You may have noticed I haven’t actually published anything here recently at all.  So, it has been almost 2 years in fact since I put anything on here.  In the meantime, what have we been up to?

Well in 2022 we upgraded all the beds – changing from twin beds downstairs to a brand new king-size, upgrading the upstairs twin beds to divans with storage and treating the main bedroom to a new mattress.  The downstairs bedroom is now much more “grown-up” reflecting the needs of much of the clientele we have attracted over the previous 8 years – there are comfortable chairs and a neat little study/reading area, and the spare bedding can be stored in the ottoman that forms part of the bed – making life a little easier for our housekeeper too.  The upstairs twin beds are now much more comfortable and robust, and the main bedroom’s bed no longer can be accused of being a little bit lumpy!  We also treated ourselves to a some new bedding to show off the “new” bedroom.

We have completely overhauled the heating system in an attempt to gain some control over the electricity we use – brand new, efficient, internet-controlled heaters in all the main rooms – the difference to the overall feel of the cottage, particularly in the downstairs bedroom, has been staggering.

We have not neglected the outside either. I think I have probably hand-moved around 4 tons of stone in both the top and bottom gardens. We tidied up the seaward side of the bothan in the bottom garden – little job (took us many holidays to complete – we still have to clear the remainder of the stone from behind the bothan between us and our neighbours, before er can start looking at clearing the remaining stone, we semi-sorted in there in 2015. Every time we do something like this we are left with piles of unused stone (that will come in useful as we mend walls round the property.  But something ahs to be done with them – hence little carefully constructed piles of stone have started cropping up – 2 circular piles in the bottom garden, plus a large rectangular pile just inside the entrance, and 2 or 3 in the Upper Garden.

I say 2 or 3 as one is a slight cheat – we have covered up the concrete remains of the old water supply with one.  Also the large circular one by the willow started out in a completely different location, but our current project has involved moving the store of wood, cement and garden equipment further up the garden so my first circular pile had to be relocated across the other side of the garden. It is a better build than the first attempt, but it was rather soul-destroying having to demolish it before completely rebuilding.  Next stop is to rebuild the wall behind it, which has suffered somewhat when the sheep get in, while the wood store gets a new surround to neaten it up too.