Gleneagles Hotel
Bob Tickler had it right.
After the student accommodation, the Rust Group felt they were entitled to some pampering and where better to get it than the Gleneagles Hotel?
It’s the place where the Gleneagles Agreement – effectively banning apartheid South Africa from sport – was constituted.
It’s a golfing hotel and this Thursday hosts the Senior Open.
Pargie was knocked – literally – sideways as he made way at the entrance double door of the James Braid, where we are billeted, for Darren Clarke.
It’s essentially a golfing hotel.
Even the main house with its dark wood panelling, golfing prints and green carpet embossed with the Gleneagles motif gives the appearance of a superior club house.
It’s an old fashioned hotel with high standards of client service with that ever-present Scottish friendliness.
As the room was not ready Bob fell asleep in one of the gracious salons.
As he tends to do this with his head back and mouth open, an alarmed waitress thought – because of the extreme heat – that he had passed on and rushed over with iced water, her face radiating deep concern.
The delay in getting the room available was unacceptable but it was spacious and very well appointed with a small deck outside where a table was set.
It’s expensive but the best place to be in a heatwave.
I will leave Daffers to cover the me at the Strathearn fine dining restaurant.
The cuisine was a bit rich for my taste and for this weather.
Tomorrow we are trying the Bistro.
I have seen the Corner shop selling papers and Bob will hole up in the Garden Cafe.
A nice touch on the room: three have folio editions of two Jane Austen novels and one a Charles Dickens.
I’m reading a trashy chick-lit novel One Last Secret by Adele Parks and I can see myself avoiding the worst of the heat with one of those classic novels.
I much prefer traditional hotels to boutique ones.
I like a turn down service at 6-00pm, fluffy crested bath robes and foamy slippers which make you float on air – and a Roberts radio bedside.
The group did not require much persuasion to swerve the trip to Glasgow today to see the Burrell Art collection for Alice Mansfield and Hampden Park for Tom Hollingworth in order to enjoy the wonderful facilities here.
