High Days and Holidays

Well today is the day it has come at last - we set off for our own break this afternoon.  We pick up our campervan this afternoon from Highdays and Holidays which is just across the road from the cottage so very handy. It has the luxury of a real bed so we won't be needing to reorganise the furniture every night as we did last time  when we took our trip up the West Coast of Scotland.  No hassle really but if there is a choice I'll go for the cosy bed. 
Check out www.highdaysandholidays.biz on our local website www.incallander.co.uk we have booked the 4 berth van.  We've not made a real travel plan. Just going to head in the general direction of the South of Scotland round Galloway and see where the wind blows, or not, preferably.  Remembering our campsite two years ago, high on the hill above Ullapool, as the wind came straight over us that night, it was very scary - absolutely beautiful when the sun shone in the morning though.
The good thing about a campervan holiday is the packing, or rather loading, as it should be a case of taking what we need from the cottage and finding a space for it all in the van.  I may have more to add to that sentence on the next blog.  Now off to feed the birds with some peanuts to keep them going a wee bit until we get back in ten days time. Happy holidays here we come!

Special visitor to Roslin

One of the best things about having a B&B is welcoming back folks who have stayed with us  - and when they bring their friends it is even better. A few weeks ago Robbie brought along a very special friend, Scotia. A beautiful barn owl he has kept in his aviary for many years - and here is Scotia sitting patiently on the dike at the back door while we were inside having a blether.

After that we explored the garden usually full of the little birds who had quickly made a sharp exit to the hedge.  Can you see Scotia on the old cherry tree stump?

When the wings are out you can see how tiny the body is....

Scotia was as light as a feather to hold!

Where does time go?

Time is faster than Peter Pan's shadow at disappearing.  Though I have searched everywhere over the past few weeks it never seems to be in the same place as I left it last. 
I've looked under the beds and even took the hoover with me as it is good to be able to multi task if you run a B&B business but only a stray feather there which was quickly sooked up.  Thought for sure it would be in the den, lurking behind the computer, but no joy there either, but checked all the e-mails just in case it had slipped inside one. 
Of course that made me think of the pillow cases (mind like a grasshopper I have as you can tell if you ever read my blog - don't think anyone does though as there are no followers yet).  The ironing press is in the den too - strategically placed so that I can do some bird watching as the sheets and pillow cases have their wrinkles smoothed away. A young Great Spotted Woodpecker helped me look for a wee while as he was intent on getting the peanuts but time eluded  me again.
That took me out to the garden where time has so many places to hide the whole day can go by searching for it and that can be very rewarding as Roslin Cottage won 2nd prize for Best Kept garden this summer from Callander Community Council.
 I did find some lovely Shetland Black tatties which our guests enjoyed for breakfast.  Pity it was not nearer Hallowe'en as they cooked up truly black, and no that was not the chef taking his eye off the pan. Talking of Sid it is time to go and give him a hand - maybe we will have more success in finding time if we look together.

Blackbird breakfast

Why is the camera never handy when you see a perfect picture?  Mother blackbird feeding a worm to her baby just beside the well - but no camera to hand!

Hwever, next day she was busy again, this time both were perched on the cherry tree stump and I got a couple of photos.

Working Well

When I was little where I lived on the croft at Buldoo we had a well in the back field where we dropped the pail in to collect the water - I don't remember ever drinking it though as by that time we had mains water in the kitchen.  It was more of a novelty.
 Here at Roslin Cottage we have a working well where the water is pumped up.  It is beautifully made inside with bricks spiralling round.  When we first came here Sid wanted to go down to see how far it went but was 'persuaded' not to - actually threatened would be more true.  Anyway his life insurance had just been set up, only joking :)

We have talked about getting the water tested to see how good it is for drinking as there are many wells in the Callander area where the water is used but we have not yet got round to that.  I do use it to water the plant pots and in the garden.   Visiting children enjoy splashing it in to the bucket too!

Another way to enjoy the water here in the Trossachs is to have a cruise on Loch Katrine and if you can combine that with some music as you can on Saturday 21st July then you are in for a special day -www.lochkatrine.com for more details.

Breakfast and left overs

We had our Quality Assurance visit from Visit Scotland recently and were advised to put a photo of our breakfast table laid ready on to our website page on www.visitscotland.com  as it seems it has the wow factor.  Many of our guests have taken pictures of the breakfast platter as Sid sets it out on the table.  We keep meaning to but it seems more important to make sure everyone is enjoying their breakfast than to disturb our guests in their conversations by taking photos. One of these days...

The Scottish breakfast, is served on a platter for two, so that guests can take to their taste,  but people  do get concerned about the waste of food if they cannot finish everything.  We do assure them that we do not force feed guests at Roslin Cottage as we have many ways of using up their left overs.

 The birds, or low flying aircraft as Sid calls them, get the toasts, mixed well with the fat that would have gone down the sink had we not set up 'a fat pot' to collect it.  Bacon scraps, sausage and other meat food scraps, including the haggis, are sometimes added and appreciated.  All the veg scraps and eggshells go to the compost or to our wormery, wherever it is needed most. 

We set up the wormery two years ago as our garden had no worms to be found.  Apparently it had been visited by the New Zealand flat worms who soon decimated our native species.  Gradually we are re-introducing the worms and their casts back in to the soil when the trays of veggie left overs are mixed well with the compost from the wormery. 

 The milk carton is set to collect the worm 'tea' which can be diluted and added to the garden.  When bairns visit us they can be fascinated to see how the wormery works but it is a bit like Marmite too, love it or hate it.   I have not added any photos of the worms at work - yet! :)
Anyone for a Marmite sandwich?

When is a pond not a pond?

I was hanging out the washing today when the heron flew over, they are nesting in the woods at the back of the cottage.  Lucky for him (or her) the River Teith is just across the field from the cottage as there would be lean pickings in our pond, for it is dry.  Actually it was built as a dry pond on purpose because we occasionally have wee bairns staying with us, at our bed and breakfast, and the thought of a little one falling in to a real pond was not something I could cope with.  So it was a compromise when I saw the article in our local paper, the Stirling Observer, on how to create a dry water feature, if that makes sense.

The base is the top from an old coffee table, built round the edges with stones, 'floating' on the top are glass pebbles, stones and bits and pieces added from our walks.  There are a few coloured beads from necklaces long out of fashion,  a glass penguin which has survived temperatures as low as -10 and bits of driftwood from Reay beach. 

The green glass float has never seen the sea for well over 60 years that I know, as it came as a gift from Aunt Janey when she was moving from her Edinburgh home to live up North.  The wee lobster creel is nearly as old.  Dad made it for me when I was a student teacher.  It has told the story of the fishermen to many a child. 

Sitting at the back wall, the mirror reflects the seasons as the beech hedge opposite changes from the bronze coat of winter to the fresh green of spring.  Sometimes, when I am doing the ironing I watch the comings and goings of the birds in and out of the hedge. A belligerent chaffinch spent ages challenging its' reflection the other day.  He made me smile.

Thrifty, recycling or good common sense?

I think my blogs are going to be like men and buses - none for ages then 3 at once.  For the next few blogs I am going to tell you how we use, reuse and recycle to put what we do at Roslin Cottage and in our garden into modern jargon.  I call it common sense but then I am 'off the croft'.

 This comes as a request from some of our visitors who have enjoyed a walk around our garden and commented on what we have done in it over the past 8 years - can it be that long? 

The coldframe was one of the first things Sid made.  If you look closely you will see the top is made from a shower door which otherwise would have been crushed when the chalets next door to the cottage were being demolished to make way for the new Bellway housing estate Forest Walk.  The seedlings are coming on nicely in a selection of vegeware coffee cups and kitchen roll tubes.  Mushroom trays from the market are ideal to keep the pots together especially when the whole lot can be immersed in the old tin bath for a good soak.  To be continued...

Where does time go?

We often hear our guests around the breakfast table discussing how fast their holiday is going, it must be something to do with being busy, as we certainly have been here at Roslin Cottage B&B.  Over the past weeks between guests and garden it has been all go but mustn't grumble.

Many of our guests have come by pedal power using Route 7 sometimes assisted by using www.saddleskeddadle.co.uk  to bring on their luggage to us which I must admit would be the way I would do it if I was cycling from Glasgow to Inverness.  It is a beautiful route by car and until the A9 is dual carriage way all the way probably a lot safer too.

But British Rail don't make it easy for folks wanting to bring their own bikes as it seems there is only space for 2 or 3 bikes on each train and even then you cannot book online when you do your ticket.  To book your bike on at the same time means phoning to their call centre in India which does not seem the most time or cost effective way to go about things. The days of the guard's van and bikes loaded on are long gone - but perhaps an  enterprising person could arrange with the railway companies to get something similar set up.  As they say we have managed to put men on the moon so maybe we can get bikes back on the trains.

Recycled teenager

Well now it is official and I have the pass to prove it - bus pass that is :)
Last time I had one of those I was a teenager at Thurso High School travelling in from Buldoo Downreay so I think that makes me a recycled teenager.  Don't worry I won't be a typical teenager (if there is such a thing - I think they get a bad press as most of the teenagers I know work hard and play hard too) I still intend to get up in time in the mornings to do my turn, bed and breakfast,  would not be the same without me 'helping' Sid.
I have started my 'bucket list' of places to go on the bus so all suggestions welcome!

The Tulach

I scribble a bit when I make time and someone has suggested I put some in my blog.  This little poem comes from a childhood memory of rolling our eggs down the Tulach, that  being the Gaelic name for the little hill on the old airdrome in the north, Caithness, where we gathered on Easter morning.
  This site now rings to the blasts of drills and warning sirens as enormous pits are being dug into the slate  rocks below to take the radioactive waste from nearby Dounreay and probably many other places world wide.

The Tulach

The Tulach is a place of death

In Stone Age times bodies at the end of life

Curled back into foetal size and hid

Throughout aeons of time, until one day

An accidental kick uncovered a bone.

Then learned men from the South took

Hold of pick and trowel and dug away

Discovering the pit where the seashells

Of meals long eaten and discarded lay.

Now shells of chocolate and tea stained eggs

Lie scattered at the base of this ancient mound

A childhood place on Easter morn where bairns gathered

To roll their eggs of birth and celebration, fun.

Another time; this time, a place for life, begun.

What's on in and around Callander

Easter and an egg hunt with a difference - join in this April for Loch Katrine's daily Easter Egg Hunt - free with Cruise Tickets for the Steamship Sir Walter Scott or the Lady of the Lake visit www.lochkatrine.com  for details.  Sid and I were a little early for this when we took our trip on Loch Katrine last week but how lucky are we to be able to enjoy the fantastic scenery all around us and even some sunshine.  Definitely recommend this trip to our visitors and especially now that it has achieved 4* Visit Scotland status.
A little more home grown is the Callander Sport and Adventure Project where plans are in place to run various events over the coming months.  If you enjoy running then their next event, Callander 10k on 29 April might suit you - this dynamic tour of Callander and its spectacular surroundings is one of Britain's most stunning 10k races.  Aprox. 60% trail / 40% tarmac. Enter at www.entrycentral.com
 If I was more sporty I would try it myself but friends will tell you that even when I had my gym membership it was the coffee shop which was the favourite place.  To be fair though we do a lot of walking and enjoyed our spring walk up to the Bracklinn Falls - the long way round via the Keltie Caravan park.

Spring is the best time

I'm with Monty Don when it comes to the best time of the year - for us, spring wins every time. He loves the greenness and I love the spring flower colours. The forsythia buds just beginning to burst and the yellow sunbursts of crocus and daffodils cheer up the grayest of days.  Tatties chitting and some even planted up in the bags we tried last year - a great way to crop if space is short. Still a wee bit too cold to sow the beans in the ground but planting them up in pots ready to go in is the next job on the garden list.  I did read that old gardeners dropped their trousers to test if the earth was warm enough but we don't go that far at Roslin Cottage. Neighbours and all that...
Across the road from the cottage purple crocus have been planted along side the daffodils and with the blue sky and sunshine what a lovely picture they make. We watched as the 'snow horse' melted off the top of 'the ben', or at least that is the shape we see from our side of Callander but it depends on where you are and how the imagination works, what you see as Ben Ledi loses her winter coat.  Yes, spring is round the corner, the best time in the Trossachs.

A new lease of life

The last coat of paint has dried, a beautiful mellow copper colour to bring out the earthy colours of the stones, carpet cleaned, furniture all back in place and our Kirtle room is now ready to receive the first guests due in this weekend.  Well, there was a slight panic as I hunted through the various duvets stored in the loft, yes, we have summer weight and winter quilts in single, double and somewhere in between, but could I find the superking needed, no, but that was because it had been put to the laundrette while we were doing the redecorating. Duh!   Retrieved and resplendent it now sets off the new colour scheme beautifully.  We hope you agree when we get the new photos taken for the website. Meantime here is one I took earlier.....
 Our new 'pet' is now in residence too, no worries, no allergies to fear, for this pet burns wood very efficiently.  We are converts to the warm delights of the wood burning stove - I am almost disappointed the summer is coming around so soon.  Well, almost....
Just as one job finishes, the next starts here at Roslin Cottage- over the last couple of days we have had really lovely spring weather so we got out in the garden.  We have had to make a few changes there as the winter storms tore off a branch from our old, very large and much loved cherry tree.  It was in danger of more branches coming down so we reluctantly had to have the whole tree cut leaving a stump of about four feet.  We talked over many ideas of what to do with it to keep it as a feature.  It was while we were on our own wee holiday to Madeira last November that we saw an idea to copy in the Botanical Gardens there (an island worth a visit).
There they had taken palm leaves, filled them with soil, planted them up with different plants and wired them round old tree stumps.  Very simple, very effective. Back home we have made our own version with old hanging baskets (never enough time to water them in the summer now anyway), moss and spring bulbs all now spiralling round our old cherry - a new lease of life!

Well that was a surprise!

It took longer than we expected and it will cetainly be worth it in the end but when we set off to get plastered together we might just have led you a little up the garden path. And if you know the garden path at Roslin Cottage it goes up quite a long way but it was for a good reason. We're nearly recovered now.   For it was stones, all to do with stones and plaster walls that had hidden them away for generations. Now with Sid's hard work on the old plaster we have found another beautiful stone wall in the bedroom we call The Kirtle for that is the old name of our cottage.
  It started last year when we had decided that a wood burning stove would be a good thing to have in the cottage - we collect our own wood and are very environmentally aware.  This way we could have a gentle heat in the dining room which would go through the cottage and save on other fuel.  As always,  though nothing is straight forward - best laid plans of mice, men, Lucy and Sid and all that...
Now a couple of weeks on and the new stove goes in next week, that's a job for the professionals so we have called on the Scottish Stove Centre who are based at Croftamie to do that.  Meantime we are going to repoint the wall in the bedroom with proper lime mortar and build in the old fireplace we found bricked up with some lovely old stones. Busy times...back soon.

We're going to get plastered

We've been planning doing something together for ages as we don't get much chance over the summer (sailing, gardening and all that), then all of a sudden it's Christmas and New Year and so much going on again. But finally we're going to do it - this weekend!
Of course we've both done it before with other friends, in our other lives, but this will be so different as this time Sid and I will be doing it together. 
Och, we've been steaming before, and that was good fun too but never plastered. Proper head banging, top to toe plastered. Can't wait! Counting down as I write...
We got all sorted out yesterday, everything's ready, you have to do that in a B&B, just in case guests come knocking on the door. Our clothes are all set out - we both like to dress for the part and now, today's the day.
 I'll let you know how we got on - soon.

Happy New Year

It's been a great start to the year with time to catch up on family and friends. We have welcomed a few guests in over the year too. A long time ago a friend gave me a little placemat which said 'Never get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life'. Not being one who makes resolutions (because I know myself too well) this year is going to be different in that this is going to be my mantra.
Happy New Year to you and yours- and here's wishing that what's for you won't go by you.