Technology has brought us access to so much information and on-demand entertainment that we no longer need to occupy ourselves during the long winter evenings. Between Netflix and TikTok, there is a world of distractions to keep us amused. Spending a week in a Scottish castle, however, with a flickering WIFI connection, we were transported back to another time when there was really nothing to do. So, we decided to close our laptops, turn off our phones, and go exploring the castle to see what we could find.
Our home for the week was Persie House, a magnificent Edwardian country estate set in the glorious Highland Perthshire countryside. The house is situated at the base of the Persie Hills, on the edge of the Cairngorms National Park, and at the entrance to the famous Glenshee. A winding salmon river runs around the property, making it a place that is completely lost in time. Add to this freezing winter temperatures, and we were happy to be able to stay inside.
While some of our colleagues cozied up around the fireplace with a cup of tea and a good book, the rest of the team decided to seek out the family games room. We were testing two watches – the Glashütte Original Senator Excellence Panorama Date Moon Phase and the Glashütte Original SeaQ – so we decided to have some fun with them too.
We started with a game of Scrabble, at least the journalists among us did! The Glashütte Original Senator Excellence Panorama Date Moon Phase was the best partner for this game of words with its elegant 40mm stainless steel case, big date, and large moon phase. It is a watch that certainly doesn’t look out of place at the Scrabble table as our contestants mulled over their letters in search of the longest and most point-gathering words. It wasn’t long before we had exhausted all our consonants and were left with only the vowels, so we decided to split into two teams – one for chess and the other for backgammon.
For our photographers and videographers, they were lost in a game of dominos, when one of them spotted a game of table football in the corner of the room. The dominos were instantly abandoned as they made a beeline for the table football. Luckily, they were wearing the Glashütte Original SeaQ, a durable and reliable automatic sports watch that was designed for a whole range of boisterous adventures, so it was the perfect timepiece for some high-spirited football.
The SeaQ is housed in a 39.5 mm stainless steel case and was modelled on one of the German brand’s early diving watches from 1969. This modern-day version stands out with its shiny reed-green coloured dial and large luminous hands, numerals, and indexes, making it highly legible, even when playing table football at top speed.
The timepiece is powered by Glashütte Original’s automatic Calibre 39.11, which comes with a skeletonized rotor with the brand’s double G symbol, and a 40-hour power reserve. The version here comes on a black rubber strap, but it is also available with a green rubber strap, a stainless steel bracelet with 8-step fine-tuning, and/or a grey nylon mesh strap.
Before we knew it, both the Glashütte Original Senator Excellence Panorama Date Moon Phase and the SeaQ were indicating that it was past midnight and time for us to retire for the evening, but what an evening we had all had!
