Jonathan: Blue paint, to be precise. At long last – almost 2 years this has been hanging over us – we’ve made a start sorting out problems with the detail for larch cladding around the windows at Carrick. With Domhnail Iain doing the difficult bits (profiling and scribing larch to fit awkward shapes) and me doing the rougher work (removing the existing larch, re-sealing around the windows and refitting the outer boards, and then finally re-painting with the famous Carrick blue) it turning out a lot easier than I’d feared. Yes there was the cost of the replacement proper Nordan window cills (to replace the problematic ‘hand-crafted’ copper), but we bought those a year ago: all of the larch we’re taking off can be re-used one way or another, so the cost is going to be no more than the labour.