A whisky lovers dream venue for a wedding ...

on the malting floor of Ardbeg distillery. 

I recently spent an afternoon with Mom on the malting floor at Ardbeg distillery measuring up for flowers for a wedding being held in April. The space will be transformed with a walkway of barrels adorned with flowers.

The ceremony will take place over the barrels then festivities follow in the visitors centre

  
i think the bottles may be removed! but flowers will take their place.

 
A busy morning followed by an afternoon of gardening back at Rowan Cottage, then to relax in front of a film, but look what i missed ...

 
The Aurora over Saligo Bay. Still kicking myself that i had the curtains closed.  

Garden moves

The garden has lots of colour now but the yellow poppies are taking centre stage, with their cheery blooms .. 

although we are so pleased with the gravel bed we created last year, it is full of colour and the sedums have started to self seed, so very soon we will have enough plants for the next stage of the garden, which will be the beach garden which we hope to start later this year.

Thanks to Kenny who built us a sort of fence come screen last month and now we are able to put the finishing touches to it with the addition of rope.  It is not to be mistaken for an adventure playground though, as the rope definitely wont take the weight of cheeky monkeys.

We hope you enjoy spending time in the garden when you are at the cottage, we managed to eat our breakfast and lunch outside most days.  The evenings were spent sipping a glass of wine on the bench by the pond, but make sure you do have your midge spray on!!

BLUE

Blue has dominated the trip to Islay this June. Blue skies, Blue seas and Bluebells.

woodland walk - Loch Gruinart

the scent of coconut from the gorse is overwhelming

With temperatures soaring into the 20's, blue skies and white sands and the heady scent of the gorse have given the island a slightly tropical look and smell this June.

Walks on the Big Strand have been dominated by a very unusual sight. A dead sperm whale has been washed up on the beach and we read that a sperm whale had been sighted in Oban, again very unusual, but the article said that whales do come in closer to the land when they are unwell. So I wonder if it is the same whale. You can read more here http://islaynaturalhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/sperm-whale.html   

Carpets of Snowdrops
The storms and bad weather that has effected ferries sailing to Islay has not deterred the snowdrops from making an appearance in Bridgend woods. They are carpeted with the first flowers of the year and are a truly welcome sight.

 Back from a walk in the woods and on to finishing another path in the garden at Rowan Cottage. During a welcome break from path laying the sky caught my eye, the shafts of light seemed to create golden pools of light on the loch.

   

Next step in the garden at Rowan

Work got underway in the next  stage of developing the grounds at Rowan Cottage this week.   

 

We look forward to sharing photos of the next phase of the garden development next year.

 

Paul Jones comes to Islay

 

 

Luckily for me I came to Islay on the week that Paul Jones and his wife visited. They were in  Bowmore Village Hall telling us their story of how they found their faith, which they did in an entertaining and enthusiastic way. I just loved listening to him and his wife singing and his harmonica playing was just great.

 

 

Oh and by the way he does look that young!

 

picture on the patio

 

Thank you to Rachel and husband Marc for creating this picture on the patio. It is made up of stones and shells collected from various scottish islands, including Islay. As they were too heavy to take back to Germany on the plane, Rachel made them into a picture for us during her trip in June. When I visited a few weeks ago, the picture was still intact.

 

If anyone likes collecting shells I have found that the beach at Ardnave is a great place to go. For those who like collecting shells with cockles still inside them a trip to killinallen across the bay from ardnave is a good place to go cockle raking. We have spent great times on claggan beach making stone towers from lovely looking stones, a great way to spend some time with the kids and be creative.