H&C

8
Feb
2010

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Skiing on the glen

Dee and his son Archie have been skiing near their glen

"Well, Colin’s turkey was excellent. We had it last Sunday and asked a few friends over. Though I am reasonably good at cooking most types and joints of meat, I find timing the cooking of turkey very difficult. As one of our guests put it, that is probably because we only have one day a year (normally) to practice! Every year I seem to forget what I learned the year before! Anyway, after two or three checks and moving it between different ovens in the Aga it came out fairly well. An Aga tends to be fairly forgiving to amateur cooks like me. One can get away with a bit of over cooking without ruining what you are trying to cook.

The snow is thawing quite fast now which is filling all the burns with water, and that has brought the hydro electric scheme back into action. It has been frozen out of action for most of the last six weeks, so it is nice to see the meter clicking around and knowing it is beginning to earn its keep again. We still have quite a lot of snow up on the hills and I am hoping this will act as an effective reservoir to keep the hydro electric going for the next few months as it slowly melts.

Despite the thaw, we have had the chance to do a bit of skiing at Glenshee. This is our closest “ski resort” and is about an hours drive away. It has about 20 lifts - mainly pomas and T bars but it does have three chairlifts. It even has two mountain café/restaurants but I must admit they are not quite up to the standards of those in the Alps! And sadly they don’t serve Gluhwein! Every time I go to Glenshee, and irrespective of what the weather is doing elsewhere, it is foggy. The last trip we made there which was on Saturday was just the same, and it made me realise that I am definitely a fair weather skier. I like to see the scenery, and the slope I’m trying to ski down, do a couple of runs in the sun and then stop for a gluhwein! Don’t get me wrong, it still beats the hell out of sitting in traffic on the M25.

It’s a busy time for us now. As well as trying to get all the sporting let for next season we are refurbishing three houses that we hope to let out in the Spring. Letting the sporting is going quite well, but you have to plan so far ahead because people like to book shooting and stalking now for next autumn and winter. Last year I was very late in organising all this but this year I decided to start early. It is amazing what a valuable marketing tool one’s email addresses are! I sent out an email to about 100 people who might be interested with some good action photographs on the moor, and I have had about 10 enquiries for shooting days already."