One word? When seven would do…

This morning there was a viewing on our hosts house so we all needed to be out of the way. Ady and Ed drove down to the garage in the village as Ed’s car was booked in for an MOT and Ady wanted to speak to the mechanic about HT leads for Willow. When he mentioned he had a CF van the mechanic said ‘oh the OCH 2W?’ – I guess here in Scotland the reg plate stands out even more! 🙂

The kids and I walked down into the village rather than get a lift, the sun was shining and it’s a pretty, downhill walk past the castle ruins. We talked about moving to Scotland and education moving forward. We had thought perhaps school would be of interest if we ended up settling somewhere tiny with a little local school like there is here in Tarbert but both kids are still adament they want to continue Home Education forever. They have been talking to Peter, and his friend Ben about school and are still certain they are not interested in trying it. I’m glad they’re curious and infact Peter would have been fairly positive about school as he really enjoys it but they remain happy with HE. We did briefly touch on moving forward and perhaps getting more focussed as our previous brand of gallivanting about, doing lots of trips and attending workshops etc. may not be as easy to pull off somewhere remote so we would have to reevaulate how we delivered education and sought out opportunities but Davies is now a fairly able reader who is selecting books off shelves here and taking them to bed with him which gives me confidence that Scarlett will do the same – and of course Davies being able to do something is always a motivator for her anyway. I think we may have a lull when we get to Glastonbury at which point I may well spend some time doing some stuff with them each day or a couple of times a week if they are interested / willing but in the main I feel the vast amount of experiences they have had this year certainly qualify as educational and actually I have been amazed once more at just how much they are learning / covering ground on in their own time. I know it doesn’t work for every child but they really do seem to soak stuff up by osmosis, besides even Davies still has a year of primary education left to go anyway :).

Ady joined us at the harbour edge and we sat in the sunshine for a while debating tenants. I’d rung the letting agent to see if the rent had been paid this month to learn that 3/4 has been and there is still £250 left to come in. We agreed that as soon as the £750 clears that should come to us with the £250 to follow as soon as it’s paid. Apparently the tenants have now started paying seperately and one has not yet paid, it turns out he is the one who is leaving at the end of this month. After another phone call with the agent this afternoon I am slightly more reassured that it will get paid but these tenants have been really crap at paying on time. Our agent is also pretty fed up with them – he spends ages chasing them every month and is only getting 6% of the rent as we are on the most basic rent collection service level. We discussed introducing a penalty charge for late payment and a firmly worded letter but agreed that keeping things amicable is probably best. The agent said that if we were intending to be away for longer than another six months then he may well recommend giving these tenants notice and trying to find new tenants but less than that is probably not worth it. We are thinking we’ll probably get the house on the market after Christmas anyway so it is not really worth the upheaval and risk of no rent rather than just late rent. We also have 6 weeks worth of security deposit so it is never more than a temporary cash flow issue when they are late as rent could be taken from that in the event of total non payment and eviction. Sigh, could do without the hassle each month though, it’s been the biggest stress of the year so far.

We walked slowly back to the house and had a tea break before Ed arrived back home. He wanted to chop some more wood up but in classic Ed style could not find the extension lead, the chain oil, the ear defenders…. he is the faff-iest person I know, and I always thought Ady was bad. Earlier he had lost the car keys which turned up in the recycling. The ear defenders are actually at the new house and the other things all appeared when we talked him through where he might have last had them and we got going. The chain came off the chainsaw thought so Ady fixed that and Ed realised we would be fine to do chainsawing ourselves (he’s previously only had younger WWOOFers who he would not let use the chainsaw). We came in for lunch and then Ady and I finished off all the wood cutting and stacked it on the to trailer ready to go to the new house tomorrow.

We then headed off to the pier for an hours fishing, keen to practise as much as we can before needing to do it for real and also keen to actually land our first catch each. The guy on the pier when we arrived had a really good rod and pulled three small ones out but put them all back as too little. The seal was around for the whole time we were there which is always a sign the fish are too. For ages we could see whole schoals of fish swimming right past the pier and I’m sure if we’d had crab lines with twinkly things on hooks we could have caught them but they were not biting our lures just being dangled. I managed to tangle lines with the other fisherman having got all excited I had made a catch when my line went taut so when it happened again I assumed I was caught on Ady’s line but we realised I wasn’t and then the line started going in different directions clearly with a swimming fish on the end.

I pulled it in and we deemed it big enough to keep (although we’d possibly have kept it anyway as the first catch!) and so Ady knocked it on the head and slit it before taking it’s head and tail off and gutting it. We threw all the waste bits back in to the sea to be food for other creatures.

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I sort of wish I’d been the one to do that really but Ady moved quick and as he’s done it all before it made sense. I don’t want my faffing to be the cause of any undue suffering to the fish. We had a few more casts and Davies and Scarlett had renewed enthusiasm for the cause too but it started to get really midge-y so we called it a night and headed back with our one catch.

Dinner was a fairly random selection of foods including various leftovers and lots of beans (broad beans from the garden and some other beans that had been soaking) and chickpeas so the kids and I were very grateful for a bit of my fish each that Ed kindly cooked up for us – loch to plate within the hour 🙂

This evening I was ready for some peace and quiet so after a shower I came up to the room, Ady and the kids stayed downstairs with Peter watching TV, Carina was busy ironing and Ed was out at choir practise.

This morning Ady and Davies watched Doctor Who on iplayer on Ady’s phone while Scarlett and I got involved in some communal baking. I decanted some honey from huge bucket to a smaller jar, not on the scale of Pen Y Bonc honey processing but it reminded me of that. Scarlett rolled out some pastry made by Carina for apple tart, blackcurrant tart and some biscuits and then cut out all the biscuits with their rather ecclectic assortment of cookie cutters. I peeled, chopped and arranged apple slices on the blind baked tart base.

Peter had been out at a sleepover last night but came back with his friend Ben for some canoeing. We loaded the canoe onto the car roof and Ed drove down the hill to park at the beach, we donned life jackets and then everyone was rowed across to a tiny island in the harbour. The four kids went off with a rucksack of food and drink and explored the island together, Ed and Carina went off in the canoe for an hour or so and then came back later with some sandwiches for lunch and Ady and I scrambled about on the rocks for a bit and then sat in the sunshine trying to come up with some negative ideas about moving to Scotland, hatching and planning and trying to decide if this really is where we want to be. We rather suspect it might be :).

We all had lunch and then rowed across the harbour to the other side which is mainland but juts right out into the loch. We had an explore of that including a bit of a hike up to a viewing point which was well worth the climb for the stunning views. The children decided to walk back via the village and the gym playpark, Ed had gone to a church meeting in the village so Carina, Ady and I rowed back across again. The canoe is fun, if slightly scary as it wobbles about so much and is so very receptive to every little shift in balance. Enjoyed it though and would like to have another go. If we move somewhere coastal we will definitely get some sort of rowing boat.

We went back to the house for cups of tea and Ed joined us. We made dinner and got it on hoping that between us we’d catch some fish to make it more interesting but ensured we had sufficient food incase we didn’t. Then Ady and I headed off with rods to the pier and Ed and Carina went out in the canoe with mackerel strips (length of line with tinsel hooks attached). Ady and I were quite excited when someone came and started fishing next to us and pulled a mackerel out on his first cast but sadly we didn’t replicated his success. Ed and Carina came rowing over to show us the six fish they had caught though having gone out to deeper water and found a schoal of mackerel. It started to rain so we called it a day and headed for home. We helped finish off dinner preparation and then feasted on fish – both kids really enjoyed it so fingers crossed we manage to catch some ourselves this coming week. After dinner the kids all watched a film while we sat and chatted before bed. It’s been a lovely weekend :).

This morning we mostly pottered; it’s always slightly odd being in a hosts house on days you are not working. Ed and Carina are incredibly kind and I am sure they are not looking at how many slices of toast we have or how quickly the jar of honey has gone down but I am ever conscious of ravenous appetities in comparison to theirs ;). They all headed out at about 11am which left us alone in the house. We sat in the conservatory and chatted for a while and then Tarly and I sat on the floor in the front room and explored their book collection for a while. Davies came and joined us as we moved onto some silly poetry books and we enjoyed a couple of Dr Seuss for old times sake. Funny how nostalgic I can get about Seuss books, sitting reading a whole pile of them with a child snuggled on on either side of me was something we used to do so often and all loved so much :).

We had something to eat and drink and then decided to head off. Ed and Carina had already left to go to the new house for a while before going to the Smallholders Gathering in the nearby town and we’d said we’d go along too. We were not really sure what to expect and getting our heads around the scale of everything here is taking time – it is such a small population and they have so much happening like film clubs and reading groups and young mothers associations. The Smallholders Gathering however was rather lower key although with a decent turn out. We parked up and walked to the village hall as it was down a narrow and rather bumpy track. The kids bought some honey fudge from the beekeeper stall, I bought some lipbalm from the woman who makes it and Ady bought some traffic light jam from the preserves stall – gooseberry, apricot and strawberry jam all layered in one jar – it looks fab :).

We went outside and Davies and Ady watched a green woodworking demonstration while Tarly and I had a go at felting balls. We really enjoyed that and made two each while chatting to the woman running the activity about felting and other crafts. Davies came over and had a go at making one ball too and in typical Davies fashion decided he wanted to be more creative than anyone else and used blue and green to make a planet earth. It came out quite well too – his plan is to needle felt white top and bottom to be the poles at some point :).

That about wrapped up everything done there – they were also doing massages and haircuts and there was various other produce including local venison and cakes for sale. We drove back to the village and collected something to eat from the Co Op – I was craving meat so had a chicken and bacon sandwich and Ady had a pork pie 🙂 We also bought some emergency sausage rolls to have in our bedroom. We dropped Willow back at the house, had a quick cup of tea and collected the fishing rods and headed down to the pier for an hours fishing.

We didn’t catch anything but we did see the seal again. Scarlett had been less keen to try casting last time despite both Ady and I trying with her but Davies decided to teach her and as with everything else he proved far better at teaching her than anyone else. I love watching him with endless patience and the right amount of encouragement and praise and her, as keen to win his admiration and get it right to please him as she is to actually master the skill :).

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On the walk back to the house we rang my parents and Davies talked to Dad for a bit. The others stayed downstairs with Ed, Carina and Peter but I took the phone upstairs and ended up talking to first Dad and then Mum. The kids came and talked to Mum too and the phonecall was nearly 2 hours. Discussed what we’re doing next and no mention was made of them coming in with us which is a relief, they have clearly decided they are not and having talked for that long about us buying land in North Wales or Scotland and them saying nothing I can happily accept that as the closest we’ll get to them telling us they don’t want to. I feel very sad that it didn’t pan out that way and wish things could be different but we have to follow our hearts and our dreams and maybe we’ll end up somewhere that they slowly fall in love with and move nearer in years to come anyway.

They also probably won’t be visiting us again before we finish our travels which is a shame, particularly as they had planned to come to Scotland close to Davies’ birthday so he is a little disappointed. I did suggest they could fly up at some point in the next two months although I suspect they won’t but we always knew if we saw them this year it would only be if they came to us.

Dinner was a cheery affair including home made pesto and a couple of glasses of wine. After dinner the kids chatted to Carina for ages while we looked at a map of Scotland with Ed and wrote down some of his suggestions of good places to take in while we tour around. We’re really enjoying this planning stage – it’s reminscent of last year when we were first planning the whole adventure with a UK map spread before us only this time it is petrol and food costs that will dictate our route rather than yes replies from potential WWOOF hosts. We’ll likely never again have such freedom to travel for so many weeks so we really want to get the most out of it as it will form such a big part of our memories of this adventure and may well shape our eventual future plans as if we find somewhere we love we will look into settling up here I think. There is ever such a lot of what we are looking for available here – scenery and landscapes, wildlife and dramatic climate, sense of community and lower impact lifestyles, interest in growing and self sufficiency, lack of dependance on big supermarkets, chance to make a real difference to the small part of the world you live in etc. We could very likely afford to buy something small outright so have far less outgoings and look at part time work to pay the smaller bills. We have had a few places this year that have felt right and potentially home but this one ticks more boxes than any other and according to Ed it is very representative of the west coast of Scotland and Hebridean life. More research and time spent here required of course – a week and one location does not a big decision like this make but all four of us are feeling we may have found the next step.

again, more of a wall than a river but I might just keep going with river based lyrics until someone acknowledges them 😉

This morning began with piano moving. Ed who is the King of Disorganisation and a self confessed ‘Faffer’ went off into the village to see if he could borrow a flat bed trolley to move the piano moments before the builders were due to arrive to collect it in their van. The builders are a father and son team called Barry and Alan (who I decided to call Bazza and Azza – one of the many habits I have inherited from my Dad is trying to make names rhyme by shortening them. My all time favourite is my friends Heather and Derek who liked my Hel and Del version so much they use it in their email address :)) who hail from Yorkshire and were indeed Very Yorkshire :).

By the time Ed had returned with a trolley Ady, Azza and Bazza had got the piano on the way to being out of the house. It is incredibly heavy and not on wheels or castors. I was deemed far too female to be helping and on this occassion chose to allow that assumption to continue 😉 I’ve done enough humping, dumping and lifting this year to salve my feminist leanings and am quite happy to be excused aslong as I am not expected to busy myself making tea instead.

Piano duly loaded (much grunting and sweating and oophing involved) Azza and Bazza headed off in their van and we folllowed shortly afterwards in Ed’s car. The first job at the house was to have a cup of tea, then the cast iron bath needed moving upstairs. I made a couple of suggestions neither of which were much help (one was for two of them to lift the bath and the other two to grab it, it wouldn’t have reached. The other was to tie rope around the bath to give better grips for holding and lifting. I suspect this may have worked but they managed without anyway) so I was given the video camera to get some footage of the bath being taken upstairs and the piano being brought in. I was much better at this than lifting things and even added a little commentary which I am sure Ed and Carina will enjoy when they eventually watch it back :).

That done I oiled the worktop the sink is fitted into, which used to a school science lab bench and still has the little hole cut in for a bunsen burner (now filled). It came up really nice, although will need a couple more layers of oil on it.

Then Ady and I set to painting – I was doing the front wall in a pale green while Ady was giving a side wall a second coat of sand colour. I was painting direct onto this breathable clay which doesn’t seem to have been an entirely successful eco building material using natural coloured paint which smelt gorgeous, all reminscent of eucalyptus and was a lovely pale green colour but went on badly. I was enjoying thinking about what my dad might think of it all – he hates using faddy paints. I was also given a roller to use which is another of Dad’s pet hates so I felt I channelled him well today.

After lunch the kids came and helped too which was nice. They are enjoying this host lots but we aren’t seeing much of them and they don’t do much with us so it was good to have them working with us and singing along to the music too 🙂

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At 3pm it was tidy up time and Ed was filled with praise at how very hard we’d worked today. These are by far our nicest and least expectant hosts! :). Ed dropped us off in the village to pick up some lures for our fishing rods and we walked back intending to collect our rods and have an hour or so fishing but it started to rain quite persistently so we gave up on that idea and just came in.

The kids went to play with Peter who was home from school and Ady and I helped chop veg for dinner which was fish, bought from the local fishermen who actually do catch things – we had herring and haddock, both by-catch fish from their main hauls, but very nice. After dinner we all watched one of the Ocean Giants documentaries and the kids all played a board game for a bit before bed.

Tomorrow we are off again as they are all off to the new house in the morning and then a Smallholders fete thing in the afternoon. We’re intending heading to the smallholders thing too but under our own steam as we won’t all fit in their car. Which means yesterday was a bonus day off as we’ve already been told we’ll have Sunday off too. I want to go along to the beaver trail thing so we may do that on Sunday depending on weather and fishing possibilities.

Have a feeling I may have used that blog post title before – anyone name the song the lyric is from?

Today was a day off – Carina was at work and Ed was visiting Islay with someone to discuss community gardening projects. Here in Tarbert they have established a ‘health garden’ in the grounds of the doctors surgery where they grow medicinal herbs with information boards describing what things are, what they can be used to treat and how to take them. It’s very lovely and we’re supposed to be doing a days work in the health garden with the one paid staff member on the project sometime next week which we’re looking forward to.

Ady got up and tidied Willow, the kids stayed in their room playing DS and chatting and slept in 🙂 Lovely to not have the alarm set. I stuck a wash on and hung it out, we all had late breakfast / early lunch and dug the fishing rods out of the van. Ady and the kids all had fishing rods for Christmas and my friend Helen (who lived on a boat, but is currently living in a house again as she has just had a baby boy!) bought me a rod as a goodbye and good luck present when we left so we have one each. Ady and the kids headed off as I was still pegging out washing so I wandered along about ten minutes after them.

I found them sitting over a heap of rocks on a tiny bay made of shells – it’s where fishermen all threw their scallop shells for years and it hs built up a little beach cove of them. There is also sea glass and other tiny shells, it’s incredibly pretty 🙂

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The others were all trying to work out how to set up their rods with the help of an excellent book Michelle sent to Davies 🙂 thankyou it has been *most* useful today 🙂. I was nominated best at the knots so I got on with that bit while Ady who has done a bit of fishing in his younger days showed the kids how to cast. Davies was pretty good at it actually, certainly on a par with me (not necessarily a very high bar!) but Scarlett was less keen and more cagey. She also confessed that she is not as comfortable with the catching and killing which I have lots of respect for and would never want her to lose.

Once all were set up we spent some time practising casting and reeling in, with varying degrees of succcess and tanglement!

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It really wasn’t very deep water there though so we decided to head back to the pier (which is simply a small area projected out into the sea, not a pier like I’d think of but I guess fitting the definition) and joined various other people fishing there. Over the couple of hours we spent there only about 3 fish -mackrel – were caught and they were deemed too small and chucked back in so we didn’t feel too bad at our lack of success. Davies really enjoyed it and is itching to go and try again and I thought it was good fun too. Scarlett really enjoyed just hanging out at the beach and was giving a great Attenborough style commentary of other wildlife including jellyfish, starfish, various sea birds and most excitingly a seal 🙂 We failed to get a picture as he just bobbed his head out of the water a few times in various places and as soon as you’d realised it was him again he bobbed back down but he hung around for a while. Apparently there has been a seal visiting that spot for years who sometimes nicks fish off people’s lines and just leaves them with the head!

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Back at the host the kids went off to play with Peter who was home from school. They are really enjoying his company and Davies was telling me he’s been asking them lots of questions about Home Ed. We talked about whether they might like to try school if we ended up settled somewhere more remote like this where schools are smaller and more a part of the community. All hypothetical at this stage and I’d want to look closely into how Scottish education works but something they may want to consider if we did end up in a smaller community or village.

We got an email from our next host cancelling. This felt meant to be as we;d been discussing cancelling ourselves but I decided not to as I always feel as though we have missed a potential opportunity when we do the cancelling (we’ve cancelled two – one when we were stuck at Bryn Mawr with Willow not working and one when it was back down in South Wales and we were heading north to Durham, both times I felt sad about it). This means we only have one more booked host now – the one on Eigg and as I contacted them yesterday to suggest we would be flexible about changing dates if needed and they emailed back to say they wanted to stick to our planned November 1st date that means we have nothing between leaving here on 12th September and arriving with them other than our week in Rosemarkie.

Our plan therefore is to list all the places we’d like to spend some time, sights we want to see and work out a rough route with some overnights at campsites or even daytime stops to fill up with water / have showers / empty the loo and waste water etc. (I know C&CC have some sites that offer that for a few quid), check petrol station locations and work out a daily budget for travel and food. I think as we’re already in the north east at Rosemarkie we’ll probably head further north and then head back down south along the west coast to Mallaig for the ferry to Eigg. Obviously very bad weather could scupper plans a little but it all seems doable and exciting :).

Ed and Carina have offered some tips and ideas of places to head for which we’ll spend some time noting down with them and also told us that they are heading off for a weekend away on Mull next Friday so we’ll be left in the house alone on Saturday. It will be funny to have come into their house before them when we first arrived and leave after them when we go :). It does mean we can have leisurely baths, do a final wash and have the kitchen to ourselves on our last day too which will be nice 🙂