I spent the weekend at this charming Highland Perthshire cottage and it felt like coming home
This retreat is perfect for large groups or extended family
I’m behind the curtains in the living room.
I’ve been here quite a while, just staring out at the oaks and birch outside, but I start squeaking like an electrocuted stoat, in the hope that they will follow the sound and find me.
They do, but it takes another ten minutes.
That’s because our holiday home for the weekend is so vast, and ideal for a family game of hide and seek, with all these nooks and crannies, bed undercarriages and little cupboards.
We’re at Clachan Farmhouse and Clachan Annexe, near Pitlochry, and on the 145,000 acre Atholl Estates. It’s one of the estate’s many properties that are available for self-catering holidays.
I’ve stayed at a few of them over the years, from the gloriously decorated Charlottefield, which sleeps four and has an outdoor bath, to one of their charming Shepherd’s Huts pour deux.
This is something more traditional. It’s less ‘done’ than the other properties, and is more like a home, with sofas that you don’t mind the kids doing their gymnastics performances on.
I’ve taken my husband, sister, two nieces (14 and 12), and my six-year-old nephew. My sister’s friend's dog has come along for the ride, too, since this is a mutt-friendly property.
He seems pretty pleased about it, and parks himself by the kitchen table for the weekend.
The property is two semi-detached apartments, which can be reconfigured into one house. If you do that, you end up with two kitchens, two living rooms, and four bedrooms, including a double and a twin with en-suites, and a double and a twin with a shared family bathroom.
We’ve bagged the smartest bedroom - all in dreamy white, with an original Victorian fireplace and vintage wildlife prints on the walls.
There is enough space that we can spread out, and escape each other, if we need a breather from pester power.
However, we find that we all gravitate towards the heart of the property - the big farmhouse kitchen, with its US-style fridge freezer and a big wooden table. Either that or the living room, where my niece - a bright spark - teaches me how to play chess. She makes sure to omit enough information, though, so that I remain too stupid to beat her. Clever girl.
In the gravelled courtyard area, there’s an old stable, which has been converted to a games room.
Unfortunately, it’s not yet open on our visit, so we can only dream of pool and ping-pong.
Instead, we play Olympic challenges in the back garden, which consists of a large patch of lawn that’s intersected by a high woven willow fence. It’s perfect for our no-rules take on volleyball.
If you want to get out-and-about, then everyone who stays in the Atholl Estates properties gets a gratis trip to Blair Castle.
How could you say no? It’s just a nine minute drive away.
We left the tired-looking dog in the kitchen for a spell. He didn’t mind, as he’d already had his main walk of the day, with a circuitous and picturesque route up to The Falls of Bruar, and back down again.
The kids needed an outing, as they were hyper after eating cheese samples, and spending all their pocket money on blocks of fudge and lollipops the size of microphones in The House of Bruar’s vast food hall.
At Blair Castle, they can run off their energy in the small adventure playground, with its swings, assault wall and flying fox.
We waved at the red deer, in the field near the Scots Baronial castle, and saluted to the piper, who marches around and plays on the hour like a cuckoo clock figurine.
In the entrance hall, which was commissioned by the 7th Duke in 1872 as part of a scheme to convert the mansion into a castle, the children are given a sheet with treasures to spot during the tour.
They’ll get a prize at the end, if they find everything, so they skeeter around like frantic magpies, as the grown-ups admire The Drawing Room, with its Louis XVI gilt chairs, and the absinthe green Dining Room, with elaborate plasterwork.
We make sure to keep an eye on where they’re putting their greasy fingers.
We’re glad to not have to do that, when we get back to our cottage.
There are no airs and graces, and it really does feel like home.
Three or four nights both start from £1100 for Clachan Annex and Farmhouse (Calvine, Pitlochry) together, see www.atholl-estates.co.uk
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