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Last weekend was the Cairngorm Soapbox race, the fastest and longest gravity race in the UK. As a bit of variety from our usual business we had 40 of the competitors camping here in the field recently vacated by our main stage. The technology ranged from shed built rattlers to wind tunnel honed carbon fibre streamliners and for all the effort there were a few surprises in the final running order (well, the guy responsible for Aston Martin’s 1990s Group C Chassis did win, but apart from that).

I headed for the workshop first thing Saturday morning and the first team to come my way were the works Triumph motorcycles team with this extraordinary looking blue lozenge, its wheels canted so far in at the top it looked like a 1920s illustration of speed. A splodge of welding and fabricating saw that complete the day intact. Another three teams came through with varying degrees of bent and broken from qualifying then it was up the hill to watch them rattle down at 75mph…

Next year I’m in…

This is some time coming because I have put a lot of writing into the Insider on the festival blog so I’m going to keep it to a few pictures here and will probably come back and edit this and be more effusive. It was an extraordinary weekend and an absolute pleasure to see so many old friends, people who have stayed here, married here or stayed in the yurt amongst the revellers.

An amazing artistic and photographic response is gathering on the Insider Festival Facebook page.

Here’s to next year.

With just over a week until the Insider you would think that we would be dedicating all our time and resources to preparing ourselves but projects are like buses round here and for the last fortnight Inshriach has been the base for the filming of 500 Miles North starring Joe Morgan (Vampire Diaries) and Matt Ryan (Criminal Minds) and directed by Luke Massey.

Expect to see a lot of familiar locations if you have visited here, plus shots inside the house and round the estate, not to mention one particular vehicle from the Inshriach Abstract Motoring department making quite a considerable appearance.

I have been a bit neglectful of this blog of late, the reason being that May has been the month when all matrimony broke loose at Inshriach.

First past the post were Josie and J who married down by the river then christened the newly turfed main stage / main wedding field in style with 4 ten metre diameter tipis, arranged in a diamond formation with fires and fairy lights and a stage. (This photo courtesy of Joe Maclay, click on it for the full effect).

Ruth and John (spectacular overland travellers themselves, having driven a Land Rover from Cambridge to Sydney) chose two of Red Kite Yurts finest, a hand made Kyrgysh 42 footer for dinner and dancing and a 24 footer for food and a bar. We resurrected the Insider awning along the veranda for the ceremony and then danced reels in a circle around the band (ord ban the band).

And then came the Langans. Their occupation of the house was somehow shorter and yet more thorough. They were very fortunate to hang onto the giant yurt. John has been a regular here over the last few years, his band have played both Insiders so they know their way round and gathered among the guests were some very fine musicians. The moments I remember – Bryan Benner singing arias in the squash court, Dave Tunstall and Hazen Metro both piping John up to the ceremony in the woods, a kitchen full of fiddlers, Chandra singing Malian wedding songs, the Banana Sessions making for an amazing, stomping wedding band, a man who spent the entire weekend dressed as a tiger, dreadlocks, dogs, loads of smiles and a crowd of genuine, open and lovely folks. And Richard Muirhead.

That’s not to say that the other weddings were less than lovely but this one was close to my heart. I wish all three couples the very best. Inshriach now plays host to a stag party (friends) and 2 weeks filming before we hope to get everyone back again for the Insider.

Im going to do something I very rarely do and copy a big thank you across from the Insider Festival website and put it here too.
This really is Rufus White in the process of building our Insider website. No joke. He and Molly and Mathew have pulled a stormer with it. All the animations and squirrels and everything has been hand drawn by him and there can be no doubt it is now Victori-on.

Rufus will wearing another hat at the Insider, that of the mobile silversmith and jeweller. You will find him and his wiry apprentice plying their trade, taking commissions and making beautiful things during the festival. In the meantime if you would like to get in touch with him for anything just Telegram us at the Insider.

The photo we half-inched from a recent series of portraits by Helen Abraham

The new canvas for the ‘moth is fast approaching so it was time to get the rest of the modifications out of the way. We raised the roof by a foot and laid an oak parquet floor which was rescued from a Tudor house and laboriously refurbished. The staircase was once a fire escape, scavenged from the tip along with the window. The back wall was part of the doghouse and the hearth is a snooker table slate. The door is from one of the cottages and was pitch pine under its coat of plasticky white paint. The truck now sports a totally over the top 4’ Victorian double bed with brass knobs.

Now all that’s really left is to replace the mahogany plinth and taxidermied squirrel you see in the photo with a woodburner. All these ingredients seem to have their own story, the Commer is starting to feel as though the the fabric of Inshriach is being woven into it.

In the middle of this refurb we took it for an outing. The truck is going to be the B&B (Bed and Buckfast) stage for the Insider so we thought it would be a good plan to dress in Victorian costumes and hit Aviemore. A couple of the guys from Rura played on it on the high street and were joined by Mark Clement and Charlie McKerron, then we took it round the Old Bridge and washed down some more tunes with ales.

Once the festival is out of the way the truck will be available to rent through Canopy and Stars alongside the Inshriach yurt. It has also picked up another nickname – Mein Kampf-ervan.

RISE OF THE DEAD (2011) from danlight on Vimeo.

The 2011 Light family Inshriach House motion picture, ‘Rise of the Dead’ – filmed last week – is now on general release.

Over the last fortnight it has been all hands on deck as 700 square metres of turf arrived to resurface the main wedding / main stage field. That equates to about 15 tons and on a soggy week just getting it from the road to the field was no mean feat.