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Just when I hit a stumbling block someone turns up, takes a working holiday and makes things right. Ben helped me tackle the ongoing forestry demand, sorted the credit card payments for the website, went swimming in the Feshie and tackled the orange issues and the day he left the phone rang and the excellent Jimmy Whitmore and Captain Bob Wheelden have decided that now is the time for their visit, heading up from Devon and Derbyshire respectively.

I’m absolutely bowled over by the sheer helpfulness, I thought we would feel isolated but the house is never empty. In a few weeks we will be running the oddest B&B in the highlands.

There must have been a special deal back in 1972 because the poor room and the servants bathroom were both orange. The scullery, pantry and kitchen ceiling are orange too, the scullery like an orange grenade has gone off, the walls, shelves, brackets, shutters even the taps and pipes having had the treatment. Its glossy and horrible, peeling in parts and stuck fast in others and it stays visible after 3 coats. Benedict has been with us since Knockengorroch and it took the motivation of someone who missed the poor room to drive the deorangification.

Flushed with his skills at grinding down anything orange Ben then put on his best negotiating voice, borrowed my phone, called Orange and sweet talked my phone bill in half.

Of the half dozen that are due over the next few weeks, and the sky really is that colour today.

I caught a little sea trout last night, a beautiful silvery fish, it was too small to eat and sadly it had gulped the fly too deep for me to unhook it alive. I then lost the same fly (a favourite sedge) to a tree just out of reach and fell in the river with my waders on, such is the way with fate.

We have been thinking about a successor to the oil fired boiler. The cheapest to run would be log fired, but I’m not sure I can do daily fire duty (certainly if we ever get a winter holiday the pipes will freeze) and when the house is rented I’m not huge on the idea of stoking someone else’s bath. That means a wood chip system with a hopper, the fuel is local, cheaper than oil and its cost not subject to the vagaries of world politics, plus the green aspect is very appealing. The only obvious downside is that it’s twice the cost to install….

The ideal conclusion to this idea (as pondered in an oil fired bath) would be to be take the house off the grid altogether. We have no gas, our water already comes from a spring on the mountain (delicious and potentially power generating), its windy and we have a big flat roof suitable for solar. Only the AGA lets the side down, has anyone tried to run one on veg oil?

Suggestions on all the above would be very welcome.

Im a bit behind here but congratulations to George and Jeremy on their wedding, it couldn’t have happened to nicer folk. Jeremy has been following my musings here, it was he who told me how to Parma the pig and as a test of whether he is still following me on their honeymoon, this is an open invite for you and whosoever you may choose to come fishing.

Three things of note have happened over the last few days. Tim White and Jonny Page completed their 6 day fishathon having caught an astonishing 103 trout (returning all but 3), 4 small sea trout and 3 salmon parr. Thanks also to Jim Cornfoot (who along with the late Hugh Falkus can be counted among the wise old men of the Inshriach water) for giving us a day of his time to walk the upper beats. It has been a lovely, educational experience having such enthusiasts here.

The Chocstar tour was another treat, Petra hit us with a rich fudgey pudding and we returned the favour with pheasant, venison and a dinner party to christen the dining room followed by breakfast of wild brown trout, then a monster of a walk and all topped off with a dollop of lock in at the tea room next door.

Charlie was headlining Knockengorroch with Capercaillie over the weekend so Molly and I packed for a field and headed for Dumfries. What a fabulous little festival, folky and funky and fun, followed by a visit to the Graffiti project at Kelburn, a night camping on the beach on Bute and now a wholesome gathering back at Inshriach that will probably last most of this week.

Petra’s Chocstar secret supper tour of Britain is coming to Aviemore today Tim and Jonny are off to catch trout for our supper. Tim says a huge brown followed his minnow across the march pool this morning and rather than keeping the 30 odd under one pounders they have caught in the last few days they are holding out for the big fellas.

My mother hates this hat.

Congratulations to Ben and Kristen on the birth of a baby boy, to Gus and Pippa on the announcement of their pregnancy and to the white mare outside the kitchen which looks much more comfortable after giving birth to a foal this morning. The foal popped right in front of a fisherman, Tim White, who was bowled over, it is all legs and no balance.