Okay, so me and the kids headed north last week to spend a lovely week in a Victorian villa near Lochgilphead. Auchinellan House is the main house in the Auchinellan estate near a tiny village called Ford (which is a few miles away from Lochgilphead). It overlooks the picturesque Loch Ederline and is surrounded by lush greenery and forest. There’s a stream running down one side of the garden and a little pathway through the trees. It’s magical.

The house itself is lovely. Although it needs a little bit of work on it, it’s still an impressive holiday home. There’s a living room, a library, kitchen, dining room, a toilet, two bathrooms and eight bedrooms. As the payer of the holiday, I bagsied the bedroom with the best view (see above). Let’s face it, I’m the only one who will truly appreciate it. My kids are 14 and 11 and not interested in views. I, however, enjoyed it very much. There was nothing nicer than waking up to the birdsong, opening the curtains and seeing that view.

So, what did we do on the holidays? Well, we arrived on Saturday afternoon so our first full day was the Sunday. I took the kids down to Kilmartin for lunch in a local hotel. We went to the Kilmartin Hotel for something to eat. The décor there is in dire need of being updated, but the food was fine, if a little pricey. I ordered the smoked fish with a mornay sauce and veg. The kids just had chips and onion rings – they have restricted and awful diets, but will not eat properly. I have tried everything to get more nutritious food in them, but they rarely go for it. Anyway, we ordered and our orders arrived within ten minutes, which makes me think the dishes weren’t made from scratch there and then. My food was burning hot – had it been microwaved to reheat? And the girl’s onion rings were a bit soggy – also microwaved? That’s the impression I had about the food. My dish cost me nearly £14 and it wasn’t worth the money. Anyway, it filled a hole and gave me the energy for the rest of the afternoon.

What we did was to visit Kilmartin Museum which exhibits artefacts found on archaeological digs in the area. Before we went in there, we popped into the local church next door where mediaeval (and earlier/later) grave markers are on display.

We also popped into the museum next door which is there to display some of the ancient finds they’ve found in the area.

After that we took a wee drive around the area just to have a look around.

So, that was Monday. I’ll tell you all about Tuesday in the next post. Til next time.

Dawn xx