I had a very short dalliance with the Highlands this weekend.

The Highland Wool Festival has firmly been penned on my calendar since Helen, of Ripples Crafts, tweeted about it last year.

The festival was held at the marts in Dingwall and it is just pure fate that my good friend (and once landlady) lives a stones throw away. What an opportunity to seek out wool as well as blether a-plenty?
It was also the perfect opportunity to eventually meet some of the people I’ve been tweeting with for yonks.

When I arrived on Friday morning my pal met me at Inverness Airport and we whisked off for a lovely coffee before a really lovely drive around Loch Ness* side. We *were* looking for the wee beach at Dores but ended going much further on a wee adventure. Cue lots of lovely, scenic winding roads which were absolutely ablaze with colour and growth – broom, blossom, bluebells galore!

When our stomachs got the better of us we made our way to the Dores Inn – what a bustling place with lots of customers and charm, a sign of good food I’d say. We found the wee beach eventually and walked off our lunch while taking in the loveliness of a Loch Ness.

Saturday saw the first ever Highland Wool Festival and I was really excited to attend. For the past few weeks I had kept up my mantra of, “you don’t really need wool” and, to a degree, stuck to that.

I’ll discuss the day in the next podcast, but it was particularly nice to meet Louise Hunt, from Caithness Craft Collective, her lovely wee ones and her fantastic mum! I also got to meet again the lovely Kelly, who some will remember as doing the Charminglochie podcast, she was helping her mum man the Cairngorm Bags stand (and I might have just bought something for the Caithness Craft project bag swap). It was also great to talk to Helen from Ripples Crafts too, a very lovely lady and a very talented one too – her stall was very well attended. I also said hello and met the lovely Louise and George from Yarn Garden, we had a lovely chat for a future podcast too.

I will speak about purchases and things on the next podcast (hopefully up at the weekend) but I truly had a great day chatting to people and stall holders. I didn’t spend *much*, but I really enjoyed the day and I really hope there will be a second Highland Wool Festival: the organisers did a top notch job, big well done to absolutely everyone involved.

After the fun at the Marts, I went back to my pals house at Conon, where we actually lounged in the sun (20 degrees!) and watched a Red Kite soaring after his supper. An amazing weekend, in all!

* we did not see Nessie.