Kilchurn Castle on Loch Awe

is my favourite castle in Scotland the world. It is about an hour and a half from Callander and when the boys were wee it was somewhere we escaped to for a quick 'jaunt' at weekends.

Some years ago I spotted it for sale in the Glasgow Herald and got very excited. It was going for a reasonable sum and I had dreams of us turning it into a home, me becoming mistress of my very own castle, and the boys growing up in a wonderful environment. MOH however was not excited by the prospect.

I tried my best to talk MOH round and got quite upset when I failed. Then I found out that two of the 'conditions' placed on the sale included permission to allow access to members of the public and refusal of planning permission to allow any major structural changes to the existing building.

It has been a number of years since we have visited and today it all came back to me. I'm like a dog with a bone and didn't hold back in reminding MOH how much he had ruined my dreams!

It was a glorious day today when we set off at 10.30am for Oban, another favourite haunt of old. After Kilchurn we stopped off en route at Cruachan for a picnic and Dunstaffnage Castle.

We arrived in Oban at 4.50pm. At 4.53 the heavens opened, we had thunder and the heaviest rain I have ever seen, outside USA where we once experienced a hurricane. Within 3 minutes the water levels were rising around us. At 5.09 we left Oban for home having been unable to get out of the car.

Footnote: I still have the 'for sale' advert - a reminder of what could have been.