Have just come to bed in our rented house in Ballater. It’s 10.30, but being June in the far north, it’s still pretty light. We arrived just after 1pm, which was a bit too early, as the wife of the owner wasn’t quite ready for us. We went for a wee drive until she was. She was very nice. After unpacking we rested for a bit until it started pouring with rain. Then we waited till it stopped before we walked round the town and bought some food. Later we went for another walk, taking in some of the golf course.

We have a diesel Ford Focus, which drives very well. After carefully doing everything the small print said I should, like taking a paper copy of my licence, two utility bills, my passport and the code obtained from a Government website, all the rental guy wanted to see was my photo licence. Very frustrating.

We spent last night at the Premier Inn at Aberdeen airport, which was excellent in every way except that it was a long walk from the airport and you had to guess where you were going. The flight from Norwich was good, though it had started to rain at almost the exact moment we had to board. Nevertheless the plane was only part full and we got free drinks. The taxi drive to the airport went well too.

Just before reaching Ballater we stopped at the Riverside Inn (formerly Crannoch) and had ham and lentil soup, which was surprisingly good. The accompanying bread was brilliant, but that wasn’t so surprising, because they make their own.