Memories and Anticipations

I have dragged myself away from my friend Lucy Lawrie's new story, The Last Day I Saw Her, to write a much-needed update on Blair House. Lucy was my great Blair House childhood friend and we have been longing to get back there together for years. And The Last Day I Saw Her, I discover, has a starring role for one Glen Eddle, a place of forests, rivers, crags, friendship, peace, and idyllic childhood holidays. I think my picture dated November 1987 of charging through a conifer plantation on a treasure hunt fits Lucy's descriptions better than the elegant girls actually on the cover...

Meanwhile, the refurbishment of Blair House is coming on excellently. I went up today with Dad and found the tops turning white:

The builders are going to finish the inside before doing various bits of work on the outside, which means we can get in and start painting and moving back in much earlier than I anticipated, in May! Opening in June?!

Showers are appearing: this one replacing the bath in the downstairs bathroom, and one in a new shower room upstairs. George Harris exploring in the background:

The basin has been refitted in the big bedroom - after my sister pointed out it was really handy for families with small children. And a new toilet and an old door are just hanging out there chatting:

New windows and cupboards everywhere: these are in the former scullery, now hopefully a more convenient entrance:

This platform is solving the health-and-safety hazard which was coming straight out of the porch door and down two concrete steps. It has already been christened the Knitting Platform:

Not everything is new. Most of the doors have been put back this week: I like the way this one has "keep" pencilled on it, and still has its number 10 on it. When we are painting I think these old numbers may just have to be preserved!

The old kitchen is the new drying room/ coats room. It has also gained a cupboard thanks to a kitchen unit muddle.

I'm sorry I haven't got a picture of the kitchen going in: it was full of builders sitting around the fire. It looks good though: I will definitely take a picture next week.

I'm hugely grateful to the builders Barry Greenhill and his team from Forfar who are making it all happen so efficiently and cheerfully.

Lady's Mantle and turf-moss in the snow in the garden.

And if you've ever stayed at Blair House - or lived in Edinburgh - or wish you had - I think you're going to like Lucy's book.

More Blair House photos and updates on the Facebook page.

Eleanor Harris

Refurbishment underway

It's taken 18 months, at least 7 experts (the Bat and Freshwater Pearl Mussel ecologists were my favourites), at the serious illnesses of 2 of the team to get to this point, but Blair House is at last being refurbished. The contractor is Barry Greenhill of Forfar and he is due to finish in early summer, after which it will be over to me and my eager volunteers to get it painted and ready to reopen. 

Please follow the Blair House page on Facebook for updates and photos over the coming weeks. 

Discussing gutters with Barry

New car park in progress - and in use - it will have grass over it eventually

Everywhere has been insulated to within an inch of its life. This is the plumber and I discussing refurbishing and re-fitting the old washroom sinks (behind me) in new places. 

Two varieties of interesting wallpaper which appeared in a bedroom!

Creating an upstairs bathroom: out with the old immersion heater; in with a new door.

Re-plumbing, re-wiring, insulation, door re-hanging: it was like DIY SOS! 

New (unfinished) platform in the porch, dictated by the need to prevent the scenario of coming out of the door and falling down the steps. In my head it is called the "knitting platform" and where all that insulation is will have a comfy chair on it looking out of the window...

There were changes up the glen too: the great flood in December has changed the river in many places and created a more natural course after years or centuries of human intervention. Here it's scoured out all the old branches and gubbins which used to disfigure this waterfall.

Red deer among the birks of Clova. Did you know the Scottish deer population is now over half a million, and was already considered too high in terms of ecology and crop damage when it was a mere 100,000 in 1959? *

* Simon Pepper, A brief history of "the deer problem" in Scotland, 2015.

Meanwhile, I've developed a craze for moss, something Glen Doll has in abundance and deer don't eat.

Some pretty cool lichens too...

The obligatory Corrie Fee with frozen waterfall photo.