Estate of mind
The most difficult part of my life is getting up in the morning. It normally takes about 20 minutes after the alarm has gone off at 7am.
I live in a five-bedroom farmhouse on the Kinnaird Estate with my wife, Jane, and six-year-old son, Jack. The first priority is to get him ready for school, and that often means giving him his porridge and then wiping it off him. The school bus collects him from the end of the road at 8.20am, which is very handy.
I then go back to the house for a cup of tea before heading in to the hotel for 9am. It's only half-a-mile away across the estate. Jane also works in the office there part-time.
After seeing all the staff, I'll go through the menu and make final decisions on what's on for lunch and dinner. We have a lot of long-stay guests so we change it every day. The phones are going all morning with orders for room service.
We'll also be talking with our suppliers. We're trying to use as much local produce as possible. We've started growing things such as herbs and lettuces and baby vegetables, but these often come out as funny shapes.
I'm originally from Hertfordshire and I notice how short the growing season is up here. But when it starts, everything grows very fast. I think climate change could be a good thing for Scotland - weather like southern England would be perfect.
At lunchtime in summer I usually prepare something light like smoked salmon and asparagus risotto for guests. During the day I'm tasting food constantly so I rarely sit down for a meal. But I do like our cherry muffins, and when they return to the kitchen in the mornings they are hard to resist. I also have an embarrassing liking for slices of processed cheese.
As with most chefs, the hours are long, but the atmosphere in the kitchen is pretty relaxed and we have lovely views out over the mountains. People in the city could only dream of that.
Lunch service is normally over by 3.30pm and so I go home to meet Jack off the bus at 3.50pm. We'll go for a walk along the river or drive into Dunkeld to the leisure centre for swimming. I'm back in the kitchen by 5.30pm.
Whenever I get any spare time I go to the gym, cycle around the estate or play golf. We have more than 60 golf courses within an hour's drive. You don't get that down south.
On the other hand there isn't that much to do here. It's a one-hour drive to Edinburgh for the big shops, and none of my family live near by, but we've discovered some amazing fares with Ryanair. On one occasion it cost us just 50p plus £30 in airport taxes for a return flight to Stansted.
After main courses have been served by about 10pm I'll start cleaning the kitchen, and leave around 11pm. Around midsummer it's still light here until 11.30pm, which is terrific. I then drive the half-mile home and usually have tea and read a golf magazine before going to bed after midnight.
We've been here for two years and are really happy, with a great quality of life. My wife is Scottish, and I had my eye on Kinnaird for some time. Now it's my ambition to earn a Michelin star here.
