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“The scenery is beautiful,” I say, gazing out through the glass doors at the brooding hills”

“Aye It’s bonny, no matter the time of year”

I’ “The hills look so purple Surely that can’t just be heather?” It seems far too vivid a colour

“Aye, the colour colens It seems to enjoy the weather , then This way”

I follow Chrissy down a stone-flagged hall as she points out the estate offices, storage areas, and the security roo visitors, the car park and such like”

“The castle and gardens have been open since April, right?” And the private residence is nowhere I iine I’ll need to know about

“That’s right The castle and the gardens open at the beginning of April We get a fair nu the weekend And school holidays can be very busy” She points out an oil painting of the current duke’s father halfway up a very grand (and original, I’m reliably told) staircase

“Does the duke’s faine a ducal faine he’d live here, not with coawk I’ht Or maybe that would be suffer an apoplexy

“No Sandy, that is, his grace, the duke,” she says with a slight tint to her cheeks, “lives in London h he does a lot of business in America and Europe, so I understand Lady Isla lives no’ so far aith her wee family She has offices in the castle, so we see a fair bit of her That’s not to say his grace is never here He’s no absentee landlord, y’ken We do see hih more so when the house is closed to the public over the winter”

I can i through my house “I didn’t realise the duke and duchess were divorced”

“Och, they’re not divorced,” she says with a chuckle “They’re siblings Twins, in fact And a nicer pair you couldn’t wish to meet This is them”

We stop at a painting that’s at least one and a half tiilt and ornate It depicts a pair of fair-headed children, the iraph The pair are aged around eight or nine, the girl sitting on a high-backed chair with a book on her lap and an overweight Labrador lying at her feet To her left stands her brother in profile, the twist of his lips al about to annoy that I recognise