I am sitting on a sofa with my feet up, next to a log-burning fire, which is crackling away. The view out of the floor-to-ceiling window in front of me is on to a mess of deciduous forest stripped of its colour by winter. Beyond the trees, the main character of the piece, Loch Fyne, shines.
The month is late November, and Scotland’s longest sea loch wears a coating of ice; thin enough to sink a skater but thick enough to colour the reflection of the vermilion sky and the rolling hills beyond. My wife and I are staying here, at Kabn , for a long weekend. It is on the west coast of Scotland, just an hour from Glasgow, yet a world away.
There are two “luxury eco-cabins” made of charred larch, meaning they are black but require no paint. Each looks out on the loch, and neither is in sight of the other. The interiors are inspired by Japanese minimalism and Scandinavian contemporary design.
They are open-plan, with neutral colour tones and warm lights. There is a king-size bed, an en suite with a rainfall shower, and a breakfast bar with every utensil required, plus herbs, spices, oils and coffee. The loch is always in view, a few metres away, across a pebble beach.
The cabins sit just beyond a coast road and viewpoint called the Rest and Be Thankful, and the name of that famous route sets the tone for the ethos here. This is a place for slow living; watching; noticing the colour of the leaves, the movement of the water and the mountainous reflections, which shift with the we.