before we had a power cut which added to the period feel of the castle itself!

The gardens of Blair Castle were very pretty, we went to the Hercules Garden which had this cute little duck house.  It made me think of the MP’s expenses scandal and the conservative chap who claimed some large sum of money for a similar thing!

Back at home and the weather has been much better, I managed to get out into the garden to photograph some of the birds visiting without losing my fingers!  Above is the adorable robin that sat on the lawn for ages, we think it may have been injured but it was able to leave on its own so hopefully it will be ok.

I’ve put some of the photos on my map to keep you all updated on my travels.

Related posts:

1. Week 6: London, shiny things and Manchester