My wonderful neighbour David took pity on me and invited me round for dinner this evening at his house, charmingly called Fred's Cottage for a reason lost to time. Angus Council has recently banned all my friends from visiting me, and David picked up that the lack of human companionship was causing me to go downhill.
Our small group was literally treated to a state banquet: the first course was a watercress panna cotta with parmesan shortbread, the very dish that I knew had been served at the state banquet last Wednesday at Windsor Castle. I had been speculating what it might actually taste like, with no inkling that I would find out a few days later.
State Banquet at Fred's Cottage
I can report that it was delicious. I didn't expect a savory panna cotta let alone one with the very delicate flavour of watercress to work, but it did. David had made the panna cotta and the parmesan shortbread (à la Nigella) from scratch. Respect!
This starter and indeed the whole meal was genius: a salmon main with dauphinoise potatoes and ending with a sumptuous chocolate mousse pudding supplied by another guest.
Anyhow, I couldn't resist looking up the full menu at the actual state banquet. Wot - only 3 courses! I would have expected a minimum of 12. State banquets since Queen Victoria have obviously gone downhill, but political correctness dictates value signalling through healthy eating and moderation. However, the after dinner digestifs are stellar.
It is nice to see the C R monogram, and the fact that some traditions (e.g. the menu being in French) cannot be got rid of so easily.
A fellow guest suggested that actually attending a state banquet would be a dull affair. I beg to differ and wish to put it out there that I am receptive to invitations. :-)
It has not been reported whether King Charles III and President Trump made for good dining companions, but there is always someone on one's other side should conversation falter, and a back-stop of another digestif if, heaven forfend, both sides let you down.
In my previous blog entry, I presented Kieran's marvellous pen and ink sketch of the recently restored Great Hall at Balintore Castle. A friend called Mark said how much it reminded him of a mid 20th Century cartoonist called Osbert Lancaster. I was familiar with the name Osbert Lancaster, but had never studied his works, and Mark very kindly sent me a vintage copy of Osbert's book on the history of building interiors entitled "Homes Sweet Homes".
Osbert's Scottish Baronial Great Hall
You can can see at once how close Osbert's cartoon of the Scottish Baronial style is to Kieran's version of Balintore's Great Hall. Balintore Castle was designed in the Scottish Baronial Style, by the architect William Burn who essentially invented the style. Amusingly, all the stuffed creatures with horns look very happy to be there, but the bears are thoroughly resentful.
Accompanying every cartoon of the different historic interior styles is some witty text by Osbert who was also a writer. I have to say that both the drawings and the text give me enormous pleasure. The drawings are charming and lightly amusing, whereas the text is savage: very much in the modern spirit of "throwing shade". Here's what Osbert has to say about Scottish Baronial:
His joshing tenet is that Scottish Baronial is pagan in its conception and I daresay he is right, although of course Scottish Baronial is also Scotland's take on Gothic, which is a style premised upon Christian cathedrals. Perhaps Osbert is saying there remains something of the heathen in the Scot? I will append the text of the Scottish Baronial article in a Rosetta Stone moment. :-)
What is fascinating are the categories and names of the interior styles. Some of these are no-longer recognised today, and some are now known by different terms. Here are the terms Osbert uses in chronological order with my modern translation in brackets where this exists.
NORMAN
GOTHIC
TUDOR
ELIZABETHAN
JACOBEAN
RESTORATION
LOUIS XIV
BAROQUE
ROCOCO
EARLY GEORGIAN
CLASSIC REVIVAL
REGENCY
EARLY VICTORIAN
LE STYLE ROTHSCHILD
SCOTTISH BARONIAL
VICTORIAN DINING-ROOM
GREENERY YALLERY (Aesthetic)
THE EARNEST 'EIGHTIES
ANGLICAN
DIAMOND JUBILEE
TROISIÈME RÉPUBLIQUE
ART NOUVEAU
EDWARDIAN
FIRST RUSSIAN BALLET PERIOD
ORDINARY COTTAGE
CULTURED COTTAGE (Cottagecore)
CURZON ST. BAROQUE
LUXURY FLAT.
ALDWYCH FARCICAL (Townhouse)
STOCKBROKERS TUDOR (Mock Tudor)
MODERNISTIC (Art Deco)
VOGUE REGENCY (Hollywood Regency)
FUNCTIONAL (Modern)
EVEN MORE FUNCTIONAL (Brutalism)
I recognise the style "Curzon St. Baroque" from the illustration. This is a modern style of the 40's and 50's but looking back to the Italian past for ornamentation. I never knew this had a name before. :-) Most of the 20th Century styles Osbert describes have died. The one style that is still going very strong is CULTURED COTTAGE, this is very much alive in magazines like "Homes and Gardens" where the interior reflects a rural idyll. There is colour-washing, distressed-textures, but enough books and works of art scattered around to shout that educated, rich and arty people are in residence not yer actual country yokels.
Osbert's light touch is at one remove savage satire, but also betrays a deep love of his subject and is, in a paradoxical way, educational. One critic indicates that by stereotyping styles, in the fashion of a cartoonist, in a printed form Osbert almost defines these styles for future generations and I think this has some truth to it.
The book was first published in 1939, and when Osbert references the 'fifties he means the 1850's, and he still has the cultural memory that can distinguish the style of the 1870's from the style of the 1880's. We have lost this, so the book's time perspective is of an even greater historic value today. He casually refers to air raid precautions, and we tend to forget that life still went in throughout WWII. The book was republished in 1939, 1940, 1941, 1944, 1946 and 1948, which I presume is the date of my copy since it is the last date provided. Osbert Lancaster is now out of fashion: he once held a much higher currency. However, I am delighted to report he is still in value.
SCOTTISH BARONIAL
THE official religion of Victorian England is usually considered to have been an evangelical form of Christianity suitably modified to bring it into harmony with a public school education and the principles of free trade, but one is sometimes tempted to wonder whether in large tracts of the country, particularly in Scotland, an older faith that blended ancestor worship with totemism did not reassert its hold on the upper classes from about the 'fifties onwards. How else can we explain the sudden appearance of those vast, castellated barracks faithfully mimicking all the least attractive features of the English home at the most uncomfortable period of its development, and filled with rank upon rank of grim-visaged, elaborately kilted forebears? What other explanation can be found for the presence of these enormous necropolitan menageries stuffed full of stags and caribou, bears and tigers-creatures which, however attractive in life, in death perform no function but the constant employment of legions of housemaids with dusters? What other reason can be advanced for the phenomenal popularity of Mr. Landseer whose only merit as a painter was the tireless accuracy with which he recorded the more revoltingly sentimental aspects of the woolier mammals?
Whether or not Scottish Baronial has its origins in primitive religion its popularity was soon assured in all classes of society. Tartan, stags' heads and faithful representations of Highland cattle in various media soon enlivened the Coburg simplicity of the Court as successfully as they added to the discomfort of cosy little villas in Tulse Hill or Twickenham where the rafters were unlikely ever to ring with the sound of the pipes. And to-day many a dusty hotel lounge, many a dentist's waiting-room with their ritual display of these old symbols, recall, like the mosques of Spain, the former domination of a vanished faith.
Kieran is one of the horologists who commissioned the longcase clock in the Great Hall at Balintore Castle. Getting the clock running for the Great Hall opening ceremony, was very much the icing on the cake. A ticking clock is one way in which a room can be said to come alive. If the Great Hall is the heart of the castle, then the clock is assuredly its pacemaker.
To quote Robert Burns "The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley", and Angus Council banned the opening ceremony just a week before the planned event. However, Kieran was motivated by his visit to the castle to create some art and to write a novel inspired by the building, so there is always some form of a positive outcome, even in dire circumstances.
What Kieran perhaps did not know is that I am a great fan of illustration, particularly in the representation of architecture, and his pen and ink drawings of Balintore Castle are precisely my thing. He used an ink pen of the same vintage as Balintore Castle, and believes the resulting uneven and scratchy lines produced are an integral part of the work.
The Great Hall Banquet
Castle Bedroom
The Castle
Who am I to disagree?:-) I mentioned his charming work reminds me of that produced by superstar illustrator twins Janet and Anne Graham Johnstone whose work I feature in an earlier blog post.
Another architecture illustrator I rate is Ruth Steed who did the drawings for the first edition of the novel "I Capture the Castle" by Dodie Smith. How architecture and atmosphere can be captured simultaneously in her "simple" line drawing below is a mystery to be celebrated.
After the first 30 seconds of the first episode of the first TV series of "Outlander: Blood of my Blood" (the "Outlander" prequel) a longcase clock is shown.
Outlander clock
I started in my armchair as there is an astonishingly similar one in the Great Hall at Balintore Castle.
Balintore Castle clock
I was told, by a horologist friend, that my clock dates from before 1770, due to the square date aperture. After 1770 round apertures become more common. I was delighted by the early date. I knew brass dials were earlier than the painted dials that we associate with the Victorian era, but did not know when they came in. Google now tells me the transition between brass and painted dials is 1770 to 1800 - who knew? :-)
Anyhow, the Outlander prequel begins in 1714 so could my clock be this early, or is the Outlander clock an anachronism?
Using google images, this is the closest to the Outlander clock I could find:
William and Mary clock 1795
It is pretty close even down to the silvered chapter ring and it is dated to 1695 i.e. William and Mary. So Outlander have got their props correct, their longcase clock is from the right era.
My clock has a maker "Jos Vervroegen à Anvers" a Flemish chap from Antwerp, so a simple textual look-up found this clock from 1770 in the Vleeshuis Museum in Antwerp, whose face appears an exact match. My wooden case is very much a later and inferior replacement. The revelation that my clock, £120 from a Glasgow auction house, is not of similar museum quality has not come as a major shock! :-)
Antwerp clock 1770
I was slightly perplexed that the style of these brass clocks has not changed much from 1695 and 1770, perhaps one of these attribution dates is incorrect?
However, the twin cherubs and crown style spandrels of the Outlander clock date between 1690-1720, so 1695 fits right in.
Branch style spandrels of my clock date between 1760-1780 which fits in with 1770. Arched dials appear after 1715, and as my clock has an arched dial, this again confirms it is later than the Outlander clock.
One friend told me that my clock dated between 1720 and 1740. I was enormously impressed by their erudition, and while my clock certainly matches the overall style of this period, the small stylistic differences in the detailing and the scanned page of the book above tell a different story.
This is precisely the same misapprehension I had when first visually comparing the Outlander clock to my own. The devil is in the detail.
I had not made the mental connection before between the "William and Mary" era, and the fact my clock is Flemish - both were imports from the Flemish region of Continental Europe. There was a time when things from the Flemish region were deeply fashionable in UK.
The opening sequence of "Outlander: Blood of My Blood" concerns the death of the chief of the MacKenzie clan and drama develops from the power vacuum created. The chief's longcase clock is stopped and covered with a cloth, a tradition which comes down to the 20th century in the form of W.H.Auden's poem "Funeral Blues" which famously starts with the line "Stop all the clocks,".
I have now watched the first 2 episodes of "Outlander: Blood of My Blood", and it is definitely growing on me, and I suspect, unlike most prequels/sequels, it has the same watchability as the original. Here are the links I used to date the clocks. You are very welcome to continue the research.
On my first trip to Orkney, a conversation with a local in a pub in Stromness, established that the most impressive neolithic site on the island was Maeshowe - a chambered cairn dating to 2800 BC. With limited time on the island, my friend Katherine and I then planned a lightning excursion to the neolithic sites ending up with Maeshowe.
This would have been a straightforward day trip, except we had scheduled it for the middle of Storm Arwyn. It was a blizzard!
I lost my sense of direction walking round the Ring of Brodgar, and in the white-out conditions I could not see the road we had arrived on, Katherine's car or indeed Katherine. I felt I was destined to walk round the neolithic stone circle for ever until exposure got me.
I was already fairly well advanced on the exposure front. My desperate survival strategy was to leave the circle at various points that felt strategic and just walk outwards radially. After a certain stage I would retreat back to the circle. Anyhow, on the fifth such outwards walk, I caught a sighting of the car - phew! Ötzi - it was not my time!
Afterwards, as we came up to the turn-off for Maeshowe, Katherine said "I'm cold, I'm wet and I'm hungry. Let's head in the other direction to Kirkwall for food". I replied "This could be the one time in our lives, we get an opportunity to see Maeshowe. It could be now or never, do you still want to go to Kirkwall?". "Yes" came the resounding reply.
Anyhow, we thawed out spectacularly in a hostelry in Kirkwall. I had my first satisfactory experience with cheesy chips.
On my second trip to Orkney, I made certain that Katherine and I had a clear run to Maeshowe on our last day. But it was locked up! By an amazing coincidence a tour party came by with the key. "Can we join you?" we asked. "No, we are limited by numbers due to H&S and anyway, you have to buy a ticket first".
On my third visit to Orkney, my friend Scott and I looked up tickets online, but only one ticket was left! What were we to do? Scott suggested I buy the one remaining ticket, and then to introduce him as my carer at the visitor centre.
As soon as I emerged from Scott's car at the visitor centre car park, my stage limp was already in place. Scot stayed in the car, and I had a little chat with the combined shop attendant and tour guide making sure my limp was exhibited to best advantage.
Thankfully, they were geared up for carers. Of course they could rustle up an extra carer's ticket, and the worst part is that the carer's ticket was free. I felt awful, a strong desire to see a neolithic tomb had now transmogrified into financial deception. :-( I would like to send out my eternal apologies to the Maeshowe staff in this forum.
A mini-bus took us from the visitors' centre to the mound. Unfortunately, there was still a long cross-country walk from the destination bus stop to Maeshowe proper, and I found that prolongedly maintaining the limp, created using muscular tension, was no making my leg hurt badly. Towards the end of the Maeshowe excursion, I worked out I only had to "mime" the limp which I could do simply by timing, but by that stage the damage had been done and it still hurt.
No photography is allowed in Maeshowe and indeed this is as it should be. When you have travelled a long way to experience an architectural space, why then should you dilute/taint that experience with a vulgar photograph? Taking a photograph in public is almost as bad as using a mobile phone in public. It creates a social tension. Few people want to be in a photograph and taking a photo is intrinsically contrary to a group dynamic.
I occasionally sneak in a photo as an aide-memoir or souvenir, but I make sure it is not intruding on anyone else, and often have no photographic record just for this reason. When I get a private view of a building, then it is due to the courtesy of the host, and particularly in this instance I would simply not get my camera out.
Anyhow, what I did record was a short video on the approach to Maeshowe as it had been a long time coming, and I had believed with the two previous fails that I had missed out for a lifetime. With the just one ticket remaining, I had though the third occasion was going to be yet another fail.
I would agree with the local in the pub, that Maeshowe is probably the one unmissable attraction than Orkney, even ahead of Skara Brae and the amazing St, Magnus cathedral. However, limit your expectations: the central chamber is only 5m by 5m - just the size of a standard living room. What is special is the sense of atmosphere and history.
When a group of vikings took shelter in the chamber in a snowstorm in the
12th Century, the structure was already ancient, and the newcomers left some carved runes behind. A historian's dream!
After the tour guide has done the main spiel in the interior of the cairn, the lights are switched off and a hand torch is shone askance on the walls. The runes, previously invisible, jump into existence. It is a magical coup de théâtre. I try not to do my homework before any visit and the runes were totally unexpected. I could kick myself, as I thought I had examined the interior thorough as I was determined to take full advantage of this once in a lifetime opportunity.
Maeshowe is a exercise in the philosophy of the "intactness of space". Despite a 1910 replacement roof at the very top of the central chamber, this was the same space that was also special to our neolithic ancestors. I could tell, before the tour guide explained, that the white painted arches at the top of the chamber were more recent, as arches only really came in during the Roman era.
The age-old debate is what this large central chamber and its three side chambers were used for. I was very strongly drawn to climb into the raised side-chambers (not permitted!) as it is human nature to climb into cosy safe spaces. Were these burial chambers or bed chambers? Absolutely no bones were found at Maeshowe and indeed this is the case for many neolithic long barrows. Wouldn't an historic clearing-out of tombs have left some bones?
In any case, the point is that construction is in our nature, and these ancient structures form one of the most enduring and most profound channels of human communication across time. After three attempts to answer the call, I was most definitely listening.
One of the most iconic carvings in the chamber is the charming "Maeshowe Dragon". Scott bought a badge bearing the image in the giftshop. I was quite envious, and would have bought one too had I spotted it. :-) Some sources refer to it as a lion, and that's my feeling about the creature too.
In a most unexpected and uncharacteristic burst of house-keeping, my builders decided to tidy up the area around the castle’s dining room fireplace. I was told that the remaining in-situ sections of pink granite mantelpiece would have to be removed for the tidying to occur, so I decided to photograph the process.
first photo
In the first photo you can see the start of the work. A 1950’s (?) concrete infill has started to be chipped out. The circular hole in the concrete would have allowed a stove to be connected up to the fireplace, which would have been infinitely more efficient than the original open fireplace.
second photo
In the second photo you can see the brick "throating" which would have been inserted in the 1950’s (?) to improve the draw of the stove.
third photo
In the third photo the original fireplace has been revealed. It is impressively large and open with an elegant and subtle arch. The original metal insert has long since gone. It will be rewarding to put something beautiful back in this location. We now have a starting point.
Even though Angus Council banned the opening ceremony for the newly restored Great Hall at Balintore Castle, one positive outcome is that the original architect for the restoration project called Paul Bradley, came up from Suffolk specially for the occasion. It was so lovely to see him again.
Paul was able to take an "after" photo of the entrance porch at the castle, to go with the "before" photo he had taken many years previously. Often it takes someone from outside to capture progress. With the door repaired and repainted; the vegetation removed; and the urns returned, things are looking much better.
In fact, you can see clearly how the urns complete the composition of the porch. How did I ever manage without them? :-)
For reasons far more interesting than this blog entry will ever be, I had to kill some time away from the castle on Thursday, so local historic buildings were the order of the day. Broughty Castle in Dundee was the most obvious solution: it is nearby and I had unbelievably never visited before.
I generally don't get much time away from Balintore, so the respite from restoration duty was very welcome. Broughty Castle is now a small free museum run by Dundee Council, and is a brilliant asset for tourists. The problem is that locals tend to visit small museums only once, thereafter only taking visiting friends, so my impression was that visitor numbers could be on the low side.
The exterior of the castle and its location are arresting: a tall tower on a rocky promentory above the sea. So the castle is a good side-diversion for visitors to Broughty Ferry beach, and I suspect this is how it gets most of its visitors.
The interior of the castle is somewhat disappointing for architecture fans, as there are no clues as how to interpret the mediaeval building - constructed in 1490 and restored in 1860. The museum galleries were modern looking rooms. The only clues as to antiquity were the deep window recesses cutting through the massive stone walls and the vast timber ceiling beams, which although installed presumably in 1860, recalled the original mediaeval beams.
The problem is that the 1860 reworking of the building was to turn it into a "modern" artillary defence against a looming French invasion. In short, the make-over IMHO lost the mediaeval charm. A second sandstone ashlar tower was added to the orginal white rendered tower i.e. a new-L shaped extension was bolted onto one corner of the ancient rectangular structure. The new tower was not constructed without care i.e. it is in a mediaeval style, but considerations of preserving the archaeology of the older structures were not so much in vogue then.
The castle's small modern generic municipal museum feel, could be turned into something far more spectacular and far more suited to its incredible setting. For example, I would like to know which room was the orginal Great Hall, and to look at the vaulted(?) lower floors which visitors bypass to get to the gift shop, where visits start and end. All in all, I could find almost no information on the Web on the actual structure of the building. The best online source I could find is here.
I asked in the gift shop for a book on the castle. There was none. There had once been a thickish pamphlet but this was now out of print, and they had a single reference copy. The impression given is that although the building is very much in plain site of Dundee citizens, much less is known about the structure of the building than most other castles.
The modern military use of the building continued until the end of 1945!
I bought an interesting book in the gift shop on "reading" castles and this rather than one on Broughty Castle itself, that I might have preferred, is how I made my donation to the building.
I arrived at the Broughty Ferry beach car park early in the morning. On the journey, the sunshine at Balintore gave way to thick sea fog hanging over the Tay. The combination of fog and strong sunshine is a magic one for photographs. I remember a famous photographer saying that you do not a get a good photograph unless there is moisture in the atmosphere to make the light interesting and for the image to be of that transient moment i.e. distingusing that unique split-second from a bland summer continuum of bright sunshine.
Anyhow, as the fog blew off during the course of the morning. I took a series of photographs. I was not "taking photographs" as such but recording moments that caught my eye as I walked around. I held back often when it might have appeared that I was sticking a camera into someone's face. The resulting 7 photos below are not conventional but just me having fun.
The last photo shows that Dundee not only has a beach but a life guard station - the latter surprised even me!
Some guests at the castle today were caught up in a fracas in Perth this afternoon. The glass case containing the Stone of Destiny, in the Perth Museum, ws smashed just before 2PM.
Of course this act of vandalism, no doubt, is inspired by the theft of the stone from Westminster Abbey by Scottish students in 1950. I had thought the story of this theft, which had kept the newspapers of the time humming, would make a good film.
I checked out IMDB and sure enough a film called "Stone of Destiny" had been made in 2009. I was bracing myself for some awful product of the parochial Scottish film industry. However, the film, IMHO, is probably one of the best Scottish films around. Obviously, it is primarily an audience-pleasing comedic heist movie, and is somewhat formulaic but serious themes are touched upon and above all the movie has a great heart. The cream of Scotish acting talent provides great support.
I was sufficiently inspired by this under-rated and little-known film, to buy the source work called "The Taking of the Stone of Destiny" written by one of the students called Ian Hamilton. I saw him interviewed in later life on the Scottish news, and he was a wonderful character. He became a highly respected Queen's Council, so being called a "vulgar vandal" by the press of the time was still causing him great amusement.
I told the castle guests that I would show them the book, so took it off my booksheves. This evening, I was sitting in the kitchen idling through my copy of the book (still unread), and spotted to my huge surprise that it was a signed copy. I screamed with delight. Ryan thought I had seen something overly ribald in the pages. :-) The copy was not sold as signed on eBay.
So if it had not been for the vandalism today, I would not have made this delightful discovery. Destiny?
With the restoration of the Great Hall at Balintore Castle essentially complete, it feels right to have an official Grand Opening event. This has been the longest, costliest and hardest part of the restoration so far, so a celebration is more than in order.
Here is the text of the public invite I have sent out: Great Hall Grand Opening Invitation
you are cordially invited to the Grand Opening of the Great Hall at Balintore Castle on Sunday, 3rd August, 2025. Food and beverages will be provided at no charge throughout the day.
The completion of this phase of the restoration project is the most significant step forward, since Angus Council pioneeringly bought Balintore Castle for the nation in 2007.
Please help us celebrate the support of Angus Council for its built heritage and show your support for the project by booking (free) tickets for the event on EventBrite here:
The "celebrity" cutting of the red ribbon will be at 11AM, but volunteers will be on hand throughout the day to help explain the rich and intriguing story of this architectural masterpiece.
Great Hall after restoration - still to be decorated
Great Hall after restoration (detail) note carefully sourced extra warm light bulbs
Meet Dolly the dog! Ryan the chef at Balintore Castle has been dog-sitting Dolly, while her owner is on an extended trip to Australia. On her first stay, Dolly was a ball of fur and badly needed a haircut. However, it emerged that she has a lovely placid personality, loves to be around humans and can be taken for a walk without requiring a lead. In short, an ideal pet who is no trouble at all to look after.
On her second recent stay at the castle, Dolly arrived with the much needed haircut and for the first time I twigged she was probably a Cairn Terrier. I have a soft spot for terriers and love their sparky independence. Ryan and myself bonded much more with Dolly during this stay: we both admitted to being immorally lookist and the haircut was the key. :-) Ryan allowed Dolly much greater freedom this time round as she was a known quantity and allowed her to do her own thing inside and outside the castle, instead of being kept in a room or on a lead. Dolly did not betray this trust, except on one occasion when she decided to eat half a dead rabbit she had found and on another occasion which is the subject of this blog ...
I was sorting out guest rubbish for recycling, pulling out the cans and bottles etc. Occasionally, gems appear such as an unopened packet of crisps. On this occasion, there was a whole unopened pack of butter. When you are banned from driving for a year and in consequence cannot go shopping and live with a vegan chef, a pack of butter is a rarity to be celebrated. I put the butter to one side.
I then discovered a smashed up Victorian pink glass flambeau lampshade which must have been broken by the guests and put into the bin. I ran into the guest accommodation and the table lamp which had been fitted with this shade was missing. I checked the cupboards, and the lamp was nowhere to be found. It had been stolen, to try to hide the crime. I was heartbroken given the trouble I had taken to source this Victorian lamp and shade - both items were irreplaceable. Guest are told they must report and pay for broken items so I felt betrayed as well. I burst into tears and rushed to my neighbour's house to let it all out. After the recent significant and devastating burglary at the castle, any new incident can set me off.
I was too upset to continue sorting out the rubbish, and left it to the next day. The next day was Saturday the 2nd June, and BonFest in Kirriemuir - the annual rock festival celebrating the legacy of Bon Scott (1946-1980) the lead singer of AC/DC who was brought up in the town. Ryan attended the event with Dolly and a human friend. Normally you would expect humans at such festivals to overindulge, but no it was Dolly who was living the rock-and-roll lifestyle.
She vomited in Ryan's bedroom that morning. What emerged was so thick that it hung over the back of Ryan's chair and did not drip to the floor. Dolly vomited (amongst other locations) on the floor of the "The Star Rock Shop", the oldest sweet shop in Scotland let alone Kirriemuir. On coming back to the castle, Dolly vomited on the floor of Gregor's carpentry workshop. Ryan was so fed up with dealing with vomit that day, that he simple sprinkled sawdust over the two deposits. In a carpentry workshop, sawdust is not in short supply...
Later that day I resumed dealing with the waste. There on the ground was an empty pack of butter save a tiny quantity remaining in one corner with little teeth marks in it. I think we all know who the culprit was. :-) My builders mentioned they had seen Dolly in the area of the refuse bonfire pit.
So if the guest had reported their breakage, I would not have been so upset, the pack of butter would not have been left, and Dolly would not have eaten it and then vomited it out onto the mean streets of Kirriemuir. I have never watched the "A Series of Unfortunate Events" franchise, but suspect Dolly's misadventures of excess at a heavy metal festival are right up there.
The good news is that the following day, I did a more careful hunt in the guest accommodation and found that the antique lamp had been stuffed at the very back of a cupboard.
When Dolly arrived at the castle for her latest stay, she did not have a day bed where she could be with Ryan and myself in the kitchen, so we put her on some wool wadding that was used as packaging material. Later on I fabricated a doggie day bed from an Amazon Prime cardboard box, and unholstered with the said wadding.
Dolly in her Amazon Prime day bed
You can see from the photo above, that Dolly is not always a heavy metal hooligan or leporine desacrator, and usually serves little dog cuteness. :-)
In the previous episode of this blog, my builders' insistance that the floor of the Great Hall should be left the natural blond oak colour of the newly installed reclaimed wood was pretty apparent, and their arguments were, it has to be said, perfectly valid.
However, where there is a choice my natural instinct is to go with the historic reality of the building, and at Balintore the original Great Hall floor was painted a dark brown that matched the other woodwork in the room. In fact, without Gavin's and Gregor's intervention, I would not have considered a blond floor in the first place.
What a dilemma!
I am someone who naturally consults with others where there is debate. It's not that I am weak-willed or indecisive, but the more angles one views an issue from, the better informed and better the resulting outcome. I showed my guests the stained samples of wood, and the clear consensus was the stain named "smoked oak". This tint was what I myself had chosen and had found was the closest match to the historic colour. Obviously, I kept my own view hidden for the longest time. :-) An extremely talented artist I know, just clearly stated that it was obvious the floor had to go dark. That was one of the clinchers.
I am also someone who does not believe in "decisions". One tries something out to see if it works. In that way you never make a mistake. This is a common technique in software engineering: you may not know how to solve a problem but you give yourself a hour or so, to work on a reduced version of the problem with a particular solution technique. By the end of that hour, you will generally know whether the approach is promising or whether you should try something completely different instead.
The actual moment I had to tell Gavin and Gregor that I was going dark was rather intimidating. It was the end of the day. We needed to move on the floor, and G&G asked what I was doing. I mentioned I was going dark, but that we needed a test area and that I would order a single tin of "smoked oak".
Gavin joined together some spare flooring to produce a 2 foot by 2 foot dance floor and he applied the stained wax oil.
Gavin's dance floor
I was super delighed at how it looked, and eventally Gavin with some reluctance said that it did look good but just for this limited area. Because the grain of the oak shows through one's initial thought is that this is just the natural rich wood colour.
I can remember that moment in childhood when one realises that most wood is actually "white" in colour, and the "brown" material one has seen up to that point is actually due to a stain.
I naturally wanted to record the floor in a blond state before it went brunette:
goodbye blond floor 1
goodbye blond floor 2
Today Gregor stained a section of the actual floor within a doorframe, and this was final confirmation that it was full steam ahead. All three of us liked the effect.
.webp)
