Residences by false Pretences

Leafing through the pages of a brochure for Holiday Cottages gives a false sense of wealth and status.

The beauty of it is that a picturesque country house or a quaint Cliffside fisherman's residence, whilst likely to cost up to six figures for purchase can be had for a brief period for, by comparison, affordable pennies.

Such a vacation has been a favourite of our family.

A home from home for a fortnight, a week or just a few days stolen during school term time which increasingly has been a necessity to get anywhere booked at all. The demand for a UK based cottage rental has been phenomenal in recent years and although numbers of places and companies offering this service has certainly increased so has the clamour for the best weeks and the best locations.

Leave the booking process too late and there can be a few odd looking choices only. A small flat over a chip shop, the hayloft above a working milking parlour or a converted bunker on an old RAF base, long since mothballed.

Of course, as a general rule you get what you are prepared to pay for.

The glossy brochures have a colour coding or alphabetical lettering system to classify the number of beds and the level of tariff. There are quite significant variations in the weekly rates as the industry is driven on seasonal demand. A heaving and populous seaside resort in August commands peak rates but the same venue in a windswept and sandstorm abraded February when nothing is open for business has to be heavily discounted to get any sniff of interest from the public.

We have had the pleasure of giving the impression of being the owners of some very nice holiday lets. We have breezed up to the door as though just arriving from one of our other imaginary homes in London, Cannes or Los Angeles when in fact we have had a relatively short journey from East Yorkshire.

The giveaway to any onlookers however is the evident confusion on our faces over forgetting where the Agency or the local responsible person had told us the key would be. This could be on the top of the low door jamb, under a brick or garden gnome figure or we could be frantically scouring and plundering potential hiding places before one of the children tries the handle and the door swings open, unlocked after all.

Us townies always lock our doors but in a small hamlet or fishing village everyone knows everyone else and crime is neither a regular conversational subject or a fearsome perception. Perhaps the payment of the rent for the holiday venue is partly in return for that sense of old worldliness and trust.

The take over of someone else's property can be a swift process. The contents of the car, when transferred down the 1 in 4 cobbled roadway or across the field or along the frontage of the terraced block by human relay, immediately stamp our identity on the place. The children always disappeared when it was time to unpack and expand into the accommodation, such was there keenness to explore and return excited and enthusiastic about the forthcoming vacation.

Our first cottage rental was on the Isle of Skye. Cheap and cheerful are often bandied about in tandem but in this case only 50 percent of the wording applied. A squat, white painted croft (or as we called it- a bungalow) set on a shelf on a steep hillside and with a clear view over a seaweed shored loch inlet. Well, by clear view I actually mean that we had to lift our gaze over the roof of the owners house which had been built directly in front. The old couple were like keepers of the gate and our comings and goings on foot or in the car were through a guard of honour, almost, and with frequent invitations to come in for a Gin and Tonic. They were kindly souls but heavy drinking before 10am in the morning would have made us grumpy and intolerant towards the demanding children and we gracefully declined. The dirty rusty red water that spewed from the sink and bath taps was, I understand, a natural phenomena for the island and not a spiteful action on behalf of our spurning the hospitality of our hosts.

As a starter cottage we were confident that in subsequent years we would not experience something as basic again.

We were wrong.

The brochure for a gatehouse lodge in the Scottish Borders within short distance of Edinburgh stated that it slept 6. After a quick tally up of dead mice and flies the occupancy level was considerably higher. It was a miserable place only made tolerable by two factors, one being a full sized ping pong table in an outhouse and the other a subscription to all Sky Channels. We in fact spent little time there as we shuttled back and forth to the Festival Venues.

The return from a day out was always a bit of an anxious moment in case anything ran out of the door as we made our way in. The children, a bit older now, likened it to the home of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs on the basis of the wildlife in the living room. I am not sure what was the worst aspect of the overnight period. It was a close run thing between the static of the nylon bed sheets or the frizzle frazzle sound of the ultrasonic based rodent deterrent.

In contrast and about as far away as could be imagined was our week in the palatial and well appointed rooms and grounds of Kingairloch House.

What we thought was the main road turned out to be the private driveway. We expected to be lodging in something attached to the large and pleasing country house or would have quite happily taken a static caravan to be in the same tranquil location of pine trees, calm loch inlet waters and the backdrop of huge mountains.

We fell over upon realising that the house itself was ours.

It had an interesting back story. Originally built as a hunting lodge it had been discovered by a quarrying company who were blasting and exporting the heart of a hillside over the nearest peak. It was bought to remove any local opposition to their activities but sat well in the balance sheet as an asset for corporate entertaining and at the disposal and whims of the Directors. It was sumptuous in décor and fittings. The main living rooms looked east over private parkland which would be grazed by the wild deer coming down from the mountain when feeling safe, out of season, from being shot by tubby businessmen in tweed suits.

In the far distance was a chocolate box Castle and in between the black, cool waters of a sea loch.

The kitchen was straight out of the pages of Hello Magazine and to cater for damp hunters and walkers a huge laundry room had been equipped with an all in one washer and hot air dryer. It was proper heavy duty and with a full cycle from dirty to iron-dry in one hour.

Our complete feeling of ease in such luxurious surroundings was only tempered by a phone call that our own home had just been burgled. I momentarily contemplated the 300 mile drive back to check things out but with the news that only a Video Recorder had gone missing decided to stay put and fill up the Maytag Industrial appliance with another unnecessary load of clothes.

That property was, I acknowledge representative of the ultimate in a holiday letting.

There were some downsides. The nearest shops in Fort William involved a three hour round trip on narrow rockfall pitted roads and a ferry crossing. Similarly the sourcing of fuel for the car was problematic and at a significant mark up over the prices we normally tolerated. What was most annoying was our mistiming of the car ferry trip from a day visit to Mull and Iona which saw us having to sleep in a steamed up car overnight on the slipway and within only a few miles, as the eagle flies, from those privileged surroundings.

Friends, touring the Highlands, came for tea and we played or rather tried to work out how to play a game of croquet on the lawn. It was an idyllic existence and for a moment in time, and for a weekly rent, we were the Monarchs of the Glen.