The woodland workshop.

Over the last 2 days Tom has been out in the woods running the first rustic furniture making course under the (temporarily covered) cruck frame workshop. The next course is mid September but we can arrange either one day (basic skills, spoons, bowls etc) or more complicated courses on demand, its about £50 per day and it can be for as few as 2 and as many as 6 people at a time.

Take a look at the Woodentom website or his facebook page for more details and give him a shout to arrange something.

The Beermoth goes international.

A few months back Marie Clare Maison got in touch from Paris asking if they could come up to do an interiors feature on the Beermoth. Implausible as that my sound it happened this week, the photographer making her way from London, the editor all the way from Paris. The truck behaved, the weather behaved and we wait with fashionably baited breath for the results. An added bonus was that the Bothy Project (which they hadn't seen in their research) was ideal for a small spaces feature that comes out in February and they went away with an iphone crammed with photos of the house for further inspiration.

Balancing out the Interior features with some holiday press, Red magazine were here to review the yurt on Monday and that spun itself out into another feature on the estate for the sustainable lifestyle magazine Sublime. In the meantime look out for the next edition of Jocks and Nerds magazine who swung by to take my portrait a month ago and until that comes out here is a review of the yurt from TNT magazine, and another little number on the truck, neither of which I had noticed coming out. My favourite in the burgeoning press folder is this elegantly constructed analysis of the of the truck from Architizer, if only I had I known I was breaking free from my structural and cultural fixities I might have put on a decent shirt.

And then it's back to telly land. Of which more later.

George Clarke's Micro Designs.

Last weeks most amusing distraction, apart from ragwort pulling, was a day filming with George Clarke the Restoration Man. He is making a series on Micro Designs which will be aired later this year. The Beermoth is the focus of this episode and seeing as we had a beautiful day and lots of (I thought) witty banter, it ought to be pretty entertaining. It also brought to light a few other projects we are considering that he would be keen to cover - of which more later...

Heritage Commercial

There's a lot of motorised activity going on down on the farm this month and the Beermoth is once again setting the PR pace. Here she is with a 4 page feature in this months Heritage Commercial magazine. The niche nature of the publication will be offset later this month with a more fashion / interiors related piece and her first TV appearance.
She has been joined today by this very pretty Jaguar XK140, the folk staying in the 'moth have driven it all the way from Hampshire in a 1950s motoring pilgrimage.

Bygone Drives.

Over the last few months our friends at Bygone Drives in Aviemore have been on my kind of buying spree. Do you need a Bentley, a Range Rover or a convertible MG while you are holiday? Of course you do.

The Bedford is back.

Regular readers, of which I'm sure there must be at least one, will know that I'm a sucker for a motorised project and may have already met this 1962 Bedford. Last year it starred in a movie called 500 miles north, in which it broke down a lot between Warwickshire and here. It's very pretty but under the skin is a terribly botched conversion to Ford power. In order to finish the film in a few weeks we have to finish the camper, remounting the engine, fitting more suitable steering, rewiring it and generally making it nice. Hence Jimmy Whitmore is here, alternative fuels whizz, ace fabricator and the only mechanical person I know who would be totally unphased by the horribleness of the task. I have been known to speak too soon, and with the house rented out and the new estate office conversion at a midway point there are certainly more important things to do, but with Jim about a few of the inhabitants of the Inshriach abstract motoring stable may find their way back on the road over the next fortnight.