The Old Dairy - Interiors

Really really nearly there

The Old Dairy (sleeps 4 in two bedrooms) and Curlew Cottage (sleeps 8 in four bedrooms).
I keep saying 'yes, we're nearly there' to friends and family who enquire after the holiday cottages progress and it is true we are. We've tested the showers, the kitchens and the sofas. We know the heating and hot water system works, as its been operational for months now and it really feels very pleasant in our two holiday cottages. We know the solar panels are producing electricity and hot water and in the past few weeks of fine early Spring we're very pleased with their contribution of renewable energy to the cottages; on some days we have been exporting power to the national grid, and that is terrific.By the end of the week we'll have a website to launch and I'm very excited about that too, as well as being desperate to share it with the world.In the meantime I'm chasing my tail getting the pile of rubble near the gate cleared away, the driveway finished and checking we've got everything to make our holiday guests happy. That's why I keep saying 'nearly there'. The cottages are ready to welcome guests and even have beds ready to sleep in, the external areas are less kempt but give me a week, plus a tractor and trailer it'll all look much better. We are hoping to take bookings for Easter and the April school holidays and the website will give all the relevant information. For anyone considering an early booking please feel free to give me a call on 0790 509 3997 and I shall be happy to chat through your requirements. We have had some guests staying on an informal let in Curlew Cottage, which very comfortably sleeps 8, and today I received a testimonial comment which was so so nice to receive (unsolicited!) and which I would like to share with you......
"Stayed in the lovely Curlew cottage recently with friends and had a lovely time. The views were incredible from all the living areas and with the wood burning stove, comfy sofas and flow through the great kitchen and dining area, I was hard pushed to want to leave. Helpful hosts, a well thought out kitchen, access to fresh laid eggs and enough bathrooms to lounge around having a soak for hours – what more could one need!

Here's How We're Doing

A flurry of snow, beautifully clear skies, sunshine and a hurricane all in 24 hours. Work on site with the two holiday cottages has progressed well and we're pleased to dust off the blog to show you some updated photos.
The view here of the cottages from the east shows the two bedroomed stone building on the left of the photo and the four bedroomed one on the right. The larger cottage is finished partly in white render and will also have larch clad areas on the unfinished section you can see. The brown material visible is Pavatherm which is a compressed wood fibre board used as an external insulation material. That area will be larch clad which will age fairly quickly to a mellow silvery grey. The materials used fit very well with the local vernacular and have also been used on our own house. The red sandstone is well over 150 years old and is typically 2feet thick. The official naming of the two bedroomed cottage...

Conic Hill and Loch Lomond wildlife

Last evening I had a lovely walk up Conic Hill on the eastern side of Loch Lomond. A quick midweek blast of exercise, some fresh air and a good opportunity to catch up on chat with friends. As summer winds down it is now getting dark around 9 o'clock but the trip up Conic is short steep hike from the Balmaha car park, ideal if you've got a spare hour or two. Last week we walked up as a family in glorious sunshine with a picnic so took ages longer and spent a decent amount of time enjoying the immense views in every direction. On the way down yesterday we met a few local coos, lovely large bulky Highland Cattle, a perfect Scottish scene.

Progress...

West Highland Way Day 3

A whole week ago now my friend and I were joined by another keen soul and enjoyed a splendid day on the West Highland Way. As we are walking this long distance footpath in stages day 3 was undertaken as a day trip - luckily its close enough to home for easy transport either end. The final four days of the walk to Fort William are planned for September when we are hoping for fine weather! Unfortunately we in the west of Scotland have had a wet May and June but last Monday's walk up the east side of Loch Lomond was blessed with warmth and a dry day. As we set off from Rowardennan the views were typically wonderful of the Loch and the hills, such a great vista. Familiar territory but changing views and different perspectives gave me such a great feeling.

Pouring the Floors

The monster concrete pump pouring the floor slabs for the two adjacent cottages, this covers the underfloor heating which is attached to the steel mesh. With the heating encased in the concrete slab this provides a high level of thermal mass to stabilise the internal temperature of the properties. We used the same principle on the main house which we built 3 1/2 years ago and it really works well, alongwith the high levels of insulation and air-tightness.

Water Supply

Holiday Cottages Underway

So here we are starting a new and exciting adventure at East Cambusmoon. Three years ago we moved into our house, beautifully designed and immensely energy efficient, see here. We adopted a very low energy approach to the design and the construction detailing which focussed on significant levels of insulation, a high standard of air-tightness, strong passive solar design and a ground source heat pump for the heating and hot water, supported by a small PV array and mechanical heat recovery and ventilation. When we were at the design stage 4 years ago this approach was not widely taken but, even in the short time since we moved in, more people and architects are looking more broadly at how homes and buildings are managed environmentally. We joined the AECB and adopted their Silver Standard for energy use and carbon emissions. In truth the house has far out-performed this standard and even in the last particularly cold winter was warm all day every day at very low cost.

M74 Bike Ride

Today we joined the M74 Bike n hike ride along the new link road joining the M74 to the south side of the Kingston Bridge section of the M8. The contractors opened up a stretch of the new road to cyclists, runners, wheelchair users and families with kids on scooters, in buggies and in trailers to raise funds for a combination of 8 charities. Good PR on their part, nice bit of fundraising and good fun for us.

West Highland Way Day 2 - Drymen to Rowardennan

Day 2 (yesterday, Sunday) - an earlyish start of 8am for us, not because we're awfully diligent but Kath's husband's offer of a lift to where we ended day1 fitted with tee-off time at Strathendrick golf course. The forecast for the afternoon was heavy rain so it seemed like an ideal chance to get a few miles under our belts before the rain set in. Weak sunshine and very light showers barely penetrated the Garabhan Forest, the first section of today's walk, but it was lovely to be amongst the silence and calm of the trees and clearly hear bird song as we warmed up the muscles for the 15 mile section to Rowardennan.

West Highland Way - Day 1 Milngavie to Drymen

One winter's eve, in front of the stove, with a glass of wine to hand my friend Kath and I decided that 2011 would be the year for us to tackle a long distance footpath. Not just any route but our local West Highland Way, a 97mile wander from the outer 'burbs of Glasgow through lowland valley to the bonnie banks of Loch Lomond and then north through the beauty of Highland Scotland, across the wilds of Rannoch Moor to the edge of Glencoe and then finally via the Devils Staircase and on to Fort William and the bottom of Ben Nevis, our highest mountain. Today we took the step from fireside ramblings to real ones.

FUNEX?

New Beginnings

What do you mean that doesn't look like the sort of holiday place you're thinking of for a dream vacation in Loch Lomond & Trossachs National Park? The patio areas certainly need a good sweep and, if there were any windows, they would need a good clean so that you could see the splendid views.
RENOVATION WORK STARTS 16th MAY 2011, hurray!
The sun is shining and we are very excited at the prospect of renovating these lovely but very very tired buildings and creating two tip top holiday cottages for visitors.
The plan is to create this. As you can see by the date of the archive entry this has been 'work in progress' for a long time. Lots of unremarkable reasons for that - life work family balance - but we are really keen to see these buildings brought into vibrant and viable use and to share this lovely part of the world with a few people. We'll post more detail on the design and construction approach in due course but, yes, they will have the same high standards as the house we built 3 years ago (can't believe its been that long!). We'll be adopting the AECB silver standard as a target for high levels of thermal efficiency and air tightness to ensure excellent comfort levels for our guests and to promote a more environmentally conscious approach to renovation and building.

Not so much a blog as a weather report! Lots of fog, freezing the air and the ground, weakening the already weak sunshine. Creating a big fat inversion layer above Loch Lomond but allowing the grandeur of the mountains to rise above.

Frost and Fog on Snow and Ice

Morning sunrise, deep frost, nippy on the skin, beautiful to view. Then engulfed with fog which has ebbed and flowed across the landscape. As the blackbirds retrieve haw berries from the tree and the ground I wonder if its liking eating frozen peas, do they chew them somehow to extract the goodness? Wondering how that works. I've put more seed out for them. There's a weak sun trying to break through to warm a few parts of the ground but there are some areas which never catch the light at this time of year.

To the south and east we have blue sky, to the north and west there is deep fog, wonder which will win out today? Loch Lomond is immediately north of us and the moist air above the loch often creates a dense inversion layer, very pretty to view from the Dumpling (hill pictured below) when you see the hills in full sun rising out from the dense white/grey fog.

Yet more snow....

At 6.30am I woke to the sound of heavy rain on the window, and smiled at the thought of the slight warming outside which must have lead to this phenomenon. It didn't last long as next time we looked out of the window there were huge, fat snowflakes falling in swathes. Within a couple of hours we had fairly deep fresh snow, school was closed as none of the staff could get there and the roads were impassable for a period as the snow had fallen on top of ice which made the inclines too tricky. Another day at home - nice in so many ways but becoming a real problem for workers. The football goal with the extra bit of snow clinging to the net.

We topped up the bird feeders and sprinkled some seed on the top of the snow. The blackbirds were budging each other out of the way to get to the seed and we also had plenty of starlings, blue tits, robins and chaffinches.

Snow

Last Saturday night the first, and unusually early, snow arrived. Its truly beautiful and very very deep. As its immensely cold theres not much likelihood of the snow disappearing very soon. Bit tricky to get out and about.
Snow clinging to the branches of a corkscrew hazel, quite earie and its quite amazing that such a depth of snow can cling to skinny twigs.

Autumn sunshine and a wonderful fine weekend at home. On Saturday morning when the clouds cleared from the sky there was a light covering of snow on the hills, a visible change in the season. The snow soon disappeared as the sun warmed the ground. A perfect couple of days for gardening, cutting the final sweet peas, picking the pumpkin from its exhausted plant, feeding the last caterpillar ravaged broccolli to the chooks. We also had an abundance of outdoor time and restorative fresh air and sunshine. Fabulous.The colours of the leaves have such immense variety, the changing light throughout the day always emphasises this wonder of nature. We made time to play.