Bluebells & Bombers

A great weekend spent with former flat mates from university days. The four of us try to get together every year.
The location was the grounds Douneside House at Tarland in Aberdeenshire.
My enterprising friend Dorothy is running these retreats here at Douneside and you can feel the magic the minute you get there.
The story behind the MacRobert Trust, which owns this beautiful place, is poignant.
Sir Alexander and Lady Rachel MacRobert lost their three sons in air accidents. The eldest in a civil air accident in 1938 and the other two as officer pilots in the Second World War.
The Trust was established by their grief-stricken mother as a positive way to focus on life after their deaths and still operates as a charity helping air servicemen and women and various other good causes.
The bluebells are out there now and they are one of my favourite flowers. Probably because they are full of the vibrant promise of spring.
Immediately after her two younger sons deaths,Lady MacRobert gave £25,000 to the RAF to buy a Stirling Bomber.
If you look carefully on the far right of this picture, there is a small sculpture of the bomber, which was called MacRobert's Reply.
See more about Douneside here