Kilchoan News – January 2009
Well, it’s been a while since the last news update – months in fact – we do work sometimes!!
The first thing is ,that I am writing this news update instead of Drew because Mr Harris has hung up his last pair of soggy tweeds, stuffed his last pair of saturated boots, dragged his last stag off the hill – he has headed for the sun!! As you read this he will be tramping somewhere between Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand and that was after a three week hunting trip to South Africa.
The week Monday 10th November saw his last few days stalking and as you will see by the photograph below, the boys did it in style with Drew officially handing over to Mr Iain Biggart. Iain started with Kilchoan Estate many moons ago as a student from Thurso College and it’s great to have him back on board.
What else has happened – the goss- Jim and Kristy Brown will be having little baby Brown early next year, March I think, so that’s great news. Robert and Louise have moved into their new house-good luck to them and wee Rachel and Chloe. Samantha, Jasmine, Daisy and Felix have all moved down to England to be with Matt. Jim the ranger and Clare are now engaged – we all wish them a long and happy life together. Ian and Jackie Robertson and the kids are all off to New Zealand to attend Ian’s son Stevens wedding. Sandy will be heading off to N.Z as well soon. Cara and the twinnies are away to the sun for a few weeks and Bob and Morag are heading off to Canada for a month to meet up with Alasdair and Anita who have emigrated there. So once again we have the big house swap – Fred has moved into Jims, Aggi is moving into sandy’s, Tommy is moving into Bob and Morag’s and goodness knows who is moving into Caras!!
Estate news – more buildings going up behind my new office, big boat shed, woodwork shed and two houses, one Ian and Britta will be moving into. We had a successful season with the tourists, lots of return visits which is lovely. Stalking season went well again and things starting to quieten down after the New Year rush. We had the students from Borders College up for a week in December which was a great help to us, lots of wood chopped, stick sheds filled, bridges sorted etc and they had a few days on the hill between us and Knoydart Foundation as well as various other activities. Thanks to Ian Robertson for feeding them, Knoydart Foundation for putting some of them up in the Bunkhouse and to Jim Brown who had 4 of them every day and finished off the week with a quiz. An enjoyable week for all involved. We will be shutting down The Barn and The Fank from now till early April which will be great. Also this year we will be renting out Grieves through an agency and see how that goes.
Other stuff – Knoydart Foundation will be celebrating it’s 10th anniversary this year and there will be lots of activities, ceilidhs etc throughout the year. Information on the Knoydart Foundation website. Knoydart Arts Promotions (KAP) will also be holding Knoydarts 1st music festival! This will be the weekend of 17th-19th April. Lots of bands booked already (Diamh, Bombskare, Squashies, Lori Watson, Vaguely Cajun, Mystery Juice to name but a few) there will be a website up and running soon and tickets are available from the booth
Anyway that’s all for now, hopefully the news will go back to being changed on a regular basis.