Wall to wall sunshine for days here, but cool at night, dry as a bone on the ground and any smell of smoke gives me the jitters. So it was with alarm that I spotted our first visitors under their own steam (or paddle) 4 of my kayaking friends. They like a fire the paddlers.

Pleased to report that once they had set up their camp in full view of our living room window (albeit 3 to 400 metrees away) there was no smoke, so I relaxed and thought here we go for 2025.

The weather has been calm for a while now, the High Pressure moving around giving us occasional Northerlies which are always a worry. It has been a really good winter with nothing like the winter rains that we are used to. We are reasonably up to date with outside painting and catching up on the Maintenance schedule, sadly neglected last year.

So it was this morning that I was just sitting having my coffee when I spotted movement at the camp, not early btw. So me being nosey I had a look through the spotting scope only to be confronted with a big hairy arse doing what arses do in the morning. Great start to the day!! I did not reach for the telephoto lens although I ditched the coffee.

Half an hour later and they were gone, good to see they did not have a fire, it is the best thing after a day in the ‘wild’ but in these dry days it is good to be aware of the conditions and not too.

Saturday we saw our first guests of 2025 going away after a cracking week, but it could have all gone wrong. On Friday afternoon at 4.30pm we went over to the cottages to start the heating and check over the cottages (it was raining and blowing that night, not all sunshine). Only to find both cottages stone cold. Both Central Heating systems packed up. I sprung (if you can call it that at my age) into action and by 6.30pm had it going only to find it had ‘conked’ again on Saturday morning. But I reset it and no problems since. Water in the oil.

The heating in Escape was another issue, it was a no go when I quickly discovered that the pressure vessel had lost pressure and despite spending another two hours on it, I could not sort it. It is also something that we did not carry as spare and it was too late to order from Lachie at Willie Wilsons.

The motto here is we will never be stuck and on Saturday with our returning guests Jon and Catherine’s understanding we gave them a gas heater, managed to get the electric immersion heater going, put the fire on and they were quickly warmed up ready for the week ahead.

Next day rain and grey so a house day for them which meant the fire was on all day and the house was not cold at all. This breakdown, a first in 18 years of pressure vessels!!

But more to come, the Grundfoss pump that supplies the water to the Escape house kept tripping out, I was blindsided by the main problem, no pressure. I kept looking at the water pressure, bleeding it and thinking that was the issue. Only after a few half showers for our guests and I guess a bit of swearing did I decide to change the pump (I had a spare). Thereafter no problem and happy customers.

You cannot have all the spares and Portree is well supplied nowadays but we do try to cover most eventualities.

I wonder what it will be next week, hopefully the plumber will come?

The Trees are flushing and if the frost is kind then we should be pretty green in a couple of weeks, bring it on. A New Year a new adventure.