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We have started by turning the beds in the vegetable garden and working our way through the alphabet of desirable vegetables, herbs and flowers. So far we have only really decided that swedes and turnips are not that exciting, and that we want most of the rest of nature’s bounty. We have worked out a planting scheme based on wisdom gleaned solely from books with the words ‘Easy’ and ‘Vegetable’ in the title, built a few glazed frames and planted a some seeds. Watch this space.

This leads us neatly onto 2 weeks in August we have allocated for Bushcraft courses. For a maximum of 12 people these courses will include guided hillwalking, a 2 day open canoe trip down the Spey back to Inshriach, wild foods, shelter and outdoor cooking, probably a whisky tasting and most importantly, be fully catered by our favourite chef, Allan, using food from the vegetable garden, foraged food and local meat and game. 2nd to the 8th August and 9th to the 15th, £575 per head inclusive, anyone up for it can drop me an email on [email protected].

Thanks to Rory and some bits left over from Raven this unconventional stile now guides guests round the cottages and to the squash court.

The Scottish leg of Centurion, Neil Marshalls ‘swords and sandals’ thriller, finished filming last week. I found myself in the unusual position, as local fixer, of not having to make anything. The crew and extras numbered well over 100 people on some days in conditions from spectacular to extremely challenging. Without giving too much away you can expect plenty of blood, imaginitively spilled, and some very big scenery. After a similar photo appeared in the local paper I give you the 9th legion, slipping effortlessly into character by being cold, exposed, reluctant and 1200 years too early for North Face.

Now the esteemed members of the East Harsley pantomine players are in the house for a long weekend of murder mystery so the quality theatrics are expected to continue.

With spring coming our minds are turning to all things outdoors. I had a chat yesterday with Malcolm Handoll from Five Senses in Orkney about bushcraft, navigating by the stars and shelter building, as well as dry stone walling and building traditional stone structures inspired by the cleits of St Kilda. This morning Richard Strivens from Wilderness Experiences came for a walk round the woods and a chat about residential courses that could include bushcraft, wild foods, canoeing and mountaineering. We will be picking weeks out later this year to offer individual places or can arrange private guidance for groups already booked.

We also have the vegetable gardens to contend with. Inshriach has a large kitchen garden which was expertly brought back to life by Euan and Sulekha who lived here until recently and ran their business, Northern Greens, from the gardens, supplying local restaurants and doing veg boxes. The aim is to offer food for guests in the house, and feed ourselves, but a crash course in vegetation is required before we can make any promises. Anyone who can lend some advice or wants to be involved would be very welcome.

The production of the swede coincided with a lift in the weather so, between duties on Centurion, the in house prop department got busy refashioning some of the left overs from last year. I’m particularly pleased with this Japanese looking bridge whipped up from Raven props and we have the ingredients for another to be placed somewhere equally pointless.

The long awaited half term of the extended Light family brought 3 generations, 14 adults and no less than 11 children, the eldest being just 8. The holiday was organised by an old friend, Dan Light, and you can read his take on it on his blog. The snow held for a final day of sledging then Dan, hot on the heels of the Watchmen marketing campaign, set about producing the first Inshriach swede. A swede is a remake of a popular movie using a camcorder and a limited budget and, in this case, a predictably child heavy cast. Four days of filming took place with Oscar worthy performances (especially Ben as Gollum), we borrowed a working projector (on our third attempt) and the Sweded Lord of the Rings premiered in the Cine Barn on Friday night.

Its now common knowledge that Neil Marshall is shortly to be filming his Centurion film around Aviemore, to star Michael Fassbender and Olga Kurylenko, there are adverts in the papers looking for extras. Here the crew are heading into Glen Feshie for another recce.

Hannah has once again come up with the goods by producing this model for our proposed barn conversion. Until work gets underway the building has gained row upon row of sofas for the Light family’s film festival. Unfortunately the projector is now not cooperating, probably as a result of being stored in the cold.

The weather forecast for Friday said deep snow in the west country and in the far north of Scotland, apparently leaving a corridor up the west coast wide enough to get back for Ord Ban’s birthday party. They laid on 7 courses in the restaurant on Saturday night, then a spit roasted hogget with mulled cider and live music on Sunday night. Everyone stayed at Inshriach and went out snowboarding or sledging during the day. We made some excellent connections which mean that later this week we will be exploring whisky tasting weekends and looking into using the house as a recording studio.

It has been as low as minus 15 again and there is a foot of snow round the house with the prospect of more this week. By Saturday morning the van and boat were well and truly stuck (thankfully in the farmyard and not by the A9) and even the landrover is now stranded in a hollow. No sailing until the spring.