Your Valentines Day gift sorted

Fear not, the blind panic that descends as we creep closer to Valentines Day can be completely avoided. Send your nearest and dearest a Lovey Dovey Hamper (cool name or not? What do you think?) and sidestep that whole drama whilst earning yourself a stack of brownie points for your thoughtfulness – result!

View the range of Velvet Antlers Valentines hampers here.

1st time ice climber

Forgive the rather unflattering 'bum-shot' but I'm sure every ice-climber has some lurking in a folder somewhere.

Dave and I have some filming planned soon on Ben Nevis and never having touched ice with an axe before, we thought it would be a good idea to hit the Ice Factor and try swinging some tools for the first time before I hit the real stuff, as the weather outside is minging. That was two nights ago now and my forearms are still stiff from the savage pump.

Amazing fun though!

I'm sure all you proper ice climbers are getting psyched for the next couple of days as it looks like there are some pretty good conditions on the horizon.

Scottish Cafes we like – Introduction

Cafés are seriously important if you are into travelling in Scotland, especially if outdoor type activities are your thing. Whatever it is you choose to do (climbing, walking and hitting the animal park tour is ours), the rigours of the Scottish climate will demand a nice place to go and recover afterwards. This might mean chilling out, thawing out, pigging out (otherwise known as refuelling), or drying out depending what the Gulf Stream decides to throw at you on any particular day.

When you’ve spent as much time in cafs waiting for the conditions to improve as we have, you’ll understand why it becomes a pretty critical (if often unspoken) factor in deciding on destinations for your latest adventure.

We feel our combined years of being climbers, together with Dave’s tea addiction have earned us expert status in this subject. So on this blog we’ll take you through the best spots for tea-and-a-bun you’ll find in these islands, with some stories of how we discovered them. Some of them are fairly well hidden so we hope our posts will help you find a place to sit out some less than perfect weather conditions in some remote corner of the Highlands, or just find some lovely food to refresh you for wherever your explorations take you next.

First up – Birnam café

Scottish Cafes we like – Birnam Café

Most folks passing through Perthshire end up in the tourist laden hives of Dunkeld or Pitlochry. But although Birnam village is virtually joined onto Dunkeld, the trail of activities leads away from it, and most folks never pass through. Perhaps the fact that the new A9 cut Birnam off from the flow of northward traffic allowed Birnam caf to seemingly freeze into an image of what the highlands must have been like many decades ago in a quieter age.

As you sit and wait for your traditional leaf tea and stack of cakes and pancakes on a silver cake stand, you peer at the wall stacked with a trillion varieties of enticing looking boiled sweets. Cubby first introduced us to the caf. He is really the man to be writing this post as he’s been going there for 20 years, usually after a training session for the first rock climbing world cup competitions at the cave crags above Dunkeld. Dave and I sat there and drank tea nervously in June 2003 before he free soloed the tube cave just across the Tay at Birnam Quarry.

A visit to the café is a bit like watching an episode of Weir’s Way – a step back in time to a kind of rose tinted vision of highland life before the world got flat. A rare and nice experience to have these days.

Stuff we chose for our hampers part 5 – Island Bakery

The Hebrides have some of the wildest most barren landscapes in the UK. But this empty and hard edged landscape seems to have brought out quite the opposite characteristic in the islands locals. The Scottish islanders have their own special rules for everything. They are a generous, open, but most of all; colourful bunch. Our experience of Mull’s locals has been just that. The main one we have found is that all visitors must go away with a stomach full of great homemade food. Happy days. One rule not to fall foul of in the Hebrides though is that nothing happens on Sundays, as my father-in-law found out; temporarily barred from the local shop in Dervaig for playing his bagpipes on a Sunday. He should have known better.

Tobermory’s Island Bakery from Mull was in fact the first supplier we chose for our hampers. While Velvet Antlers was still just an idea growing in my head we looked around for inspiration and products out there that matched my notion of the style statement I was looking for. While perusing a farm shop soaking up inspiration, Island Bakery’s Oat Crumbles kinda jumped out from the rest. I wonder if they were influenced in their brightly coloured biscuit boxes by Tobermory’s famous harbour buildings?

That technicolour waterfront that greets the returning firshermen every day is perhaps Mull’s most photographed icon. Mull is also famed for its music scene; Sadly Mull’s pubs no longer vibrate to the beats and jigs of Mull’s most famous musician, the late Martyn Bennett. His albums are regularly employed to supply the psyche for a training session or two in our house!

You’ll find some Island Bakery’s oat Crumbles, Lemon Melts or Chocolate Limes in most of our hamper range – we liked them that much…

Avoiding the Antlers

I write this post for the Velvet Antlers blog in the car beside Claire on the way north through the highlands – heading home from work down south. As we leave the southern highlands and climb up onto the stunning barren expanse of Rannoch Moor, I can feel a familiar feeling of worry triggering in my head. What is it?

Antlers!

That is, the sight of them appearing through the windscreen. Gruesome thought I know. So let me explain why I feel the need to blog about it. Since our early visits to the highlands as teenage climbers, we noticed that despite a long hard day’s mountaineering on the north face of Ben Nevis, the most dangerous moments of the day came on the drive home late in the evening. One minute you are driving on a dark and deserted highland road. Next minute everyone in the car would be screaming as we slalom-swerved between some antlered obstacles. Scary stuff.

Now we love the highland red deer enough to name our company after them. The sight of them bounding across the mountains either alone or in their hundreds in huge clans is quite awesome. But the sight of one bounding in front of your car as you hurtle along is not funny.

Where red deer go to learn the green cross code.

Since we became highland locals, we’ve really learned that avoiding them is a really big part of moving about in the highlands if you want to stay safe and hang onto your vehicle! But we also realised that so many folks, like we used to be as outside visitors, are not aware of the danger.

It might seem weird for two adventurous types into rock climbing and mountaineering to lecture about road safety. But let the following facts do the talking. Since living here for less than a year, we have had one serious collision with major car and stag damage (twenty of them ran out in front of Claire’s car at once – we had no chance!). I’ve been in the car during at six separate collisions with Red Deer, one writing off a friend’s car. Most of the people we know who have lived in or visited the highlands have written off at least one car. And we know about one accident that resulted in life changing injuries for the passengers. So forgive us for the warning.

Here are our Antler avoiding top tips when driving in the highlands:

- Winter is worst (we’re not sure if it’s true, but we have been told they come down not only to escape the mountain blizzards but to lick the salt off the roads – anyone know?)
- Rannoch Moor is the worst spot in Scotland and we see accidents virtually non-stop through winter.
- The A83 between Spean Bridge and Laggan, and the Cluanie pass are also virtually guaranteed to see at least one stag crossing per journey. We totally recommend going pretty slow here.
- If you have a passenger, recruit them for ‘deer radar’ duty and keep a look out for antlers bobbing around in the dark next to the road or the shiny eyes in the headlights. This saves so many accidents. Oh, and make sure you clarify that if they shout “DEER!” they mean “BRAKE!” and you don’t answer “Yes dear?”.
- Be super careful when your headlights are dipped. You’ll have no warning to hit the anchors in time if a stag appears in your line of fire.

So next time you are belting along a straight highland road with no other traffic in sight and you get stuck behind someone inexplicably doing 40 – yes, they do know something you don’t.

Stuff we chose for our hampers part 4 – Gillies Clootie

It’s really no wonder people get so worked up about planning their weddings. It really is quite important for things to be just right. A wedding is your chance to tell most of the people you know something about yourself and your style.

The style we wanted for our wedding was ‘Scottish’, ‘chilled’ and ‘informal’. We reckon we hit the right note and so we still look back and think it was a great day and we were very comfortable. You know I think that in an ideal wedding people should really feel at home. Sometimes big gatherings get so formal and I think that limits the fun a little bit (sure, or course some alcohol later on helps make this dissolve, if not swing quite the other way!). But if you choose all the details for your wedding accordingly, I think it’s possible to side step this issue and put everyone at ease and in the mood for a good time from the word go.

And every detail is important – the venue, the food, the arrangements etc etc. But the food is possibly most critical. Whisky is powerful stuff, but even the thirstiest Scot cannot ceilidh dance into the wee small hours on an empty stomach. We went to a wedding some years ago in a very majestic Scottish castle, but ended up doing mass minibus runs to the local chip shop. There was no food at the reception and everyone was too hungry to dance and needed party fuel urgently!

For our wedding lunch we took our family to The Oak Tree at Balmaha on Loch Lomond. If you are in the area it carries a strong recommendation from us! Our chosen dessert was Clootie dumpling. Clootie is like so many features of Scottish style, culture, or food; quite traditional in origin but is so damn good that it’s easy to give it a modern twist and make it something pretty cool. In this case, a little high quality vanilla ice cream or, if you prefer to keep it ‘retro cool tradtional’ then some fresh custard, and bingo – You have just fuelled a room full of people to complete many dance floor pounding hours.

Whatever you want to burn off your Clootie doing, you’ll find a generous hunk of it in our Sheer Belter and Pure Stoater hampers.

More good news on the Slacklining front

Bank Street Lodge in Fort William, where Dave and I spent many a night before we moved here, has kindly agreed to supply 10 beds in their bunk rooms at a discounted rate on Friday 22nd and Saturday 23rd February. The rate would be £10 per night instead of the usual £14 per night – a saving of 30%. These beds are only available to competitors in the Slacklining Masters and are available on a first come, first served basis and on production of your competition registration number. Even more incentive to get your entry forms emailed in to me straight away…If you would like to take advantage of this offer, please get in touch with Bank Street Lodge directly.

Bank Street Lodge website

Update on the UK Slacklining Masters

I am pleased to announce that Slackline Brothers Inc. will be proud sponsors of the competition.

They will be providing the lines, Ric will be judging, and there will also be spot prizes of slacklining gear up for grabs. This is a huge commitment from these guys, for which I am most grateful.

Winter sun in the Glen

Here are a couple of pics from a day out in our back yard of Glen Nevis the other day. The next few months from now (late January- early May) are in our opinion the best months of the year in Scotland. The drama and week to week change in the scenery is at its best. Wednesday was a day of crisp cold air but lovely sunshine hitting the snowy peaks.

Stuff we chose for our hampers part 3 – Kshocolat

The first flat Dave and I shared together was somewhat jammy for a pair of financially challenged students. My Bro had taken a contract job in sunnier climbs and we ‘looked after’ his place in the Merchant City of Glasvegas. We felt a little out of place. My little Renault 5 kept attracting polite notices not to park here again in the block’s private parking area. Anyone seen dead in such a vehicle couldn’t possibly afford such an address. I’d just graduated from art school and often sold my prints at a cool art fair across the road in the elegant Merchant Square.

It was hard, (well, torturous actually) to attempt to spend a whole day in front of Kshocolat’s boutique at my stall without giving in to the temptation of their magnificent hot chocolates. Thankfully my photographs sold well enough to warrant regular indulgence. The taste of Kshocolat’s white chocolate is my defining memory of living in this rather nice part of the world, five years ago. If only I could have such a nice memory of every place I’ve lived…

So now it comes around that I have the chance to share that special indulgence through Velvet Antlers. I’m pretty happy about that.

You’ll find Kshocolat’s white hot chocolate in our Pure Stoater, One for the Lassies hampers.

Velvet Antlers fresh gingerbread & lemon icing

John Watson of Stone Country emailed last night to say he was coming up from Glasgow for the day for some bouldering in Glen Nevis. To me, this meant one thing – get baking.

Dave has sworn by the powers of my gingerbread for some time now, and is, not to blow my own trumpet or anything, directly responsible for ascents of at least two 8c+’s in Scotland and some of the hardest boulder problems by Dave and his climbing partners (Michael Tweedley being a big fan).

I meant to take a photo of my evenings endeavours this morning, but I wasn’t out of bed fast enough, Dave and John had already waded in.

The recipe, with a few Velvet Antlers alterations, is from good old Nigella ‘Domestic Goddess’ Lawson. The copy of her book I use actually belongs to Dave 'Domestic Goddess’ MacLeod, who can whip up a mean batch of biscuits, let me tell you. So, if you want the ultimate crag food that is guaranteed to get you results on a chilly winter’s days climbing, you want to get baking….

For the gingerbread:

150g unsalted butter
125g dark muscovado sugar
200g golden syrup
200g black treacle
2 teaspoons fresh, finely grated ginger
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
250ml milk
2 large eggs, beaten
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda, dissolved in 2 teaspoons warm water
300g plain flour

For the icing:

1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
175g icing sugar
1 tablespoon warm water

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees C/gas mark 3.

Melt the butter, sugar, golden syrup, treacle, ginger and cinnamon together. Take off the heat and add the milk, eggs and bicarbonate of soda.

Sieve the flour into your batter slowly, whilst stirring, or else it goes lumpy! You’ll end up with a very liquid batter, hopefully.

Pour it into a tray lined with baking parchment and cook for ¾ hour – 1 hour. (A knife should come out clean.) When you take it out the oven, lift out the tray and leave it on a rack for a couple of minutes and then peel the paper off, or it goes soggy. Leave there to cool.

Once cooled, if you can wait that long, I usually can’t, crack on with the icing. Stir the lemon juice in first, then add the water bit by bit and slap it on your deliciously sticky gingerbread.

How easy is that? It’s a doddle, and guaranteed to make you climb harder. Let me know how you get on.

Fort William UK Slacklining Masters

Jon Ritson on the first highline in Scotland? Correct me if I'm wrong!

The good news is that the entry forms are now available to download here for the very first UK Slacklining Masters and the really, really good news is that there is now even more money to be won. The cash prizes for the comp are now totalling a whopping two grand.

UK Champion = £500

UK 2nd place = £300

UK 3rd place = £200

International Champion = £500

International 2nd place = £300

International 3rd place = £200

If that's not a hefty incentive to book your ticket to Fort William, I don't know what is.

The comp will be kicking off at 12pm on Saturday 23rd February at the Lochaber Leisure Leisure Centre playing fields with the Grand Final at 4pm.

Remember, entry is totally free, so there's no excuse not to enter.

Keep an eye on my blog for updates on the comp.

Winter climbing season arrives

It is with some trepidation that I watch the snow falling on the Ben, with Dave getting distracted by it too and staring feverishly at it out the window every 5 minutes. Outside, it’s my least favourite time of an all-round climber’s wife’s year – winter.

Winter brings with it all sorts of fun and games, but for me it means long days of hanging around the phone, waiting on the call to say yes, he’s down safe, and yes, everything’s fine and yes, they’re sitting in the car eating a chippie from Ben Fongs. Now we live that much closer to all the winter climbing action, I don’t think that fear is going to subside any; in fact, I imagine it’ll get worse as days on the hill are probably going to rise as he can keep a closer eye on the conditions.

To me, winter climbing brings with it too many abject dangers that are out with Dave’s control – you can’t help but worry.

Stuff we chose for our hampers, part 2 – Arran Aromatics

The Scots are a damn lucky bunch when it comes to holidays. Glaswegians like us especially so. As well as the usual choices of getting on a plane anywhere, we have an almost inexhaustible resource of lovely places to discover in our own islands. Often, it’s financial constraints that lead Scot’s to holiday within Scotland, but it’s probably the time most outdoor lovers discovered the highlands and islands.

The isle of Arran is a popular haunt of Glaswegians off work for the summer ‘Glasgow Fair’ weekend, summer holidays, weekend warrior trips and these days, stag and hen dos!

For us, it was Arran’s famous granite mountains that brought us across on the Friday night crossing to Brodick and the long trek up the road to Glen Rosa campsite. Later, we discovered the quietude of camping in Glen Sannox beside some old ruins. This became our base for exploring the cliffs of Cir Mhor, The Bastion and Cuithe Mheadonach. The mood of these mountains really leaves an impression on you. Such a small mountain range, but I remember feeling so remote hanging off a huge granite flake listening to the silence of the summer mountain air and feeling the warm up-draught as the 300 foot plated granite wall soaked up the afternoon sun. Only the sight of the tiny wee Calmac ferry scurrying back and forth across the firth of Clyde to Ardrossan reminds you that civilisation is not too far away.

On that summer updraught I also remember the smells. They always seem so much stronger in the hebridean mountains than anywhere else we have spent time. Blossoming heather, peat drying in the summer heat, and the raw untouched granite, as the crystals under my feet scrittle slightly, disturbed for the first time since the glaciers left.

Arran Aromatics have made it their life’s work to bottle this most exquisite of sensory experiences. So we thought it was perfect for Velvet Antlers hampers.

Icy Delights

Last week in Lochaber was simply beautiful. Here are some pics of the river Nevis across the road from us as it gave in to the deep freeze. This week, of course is drab and driech again, but you wouldn’t enjoy the good times so much it was always perfect, would you?

Stuff we chose for our hampers, part 1 - Brew Ha Ha

It’s a known fact – the Scots love to drink. We heard somewhere that folk outside of Scotland thought our national drink was whisky; Who told them that?! Of course if you go by gallons consumed per second in Scotland, it’s gonna be tea that stands out by a mile. Many of those gallons per second are consumed at Velvet Antlers towers, by Dave, who makes a cup of tea while he thinks about making a cup of tea. So let’s say he’s developed a fine sense of a good cup of tea.

For our hampers we chose Brew Ha Ha tea – a Glasgow company that we thought took tea a seriously as us and had a fair dose of cool factor. Brew’s the daddy?

…you are!

As we all know though, a good tea bag is only one part of the process of constructing a cup of tea worth talking about. It’s a dark art. According to Dave, Scotland is still split by those in the ‘milk in the bottom of the cup before water’, and the ‘strictly milk after the tea has brewed’ camps. We want to get some data on this to settle the issue. Please vote below!