Killiehuntly estate is near Glenfeshie in the Cairngorms and includes a child-free farmhouse where you can stay and have your breakfast made for you, and a child-friendly cottage where you make your own food and fun. The latter of which I stayed in for two nights after our camping mini break. Good grief it’s beautiful, I gushed quite repeatedly for the first five minutes of arrival. This might have been prompted by the camping trip we’d just had – I know I sound so over pampered – but it was a lovely cabin to arrive at having kayaked in the rain on Loch Tay all morning and showered in a cubicle where wellies, and not just my own, had trod. The approach to the estate from the nearby village of Kingussie is at first just green, then steadily encroaches into beautiful forests, a non uniform mix of pine and oak, dappled with light and footed with purple heather, soft moss and pine cones. The roots of those huge trees tangled like pieces of rope on the floor.

This was the the cottage from the outside, just as we stepped out of the car.

I’d written about it before going, and knew the owners had wanted a sort of Danish-Scottish contemporary blend with the interior. And that’s how it feels with tongue and groove panelled walls and ceilings in shades of different light greys, locally sourced sheepskins slung over chairs and sofas, and bits of tasteful Hay furniture and lighting making the whole thing feel definitely not rustic. The two days we were there it was pretty darned cold and so we did use that stove in the living room.

But there was a very well equipped kitchen so it was purely a warming fire.

More sheepskins and lots of books in the bedrooms (sorry I forgot to move the suitcase)…

About the rugs – many were by Emily’s House London, which is how I learned about the place in the first instance. There was even a lovely little Yastik rug in the bathroom. All of them had quite thick foam lining beneath them which, as they say in the biz, is an idea to steal. Very comforting it was too.

My photos are dark because conditions made it so, but there’s something about Scotland’s wilds that makes you accept a different, difficult climate and we still made it out for walks and trips, even if only to wonder to the field down the way from us to feed apples to the stallion living there. It was pretty dreamy all in.

I also went to my first live Shinty match, which happened to be on in Kingussie on the saturday. We watched grown men hit their sticks around the ball with frightening force as the midges circled round our heads and people yelled on ‘Ussie at our sides.

And then we came home for a nap and a read.