This winter feels like it is nearly over, as I am sat here with a pot of tiny Crocuses just in flower! I must not get too hopeful for spring as last year winter came late. The crisp winter days are stunning up here, clear blue skies and snow on the mountains.
It has been a busy year for us, with new courses, extra courses, lots of visitors and guests from all over the place!
Hen Parties
We ran our first Highland hen parties last summer, which were a great success, we loved running them and met some wonderful people doing it. We did all sorts of things including, prehistoric cookery, felting with a pony, foraging, walking, picnicking and wild swimming!
This year we will be running special weekends for any occasion (hen weekends and more!) from April onwards, so if you have a group of friends you just want to spend a lovely weekend with with doing interesting things get in touch.
Many of you may already know 2014 so far looks to be quite a big year for Alex and I, as we hope to start building our house. Due to this extra workload for Alex we decided this year we will mostly be running our weekend courses and start off with more week long courses in spring 2015. So this year we will be running weekend courses throughout the spring and summer, a full list can be found on our website, but the special occasion weekends can fit in at anytime
We have a few new additions to Higher Crochial for 2014, first came Ellie and Craig, who have now moved into their yurt on the land, some of you may remember Ellie from last year, as she helped on or Fleece to Felt weeks and some of our hen weekends. Then came baby Martha in October, and finally Gordon Rambo Ramsey in November, who has come to service the sheepy girls, but so far we have seen very little action, they are at least now allowing him to eat, so hopefully he may get a little bolder, he is only young, so perhaps the sheep were hoping for a little more maturity in their mate.
The House Build
We have been getting the barn organised this week, sorting fleeces, getting dye pots cleaned and making space for wood. We hope to get some timber cut for our house build over the next few weeks. As the woods can be hard to access with large machinery, Alex and Ian will be getting the timber out with tractors and ponies. Sage and his mobile saw mill will mill the timber on site and then we just have to dry it out (Alex is building something!) and it is ready to build with – it all sounds so easy! So fingers-crossed for good weather!
