Coolcations: 'They used to joke about our weather - now they can't wait for the rain'

It's a beautiful day on a sea loch near Glencoe with light winds and calm waters.

The seals are out but they are not basking in the sunshine and neither are the holidaymakers who've come to kayak on Loch Leven's placid surface.

While much of Europe and large parts of England and Wales have sweltered in record-breaking heat this summer, the weather here is overcast and relatively cool.

But for an increasing number of tourists that is part of the attraction - they are heading to Scotland not to sunbathe but to seek respite from the heat on what have become known as "coolcations".

Esther and Nick Cochrane who run a self-catering holiday cottage business called Beside the Loch have noticed the uptick in visitors who say they have come here for lower more bearable temperatures.

At first they arrived from the continent – France, Italy and Spain – but now many are heading north on coolcations from within the UK as well.

This year, says Nick, "coolcationers" have also been coming up from the south of England. "That has been a real surprise," he adds.

Seizing the opportunity to turn Scotland's notoriously unreliable summer weather into a positive, the couple have begun marketing their cottages as coolcation destinations.

Esther tells me they recently had guests arrive who asked "is it going to rain at any point because this is what we came up for."

"The first thing they did when they arrived at the train station was to stand in the rain," she says.

"They hadn't experienced it for two or three months in Southern England, and they loved it."

"At one point we were apologising for the Scottish weather but people now want it. It's no longer a joke. It's quite a serious part of their holidays," she adds.

Caroline and Christian Grant and their children, who live in the south of England, have been staying in one of their cabins for their holiday.

Christian says: "When it get to plus thirty you tend to just sitting around really can't do too much here you can go back to normality, doing things."