The Prince of Wales has spoken of his delight at opening a health and well-being centre in East Ayrshire - something he said he had wanted to do for 35 years.
Charles opened the centre, which will operate as the base for The Prince's Foundation's integrated health and well-being programme, at Dumfries House in Cumnock.
More than 100 guests including local GPs and those who have already benefited from activities at the estate attended a special event on Tuesday.
When Charles, known as the Duke of Rothesay in Scotland, was receiving a tour of the new facility he joked the gathered press and photographers could do some tai chi - one of the sessions available at the centre along with yoga, cookery, reiki and mindfulness.
Unveiling the plaque, he said: "I'm so glad that all of you have been able to get here today, particularly because I could not be more proud to see the opening of this new integrated health centre at Dumfries House.
"It's something I've been wanting to do for the last 35 years. I'm also so proud of all the team at Dumfries House who built it, an all in-house team.
"To reach this point where we can now offer a range of social prescribing opportunities is enormously encouraging and I hope it will be able to make some difference to a lot of the health issues that exist in this area."
Read more: Prince Charles given OK to hold weddings at Dumfries House
He added: "When I first came here 12 years ago now I had a long list of things I wanted to try and do.
"One of them was to try and see if we could assist in dealing with some of the health issues.
"Having seen and having interrupted a large number of ladies trying to do their meditation already - and I hope benefiting from it, and the yoga - nothing could give me greater pleasure than to congratulate all involved in producing this wonderful centre."
Carolyn Paton, health and well-being coordinator at Dumfries House, said: "This fantastic new facility will allow us to grow the provision we have offered free of charge to hundreds of people across Ayrshire.
"It's a really exciting time for the health and well-being team here and it was so special to have His Royal Highness present to open our new home."
Angelina Panico, a local GP from the Valley Medical Practice in New Cumnock, refers patients to Dumfries House.
She attended the special event along with some of her patients and spoke of the importance of having longevity in the programme and patients being given something to continue after their visit to the centre.
The GP said: "From my practice and patients' perspective Prince Charles has been hugely involved in our community and trying to improve services for them.
"His presence and the work he's done is greatly appreciated by the people of New Cumnock and the wider community.
"He was asking about the patients we'd referred and if we still have plenty of number of patients to refer in the future - which of course we do.
"And he was asking about the activities on at the time, in particularly the yoga.
"I asked if he was keen to join in but he kind of laughed that off."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here