Beatrice Sharp’s Rose Garden,

Sunday and another day of welcoming visitors to Hill of Tarvit Mansionhouse.

COVID 19 procedures require that the visitor experience is strictly controlled with visitors kept in their groups and guided around the house following a prescribed route effectively timed to the minute.

The process is working reasonably well provided that visitors arrive at the time they have booked. This is working reasonably well, although there have been a few wrinkles.

We have twelve separate tours today and there are eight places where visitors will encounter guides.

The first guide who meets with a group has to introduce the house, the history of the family and also introduces five family rooms on the upper floor.

The time allowed for this part is twenty minutes which must be trimmed if the group arrives late.

I carry out this introduction three times today. After this each group has approximately 5 minutes for each of the remaining places each with its own guide.

It is working reasonably well with only the odd timing wrinkle.

It is quite a change from the tours we gave in normal times.

One surprise today was a visitor who was the granddaughter of the owner of Scott and Morton who carried out the original wood panelling to the walls and ceilings throughout the house. This is work of the very highest order and she was delighted to see the house and to talk about her grandfather and his methods.

As the house was completed in 1906, our knowledgeable visitor was well into her ninth decade.

Visitors can tour the extensive grounds freely before and after their visit and it is a pleasure to chat with them outside and at proper social distances.

Of course, we all look forward to the day when we can return to welcoming our visitors and showing them the house in the traditional manner where time is not an issue.

Today’s Blipfoto shows the rose garden with Pan on his pedestal playing silent tunes.

Arrived home and watched the F1 Highlights fast asleep.