Invergarry Lodge

Archive for the ‘The Hostel’ Category

Seasonal Scottish Produce

We didn’t do great with our veggies this year, we kind of got a bit distracted with Alby around the time we should have been getting things planted but we had a flash of inspiration today – a quick harvest of a few of the things that are ready and we created a lovely lunch…..freshly dug potatoes, spring onions, broad beans, rosemary from the herb garden, eggs from the chickens – the only thing that wasn’t home grown was the paprika!

We would have enjoyed this with a nice chilled glass of chardonnay except we don’t look old enough to buy wine in Fort Augustus!

–Matt

P.S  Sorry that this is another food post, we’ll try not to let it turn into a food blog!

Pots, shots and sore botts!

It’s been a day of intense competition today as we launched the inaugural Invergarry Lodge Alternative Triathlon.

During the first day of competition the boys went head to head at archery in the garden where I took an early lead on points and Ben (the young competitor from Yorkshire) was penalised some of the bonus points he earned fixing the hostel computer when he broke two of the arrows.

The second event of the day, admittedly a little unconventional for a triathlon, was pottery. Anna and Jen went head to head on the hostel’s new pottery wheel, it looked close to me but I’m told Anna snatched victory with her wee dish but Jen was definitely hot on her heels…

Third event of the day was Mountain Biking which consisted of a quick (ish) 7.5 mile loop around the forest, up the forest roads and down the narrow waymarked trails with a quick stop to collect some chanterelles to go on our homemade pizzas – the food of champions!

After a couple of recounts over some delicious post competition pizzas, the final results are in….everyone’s a winner at Invergarry Lodge!

–Matt

Fruity Adventures at Invergarry Lodge

It’s been two years since we planted our first fruit bushes at Invergarry Lodge, and this summer we got a fantastic first harvest of blackcurrants, redcurrants and gooseberries.  This means we’ve been indulging in plenty of desserts, including a brioche summer pudding, an apple and blackcurrant oaty crumble and my very own gooseberry delight, made with slow-roasted gooseberries, almond meringues, whipped cream and a sprinkling of toasted oatmeal.

This week we have also begun to take advantage of the wild harvests around Invergarry, starting with the beautiful Chanterelle mushrooms which are plentiful (if you know where to look!) in the local forests.  With the help of some dried Porcinis, fresh basil and a handful of parmesan the Chanterelles made a fantastic wild mushroom risotto, and even Alby gave his portion (minus the Chanterelles) the thumbs up so it will definitely be appearing on our menu again!

We also recently spotted a bumper crop of wild raspberries along a nearby stretch of the Caledonian Canal, so we returned the following day with our tubs and collected enough for the aforementioned summer pudding with enough leftover to re-create Delia Smith’s delicious Raspberry and Pecan shortbreads:

All this and we haven’t even managed to get out for our annual bilberry harvest yet… if we make it in time we’ll  also be able to add bilberry jam to our list of 2010 culinary adventures.

Doggy Dylan does the double

The chief hostel mascot did us proud again at this years highland games – getting first place in two categories in the dog show, ok, one of the categories was “most disobedient dog” but still, a wins a win.

Unfortunately while we were supporting Dyls we missed the start of the hill race so that will have to wait until next year. Elsewhere at the games there was all the usual heavy events – caber tossing and the like, highland dancing and the lochaber pipe band etc but the shock of the day was that Jenny wasn’t chosen as parade queen! Scandal.

–Matt

Interactive Local Map

Sorry for the lack of posts since the blog redesign, the hostel has been so busy we’ve not had time for much. I did find a bit of time to create this interactive local map – we thought it’d be useful for people planning their stay. Anyway, it’s a bit of a work in progress at the moment so bear with us as we keep adding things of interest, we’ll also hook it up to the main site when we get two minutes.

View Invergarry and Surrounding Area in a larger map

If you think we’ve missed something out, feel free to let us know! mail@invergarrylodge.co.uk

-Matt

It’s a whole new blog…

Welcome to the all new and improved Invergarry Lodge blog. As well as being a little bit fancier and having a pretty background it has also been moved so update your bookmarks to www.invergarrylodge.co.uk/blog/. Bear with us over the next few days as we’re still making a few adjustments here and there.

A big thanks to Ben who helped us with some technical website server wizardry.

Hope you all enjoy the new blog, let us know what you think!

Matt & Jen

Jenny Potter and the Goblet of Clay

Having racked up enough brownie points to earn myself a day out, I decided to finally have a go at something I’ve fancied trying for years – throwing a pot. Despite a few attempts I’d found nowhere offering pottery lessons or classes anywhere nearby, but Matt came up trumps and found a small pottery near Aviemore where I could have an afternoon lesson. Realising it would be a bit lonesome having a lesson by myself, I invited Helen Caketopper (www.caketops.co.uk) along as she was also very keen on having a go. Helen’s friend Shell also happened to be in Aviemore that week, and so it was that all three of us arrived at the pottery on Thursday afternoon, keen and eager to get potting.

Our first lesson was in wedging the clay, which basically involved kneading the clay to make sure no lumps or air bubbles remained. This warmed us up nicely as we pushed and squashed the clay. Then it was time for throwing. First of all we had to centre our clay, which meant getting the lump of clay to sit right in the middle of the wheel. Without achieving this it is impossible to get a nice round pot, so after some top tips from Penny the Potter we dived straight in:


After centering the clay we were then taught how to hollow out our lumps of clay, give them height, mould them into bowls and give them rims. Before long we had created our very own bowls! Well mine ended up as more of a goblet, as I somehow managed to give it a bit of a ‘foot’, but I was very pleased with my efforts nonetheless.

With our goblets finished, we then progressed onto jugs, which came with the added challenges of spouts and handles. Despite managing to put a hole in the bottom of mine, this little faux pas was soon fixed by Penny and soon I had a jug I was pretty pleased with, if I do say so myself.

What a great day out, Penny looked after us and was a great teacher, and after our lesson (and before we got too ahead of ourselves) we saw how it was really done by having a browse around her gallery, which contained some really beautiful pieces (www.penspots.co.uk). I can heartily recommend pottery throwing to anyone who doesn’t mind getting very messy, and although I don’t have too much time for extra hobbies right now, when I do I think that pottery may just become my new pasttime of choice.

Jen x

Employee of the Month!

After a secret ballot (and a couple of recounts) it was decided that Alby was going to be Invergarry Lodge’s very first Employee of the Month!

He can be seen here putting the finishing touches to the new gallery page on our website – look how happy he is to be receiving this award! Now, if only we could get him to clean up the office once in a while…..

–Matt

Invergarry Lodge is 95% brilliant…

….we’re still working on the other 5% but I’m sure we’ll get there soon. Customers who book through hostelworld can review us after they have stayed with us by logging into www.hostelworld.com, the average rating is then calculated from all our reviews.

You can also review us on www.hihostels.com if you book through the SYHA/Hostelling International – we have no rating on there yet as we haven’t been on for very long so feel free to be the first to rate us!

As if that isn’t enough we are also now on Twitter – you can follow our tweets here.

Bye for now!

–Matt

Happy Easter Hollandaise

After staging a quick photo (have a gander at that here) Jen took control and got things moving along – she’s an eggspert in the kitchen

We also did a normal egg for comparison, no propergander here…

….much bigger…

…and very delicious.

Happy Easter

–Matt