Home Improvements.

We have a few weeks between bookings so have implemented some improvements. The first and most obvious is ditching the third sink in the kitchen in favour of this beautiful cooker, good for rentals, good for the destination dining club we have planned and I can't wait to see the merry dance of Aga and Kenwood in the hands of Big Al (the chef).

There is also now a shower in Mrs. Black's bathroom. We are gradually ticking off the list of trappings you traded in Sally Shalam's Guardian review.

Outdoor sports.

Last weekend there was a hen party in the house and Tracey and Ian Pullen from Active Spirit returned to give them a crack at archery. Then I bumped into John Mason from Full On Adventure at the Cairngorms Business Conference who has invited me to go white water rafting and can take groups of pretty much any size canoeing, climbing, snowboarding, skiing or rafting. I would recommend either of them and there is great wisdom in choosing a good guide with the right kit and training if you are heading into what can be extreme conditions in the Cairngorms.

Aviemore is also the ideal place to get your sports a bit wrong. Aimee came up to help out for the photo shoot we had a month ago but came off her bike just after we finished, shattering one of her beautifully prominent cheekbones. I will spare both you and her the gruesome ignominy of photos, suffice to say the Aviemore medical practise and Raigmore hospital were so efficient we decided to deal with the consequences here. One month, 2 operations and a little titanium later and Aimee is back together. In the meantime she made friends with everyone in the valley, ate a lot of soup, received a lot of flowers and by Wednesday was as sad to be leaving as we were to see her go. I suppose in all the drama that can be seen as some sort of silver lining.

The Bothy part III.

What was the most orange bedroom since the advent of orange is now cream and a whole heap calmer as a result. Now there's just the roof and gutters to contend with.

Rothiemurchus.

Rothiemurchus is the enormous estate that neighbours Inshriach. Last week I took myself on their Land Rover Safari to get a better idea of the workings of the place. One tour can't take in the whole estate, which stretches high into the Cairngorms, but you get an idea of what goes into such an operation in the 21st century, from farming to forestry, tourism and wildlife management, and through the various buildings such as the Doune, (the recently and beautifully restored Jacobean / Georgian pile where the Grant family now live), or Drumintoul lodge and the fascinating Victorian and wartime outbuildings thereabouts, it's a little window into the social history of the Spey valley. We also went to the red deer farm which supplies the amazing venison they stock at the farm shop, getting up close to a herd like that is a pretty special experience.

Active Spirit.

A group coming next month have engaged the services of Tracey and Ian Pullen of Active Spirit to run an archery session. They wanted to have a look at Inshriach ahead of time so brought round some targets and all the required kit so we could have a shot. Even though nobody here was under 30 it was surprisingly addictive. Tracey and Ian are a lovely couple and who gave us a few pointers and had us shooting pretty accurately after an hour or so (though not by the time this photo was taken). It's around £90 for a three hour session and happens right here on the lawn.

Location location.

Helen Abraham, a Glasgow based photographer, has been here this weekend to catch the autumnal colours and beef up her portfolio of fashion photography. She brought Rebecca, a beautiful flame haired model, coincided with Aimee on hair and costume, and caught a day, dawn to dusk, of the most astonishingly vibrant colour and light and mist. We used everything from the bracken in the woods to the river to the flat grey of the squash court to the interiors of the house, even some of the cars as backdrops, everywhere you turned was another opportunity. The results can now be seen on Helen's flickr page.

Balvenie revisited.

The brand ambassador for Balvenie invited me to the distillery for a personal tour this week. Balvenie is one of the last family owned distilleries, one of the last to have its own malting floor, its own cooperage and its own warehousing (43 enormous sheds stacked high for decades with maturing whisky). A tour there is a few hours of alchemy; brass, copper stills, furnaces and a little science applied to age honed techniques for combining (or just leaving) casks for the ideal balance of flavours or consistency. We finished up in warehouse 24, the oldest part of the distillery, where we drew ourselves samples direct from the cask. There are plans afoot for Balvenie tastings at Inshriach on a couple of occasions next year but in the meantime I would recommend a heading up there for a tour if you like your whisky (it's just over an hour away).