We’d like to take this opportunity to wish all our lairds and ladies a very Merry Christmas and a happy new year.

2009 has been a really great year at Dunans, and 2010 will be even better. We hope to see lots of you next year, as during this we’ve had visits from lairds and ladies from all over the world — from Vancouver and LA, Murmansk and Tiblisi, Canberra and Auckland you’ve come over to Scotland and made visits to Dunans to see your square feet, the tallest tree in the UK (OK OK we know you Americans have the tallest tree in the world — or is it in Tasmania?) and view the ruinous castle and our progress.

Next year will see much of the castle cleared, a feasibility study carried out and work done on the drive and parking — its going to be hard work, but we’re really feeling that we have cleared the decks now and can now move this project forward at top speed.

So many festives to you all, and hope to see you in the New Year!

It is a truth universally acknowledged that half-lit scenes at dusk are not photographed well by 5 megapixel phone cameras – why I tried to is beyond me. Call it unpreparedness, call it lack of foresight if you will, but the photo included hereafter, is about the best, and frankly, it does neither Ariel nor the grounds justice on what were two extraordinary nights of Shakespearean delight at Dunans Castle.

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The Royal in question is Prince Charles, and he’s the inspiration for the newest of our garden projects. You’ll know if you have visited Dunans, that along the drive we have a truly magnificent bank of colourful rhododendrons. These Victorian exotics which provide such a riot of flame hues in May and June, are for the most part redundant during the rest of the year. Not only that, they’re getting leggy and somewhat shapeless in comparison to other examples in the grounds. So what to do? Well, good old Charlie Windsor gave us a great idea.

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We have just confirmed that the Walking Theatre Company will offer a 20% discount on tickets for their performances of The Tempest and Macbeth at Dunans Castle in October this year.

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We’re still nailing down the details, but this autumn, as part of Cowalfest 2009, the Walking Theatre Company is going to be giving three flare-lit evening performances of their favourite Shakespeare plays in the grounds of Dunans Castle. One performance will definitely be TWTC’s interpretation of Macbeth, and another The Tempest.

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The ScottishLaird.com project was always going to evolve, building upon the basic idea and ensuring that year-on-year our offering develops such that all our Lairds and Ladies continue to enjoy our increasingly successful project. The next stage in the evolution is a new presentation pack folder. We’ve spent the last couple of months designing it and researching the copy, and we can now offer it to existing lairds and ladies.

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We’ve just been working on some maps for another project, and found to our delight that Google have finally uploaded new sat images of Dunans. Looking at the image this must have been taken sometime in late summer 2005 – there’s half a hedge of Leylandii still to be felled. Anyway, more importantly, there’s the fantastic aerial shot of the ruin of the castle. You can clearly see the structure’s compartmentalisation. Fantastic. We’ll have to get the photos of around that time and create an annotated version.

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May is the month in which all our best flowers put on their displays: the bluebells, azaleas, rhododendrons and some unusual narcissi. I though you’d like to get a flavour and whet your appetite:

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This weekend we enjoyed higher numbers of visitors walking around the woodland garden than ever before. Partly this was due to our first weekend as one of Scotland’s Gardens Scheme gardens for which Sadie guided around thirty like-minded and thoroughly enthusiastic garden enthusiasts (!) around our 16 acres, and partly because we have now erected our front-of-house signage.

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This image is hosted at http://www.flickr.com/photos/ghostschool/3445476246

I just had to share this image with you – which I am sure you will recognise as the classic view of Dunans Castle from the bridge. It captures the atmosphere of Dunans so well that it really made my day!

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