In 15 years of travel writing, I have successfully avoided ever setting so much as a toe on a ski slope. It's not that I don't love fresh mountain air or crisp winter days, but my passion for speed is ignited only by the sound of an internal combustion engine.
However, I know that some of you take your skiing seriously, and as Scotland had a bumper last season, I am rather pleased at finding the Aviemore Bunkhouse.
Owen Caldwell, Kim Plimley and Gordon Reilly run it, along with The Old Bridge Inn next door. A few months ago, a rushed pub lunch I ate there was so blindingly delicious that the Bunkhouse has been on my to-do list ever since.
"Great – live music tonight," says D, walking from the car park. The man in the office takes us to our family room, Bunkhouse 2, which is also the room with access for disabled guests. It's next to the drying room (and slightly closer to the front door than I'd like), overlooking the road.
"You'll be pleased to see they have proper hangers," says my pal, pointing at the open wardrobe unit.
Breeze block walls have been whitewashed, the cavernous shower room has a stone floor and a flip-down seat behind the shower curtain. A copper-topped coffee table, chair with a rip in the plastic seat, a pine double bed, metal bunk beds and jolly red curtains complete the look.
"Shower room is spotlessly clean," says D, which is more than can be said for the carpet. "Feel this duvet cover – it's gone bobbly with use," she laughs.
With D pulling inside while I push from outside, we manage to get the window (conveniently left open for us) closed. "I'm not taking my coat off just yet though," she says. "Put the fan heater on then."
"I don't know what you're scribbling in your notebook but I feel sorry for them already."
"Well don't. I think this is OK for the price – just as long as no rowdy people come in late at night."
We walk next door to the pub and bag a big table between the fire and where a band is setting up. How about this for roadside pub food? Whisky and orange-cured salmon with fennel salad, brown trout with grilled pepper and chorizo jam, west coast mackerel with aubergine puree, lemon buckwheat and vegetable relish, and braised shoulder of beef with creamed pearl barley, plus sides of spuds roasted in duck-fat, celeriac with capers and braised white cabbage (which mysteriously becomes cauliflower cheese somewhere between ordering and delivery).
It is a fabulous meal, washed down with Thistly Cross cider from Dunbar in a laid-back atmosphere with free music courtesy of three guys called the Liberty Tour.
Result, result, result. We sleep cosily. Foreign voices wake me but I soon doze off again. Turns out I've missed the worst offenders though. Next morning, D says a cab disgorged its wet-behind-the-ears, well-oiled cargo in the wee hours, and they made a compete racket reading the noticeboard outside our room (it says nice things like "A few little things to help you feel at home", and tells us we have free Wi-Fi, tea, coffee, sugar, cooking oil and spices in the kitchen.
The kitchen is sunny and well-equipped, with plenty of tables and chairs. There is even walnut cake wrapped in clingfilm with a sign on it that says "Eat me". So I cut a slice to have with morning tea.
It probably helps here in winter if you ski, but you really don't need to, to have a good time.
