Where was I?

Looks rather Mediterranean don't you think? Stirling Castle actually..

The Great Hall on the right there has been restored and has a very pretty peachy limewash exterior (some information here, isn't Google amazing!) which looks to modern eyes most un-Scottish. You can see it a long way off too, especially in the sunshine. Most of the castle is greyish stone as you see from the Chapel on the left-hand-side of that photo, and the castle sits on a grey hill in the middle of a plain. And there's that peachy confection sitting in the middle of it :-).

We had a great time wandering around - the kids loved that it's a proper castle-y castle with weird stairways leading in odd directions and lots of exploring to be done. In fact sections of it are inaccessible at the moment as there's work being done on them..

.. and entry is cheaper at the moment due to that, but there was plenty to occupy all of us. My favourite bit and the thing I was most desperate to photograph (but couldn't due to 'no photography' signs) was the Tapestry Studio.

There it is at the end of that row of buildings - the little purpose-built building at the end. In there they're weaving recreations of the Unicorn Tapestries - so fascinating and so much to see. I was there at one o'clock when the weaver present downed tools for a little while to explain about the project. She said each tapestry takes approximately four years - the one they're working on at the moment, this one I think, is nearly finished with only a few months to go. At the moment they're about at that man with the rich red velvety-looking sleeve on the right-hand side (as tapestries are worked on their sides). Ever since we moved to the Glasgow area I've loved the tapestries in the Burrell Collection so to see similar things in the process of being woven was brilliant. In looking for links about the Burrell's tapestries I found this blog post which details a trip by the Burrell Tapestry folk to the Tapestry Studio at Stirling Castle and includes a couple of pictures of the studio.

So that was my highlight but we all had a great time. Miss Mouse and I liked this chilly-looking mermaid on the Great Hall.

The last time we'd been to Stirling Castle was for a re-enactment event seven-and-a-half years ago when the Boy was just a Tiddler:

Here he is being a Mediaeval Baby! But as is often the case with re-enactment events we didn't see anything of the place apart from the bit we were in, in that case the 'Bowling Green' area near the entrance:

It was great to see the rest of the place. A Grand Day Out for all of us.