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Last week the film circus returned to the Highlands with Emma Thompson’s new period drama feature, Effie, starring Dakota Fanning. Effie tells the story of the affair between the Victorian Art critic John Ruskin’s wife and John Everett Millais and there were plenty of costumes that would have looked quite at home at the Insider. I was tasked with taking Petal the Land Rover out to the west coast, along with a couple of cohorts from Aviemore, where I was detailed to the camera department for the week and given the challenge of not getting stuck, flooded or lost. Here I am executing an inelegant reentry after a river burst its banks and the days set had to be speedily evacuated.

Last weekends spoon carving course was a great success, Wooden Tom did a fine job of making sure everyone kept their fingers and got the basics required to carve a spoon. The 6 folk who came along all left promising to go out and buy themselves axes, knives and gouges. Three of them have booked for the bowl carving course we are running on 15th November (which is already sold out) but more courses can be put together on a pretty ad hoc basis if you have 6 people up for it, and £40 seems very reasonable for a whole day of crafty, carvy and rewarding entertainment.

Friday was a quickfire run down to Edinburgh and the Royal Scottish Academy for the opening night of the Resident : 11 exhibition. The RSA have supported a number of artists through their Residents for Scotland programme. They have a network of predominantly art institute partners across Scotland and contemporary artists get to spend time in research and production in unusual locations. The RSA have partially funded the Bothy Project as part artwork and part miniaturised embodiment of what they are trying to achieve.

After seeing pictures of ourselves and the build plastered across the hallowed walls of the RSA we are coming back to earth by figuring out rainwater harvesting and filtering and we need get our hands on enough larch to clad the gables.

Last weekend saw another bothy building delegation descend on Inshriach, now the wall cladding is on, the side windows are in, complete with beautiful oak sills and sides, and most of the insulation and lining has gone in. The architectural detail that has gone into the design is starting to tell in the overall proportions, the views through the building, the floor to eaves windows, the custom made, diminutive and beautiful (if probably not very practical) folded gutters and the silvery cladding. It is a traditional bothy with a modernist twist. We are two weeks off the next build party when we hope to have it clad, windowed and watertight. There is a much more extensive blog and photo gallery of the build here on the bothy project website.

Meanwhile, just along the valley at the Lazy Duck in Nethy Bridge, David and Valerie have just finished their fabulous Woodmans hut, living proof that there is more than one way to skin a cat. Their hut is situated on the old woodmans trail that runs through their forest and is mostly built with timber thinned from its immediate surroundings. The hut has great views of the Cairngorms and a veranda out front perfectly suited to Appalacian relaxation. Inside it has a box bed, a stove, oak flooring and a great little kitchen, outside there’s a bush shower, compost loo and fridge (ie a stream). Its very cute and I highly advise getting in to stay there before they realise what a bargain it is or it gets famous and is booked out all the time.

Our second last wedding of the year took place a few weeks back so my congratulations go out to Lucy and Simon. We do seem to be picking up the alternative end of the Aviemore wedding market, each one this year (7 to date) has had its own distinctive style due to the personalities and choices of those involved, this one was pretty frantic for the last 48 hours but worked out to be a lot of fun. This was the first time Bygone drives have been brought in for the wedding cars, the first time we have used this particular marquee and lighting company and the first time we have gone for a photo booth in the tipi.
Ord Ban played again, they are proving hard to top for the music, Taste of Moray were super professional helping get the house sorted while everyone was at church and then doing fine things with the food and Helen Abraham once again took amazing photos (these rubbish ones are my own work). You can read Helen’s take on the wedding and have a look at a few rather better photos here on her website.
Without turning this into a sales pitch (we dont really do sales pitches) if you want a wedding at Inshriach we charge a facility fee of £1200 on top of the full weekly rental. We don’t charge corkage or put a commission on anything, we can introduce you to all the best people for lights, tent, staging, music, food and everything else you need and we are pretty laid back about people camping if they want to (there will usually be a small per head charge for that). And that’s that.

On the 8th October we are running our first spoon carving course with Wooden Tom. Its going to cover the basics of using the axe, knife and crook knife. You can see the full details and how to book here on Tom’s website. This one is already fully booked but let me or Tom know if you fancy coming on a course and we can organise another.

The building we have always known as the bothy used to be the laundry for the big house. By the 1970s it had became a summer house and workshops and gradually, as materials became available, we have been improving it. We put back a laundry that now covers the yurt and beermoth, insulated, refloored and plastered parts of it, put in a stove, a boiler and some heating. Then we came to the tediously repetitive bit, the outside, and this is my chance to say thank you to Harry. He and Sophie have been at Inshriach since last May. They thoroughly ingrained themselves into life round here, were a source of great entertainment and Harry has taken some properly thankless tasks and made them his own. He got an offer he couldn’t refuse from the White Cube Gallery in Hoxton and left this morning (say hello if you see him, you will recognise him from the mask and plus fours).

I dont know how many weeks it has taken for him to wire brush all the paint off the old cast gutters, rustproof, prime, undercoat and topcoat them but its been ages and they look amazing. Big tubs of traditional limewash arrived a week ago and I’m now battling to remove all the modern white paint from the whole building to put on an original Edwardian finish.

I’m not massively looking forward to going solo on the game larder, the generator shed, the dairy, the dogshed, the squash court, the garages, the workshops…

Harry – if it doesn’t work out in Shoreditch there’s always a grinder here with your name on it.

I have three sets of thank yous for last week. The first is to our cousin Philip (second from left) and his 11 year old Patrick (right) for coming to stay for the first time in 30 years and giving me an excuse to down tools, pick up the phone and go out to try some of the activities available locally.

First up was G2s new zip park over on Alvie. Since they put in the brilliant zip line at the Insider I have been itching to give this a shot. They have installed 7 zip lines of increasing height, length and speed slicing to and fro over a river gorge up in the forest. You get the confidence up on the first few so by the last ones, which are seriously impressive, you can glide through the view and take it all in. It’s 25 quid for a session, suitable for all ages and I will put some pictures up when I get some so you get a better idea.

Round 2 was river tubing with Full On Adventure. I have been white water rafting with Full On John but this is a relatively new one. Its rafting for one, seated in a rubber ring, suited, booted, helmeted up and pointed off down the river. The Feshie was on the powerful side for an all ages group so we took to the Druie instead. Being in a ring you can navigate relatively shallow water, bounce yourself off the rocks (especially if you dont weigh much) and go down narrow rapids and flues. It’s obviously a lot colder and wetter and marginally riskier than the zip lines, its £39 for a session amounting to an hour and a half or so on the water and again, comes highly recommended.