Author Archive
Trimming, recycling and rebuilding.
A kindly neighbour had a hedge trimmer available so he came round this morning with his brother in law, a Swiss German gent, and some safety signs with suitably Germanic syntax and we sorted the long beech hedge along the road. Such unprompted acts of generosity have been an unexpected and amazing feature of the last year.
This afternoon Rufus and I are back to the bothy, which, as of yesterday, has a new window and a door (reconstructed out of last week’s salvage) in what was previously a windowless workshop with only legless chairs, spare slate and a thick stench of creosote.
Inedible foraging.
With the house now finished the bothy is getting an overhaul. In our usual Borrowers style we are spending nothing on it so every time I drive past a building site or a refurb I swing in with some unusual barter. This week a 1950s house was being pulled down and in exchange for 4 slices of cake we lightened their skip to the tune of the floor, the windows, some joists, bits of bathroom and a smashed conservatory. Over this weekend Rufus, Molly and I are cunningly transforming our haul into doors, walls, window frames and a raised bed.
Birthday Party.
An exceptionally lovely and talented bunch of people came from across the country for a big birthday party this weekend. By Thursday the house was full and by Saturday the roasting pit had benches around it, steps in the dry stone walling and a table fashioned from a slate pig salting slab. We drove a stake through a whole lamb and feasted through Saturday night, partied our way through Sunday night and now, Monday afternoon, some signs of normality are returning. 
Further foraging.
Bob and Miranda had seen a video on youtube of folk fishing for razor clams. You pour salt into little pits on a beach, the clams pop out, you then grab them by their slippery invertebrate bodies and work them out of their holes. We headed north to Findhorn (about 45 minutes) to see if it would work for us. We arrived just after high tide armed with a spade and salt from lidl and wandered the beach leaving little white mounds as the tide raced out. Not a single clam poked out but that was of little consequence as the most astonishing sunset stretched out across a huge soft sandy beach, then half a dozen inquisitive seals came to see what we were up to and we wound up the evening with haddock and chips in the Kimberley Arms, which, in an oddly broad sounding awards scheme, had been voted one of the ‘Hundred best things in Rural Scotland’.
Party time.
Thursday night saw the last of the gutters back onto the house and a mad cross country dash to make Oban in time for the first dance of the Argyllshire Gathering. The great and the good, the suited and booted of Scotland turned out for two nights of reels, champagne and extravagant sporrans. Thanks to everyone at Achnacloich for their hospitality, late breakfasts, tight reeling and for the stay in their splendidly potty baronial house overlooking Loch Etive.
Then it was home for a clean shirt and off to Pitlochry for the McKerrow birthdays and a third straight night on the dancefloor. Despite getting back to Aviemore at 3am Jonny was still on the river and had 2 excellent sea trout to show for his persistence. This is his 4th visit this year, he has postponed his train twice and he now knows the river so well he might have to become a ghillie rather than a guest.
Now the excellent Captain Bob is back, with Miranda in tow, so a week of moderate constructiveness is on the cards. We have an unknown number of revellers descending for a birthday extravaganza this weekend.
Guttered.
After 2 weeks of cleaning, 2 dead angle grinders, a dozen wire brushes, 9 kilos of putty, 18 litres of paint and a selection of natty safety wear
the gutters are finally back on the house. We matched the original grey from a flake, replaced a lot of the soffits, taught my mum how to drive a telehandler, endured rain and wind and the house now looks fantastic and doesnt drip on you outside the back door.
The trade off for our watertight house has been the desecration of the croquet lawn. It was always challenging, lacking the careful attentions of groundsman and roller but now, after a 10 ton JCB has zigzagged its way along the length of the house, I should alter the website to say we have a croquet set.
Huge thanks are owed here to Angus who runs Spey Building and Joinery, quick on the draw, kindly on the bill, we couldn’t have done it without him.
Thunder in the glens.
The Scottish Harley Davidson owners clubs are in town for their annual ‘Thunder in the Glens’ so Aviemore has taken an apocalyptic twist, it’s full of big guys in leather and every conceivable shape of motorbike. Over this side of the glen the screech of the angle grinder means the guttering continues. The only thing that makes this apparently endless task bearable is the prospect that the paint I’m using ought to be visible on google earth so when I’m finished the house will have skinny red lips.
In the meantime Jonny and Peter have been fishing. Jonny has caught 2 salmon in the last 2 days, had each in the net and each, with a gymnastic wriggle, got clear of him, bounced off a few rocks and somehow slithered back into the water. I was going to get Jonny to come into town for some hairy 1980s revival rock but his blood is up so we probably wont see him till dawn.
Making jam.
Take one fisherman, in this case Jonny Page, distract him from his flies. Take one 10 ton yellow telehandler, left in the driveway by friendly contractor. Combine to elevate fisherman into otherwise totally inaccessible cherry tree. Flushed with success, try to persuade someone else to make jam.
It never rains but…
The gutters on the main house are a lovely profile in cast iron but the ones on the front were looking crooked. On Thursday I finally got round to getting the long ladder out and, wobbling my way to the top, a great can of worms was opened. Plastic filler, impermeable and unprimed paint, seams of silicone holding water in the soffits, rotten woodwork, splits in the lead and an infestation of both wasps and bees. The last decorator now has a price on his head. The yellow pages gave us George the wasp man, who turned up the next day, and Angus from Spey Building and Joinery stepped up to the plate with a huge yellow telehandler and the help of two excellent guys. By yesterday evening Nick and James had all the gutters on the ground and by this evening we had remade most of the soffits, repaired the woodwork, raked huge tongues of dripping honeycomb from between the rafters and started the arduous task of cleaning up each section of gutter, welding up any cracks, priming and painting them, so far 6 sections done, probably 60 to go.
Rich Pickings.
After a fortnight of partying both here (our first party in business, pictured) and at Standon Calling, it is back to being wholesome. We started with a little get together of everyone from the estate. Ewan and Sulekha run their company, Northern Greens, from the vegetable gardens and they brought a delicious salad of lettuce, rocket and nasturtiums (apparently Grace Jones eats a lot of flowers). This set the ball rolling and our neighbours invited us to make sure their splendid veg patch doesn’t waste while they are on holiday so we dived in for sweet peas, beans, lettuces, spinach, more rocket and big juicy redcurrants.
To compliment these amazing flavoursome home grown vegetables there are the wild foods. The place is covered with little sweet raspberries, sorrel, chanterelle mushrooms, cherries and a carpet of blaeberries. After much debate about what a blaeberry scoop really is we have improvised with a bowl and a coarse nit comb. Half an hours sweeping gathered me a mug of berries and a similar volume of spiders, it’s all sitting outside overnight in case it wants to escape.
If anyone has foraging recommendations please let me know, this time next year we will certainly run a found foods course. Hedgerows and roadkill or similar.
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