Lure of the Loch

Last week we delivered one of our duvets to Loch Ness. I mean right there, to an address at the water’s edge. I don’t know why, but I am ludicrously excited about this.

Having given it all some thought, I realise that Loch Ness has always been such an important part of my mythical imagination. Unicorns eat your hearts out! – as a child, it was Nessie that captured my heart and I remember poring over that famous grainy black and white photo, refusing to accept it was a hoax.

In adult life, Loch Ness has always fascinated me. Its hauntingly austere, rugged, and formidable landscape conveys such utter isolation as to chill the bones of the bravest; especially those images of Urquhart Castle perched along the bank which puts the landscape into spatial context.   Spare a moment for those who built that castle in the 13^th Century – with its exposure to icy, harsh weather, it must have been physical misery.

But it’s Loch Ness’s vital statistics that boggle my mind. At 23 miles long, 755ft deep (although bottomless), 22 square miles in area, it contains 263 billion cubic feet of water – more than all the lakes in England and Wales combined.

The other snippet of information that pleases me no end is the fact that the first person ever to swim the length of the Loch was a woman. In 1966, Brenda Sheratt completed this challenge in 31 hours and 27 minutes. Bravo Brenda! She did it not only in an amazing time, but she also managed all this without being attacked by Nessie.

If, after reading all this Scottish stuff, you may be feeling a wee bit chilly, so why not treat yourself to one of our Shepton Warm (600gsm, 13 tog) duvets, while stocks