East Cambusmoon Holiday Cottages, Loch Lomond | Loch Lomond & East Cambusmoon Holiday Cottages Blog

Investing In Design

Deborah — Sun, 17 Feb 2019 12:23:00 +0000

Last week I was absolutely delighted to open a delivery of two pieces commissioned from young furniture designer, Matt Robinson. I had seen his creation of a revolving vanity mirror which would be absolutely perfect for our cottages. His original piece was finished just with a danish oil, looks fabulous and is wonderfully contemporary; our holiday cottages are a rich and stylish mix of contemporary and modern but still maintaining strong connections with nature and the countryside so, following a conversation with Matt, he used our very own beeswax to finish the items and bring a warm honey oak look to the new revolving vanity mirrors.

Glengoyne, our local whisky.

Deborah — Sun, 23 Dec 2018 12:59:00 +0000

You may have seen our 'free whisky' offer? Our special offers page always has something of interest, whether that's a late availability offer or some other benefit for holiday guests. Glengoyne is our local distillery, it is the most southerly of the Highland malts, has some really superb distillery tours and is an incredibly interesting place to visit. You can easily combine a distillery visit with a walk along part of the West Highland Way or up local hills Dumgoyne or The Whangie; alternatively why not enjoy lunch at The Old Mill in Killearn or The Beech Tree Inn.

The Joys of the Winter Season by Loch Lomond

Deborah — Tue, 27 Nov 2018 11:00:00 +0000

Beautiful scenes across Loch Lomond to Ben Lomond from the southern shore of the Loch. You can walk to this view point from the cottages, downhill through the village of Gartocharn, across the fields on the Aber Path and continue your stroll along a country lane to the shoreline footpaths leading to the Endrick Mouth, National Nature Reserve and RSPB Loch Lomond’s estate. A perfect way of exploring the local vicinity and leaving the car at home, you are likely to see deer, buzzards and geese en route but you might also be lucky to see osprey on their summer vacation. You walk through a mix of woodland and fields so there is plenty of bird life to enjoy as well as the range of flora and fauna. Last weekend our guests spent some time watching a stoat scamper in and out of the red sandstone garden wall, wildlife to enjoy form the comfort of the sofa!

Award Winning Holiday Cottages - Success Through Sustainability

Deborah — Mon, 30 Apr 2018 14:39:00 +0100

We are so pleased to share the great news that we have won the Success Through Sustainability Award of the 2018 Working4Business Awards.

Taking Time to Stand and Stare

Deborah — Sat, 30 Dec 2017 10:14:00 +0000

Great sadness to see a tree felled to the ground in an overnight storm on Christmas Eve, the branches scattered across the field, some sticking out of the soil spear-like, others disintegrated into ready made kindling for the fire. The tree was dead when we moved here 11 years ago, it has provided a home and habitat to all sort of birds and beasties, an excellent vantage point for owls and buzzards, the starting point for many a starling murmuration. However, there was never any real sense of continuing life of the trunk and branches of the tall tree at the junction of two fields. Some magnificent gothic fungi have grown on the trunk for years and, hopefully, these will continue to flourish as the tree lies prostrated on the ground. We shall tidy the strewn branches, create logs to fuel the wood burning stoves in the cottages and our own home, gather the kindling and build up wood stocks for the year ahead, but we shall also leave the larger part of the main trunk for the birds and beasties to enjoy, and for the children to play on, or just for any of us, adults and children, to sit on and watch the world go by. Sometimes we just need to stand and stare.

Photoshoot

Deborah — Wed, 04 Oct 2017 14:31:00 +0100

Earlier this year we commissioned local company Head for the Bed to create two upholstered headboards for one of the twin bedrooms in Curlew Cottage. We loved their work so much we offered to host the photoshoot for their new website. It is a really important consideration for us to support local business and we were able to work with them in selecting the perfect fabric for the bedroom in terms of colour, design and finish and, of course, the fabric has to comply with fire retardant standards. The finished products are first class and have received many positive comments from our guests.

Fab Review from Dog Friendly Magazine

Deborah — Wed, 04 Oct 2017 13:28:00 +0100

We had the great pleasure to meet Tilly the Westie and her owners Richard & Angie Aspinall a few weeks ago. They stayed in Curlew Cottage and really enjoyed the 'wow' factor this cottage offers, they enjoyed their get away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life, were blown away by the style and size of the cottage and, very kindly, commented that 'it was like something from a glossy magazine on stylish living'.

Gold Award for Green Tourism

Deborah — Wed, 03 Feb 2016 11:30:00 +0000

Earlier this year, here at East Cambusmoon Holiday Cottages, we successfully retained our Gold Award from Green Tourism UK, their highest assessment standard. There are 60 rigorous criteria used to assess businesses in this international award scheme and Steve and I perused, studied and fretted over all of them!

Thoughts for the garden

Deborah — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 13:01:00 +0000

Geilston Gardens

Deborah — Tue, 29 May 2012 22:41:00 +0100

The National Trust for Scotland's Geilston Gardens is about 8 miles away from us and there are many things I really like about this place. Essentially its a very small NTS property compared to many but there is such a wonderful variety of garden landscapes in a relatively small space that there is always a delight around the next corner.

Hello again!

Deborah — Tue, 29 May 2012 21:31:00 +0100

Time flies by with all that sunshine keeping me outside rather than here by the laptop. Lots and lots of sunny days and the garden seems to be growing well after a slow start. Aside from the garden the sunshine has huge benefits; we've generated heaps of electricity via the solar panels and the hot water is abundant too and, to be honest, I've only just turned my mind to the veggie garden so a slow start to the season has been an inevitable consequence. One of the great things about living in Scotland is that while Spring comes more slowly than further south we do have fantastically long days through the Summer and there's plenty of time to catch up. We've planted out the rest of our potatoes (we're cultivating 3 varieties this year) as well as cauliflowers. We'll also sew some more salad leaves and quick crops, these will take a short while to come through but we've got pots of rocket and lambs lettuce to pick at which we established indoors. Away from our own patch we've been putting pots of herbs on the patios of the holiday cottages so guests can help themselves. Whilst we've popped a selection of dried herbs and spices in the kitchen of each of the cottages we know keen cooks will enjoy being able to pick their own. Plum trees have been planted at the edge of the patios so in time to come guests will be able to pick their own fruit, maybe for making a nice plum crumble for tea.
Here's an updated picture of the sitting and dining room of 4 bedroomed Curlew Cottage, there's heaps of room for families and groups to relax together and plenty of space so you don't have to be on top of each other. We've had a few guests in the cottages but there's an inevitable gap between the website being completed and the world realising we are available for bookings. So we've decided to run a great offer to encourage those who are thinking of booking a holiday to pick up the phone and make it real. More details very soon.