Christmas dinner at Milehouse 2009

Dec 18th and 19th Milehouse

We all arrived on the evening of the 18th. The main road was almost clear but the last few miles through Kincraig to the bothy were touch and go. A good 6 inches of snow lay on top of compacted ice. Nic & Maureen opted for the luxury of the garden. One group went up to the nothern corries to see what a blizzard looked like from the inside and to re-acquaint themselves with winter survival techniques, while another group set off to conquer a corbet north of

Kingussie. According to the tales on their return the mountain had grown at least 8 feet with the amount of fresh snow they encountered. Saturday night saw all 15 of us sitting down to a full xmas dinner, the highlight this time being the brandy escaping from the xmas pudding and setting fire to the kitchen work top!
Santa paid another visit, after all the cleaning up was finished, and we were all blessed with gifts. We woke up on Sunday to another 6 inches of snow and had a slow drive south.

Dec 27th, 28th and 29th Mill Cottage

The stalwarts returned to Kincraig the following week after the xmas excess, for exercise and restraint, little of the former and none of the latter was shown over 3 nights, in even deeper snow.
This time we had to dig the cars in each evening to get them off the road then dig them out the next morning to head off again. Most of the group set off for the ski resort each morning and enjoyed powder snow and blue skies, the same for the walkers but endured seems more appropriate after 6 hours of wading in soft snow.

The bunkhouse had suffered from the weather and there was no running water in the kitchen, only the bathroon sinks & toilets worked. The solution was paper plates and throw your dishes on the fire at the end of the meal! a solution that should become a tradition I feel.


David & Janet camped on the 27th due to overspill but at -19 it was a bit nippy so we gave up on that idea pretty quickly and dossed on the floor for the next 2 nights. Downhill & cross country skiing were the best options and it was, and continues to be the best skiing season for many years.

David Jamieson