Here is a sequence of photos of a beautiful sunset I took at the end of Easter Day 12th April 2009. This is The Island of Jura taken from the Kilberry Road about 2/3 miles outside of the village of Kilberry.The music is "Infernal" by Mizkett from the album "Sun" by Claude Challe - 2001. Thought it might be a nice interlude from my other ramblings ! Enjoy !

Better still, visit Argyll and enjoy a sunset yourself !

Marketing a Bed and Breakfast

Alan ascending the cherry picker to get the picture

Alistair Wilkie was too scared to go up

The last few weeks have seen me occupied with the multitude of things to be done to ensure the presence of Knap Guest House in a prominent position on the Google search page. This is known rather fancily as Search Engine Optimisation (or SEO). Basically it as absolutely essential in this day and age for any business to have a high profile on the Internet. In particular on Google. I am sure every one of you will have used Google to look for a service or a business and if it wasn't on the first page of your search you wouldn't use it. Well SEO is a means of getting your business on to that first page ( or as close to that as possible)

One of the ways of highlighting your presence is to post a video on YouTube. It was during my visit to the USA to visit Brian, Mary and family that I hatched the plot " A Welcome to Tarbert" Basically I wanted to show Tarbert, the friendly locals, the businesses available for visitors and of course Knap Guest House at their very best. The idea of the video was to be a journey from the ferry arriving from Portavadie to Tarbert, along the harbour taking a glimpse at the businesses and then a show of the bed and breakfast. Alan Campbell ( who I am taking over the Guest House from) has one of these very fancy expandable platforms or cherry picker and so an ideal position to get some great ariel shots of Tarbert .

So there it was on a lovely spring afternoon we took cameras and the platform on to the Quay and produced these fabulous shots you see in the finished video. The next week or so was spent videoing many of the folks in Tarbert - all of whom did a great job and without any reservations at all ! I hope the finished film looks good to you. A Welcome to Tarbert was finished and posted on to YouTube and so far has received a great reception - no calls from Hollywood yet !

It was when we were on the quay that someone said to us - "have you seen the dolphins". Of course neither of us had so once we had completed the ariel shots off we went to " the concrete" - which is at the end of Pier Rd at the entrance to the harbour.When Alan and I arrived there was a small group of people there and about 4 pods of dolphins a total of about 30 or so playing around with some small boats about 1/2 mile away. However just as I thought they were too far away for a picture a small group of them swam towards us and right to the sure about 10 to 15 feet away.Of course there was a great deal of excitement and I took a video of them

Anyway until the next time

take care

The Knapper

The Cherry Picker In Action !

Just a wee map to show where the action was

A Tale about a Bed and Breakfast part 1

Well here I am - with my first blog. My name is Alistair Wilkie and until October of 2008 had for many years been General Manager of Stonefield Castle Hotel.

Hello to the many guests that I didn't manage to say cheerio to and hello to the many "nice" staff I worked with over the years.

I guess it was around August of last year after many many months of thought that I decided to take a step back from the hectic life of running a Hotel and informed my boss that I would be leaving in October. My plan was to take an extended holiday from work see my family who are scattered around the world and re connect again with my friends. This was to have a dual effect for me one was a rest and two was to take a look at my life and set off in a new direction.

I have had the most wonderful last few months going to Germany over Christmas to visit one of my brothers and also to America to see my other brother. I also spent the most fantastic time with my very good friends Malcolm and Yvonne in January on the lovely island of Barbados deep in the middle of a very cold winter !

Around a month ago my friend Alan stopped me in the street and hit me with the interesting question "How would you like to take over my bed breakfast ?" So here I am doing a blog to the world about it. I will be taking over the bed and breakfast business Knap Guest House in June. It's located right in the middle of what has become my home town of overlooking the harbour. It is the ideal future for me in that I can live and work in the place I love and I will have my own business.

I have been spending most of my time organising projections, meetings with the bank, marketing plans etc etc - more of which in my next blog and the unfolding story of - How to start a Bed and Breakfast.

Until then

The Knapper