15th February, 2011

We have a young man from France with us for 3 weeks. Simeon is studying tourism in Biarritz and asked to come here for a placement. One of the things he has been doing is making a bilingual tour guide for a walk round the sights of Pitlochry, but he's also been helping out with guests, preparing rooms, serving meals and showing people where to go. It's been interesting to see the kind of things he's expected to learn and sharing our experiences with him.

One notable experience is the boiler changeover. Work has started to install our new woodpellet boiler, to be followed by solar panels. Unfortunately delays have meant that it is happening when residential guests are coming at the weekends and community groups during the week. Iain has had his work cut out securing enough heaters to keep the place warm in the interim (and making sure we don't fry our circuits in the process.) and the plumber is installing a temporary immerser in the new cylinders so we don't go without hot water while the changeover is taking place. It's beginning to take shape now & we're very grateful Hugh is on board to supervise the work. We hope to have the new boiler in and working by the end of next week.
We had the Salvation Army Youth Choir in over this last weekend training with a professional voice coach and they sounded wonderful. Highways support group for local adults with learning difficulties met on Saturday morning too. They are looking for volunteers to help members be part of their local community, so if you live in or near Aberfeldy, Pitlochry or Dunkeld and are interested please get in touch.