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The Insider 2011.
The Insider website is now live and any moment now the ticket buying system will be live too.
Thanks to Rufus, Molly, Mathew, Henry and anyone else who has had a say in the website, we love it and you have given us a lot to live up to.
A guide to yurting.
Due to popular demand we have kept the yurt available throughout this winter and I have been impressed / bemused by the willingness / foolhardiness of the folks who have chosen to spend their weekends there, the lowest recorded temperature being a barely survivable 22 degrees below. I have been asked a couple of times what it would be like and I had to say I hadn’t tried it in the winter. It is, after all, a tent in the highlands.
So 2 nights back I gave it a shot. I am no hardcore outdoorsman, I don’t own North Face pyjamas and there was a foot of snow all round with a frozen crust on top, thankfully it cant have dropped below minus 4.
Here are my recommendations.
Life revolves around the woodburner.
Get here early, chop lots of kindling and get the fire lit. Its not instant heat by any stretch and dealing with all that in the dark is more difficult (adding wine makes it easier). The smaller you get the wood the hotter the woodburner will be, therefore the easier it will be to cook on (you want it really roaring), also the faster it will burn out, you have to find a balance.
We went for the simple option – pasta, sauce, garlic bread (in the oven). There were 6 of us round to the yurt for dinner which was no problem but you should probably triple any recommended cooking times. It pays to leave the big kettle on all the time the fire is lit. I have just bought a dutch oven – a big cast iron pot on a chain for one pot meals over the bonfire – but haven’t tried it yet.
Chuck two or three generous scoops of coal in before bed and open the little wheel just a crack. Also fill the oven with wood at night, it may catch fire if its up against the back of the oven but it will be tinder dry and speed up your morning coffee no end. If it does go out empty the fire and start again, I often go to change the yurt and find the firebox is totally choked.
Honestly what was it like? Really comfortable, not warm exactly but the two duvets and three rugs would keep anything out. It must have been baltic when it was minus 22 and super cold as soon as the burner went out. I could do a bit of draft proofing and perhaps turn the doors to open inwards. I’m tempted by a bigger stove but dont want to sacrifice the oven. If there weren’t quite so many jobs to do round the farm and it wasn’t a significant part of my income I would live down there for the summer, go back to nature, go fishing and read a lot. I have a couple of brilliant books I’m going to leave there.
The question on my mind now is who gets it for the Insider Festival… Suggestions, blank cheques and begging letters to the usual address.
Weddings.
The first Inshriach wedding of the year took place a few weeks back. Sam and Anna chose a humanist celebration and decided, with it being February and the highlands, to have it outside without a tent. The two families spent a week decorating the house, preparing food and hanging hundreds of fairy lights and team Inshriach (Allan Heaney the chef, his girlfriend Ellie, Sophie and Nicole from the estate and Ali Caplin and Hazen Metro on fiddle and pipes respectively) swung in to help make it all happen.
Oddly on the same weekend we were featured in ‘Best Scottish Weddings Magazine’ on the back of some excellent photos taken at a wedding last year by Helen Abraham.
Camp Bedford and the Beer Moth.
Last weeks ebay rambling brought to light a lovely little 1962 Bedford CA campervan in Glasgow. There was no way we (Inshriach Abstract Motoring inc.) could justify it in the petrol fumed wake of the Commer but for our friend Emma B it was love at first sight. We keep it on the road and use it as a spare room for the Beer Moth or for the yurt, Emma uses it during school holidays (she is a teacher) and everyone is happy.
In the meantime the ‘Moth has been pressed into service to and from the builders merchant. It is insanely expensive to run – it’s cheaper to get a taxi into town – but plasterboard doesn’t fit in a taxi and we have a laundry to build before the rentals get super busy next week. Her new roof is under construction, complete with windows and an extra foot of headroom to accommodate holidaying double bass players. With luck everything will be back in service for the start of May.
Home Improvements.
Team Inshriach have taken advantage of a fortnight off to prepare for our first wedding of the year. We redecorated a bathroom in this fetching Edwardian ochre, complete with barbers shop still life on the shelves, replaced the only bed in the house which didnt meet our exacting Edwardian aesthetic standards (Miss Blacks) with a lovely distressed Victorian brass number and oiled the floors of the veranda and the front porch to tidy everything up. We also finished the new soakaways off the sunroom, a job that was snowed off in November.
Elsewhere round the farm we started tidying up the woods by the river where the beer moth will end up and took apart the coldframes ready for vegetable season. Harry and I then took the ‘moth on largely unproductive but very amusing expedition to see if the Highland Folk museum and the Strathspey steam railway would put some of their Victoriana behind the Insider. Watch this space.
The Beer Moth.
Last week I conducted a Facebook poll on whether to choose a 1950s Commer lorry or another yurt and the result came out resoundingly in favour of the truck. The milweb classifieds threw up an ideal candidate and on Sunday afternoon I flew to Manston, on the North Kent coast. A deal was done and by 6 o clock I was crunching gears and annoying roadusers, foot to the boards at 40mph. First stop was The Dove on Broadway market for a New Year reunion, then a taxi run to Canary wharf and back to Bow, a round trip of 10 miles and a fuel bill of £20.
Monday saw wingman Ali and myself make it to Captain Bob in Derbyshire, covering a blistering 150 miles in 10 hours, trailing a comet tail of traffic all across the Peak District.
On Tuesday evening we reached Edinburgh, this time the Pennines and the A68 held our average at 20mph. On Wednesday afternoon the Beer Moth entered the Cairngorms and a mere 5 1/2 hours after leaving Edinburgh (average 25mph) she was parked up in Aviemore. 650 miles, £600 in fuel and 28 hours behind the wheel later.
Once I find somewhere for all the useful things we collected en route a new roof with windows is being made. A woodburner, fairy lights, lanterns, drinks cabinet and a double bed are going in. We will make a staircase, a front door and a back wall and we will run a massive raid on an army surplus shop to have her ready for April. Bookings will again be through Canopy and Stars unless you have an existing booking at Inshriach.
Watch this space as the Beer Moth settles in.
The Insider.
Plans for the Insider 2011 are now underway. The theme is Victorian, the dates are the 17th to the 20th June and you can find more details about it first on the Insider 2011 blog. We will soon have a fresh new squirrel, a website up and tickets on sale at www.insiderfestival.com.
See you in June.
Late availability and a big truck.
Due to cancellation the next 2 weekends are available in the house for £1200 rather than £1500. Its snowing too so get your last minute skiing plans in. The only other remaining dates until June are the first 2 weekends of March.
Just to run another idea around, the yurt has been really popular this year but as an alternative I’m thinking of getting one of these. Its a 1954 Commer Lorry, an ex Auxiliary Fire Service Hoselayer. I reckon with a double bed and a woodburner and some Inshriach craftsmanship by way of cupboards, a door and a staircase on the back, it could be cute – in a ‘Where Eagles Dare’ meets “Little House on the Prairie’ kind of way. I would be very interested to hear what you think, especially if you have stayed in the Inshriach yurt over the last year.
The Big Yurt.
I have spent the last 2 days at Touch House near Stirling helping my friends from Red Kite Yurts put up their 42ft yurt. If you want to see it head down after Tuesday. It’s the largest yurt in Scotland (until their elongated 30 x 60 ft yurt is ready in April) and has easily the most complicated and specialised erection process (for want of a better phrase) of any marquee I have ever seen. We are using it for a wedding at Inshriach in May and I’m trying hard to justify having it for the Insider.
Ord Ban.
Were never going to go out quietly. From Wednesday there has built a crescendo of food and music as some of the attention, effort, love and entertainment that Ross and Polly Cameron have put into their business and the people around them came winging right back at them.
Lau and Admiral Fallow played Sundays grand finale in the restaurant, then there was a bus and Inshriach became a Who’s Who of Scotland finest musicians. Gathered under one roof – Aidan O’Rourke, Kris Drever and Martin Green, Charlie McKerron, Louis Abbot, Tom Stearns and the rest of Admiral Fallow, Colin McLeod (aka the Boy Who Trapped the Sun), John Langan, Ali Caplin and Hazen Metro, Roberta and the Calums from the Banana Sessions and Gillian and Tom Caldwell, all ducking and dancing, strumming, singing and fiddling through the night (and the next night), with another 50 odd friends and well wishers along for the ride. Absolutely amazing and before anyone asks, no, under no circumstances would we allow it again.
Ord Ban lives on, just in a different form. They are off on holiday for a month and by the time they get back the Insider will be very much in the pipeline, and Lau have kindly agreed to curate our folkish Sunday line up…
It’s on.
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