Now that we have some “breathing space” before Christmas, it allows some precious time to reflect over the summer and autumn months!

Despite the appalling weather that we all suffered last summer, our festival season went very well with one exception (T In The Park).

We started off with Loch Fyne Food Fair which enjoyed good weather and good attendance, then Fynefest followed over the Jubilee weekend and was also a great success – well done to all who were involved with both festivals, we enjoyed good fun & good trade!!

The bigger music festivals kicked off with Rockness at the end of June. The weather was kind to us, the public were in good spirits and trade was good, not to mention the fun that we all had!!

T In The Park was the next on our list - better described as Swamp In The Park this year! We had very heavy rain on the Saturday which fell on ground that was already wet – waterlogged land and tens of thousands of feet trampling over it, can only result in one outcome – a swamp!! There were signs put out warning against “trenchfoot”!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The remaining music festivals – Latitude, Belladrum & V all went extremely well and our season closed with “Best Of The West” at Inveraray castle. A great way to close the season – what a wonderful atmosphere and such good food, drink & music with the Red Hot Chilli Pipers & Skerryvore topping the music line-up!!

As usual our autumn was almost totally consumed by stag stalking – I think that I can truly say that it was the best stag season that we have ever had!!! The weather was so good here in Argyll during September and October which was an enormous help but there seemed to be a never ending supply of big stags. We took 106 stags during September and through to 20th Oct and apart from a few early knobbers and young cull stags, the vast majority were big mature stags. A neighbour’s chill went down at the peak of the rut and we were able to help by making space in ours – with the combination of his activities and other locals plus our own, over 80 stags went through our larder in one week!! I would like to thank all guests that supported us over that period and hope that they all enjoyed themselves!! After the rut, we still saw a lot of stags which bodes well for next season!!!

In amongst the September stags stalking, we had five partridge shoots at Ardtaraig – these all went very well although, on one of the days we were nearly driven from the hill by midges!!!

The hind & pheasant season have started well so we look forward to an active and successful winter ahead of us!!

Thinking towards Christmas, I would just like to remind you that we now have our Christmas gift boxes back on the on-line shop - please have a look!!!! If the contents of the boxes do not fit your wishes, please contact us and we can make up a gift box to fit your wishes.