We had to do it.....

The Hrossey glides silently out of Kirkwall just before midnight and we settle down for a night of car alarms, hydraulic rams, loud clanging noises and the ship’s fog horn. Yes, you can’t beat a romantic cruise to Aberdeen.

Heading further south, a once familiar litany unfolds; Muchalls, Fetteresso, Grassic Gibbon, Drumlithie, Skite, Stracathro.  Beyond expectation is Temple of Fiddes.

We arrive at Mark and Fionas.  We immediately buy torches to penetrate the east coast haar.  We go for a meal at McDismals.  M reveals he has sold all his motorbikes and cameras.  We had to do with hand baked delights fae a Fife wife.

Inside the great dreichness there is no context.  Things become so much clearer now the whisky is open.