“I liked our last holiday house better,” broadcasts my niece on arrival at Gairnsheil Lodge’s Laggan Cottage in the Scottish Highlands. The factor about six-year-olds is that they famously have little or no style, and this isn’t the very first thing we’ve disagreed on (different subjects embrace bedtimes, what constitutes ‘dinner’ and the way typically it’s best to brush your hair). You’d assume for somebody who was being handled to a bucket record vacation she’d have a little bit extra respect.
Attitude of different friends apart, I received’t be delay my stride. To me, that is the perfect rental. Somewhere that has you feverishly dreaming of promoting up and beginning a brand new, romantic life in the nation as quickly as you clap eyes on it at the backside of its gently winding, single-track strategy. Sitting in the heather-clad hills and circled by a tumbling stream, it’s the stuff of Scottish storybooks. Lying low underneath sagging winter skies in its hollow, it’s a standard cottage carved out of Speyside stone with candy multi-pane home windows and double chimney breasts book-ending the constructing. To one facet there’s a brand new porch to stuff with wellies and jackets, which leads onto a kitchen, by to a lounge and continues on to the one downstairs bed room, earlier than you head upstairs to 2 extra rooms with their own stunning bogs (extra on these later). It has the distinct benefit of going in opposition to the grain in the case of its aesthetic, too, presenting as even nicer than the photos in actual life, relatively than the different means round.
We’re visiting in the depths of December, simply earlier than Christmas, and so darkish descends by the afternoon, giving us the inexperienced gentle to embrace the historic artwork of doing completely nothing. With no tv in the lounge, we get the open hearth and some candles going, put the adjoining bar to good use, settle into the deep couch for just a few hours and eventually flip our consideration to dinner.
Every area is devoid of litter on one hand whereas additionally being wholly furnished as a house, to be able to reside in it absolutely, nevertheless lengthy you’re staying. The kitchen is a covetable assortment of great equipment. There’s a Lacanche cooker for starters, which has been on each one in every of my Pinterest boards since 2015. There are thick, professional-level pans and loads of them, beneficiant servingwear, stunning cutlery and crockery and a stash of razor-sharp Opinel knives. If we had been extra formidable with our planning, this can be a place that would have stood as much as all method of menus.
Over our unambitious however crowd-pleasing steak and chips we every choose our favourite a part of the design, which is a delicate palette of heat woods and neutrals. There is simply sufficient distinction from just a few key items, like the coal black grate or a darkish crimson armchair in the lounge, to maintain issues dynamic. Unanimously we agree our favourite aspect is the but unmentioned master bedroom. It’s the place I’ll be spending the evening after pulling rank (it is twin beds and an en suite with the all-essential bathtub for the cheeky miss and her brother, and the stunning upstairs double with its rainfall bathe in the eves for his or her dad and mom).