OK, full disclosure: these photos were actually taken over 2 years ago now: whoops!

I didn’t post them at the time, because we’d stopped off at Doune Castle on our way back from this trip, which means I was (obviously) wearing exactly the same outfit in both sets of photos. Well, it would be social death to be seen in the same outfit in two different blog posts, wouldn’t it – especially if the outfit in question had started to look pretty well worn by the time the second photos were taken. My head had developed a bad case of Hat Hair, my makeup was sliding off in the heat, the front of my top had flipped up, without me realising… (“I just assumed it was supposed to look like that?” said Terry, innocently…) Well, you can see my dilemma, can’t you?

In my defence, I DID intend to post the photos anyway, after a suitable interval had passed, but then I totally forgot about them until last week, when I was looking for something else, and randomly stumbled across them again. Er, I think 2 years is a suitable interval, don’t you? And, of course, Doune Castle has been standing since the 1300s: it can’t have changed THAT much in the last two years, can it? (Um, can it? Please no one tell me it fell down or something…)

So, Doune Castle, as some of you might know, is located in Stirlingshire, and has appeared in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Outlander, and, according to the site I linked above, it also plays Winterfell in Game of Thrones, which… OMG. Did NOT know that. Mind blown. Kind of wish I HAD known that at the time, really, because then I could’ve waltzed around pretending to be in Game of Thrones, and it would briefly have made my life seem interesting. Next time, perhaps.

(Not, of course, that Terry and I would ever waltz around a historic monument, pretending to be in a TV show or movie. No, we take these visits very seriously, and treat the buildings with the respect they deserve…

I have NO idea what’s going on here. I wish I did, but, ah, the cruel passage of time…)

Anyway, as I said, this was a totally impromptu visit: we just decided to pop in because we were passing the castle on the way home, and we arrived just as it was closing, which meant we couldn’t actually go inside. We’ve been meaning to go back ever since, though, because Doune is a pretty cool castle, even from the outside. Some castles are basically just shells now, so it’s impossible to get a sense of what they’d have been like in their day, and others are such tourist traps that they’ve lost all personality: Doune Castle, on the other hand, is one of the good ones. It’s a very… castle-y castle, if that makes sense: and no, I don’t expect for a second that it does. That’s the (totally made-up) word that came to mind when I saw it, though, so I’m standing by it. I particularly like the arched doorway (which, now that I think about it, is totally recognisable from some GoT scenes…), and stood there for quite some time, imagining people riding through it on horseback: knights, and ladies, and maybe a giant or two, or a White Walker, or… no, wait, that actually IS Game of Thrones I’m thinking of now, isn’t it?

Anyway, having found these shots on my computer, I figured it would be a shame to just let them languish there, forgotten, so I’m posting them now, Hat Hair and all. (I actually had a bit of a turn when I realised they were taken TWO FREAKING YEARS AGO. I somehow had it in my head that this was, like, last year? Earlier this year? Aaaand once again, the swift passage of time never fails to surprise and terrify me…) And who knows: maybe next time I’ll even get to go inside…