The year on the estate

Geranium does not survive frost. So the plants spend the winter in the greenhouse, in long beds under glass where the cold can’t reach them.

It is spring now, but the nights can still be cold, so the plants stay where they are until the frost has passed.

In December the road past the barn turns white, and most of the work moves indoors: to the copper stills, and to the old mill, where the whisky casks lie resting while the winter passes.

Outside it is quiet. A walk down the same road as always, past the white buildings.

The trees around the well have lost their leaves, and the frost is not far off. But the well has no pump to lay up for the winter and no motor to freeze. The water lies far below, between confining layers of ground that keep it under pressure, and that pressure is what lifts it up the pipe.

So it keeps flowing through the winter, even when the ground above is hard. The well does the same in January as in July: it supplies water to the distillery and to the households around the estate.

In summer the nasturtiums grow along the stone wall in front of the white building.

The old stables have found a new life. Today they house our two copper stills, Nini and Mia, and when there is no distilling, the same room is where we gather with guests for celebrations.