23/12/2024
Happy Christmas to you all, and thank you to everyone who has helped make 2024 a success. We’re so grateful for the energy that you bring. Best wishes, Rebecca and Mark x
The end of the season always takes us a bit by surprise. Twenty-three weeks at full tilt with our staff team and up to 40 enthusiastic and energetic children or teenagers each week or on each course, all making the most of the incredible adventures on our doorstep. Suddenly, it is a whole lot quieter.
The younger groups routinely ask, “Where do you live in the winter?”.
Just over there is the answer. They imagine we must go somewhere else, somewhere warmer or more accessible.
We’re just as busy in the autumn but with a different focus, and only Mark and I are here, with Dad and Mum at the top of the hill.
Recruiting staff for the following year, visiting schools coming to us the following year, talking to summer camp parents, looking after the croft and the adventure school and, grappling with all the admin that comes with running your own business, with time for a few of our own moments in the mountains or on the sea.
1. Mark and Rebecca high in the mountains above Ardmore with first snow in November
2. Home at Ardmore
3. Workboats out of the water
4. Daily dog walk for Tinker (now an old-man)
5. Rebecca’s autumn veg
6. Looking down the croft to the Beach House (not easily visible but the sea loch is frozen)
7. Lifting our lost creel on the far side of Laxford
8. Trying to retain the personal connection that means so much to us. Continuing with hand-written cards and paper marketing - not very 2024!
9. Managing summer camp bookings and planning for a return to Peru
10. Mark in the winter hills
