A Night in the Enchanted Forest.

Hullo ma wee blog,

A couple of weeks ago Saturday saw the lovely G and I head off for a night out at the invitation of her brother and his girlfriend to join them, her sister and partner and a couple of other friends. A leisurely drive of just over a couple of hours north across the Forth Bridge and on up the A9 past Loch Leven to Perth and onwards towards whisky country until we reached our final destination of Pitlochry.

The weather on the way was bright and blowy to start with but by the time we crossed the Forth Bridge an hour or so later had begun to close in and the first eager drops of rain started to show on the newly washed and polished car just as we reached the Fife coast. Its always the way of it isn't it. Life is like a far side cartoon some times.

At Pitlochry mid afternoon we found a bustling wee town jumping with what were obviously visitors who had probably come, like us, for the Halloween festival and particularly to see the 'Enchanted Forest'. Pitlochry has become well known over the last few years for this event which turns a nice enough woodland walk into a spectacularly lit Halloween trail with the forest path picked out by small lamps lighting the way and with the forest and Loch Faskally lit in multiple layers of light and with scenes from history and folklore laid out in specially created little grottoes.

The lovely G's brother and girlfriend were already at the hotel so the first thing we had to do was find a place to park as the hotels own car park was full. We managed to find a space a few hundred yards away on the High St and lugged our overnight stuff down to the hotel to be checked in by the by now all too familiar, for visitors to British hotels bars and restaurants, eastern European member of staff.

{Don't get me wrong here, I don't have the slightest problem with immigrant workers coming to the UK, as long as they are legal, law abiding and tax paying, and also that they are doing a job that is paid at the right rate and is also open to British people if they want to apply, although I do have some concern that the numbers of particularly Polish coming in to these jobs does in itself keep wage rates low and will do until there is parity across the whole EU which is decades away if it ever happens at all. On holiday in Poland this year we were told that the average monthly pay in Poland is about 20% of UK average earnings so no wonder that Poles now account for almost 10% of Edinburgh population.}



It was to be an evening of good food, easy conversation and happy companionship. Times to be reflected on and enjoyed again and again that make life worth living.



To prepare us for the cold walk through the forest we headed off to a fantastic local restaurant where all the staff were dressed for Halloween as ghouls, witches and warlocks, and very atmospheric it was too. The meal was fabulous and I had probably the best steak I have had in a couple of years. It was absolutely beautiful and the pepper sauce which I had asked for on the side was also perfectly ticketty boo; warm, spicy yet still creamy soft. Just fantastic. I was left the choice of wine and luckily hit on a super wee red. So much so that we had another bottle and could easily have had a couple more, but of course the night was young and we needed to pace ourselves...



After dinner we took a special bus from the hotel up to the forest.



and spent a leisurely hour walking and enjoying the light show. Its the first time the lovely G and I had been, but we all agreed we had such a good time together that we are doing it all again next year.



I'm looking forward to it already!



See you later......

Please note the fantastic photos on this post were taken by Dave Wardle, a professional photographer, who was part of the group and are copyright. Please don't reproduce them. Thanks...


listening to Glinka Overture to 'Russlan and Ludmilla'