After an absence of several years I had forgotten that one of the challenges of writing this blog is that there are some weeks when I have no idea what I’m going to say. Generally there’s at least the germ of an idea I want to explore or a story I want to tell. Today my mind is as blank as the metaphorical page before me. All I can do – for the second time in three weeks – is dive in.

I’m staying in a large stone Georgian house in the Tweed Valley, a beautiful corner of the Scottish Borders, rendered even more beautiful by a palette of soft autumn colours. There are sixteen of us here, gathered to celebrate my sister-in-law’s sixtieth birthday. Enfolded by sunlit hills and woodland, we feel as if there’s an invisible membrane between us and the rest of the world. 

As I write dusk is falling. Logs crackle in the fireplace of the drawing room whose furnishings – chinoiserie, elaborately gilded mirrors, heavy brocade curtains – speak to a different era. In one corner three people are bent over a jigsaw. Others are reading, sunk in deep sofas. In the kitchen some of the group are starting to prepare dinner. We don’t all know one another, although after forty-eight hours we’re starting to. 

Yesterday morning we walked for three hours, the first half of which involved a long, steep climb – in my case too steep for conversation. It was worth it. We reached a heathery, wind-blown summit with long views across the Borders: east to the three peaks of the Eildon Hills; the distant English border on the southeastern skyline; and rumpled hilltops rolling away under shifting clouds to the southwest. 

There’s no easier way to strike up new acquaintance than by walking and talking. On the downhill, homeward leg, breath restored, people fell easily into step with one another, conversations picked up and connections were resumed or new ones made.

In the evening we played an elaborate murder-mystery game, orchestrated by my eldest nephew. It began over drinks before dinner when each person was assigned a character who came with a ready-made back story, a number of grievances and a set of instructions. Several hours later, after dessert, much animated conversation, and a murder, proceedings reached an hilarious conclusion with the identification and arrest of the murderer.

I am usually resistant to party games, but last night it was obvious that a lot of effort had gone into the planning, and everyone needed to take part in order for it to work. By the time we sat down to the main course everyone, including me, was merrily in character and accusing one another of all manner of misdemeanours. It had a remarkably loosening effect. I had no idea, for example, that my sister-in-law could do such a good imitation of Poirot.

This morning we drove up a farm road into the hills to a small quarry containing an archery range, neighboured by a wooded gulley set with clay pigeon shooting traps. The party divided in two and while one half shot clays, the other half fired arrows. It’s more than twenty years since I last let off a shotgun; the moment at which my conscience got the better of me and four decades of occasional game-shooting came to end.

I was pleased to discover that I hadn’t completely forgotten how to do it; equally pleased to see that, thanks to a generous and considerate instructor, some people who had never fired a gun before had the satisfaction of scoring a hit. Archery, on the other hand, was a novelty for almost all of us, unprepared for the amount of technique and physical strength required, or for the sharpness of the arrows as they sank themselves into the silage bales that backed the targets.

Now we’re home again and approaching the final evening. There will be music – there’s a baby grand in the corner of the drawing room – and I’ve brought other instruments, mainly in the hope of persuading my gifted niece to pick up the violin. The race will be on to finish the jigsaw before we leave. We’ll dine heartily and no doubt noisily. There are stories and conversations to be concluded, contact details to be shared. 

In the morning we’ll head home, a little tired, a little over-indulged, and, for my part anyway, feeling that this has been everything a house party should be, my heart warmed by new-found companionship and the infectious generosity of our hosts, my brother- and sister-in-law. EM Forster’s much-overused epigraph could have been written for the occasion: only connect.