Wood Is Good...

This is our kitchen island especially designed by our good friend and fabulous cabinet maker Tom Luxmoore. Tom created this and the rest of our kitchen following a supper, thrown together over chatter about design integrity, wood and...several bottles of good french wine!

Since it's instillation we've had lots of lovely compliments about it. However the most common reaction is still...Wow! Tom, like us enjoys wood and when there's a wow; since so little in life often is....we celebrate.

Join us for a Wow, and pause to celebrate life at http://www.falstonebarns.com

See more of Tom's work on http://www.eyeoftheheart.co.uk/ and prepare to be amazed.

How green is this valley?

This much....

One Good Thing About Summer Rain...

Flowers in bloom at the front of the bastle house...a burst of colour in our grey drenched skies...

A History Lesson

This is an image of our Bastle. What's a Bastle I hear you ask? Answer, a fortified building found in Northumberland and built to keep out the Scots during the Border wars of some 400 years ago. This room is barrel vaulted, has six foot thick stone walls and was designed originally to keep the family wealth in...sheep and cattle! Obviously the family who owned the bastle originally were highly successful at keeping those Scots at bay. In fact the bastle houses the only Date Stone in Northumberland National Park.

The tales of the Border Reivers (Raiders), live on to this day, and the scroll you see on the wall tells just one of them, entitled Lock the door Lariston.

For more border tales, come and stay at Falstone Barns and capture yourself a piece of history!

Other Great Places To Fish!

Since the fishing season is under way, and we'd earned ourselves a well earned rest, we took off to the Kyles of Bute on the west coast of Scotland for a weekend break. Lucky escape by the sounds of it. As the rest of the country was battered with torrential rain, we enjoyed a couple of days of temperate climate, still waters, promenading along the shore of the loch and generally relaxing.

All of this helped along by a cordial welcome, courtesy of Hazel and Drew at the charming Hotel An Lochan, which lies on the shores of Tignabruich. After a couple of hours on a guided boat tour around the loch, with a bit of fishing, lots of local information and the icing on the cake...spotting families of seals basking in the sun on the rocks; we looked forward to a gourmet meal which exceeded our expectations in every respect.

How about a two centre break, a couple of nights at Falstone Barns, followed by a couple at An Lochan....Sounds like Heaven.

Woke at 0500, it gets light so early these days. Made myself a cup of tea and went to sit where I like to think, in the Bastle of the Farmhouse. Staring up at the ceiling of the 400 year old vaulted room gave me a sense of being a very small cog in the wheel of history. As the children say...chill!