Elcho Castle Family Fruit Day

After the rain of yesterday, today was quite mild and the sun also made an appearance. Just as well as the family headed off to Elcho Castle, which every autumn holds a Family Fruit Day. I made a picnic as it started at 11am. Along side the castle, which sits in a beautiful position next to the River Tay, has orchards adjoining it with different varieties of apples, pear and plums. In one of the rooms of the castle a big apple press was set up. The kids could chuck apples in a machine to get mashed up and then the pulp was put into a press, and all the juice slowy filtered through - for drinking. It was delicious. Who knew that there are over 7,000 different types of apple in the world? Well not me . . ..

The castle was great too for boys to practice fighting with their swords. Magnus was there with his family, and another classmate too, Archie. I brought along the swords and they had so much fun running round the grounds and then inside the many rooms. The castle is not a ruin; it's watertight and well preserved. Their was a countryside ranger there who took the kids on a mini-beast hunt and they had craft stuff to do too. There was 8 kids with us and 9 adults and we all had a great day.

Here are some of the participants, you will see boys being boys, wanted to climb up to the window to eat their lunch!

Young Knights