Great Hall's North Wall Plaster-Boarded

Today Gavin and Gregor completed the plaster-boarding of the north wall of the Great Hall. You can see the before photo from Monday 22nd April at the bottom, and the after photo which was taken at the end of today (Thursday 25th April) at the top. The two G's have recently started taking Fridays off, and work longer hours Monday through Thursday, so I am particularly delighted they managed to get finished today on a week boundary.

north wall plaster-boarding: after

north wall plaster boarding: before

The wall has started to take on the appearance that the architect originally intended: transitioning from dark bare stone to a light facetted plaster surface. The wall is much the better for this.

Gregor said this week has been hard work with much climbing of the scaffolding and much reaching above head-height. As Gregor was most often spotted at the upper level of scaffolding over the last few days, I called him a "top shelf gentleman". :-)

Gregor says he could plasterboard a whole new-build house with his colleague Scott in 4 days, but that the north wall alone has taken even longer. Despite the scale of the wall, only two sheets of plasterboard were used whole, all the rest had to be laboriously cut-up. Modern houses are designed around the size of plasterboard sheets to minimise labour costs. Balintore Castle was simply proportioned to look good!

Gregor's Arch

The photograph below was taken today, and shows how the recladding of the north and west walls of the Great Hall is progressing. You have to realise that all the plaster was lost on these walls, so the only clues as to the internal appearance are the original plans, and the surviving plasterwork on the south and east walls.

Great Hall today

In the top right of the image above is Gregor's first ever Gothic arch. :-) He cut the shape first out of oriented strand board (OSB) and then out of plasterboard. He was originally going to cut a circular arch, until I pointed out that there was a subtle but distinct point to the arch, which became even clearer once we dug out the original plans (see below).

original plans for north wall

Gregor instructed me to mock up the shape, but before I could even begin, he had bent another piece of plasterboard to form a curve, and had traced along this with a pencil. Amazingly enough, Gregor got the shape pretty spot on, even before he had seen the original plans. I told him, that he had morphed into a Gothic architect. :-)

There is a fancy horizontal moulding running round the Great Hall at two levels. It arcs over the windows, but we could not work out what this did between the windows on the north wall because the windows are so close together. The mystery was solved by the original plans where you can see the moulding in a "Y" configuration, that appears nowhere else in the room.

The arches at Balintore are closer to the Tudor arch rather than the more traditional Lancet arch, that most people associate with Gothic architecture. However, writing this blog article makes me realise that the Balintore arch is actually a Four-centred arch, used widely in Islamic architecture. The Tudor arch is a sometimes considered a type of Four-centred arch, but strictly speaking this is incorrect.

arch types

And the last picture shows the "before" prior to any wall strapping or plaster boarding. Gregor and his brother Gavin are literally climbing the walls, and hoisting up buckets of supplies using a rope from ground level in the best tradition of mediaeval builders.
 

Great Hall before strapping

Tallow and Stookie

Joe and his brother Chris are at the castle today restoring some ornamental plasterwork: the first new ornamental plasterwork in Balintore Castle since 1860.

The technique is called "running a mould". Instead of buying lengths of coving, you draw a former along the wall on wooden battens lubricated with tallow. No doubt Viking long ships were launched using the same technology. 

The former is cut from sheet metal, and the shape is a careful copy of the surviving moulding on the top floor of the castle.

the mould or former for Balintore's top floor coving

The tallow comes in something like a margarine tub, and who knows I may be having the left-overs on toast this evening. :-)

There are three passes:

(1) a troweled-on bonding coat of gypsum plaster

first bonding coat

(2) a run-in mix of plaster of Paris (stookie) and one-coat (gypsum) plaster 

Chris running and Joe bending

Mixing with gypsum plaster slows down the setting period to an hour or so, giving a good working time window.

(3)  one or two run-in coats of pure plaster of Paris

Pure plaster of Paris sets within 5 minutes, so there is not a lot of working time with this - you can only make up small batches - so it is used for the final, very smooth and very hard outer layer.

I was confused when Joe first started talking about "stookie". The only "stookie" I know is the Scottish dialect word for scarecrow e.g. "Everyone else was helping out, but he was just standing there like a stookie.". I think the word has a little hint of the gormless about it too. 

Joe is from the west coast of Scotland. My east coast friends, on interrogation, had heard of "stookie" meaning "plaster cast" for a broken limb. Aha! I may have a possible entomology: a scarecrow is "stuck" (stookie?) in the one position very much like a limb in a plaster cast.

Plaster Panels

Work on the Great Hall at Balintore Castle continues apace. There are 5 internal window structures in the room. Each of these consists of 3 glass panels at the top and 3 blank plaster panels at the bottom.

Joe, the plaster, is currently repairing the plaster panels. You can see today's repaired plaster panels on the right and the panels awaiting repair on the left.

So while this is "small beer" compared to the large amount of new plaster work required in the Great Hall, it is still another step forwards.

In an old photograph, each set of three plaster panels is covered rather clumsily in a Paisley tapestry-type fabric, which looks to my eye like an after thought to make the blank panels look a little better. The panels are there to balance the form of the external windows.

Anyhow, my plan is to make a feature of these 15 panels, which form essentially 5 triptychs, to give them intention rather than their current troubling design passivity i.e. what are those for?

It is not a huge leap from a triptych to a work of art, so keep following the blog for, fingers crossed, some novel artistic creativity. :-)

repairing the plaster panels

Late Winter Snows

Little did I expect, that when coming back from Edinburgh to Balintore Castle this morning, that I would find myself in the middle of a heavy snowstorm. While it is the 5th April by the calendar, the weather is dragging us back into winter. Admittedly, the snow had started to melt by the time I took the photo below (10:54AM) and it had mostly all gone by the end of the day.

snow on the 5th April 2024

Yesterday in Edinburgh was bright and sunny. The contrast with today at Balintore, was all the more marked as a result. Watch out for a future blog post on the castle-related trip to the Big Smoke. :-)

The winters in Angus are never over until they are over, and you must never take it for granted that the cold claw of winter will not come back again for one final swipe to keep you on your toes.

You can see the daffodils on the castle terrace have not yet opened. These were planted many years ago by my friend Andrew and myself. Some of the daffodils in the grounds have opened in less exposed spots. I recall one year, where Spring and Summer were rather damp squibs, that we still had daffodils flowering in July. Obviously, we will be having a brilliant Summer this year. :-)

Dwang Noo Sark Efter

Construction of the replacement big turret is proceeding apace in the Great Hall. The dwangs, or horizontal cross braces between the vertical struts, are now in position.

I asked Gregor if it made more sense to fit the dwangs once the skeleton of the turret had been reconstructed outside i.e. less to dismantle. However, he indicated that fitting the dwangs is a footerie, time-consuming process, so he would prefer to do it indoors.

However, Gregor stopped at installing the sarking, or external sheeting, indoors, even though it has been cut, because being a surface layer it only has to join up with itself and so is less troublesome to fit outdoors.

Anyhow, the turret will be marked-up (tab A into slot B) and dismantled tomorrow into IKEA flat-pack format. Hence the timely photo below, recording this key stage of the construction process.

with dwangs but without sarking

Keen students of the Scots dialect will observe that the title of this blog entry is fully Scottish.

Sarking is legally required in Scotland but not in England. I got quite a surprise when I climbed into my first English loft, and was appalled by the flimsiness of construction. The tiles were nailed onto thin batons instead of being laid onto an entire and complete wood-sheeted surface.

English readers will be more familiar with the term "noggin" rather than "dwang". And finally: I manage to secrete another Scottish dialectal word into the text above. What is it?

Terminator Pheasant

 

There is distinct loss of status in admitting that one has been held hostage at home by a marauding pheasant. But as ever in the world of Balintore, the unbelievable is the reality.

I decided, rather late in the afternoon, to set off on my daily walk. As I descended the steps at the front door of the castle, a pheasant ran at me from around 50 yards away stopping right in front of me. If I stepped down to ground level, there was no doubt it would attack. Shouting and waving my arms had no effect. It simply was not going to leave. Even as I attempted go sideways, first to the left and then to the right, it continually blocked my path.

It was check-mate, and I retreated indoors incredulous that my walk had been aborted even before it had begun by a  bird. I would simply try again later in the day, but darkness fell and the walk never took place.

The next day, thank goodness, there was no sign of the pheasant. However, 100 yards into my walk, the pheasant ran right up to me. I tried to go forward but it continued the menacing behaviour. I felt in great danger from its claws and beak.

There was no escape, as I tried to leave the path at a 90 degree angle it would run to block my exit, parading backwards and forwards in front of me with its chest puffed up.

I was looking for something to defend myself with, and after what seemed like an eternity, I located a longish stick. As the bird came in to attack, I held it at bay with the end of the stick. However, it came at me from different angles and I had to wield the stick like an epee, to stop it coming too close. I was not sure I could keep this up. I continued down the drive, but the pheasant gave no slack, mirroring my every move. The fear and adrenaline had kicked in, and the stick was becoming less and less effective as the bird became bolder

I really did not want to hit the pheasant with the stick - well it was more of a twig actually. Eventually, I had to swipe the stick with a degree of force to keep the bird away. It looked a little surprised but continued to come in for the kill, like the terminator on a relentless mission. My stick had disturbed the bird's feathers so it looked rather bedraggled on that side.

It was locked in mortal combat with me all the way down the castle drive - this is 1km long! Why was it not giving up? It then continued its attack along the road which goes past the castle, still homing in on its target, and it was only when I got past Balintore House that the distance between us increased and it disengaged.

I knew I could not cope with this every day, and wrote a letter of complaint in my head to the local estate during the remainder of the walk. Given that they had stocked the grounds with this evil creature, it was their responsibility to deal with it.

The following day, I spotted some bread on the stone walls either side of the front door, so asked friend of Balintore Simon who was working at the castle, what this was all about. "I'm feeding the pheasant." he said, "It's really friendly!". I lost it at that stage and exclaimed rather too forcefully "Don't feed that creature!".

Anyhow, thankfully I have not had an unpleasant pheasant encounter again, but have spotted several pheasants who turn their evil eye towards me during my daily walk. I am of course maintaining eye contact and wondering "Is that him, and will he attack again?".

When male pheasants fight, they are so engrossed that they are oblivious to everything else. I recall a pair fighting on the castle drive. I had to stop my car, and I knew if I had not stopped I would simply have run both of them over.

Obviously, the pheasant was in this attack mode with me, and nothing would have deterred it. I suspect even if I had hit it really hard with the stick, it would not have stopped. Was it the yellow coat I was wearing i.e. a bit of a orangey pheasant colour? The only other explanation was that it was trying to mate with me, but I do not think his intentions were amorous. Some years back, a Spanish visitor to Balintore Castle got attacked by a pheasant a number of times. It was pretty serious. She was wearing a red jumper.

To capture the essence of something, one often plays the three words game. For a pheasant, these are beautiful, stupid and er, delicious. :-) They truly are the stupidest creatures and have the least road awareness of all: less than a baby bunny - and that is saying a lot. :-)

Amazingly enough, sheep though classically stupid, have pretty good road sense. They are not great at getting out of your way in the best direction, but they do at least try to get out of the way. Pheasants virtually stand in the middle of the single track roads round the castle saying "kill me now".

The "pheasant as terminator" illustration was the best I could do with an AI image generation engine (fodor.com) before my free trial ran out.

Great Hall Windows Installed and Building Big Turret!

Yesterday, Gavin and Gregor finished installing the new windows in the Great Hall. However, as I was rushing off to Dundee late afternoon, I did not have time to register the fact or indeed record the moment. However, I was able to take a photo today, and of course to put things in context, I have supplied a "before" photo from the 18th January.

before window installation: 18th January 2024

after window installation: 27th February 2024

Light coming in from the outside transforms the space so totally, that I have not come to terms with it yet.

In fact, in the "after" photo, you can see Gavin and Gregor working on the next project which is rebuilding the castle's biggest turret. Believe it or not, they are building it as an IKEA flat-pack, so it can be unscrewed, broken apart and then finally reassembled outdoors. The base ring has already been flat-packed and then reassembled as a test.

New Great Hall Windows

Great Hall window installation progress 15th February 2024

 
We have now installed two out of the eight new Great Hall windows. On the north exterior wall there are five tall window openings. Today and the yesterday, we reinstated the windows in the extreme right-hand opening and the extreme left-hand opening, as you can see in the photo above. Considerable natural light is once more entering the Great Hall, and it is a good feeling.

The central three openings will be glazed the week after next, as my builder Gregor will be in Sheffield next week. These are still boarded over in oriented strand board (OSB), though some years ago we created a small glazed opening at the bottom left just to let a little light into the room.

Much more light will be let in when we install the three new windows in the exterior wall facing east, but we are taking things a step at a time.

The original windows were sash windows, with a 1/3 sash at the top and a 2/3 sash at the bottom. However, these replacements which are notionally temporary are fixed panes of 1/3, 1/3, 1/3, but we have copied the design of the original windows closely, so they look more or less the same from the inside and the outside.

We matched the exterior window colour closely ("Peat" in British Standard 4800) and the interior window colour closely as well ("Mexican Tan" in British Standard 4800). The Mexican Tan appeared alarmingly bright when we first painted it on, but applying a "wet finger" to surviving areas of paint showed we were actually on track. Over time, the existing paint job has dulled due to light and weather exposure, though in sheltered corners the original paint is much brighter. 

In fact, the original interior paint job is oak graining made up of two shades of brown, and the "Mexican Tan" matches the composite effect from a distance. To my eyes, there is yet a third shade of brown used in the Great Hall, which is a plain almost gold colour. This is used on stone and plasterwork, but as we are just dealing with the windows for now I have managed to avoid panicking about matching the gold. :-)

As I was gazing at the Great Hall today, my mind drifted and the stages of the scaffolding along the walls became the galleries of a galleried coaching inn or the galleries of the Globe Theatre, and I could envisage a performance taking place within the room. The space coming alive like this was a thrilling prospect. Will this ever happen? :-)

Art Deco Lantern

Ever since purchasing Balintore Castle 17 years ago, I have kept an eye out for suitable lighting for the Great Hall. Light fixtures that are large enough to balance the volume of the room, only turn up only very infrequently, and then they go for enormous sums of money. I have missed out on so many occasions, that I had essentially given up. 

Then on 11th October last year, some massive Art Deco lanterns were to be sold at auction. These were precisely the style I absolutely love. So much so, that I might be prepared to bid that little bit more. There were a variety of light fittings not just the lanterns. Of most interest were a large lantern perhaps 66" high, and then a single super-large lantern 96" high by 40" wide.

large lantern

super-large lantern

The auction was timed which means that the sale ends at a certain time. However, if a bidder bids within the last 5 minutes then the ending time is extended by another 5 minutes. Bidding for the large lantern seemed to go on for ever: a game of stamina and attrition and I eventually pulled out. Then the super-large lantern came up for auction: a new game of stamina and attrition that also seemed to go on for ever. I presumed the super-large lantern would go for more than the large lantern, and I was not prepared to go that high, but I kept my nerve and continued to bid. Finally, 5 minutes had elapsed since my last bid with no other bidders left in the game, and much to my surprise I won the super-large lantern.

I also picked up a pair of smaller Art Deco chandeliers.

pair of chandeliers from below

pair of chandeliers from side

The provenance of the lights is fascinating. They had come from the Newcastle Odeon a 2,602 seat cinema in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, which opened as the Paramount Theatre in 1931 before being purchased by Odeon Cinemas in 1940. During the 1960's and 1970's it was also used for pop and rock concerts. The cinema closed in 2002 and stood empty until being demolished in 2017.

The aesthetic question is whether a 1931 lantern suits an 1860's space? To my eye the fit is astonishing: the heavier ornament of early Deco resonates with Victorian detailing. This is in contrast to later Deco or "Streamline Modern" of the 1940's which consists of geometrically pared-back "space age" curves. Of course, I may be biased.

The light fittings come without their original glass which I guess was a sad victim of a rough reclaim procedure. I was careful to buy lights which were not totally reliant on the glass component, and where the replacement glass could be inferred from the form.

One of the photos on the auction site shows the large lantern populated with glass which is the best guide to its reconstruction.

super-large lantern in situ

The pair of chandeliers could have had six flat form-fitting petals, or perhaps six curved larger, more flamboyant petals. I guess some experimentation is called for.

My builders tell me the large lantern takes 62 light bulbs. How much power must this have used, and how often must the staff have been up a ladder to change the ever-blowing Tungsten bulbs?

Anyhow, I picked the auction lots up from an architectural reclaim yard in Wolverhampton where I had never been before. I stayed overnight in an AirBnB to break up the journey. The madness of redecorating the Great Hall! :-)

And finally, some photos which show the glory of the former Odeon in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

100% Floored

The Great Hall is now 100% re-floored! :-) The last remaining quadrant, in the corner with the open Gothic arch, was boarded this week. 

last corner quadrant now re-boarded

I would like to say, "It's great to walk around the room and experience the space.", but in fact scaffolding has already been installed along the west and north walls, restricting one's perambulations.

scaffolding against west and north walls

The scaffolding is to be used to install "temporary" windows in the old window openings, to bring light and hopefully some heat in.

Silver Polishing Room Plastering

Jaymae, the plasterer, and his friend Murdo popped round today to put the final coat on the domed roof of the silver-polishing room at Balintore. Yes, there really is a room in Balintore just for the butler to polish silver.

Jaymae said it was the hardest job he's ever done, as the roof is curved in both directions. Beforehand, he was worried the task might be beyond him, and he only admitted this after completing the ceiling. :-) However, even he is impressed how good the end result looks. He used a trowel with a sponge on it, and a flexible metal trowel to achieve the curve.

final plaster coat on silver polishing room ceiling

The next step is plastering the walls. As ever, top down for plastering!

Curtain Model

One of Ms. Balintore's lesser known rôles is that of curtain model. Friend of Balintore Duncan, who designs, prints and makes curtains for the Landmark Trust, asked if he could tempt her ladyship to model his curtains creations. She was only too happy to oblige.

Duncan wanted to borrow some of Balintore's atmosphere of historic distress, and ironically two of the rooms that were used, have now been restored; so the photos form an unwitting restoration snapshot.

The wolf print curtains were photographed in the old nursery, now largely restored. The design was created for the Landmark Trust property Coed y Bleiddiau, which is the Welsh for 'Wood of the Wolves'.

wolf print curtains

The lion rampant print was photographed in the tank room at the top of the Great Tower.

lion rampant print curtains

The architectural motif print was photographed in Aunt Nelly's bedroom, now restored. And very generously, Duncan has donated the curtains to the room. They look superb in situ, with the walls repainted in the original blue which matches the curtains closely.

architectural motif print curtains

If you would like Duncan to run you up a curtain see his webpage here.

Three-Quarters Floored

As far as putting down a floor in the Great Hall is concerned, we are now three-quarters of the way there. You can see the remaining quadrant that needs boarding by the gothic archway, which once led to the guest staircase. Fingers crossed, we can get the remaining boarding down on Monday.

quadrant still needing to be boarded

The biggest task was clearing away all the scaffolding, insulation and wood in that corner of the Great Hall. And in fact we were able to build-up this scaffolding on the new floor under the north and west windows in the Great Hall, with a view to installing some temporary windows. After 14 or so years of being boarded up, these openings will once again let in light.

scaffolding set-up to install new temporary windows

Sun and Snow

Yesterday, I promised you photos of snow and blue skies. Well, the weather actually delivered today. My accuracy has nothing to do with the fact that I recently worked for the UK Met Office, and everything to do with the fact we are having a cold snap and it snowed heavily yesterday.

My daily constitutional consists of going down the west drive, along the road, and then up the east drive. Here are the photos taken en route:

leaving the castle

looking back at the castle from the east drive

deer prints

the east drive is a fauna superhighway

looking back down the east drive - a single human track!

back at the castle

Walking in virgin snow, illustrates that the castle drives are actually busy thoroughfares for animals and not just the occasional human. By the end of my late afternoon walk, the sun was already coming in at a low slanting angle. I daresay Balintore Castle gets trapped flatteringly twixt blue sky and white ground.

Demi-Floored

Today, Gavin and Gregor reached the half-way mark in flooring the Great Hall. The fiddliest part is installing the insulation, and the actually laying of the boards is the least of the challenge. On reflection, I think it is marginally less than 50%, but it is good to reflect upon progress every day.

Great Hall: flooring progress 16th January 2024

The next task in the Great Hall will be installing temporary windows, so that light can re-enter the room. It has been in darkness for perhaps 12 years, as we blocked off the window openings with sterling board to keep the weather out.

Today, the first proper snow of the winter arrived and it snowed all afternoon. It has been bitterly cold for the last 4 days, so the odds are that the snow will now lie. Jaymae the plasterer got stuck at the castle this evening as the west drive became too treacherous for his vehicle. I set up a bedroom for Jaymae, but fortunately his mother came to the rescue, and Jaymae and I walked down the snow-bound drive so he could get picked up.

Tomorrow, I am hoping to see a white landscape and a bright blue sky. If this does happen, you can rest assured that I will blog the photo here. 

Builders on the Dance Floor

Well, Gavin and Gregor were going to be working somewhere else today but no-one could have been more delighted than I, to find them beavering away on the dance floor when I eventually emerged from my bed this morning.

As the castle has a separate dining room, I can only assume that the Great Hall has witnessed many a ceilidh. This is in addition to its role as a reception area, as it is the first room guests would encounter after the entrance hall. There are exits leading to the toilets, the library, the dining room, the drawing room, and the guest bedrooms - so it is very much like a hub.

In the photograph you will see the swaged netting over the joists, which is used to hold under-floor roll insulation. 

It is a thrill to walk across the floor that has been laid so far. It will be an even bigger thrill to be able to walk around the whole room. Until this is possible, you never quite get the feel for a space.

Great Hall: flooring progress 15th January 2024

Joists Ahoy!

On Thursday and Friday of last week Gregor and Gavin installed the floor joists in the Great Hall.  Things have definitely moved on from the end of last year. You can see the "before" here. The paradoxical thing about floors is that despite the scale of the operation, laying them is unexpectedly quick. In contrast, clearing out the Great Hall in preparation took a full fortnight of effort.

The joists were laid 16" apart in the Victorian manner i.e. roughly 400mm. This contrast with modern floors which are joisted at 600mm centres.

Gregor and Gavin seem to be currently fixated upon creating runways in the castle, which may suggest budding careers in modelling, or perhaps simply an interest in moving materials about more easily. Certainly, the new catwalk in the Great Hall, as of Friday, will enable things to be moved directly between the north and south sides of the castle for the first time.

Great Hall: looking south

The view of the Great Hall below shows that, strictly speaking, only 75% of the joists have been laid, due to the grot in one quadrant of the room. The sub-floor is being constructed of 2400mm x 600mm tongue and groove 18mm plywood - the runway is just the start. This will provide a firm foundation on which to lay the reclaimed strip hardwood flooring. 

Great Hall: looking north

New Great Hall Floor Delivered

The Christmas blog entry described how we are planning to refloor the Great Hall in 2024. Well today the wood for the construction arrived: namely floor joists and Tongue and Groove (T&G) plywood for the sub-floor. Due to the problems of storage (a vast quantity is involved) we didn't want to order this wood, until we knew we were going ahead, and tomorrow is the day.

Many years ago I purchased reclaimed T&G hardwood strip flooring for the top finishing layer of the grand reception rooms - this has been in storage a long time! As the reclaimed flooring is missing tongues in many places, I decided that an additional wooden subfloor is required to stop the reclaimed stuff from falling through.

By the time, I went round the back of the castle to photograph today's wood delivery, Gregor had already got it under a blue tarpaulin, so you will have to take it on trust. :-) You can see the last big pile of rubble and grot dug out of the Great Hall immediately to the left.

New Shades for Old

One unadultered joy of the restoration is finding suitable fixtures and fittings for the castle, and I keep my eyes open at the local auction houses. I reckoned that the table lamp below that came up for sale at Curr & Dewer in Dundee was perfect: a little niche and little bashed around the edges so that hopefully the sale price would not break the bank. Sure enough, I bagged it for a modest £45.

lamp before

I am a stickler for period authentic items, and the presence of exterior wiring (a thin brown fabric-covered cable) along the four branches show the item had started life as a candelabrum before the era of electricity, and was converted near the start of this era.

The animal head masks in the base (dolphin? and bat?) betray a Gothic sensibility. This combined with the dull brass patina suggest a late 19th Century date.

One immediate problem is that there are only two original shades left on the table lamp. These were in very bad condition with holes and whatever the original fabric was: it had gone rigid and discoloured with the heat over the years. Nil desperandum! I managed to locate 4 small matching second-hand shades on eBay for £19.50. Et voila, the re-shaded table lamp is shown below.

lamp after

I still need to make an electrical pass, to ensure the lamp lights up and is safe - watch this space!

Return to the Castle

My friend Andrew gave me a lift for the last leg of my journey from Norfolk (where I spent Christmas with friends) to Balintore Castle. We were both treated to a wonderful atmospheric effect, where the late afternoon sun illuminated the dense fog around us in an orange glow.

Things then got even better.

On the climb up to Balintore, we emerged from the mist into the sunshine, only to observe that there had been a temperature inversion and a sea of mist lay across the bottom of Glen Quharity, where the castle is located.

temperature inversion in Glen Quharity on 5th January 2024

This phenomenon is very rare, and I have observed it only a handful of times since I bought the castle in 2007.  Sometimes, the whole of the glen is covered and the mist comes up to the very edge of the ha-ha, so the effect is one of a sea. However, on this occasion the blanket had settled over just the west end of the glen, and it quickly dispersed after I had taken the photograph.