Category Archives: Stories

We’ve gone and lost the Cheshire Cat again. Silly little bugger will wander into the conservatory. It’s quite a nasty place, you know. Started out very pretty — glass dome, fountains, marble cupids–all the Victorian doodads. But then the second … Continue reading →

Kinrowan Hall’s a vast sprawling edifice going back far longer than one would suspect and it’s been added onto more often than perhaps was for the better. What that means is that we who are staff here each have private … Continue reading →

From the archives of Sleeping Hedgehog, the in-house journal published here for centuries now. Welcome, laddy-buck. Come in and find a seat here by the fire, and tell me your pleasure! Take a settle; they’re cushioned and wide enough for two, should … Continue reading →

I was watching a New Years Eve gig and it was clear to me how tribal it felt. Good communities are tribes. They have rituals and myths and those kinds of deeper realities that light up everyday reality and give … Continue reading →

So if you’ve been with us for any length of time, you no doubt that a lot of us here tell stories about a place in Scotland called the Kinrowan Estate, its inhabitants and what happens there. Some might sound … Continue reading →

A Québécois band introduced eggnog to this Estate back in the Fifties by its French name lait de poule (literally, “hen’s milk”). Eggnog’s a deceptively easy drink to make and consequently a bit hard to get precisely right. They were … Continue reading →

A letter from Lady Alexandra Margaret Quinn, Head Gardener here in the Reign of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, Empress of India, to Tessa, her botanist friend who … Continue reading →

Now that was tasty! I was grumbling yesterday morning to Mrs. Ware, our Head Cook here at the Estate that houses us, that porridge is often boring even if many here like it as Winter breakfast fare. She smiled and said … Continue reading →

Several Annies, do pay attention now as there will be a quiz afterwards! Well, now. Mackenzie has asked me in as tonight’s guest lecturer. He likes to keep these seminars going through the summer months, you know, when otherwise the … Continue reading →