I had a fabulous day yesterday. It was warm and sunny and it was a Saturday with no specific plans. So, I took Andy for a good long walk in the dunes (he LOVES the dunes) and some more seal-spotting.

After I got most of the sand out of the car again, I picked up a couple of friends to go to a Murder Mystery Dinner at a nearby castle in the evening. The dinner itself was not in the actual castle but in one of the old stables that has been converted to a function room. The fact that we weren’t in the castle itself was a slight disappointment. However, I totally understand why the NTS would not open the castle of events like this. By not even the end of the night, it seemed like everyone was poking fun at one group of participants who decided to get absolutely blootered. If I was the NTS, I would not have wanted them amongst the carefully curated exhibits in the castle either.

I digress. The dinner was fun. The theme of the dinner was that it was the eve of a laird’s wedding, and with all guests assembled, a death is announced. We ended up having two murders which made the guessing game even more tricky. There were 7 tables of about 10 people each who needed to work together as a team. So, after some quick introductions we all got into the assessment of clues, questioning of characters, and proposing theories of who might have done what and why.

It was great. The actors were really good fun, and audience participation was great, too. At one time, one of the suspects explained why they could not have killed the first victim by trying to explain his love for the victim. He got to “my love is like…” when one of the audience chimed in “a red, red rose?” upon which the actor burst into a rendition of the Burns poem/song. This was improv at a high standard. It was just great.

And while I am convinced that we had the best team name (inspired by the charcuterie / cheese board dinner), we did not manage to get either murderer nor motive right. It was hard, tho, and we probably had too much fun discussing our various theories.

No pictures of the castle as it was pitch dark, but here are a few from the event.