One word? When seven would do…

I did blog a post last night and intended to upload it today but it appears to be lost somewhere on my laptop (I’ve checked it’s pockets and down the side of the sofa but it is still unfound). So that can’t be told.

It blathered on about river dipping, book binding and stuff anyway. All good 🙂

The kids and I made two books each under Claire’s splendid tutiledge – one small square book with pages that unfold when you open them and one more traditionally bound using sewing. Davies was amazing, worked til 11pm to finish both, taking great pride in creating the entire book all by himself 🙂 Scarlett made the first one and most of the second one but got fed up of the sewing bit so went off with Ady to walk Bonnie instead.

Claire is lovely, lives in a yurt and runs the teashop on island. It was fab to have our first visitor and she stayed for dinner.

Today has been a mish mash of a day. We spent some time this morning with the kids – I worked with Scarlett to start a River Diary documenting what she sees and catches in the river, while Ady and Davies made a calendar to count down to a DS game coming out. That involved lots of writing, talking about days and weeks and months and why we have 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc (the st,nd,rd,th bits). Davies then asked about why the days of the week are called what they are called so later we looked that up and learnt about various stuff to do with that. I talked to Ranger Mike about spotter sheets and ID books for the river life and he’s looking something out to lend us and suggested we talk to the uni lecturer currently over here with a student group as they are studing freshwater ecology and would probably be up for letting Tarly tag along on one of their sessions. I’ll sort that tomorrow 🙂

We came down to the teashop to order a few bits – blue tack, a noticeboard for the static, some socks for Ady, some oil for the static door, some food shopping. And to work out the best option for track for the croft and chicken and duck housing. We didn’t get very far but did fire off some emails to suitable companies and sent an email out to the community thanking everyone for their welcome and kindness to us so far and asking for any surplus material anyone may have suitable for chicken or duck or pig housing for sale or barter.

I spent some time chatting to Ali who was looking after her daughter Eve and Fliss’ daughter Joss and struggling with the twosome. She was telling me the woes of the nursery closing and looking like she was having a really bad day. I felt for her and have half a plan to offer some childcare swaps at some point (she’d be great for my two to spend time with, particularly Tarly as she does deer post mortems etc) but I’ll wait awhile before offering.

We realised we’d missed the ferry coming in which we felt bad about as we were expecting a fair bit to be on it but after chasing around we realised nothing had come in on it for us anyway. We went back to the static for lunch and then left the kids there doing some drawing and playing with Bonnie. They later went off to do some river dipping as we bought Scarlett a new net from the shop so she is loving catching tiny fish, observing them and recording them in her diary before letting them go again 🙂 Was so lovely to drive up to the static later on and see the kids and dog standing by the river looking so happy and free 🙂

Ady and I popped in to see Vikki and collected some paperwork – we offered to make a contribution towards water and road so that had been put in writing and to collect stuff for our first Odd Job which is to replace the lid of a kerosene tank that got damaged in the storms in December. We’ll do that tomorrow.

We stopped to chat to Mike (ranger) and Georgie for a while too. Really like them 🙂

Then we went to check the ferry as it came back in and wave off Dave and Sylvia who are off island til Friday for her cancer treatment. We also bumped into Sue from Eigg who was over for a training session at the school and got introduced to Stuart who is the cluster headmaster for the small isles. We’ve arranged to meet him sometime next week for a chat as I intend being very out and proud about our Home Ed status to alleviate any concerns the islanders may have.

We called in back at the teashop again but the internet was down anyway. We chatted to Claire and Steve for a while and then went back to the static. I had a go with the wonderwasher but was unsuccessful and had a fair bit of washing to get through so decided to nip down to the castle to do a load instead (further honing of technique required). I shoved it all in and bumped into Georgie and Rachel working out how to get Rachel and her cat back home again (the other end of the village) so offered them a lift. That meant getting shown round Rachel’s house and sitting in her sunny garden with a white wine spritzer, joined by Georgie and Mike 🙂 all very lovely.

I left there (rather reluctantly) and popped to Jinty’s shop for food supplies and change for the drier, swapped the washing over and went back to the static. I cooked dinner while the others enjoyed a film (generator on!) and we chatted. I then left them to it and came back down to collect the washing (now all clean, dry and folded, hurrah!) and am having a quick catch up online in the village hall otherwise I get too behind on blogging.

I need to update my CV to apply for the admin job but am having a real mental block about how to do it. Tomorrow we’re attending a May Day Flower Ramble with Mike seeing the flowers on the island and Ady and I are doing our Odd Job stuff. Wednesday Ady is helping someone who is moving off the island in the hopes of gathering some offcast stuff for chicken housing while the kids and I attend a meeting about an architect feasibility study on uses for the old byre into a community trust revenue producing enterprise, plus we’re hopefully gathering lots of stuff from the ferry. Thursday is RCA meeting in the evening (Rum Community Association, basically residents meeting), Friday is cobble together anything and everything possible to make chicken housing with. We’er waiting on some money to clear and then buying a strimmer / brush cutter to start clearing the croft land a little.

At least three times a day I stop what I am doing, look around me, take a deep breath and am overwhelmed by how happy I am to be here. The kids feel the same. Ady is still rather overwhelmed by everything but I am very hopeful he’s getting to the same place as the rest of us.

Friday – always a good day I find 🙂 We’re getting our heads around the rhythm of the days and weeks here, it all seems to revolve around the ferry coming. In the summer that is Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday – twice each day. From next week we’ll also have the Shearwater coming across from Skye, I think daily which will bring people rather than stuff.

The post gets collected in a mail sack and delivered to you, usually left on your drivers seat of your car rather than through a letterbox as most of us don’t have letter boxes anyway! Anything else that comes in on the ferry arrives on the back of the Calmac pickup which gets driven onto the island while the islanders flock around it grabbing their stuff and then drives back on to the ferry and goes away again. Unless it’s a huge load in which case it stays between ferries.

In the morning we went to the tearoom but got distracted by helping Mike (the ranger) out with some strimmer maintenance. Vikki appeared and we had a chat and she invited us for coffee on Saturday. Davies and Scarlett went back off up to the static and Bonnie and I went with Ali (the deer project worker, wife of Sean) and Eve (their daughter, aged 3) up to see where their house was. I checked emails and did a bit of online stuff and then we headed down to the 2pm ferry. We had some post – registration forms to join the doctors surgery, the dog food delivery from RP and the wonderwasher (with edible contents) from Bob & Katy 🙂 🙂 Post makes us feel special 🙂

It was sleeting down at the ferry and bloody freezing so no one was hanging about. There are three people on the island we’ve not met yet – Caroline (wife of Richard, Reserve Manager for SNH), Morag (the school teacher) and Marcel (deer stalker, partner of Rachel). We’ve passed Caroline and Morag but they have not made the effort to say hello and I was not totally sure who they were. I intend making a point of introducing myself next time we pass them. Marcel is currently recovering from an op on his leg so is not about much but is rather antisocial apparently anyway.

Ady got helping Dave who is the harbourmaster unloading deliveries for the shop and then offered to help unload back at the village so I went back into the teashop to do some more online stuff and wait for him. When he finally got to me there was a power cut so no internet which meant we didn’t manage to do the couple of online things we had to do together. We did have a chat with Fliss about settling in, life in general and Home Ed though which was nice and she extended an invite to the kids to go down and watch TV etc at her house whenever they like. We then chatted to Rachel (Catering Manager at the castle, one of the IRCT directors currently).

Davies and Scarlett appeared back and having intended not to go to the shop we ended up going for a beer. Which became several ;). It was a nice couple of hours though with many of the islanders turning out for an early afternoon Friday beer. We chatted lots to Mike (the ranger) who has offered to do loads of stuff with the kids education wise. He is really passionate about passing on his knowledge anyway, loves the idea of outdoors based education and is thrilled to find interested kids in nature, wildlife and the environment and also gets to justify his ranger post the more take up of his services there are. We also talked about wider community stuff and threw about some ideas for things like film nights and other events. All exciting stuff 🙂

Scarlett spent most of the time helping Jinty restock the shop from the shed outside and earned herself a pin badge for doing so. Jinty is quite a hard nut to crack but Scarlett has utterly won her over :). Davies chatted to Mike about an idea for a Viking story based on Rum he has and picked Mike’s brains for some history. He then told Claire (runs the tea shop, lives in a yurt) about his plans and she offered to come up and teach him book binding so he can make his own books to write his story in. Davies has a plan to sell his stories to the tourists in books he makes himself 🙂 I am utterly LOVING the effect Rum is having on the kids, everything I hoped for and more :).

We went back to the static having realised we’d left it far too late for our planned dinner and bought some bacon and pesto instead to have pasta. We put the genny on for a bit to help with lighting and watch a film while we ate and then all had an earlyish night together.

Saturday – we started the day with a bit of a roundup of the highs and lows of our first week on the island, it feels like much longer already! It’s been a rollercoaster but it already feels more like home that Sussex did for the last few months. We’ve met most people and feel that we’ve made friends and are already a part of the community. We have definitely spent more time (and cash!) at the shop than we planned (it becomes the island pub of an evening with people gathering to drink and chat from about 6pm onwards) but it has been really valuable to get to know people, Bonnie has done all her socialising with the other island dogs and it’s allowed us to do lots of networking.

First ferry on Saturday is at 9am and we were expecting a wheelbarrow from the hardware store in Mallaig but Dave had already said he’d grab it for us if it arrived. It did, and he delivered that along with our second gas bottle to the static for us. Dave has been an utter hero, giving us stuff (including a little trailer) and managing our whole static move. We’ve been buying him beers and coffees and from talking to others know better than to offer him cash but will find a way of rewarding him for all he’s done for us. Dave is going to train Ady to do the harbourmaster job as relief when he is not around which will be some extra cash and comes with free wellies 😉

We had a fairly lazy start to the morning and then headed down to Vikki’s via filling up the water containers. We’ve offered to pay water rates while we’re using the village supply so that will be £6 a month 🙂 I had my first shower in the static which was lovely, once we get the toilets sorted properly it will be such a cosy home. Currently we have our two camping loos, one marked for pee and one for poo which is working well but we still have the porcelein loo in the bathroom which would work if plumbed in so it’s rather cramped in there.

Vikki’s house is lovely, a three bedroom cottage with sea views. It was a social visit and she confessed she has been really looking forward to us arriving. I think it is partly that she has a professional interest in us both being here and in succceeding but I also think she has earmarked us, particularly me, as likeminded potential friends. Which is something she feels a real lack of living here. After a bit of general chit chat we got down to the nitty gritty of listing all the islanders by name and sharing our thoughts on them. Vikki started it, which was good as I think if we’d done I’d have worried about it going further than her garden. Her take on people is surprisingly close to my initial impressions although as she is a rather different personality to me I can see how some people she’s clashed with I’ll be fine with and vice versa. She was really pleased about me intending to apply for the admin role although she thinks Fliss is also applying (and will therefore probably get it, she is more qualified with experience in bookkeeping and knows how the trust works) but said she would far rather work with me!

Davies and Scarlett went off with Bonnie exploring. They have found an old camp that previous island kids have created and added to and is now claimed as theirs. They are having a ball here, so much freedom, so many interesting people and places to explore and a puppy to tag along with them. 🙂

We sat in the sun in Vikki’s garden for a couple of hours and arranged to go in to the office on Monday as we have an odd job person task to do, various paperwork to complete, need to start paying road fund and water etc.

Our chickens and ducks arrive next Saturday on the ferry so we need to have a home sorted ready to put them in. Having trapped our horse box on the croft land the other side of the road blocked by the static even if we did get a shed sent across in time (highly unlikely, a week is not nearly long enough to arrange such things here, plus it’s more money than we have, plus the hardware store in Mallaig and the Travis Perkins in Fort William close on Saturday afternoons so we couldn’t get hold of them anyway to place an order) we couldn’t actually get it down to the croft other than by hand. Vikki offered use of her chicken coop as a short term plan for the chooks (we have feed and bedding so can clean it out and re stock it) and we’ll donate eggs in payment :). The ducks can come on to the croft land straight away as we have a wheelie bin which can serve as a perfect temporary duck house laid on it’s side with the lid propped open and then closed up at night :). We just need to dig one of the drainage ditches out a little to create a pond for them. Sorted!

We then went to the teashop, the kids had cake and we had tea / coffee (free to residents if you buy food :)), we spent some time online ordering walking boots for Ady, Scarlett and I (something we’d failed to realise we’d need but have quickly cottoned on to so ordered nice and cheap from Sports Direct so we can take Mike up on his offer to take us walking around Rum wildlife spotting). We placed a CoOp food order too and I got some unperfumed shampoo and conditioner ordered for me as stocks are running low and I’d failed to find that anywhere before we came over. Still need to get our car tax sent back (have now missed the end of this month, poo!). We plotted alternative options for the chicken, duck and pigs housing and looked at corrugated sheeting online which we think will be the best plan.

Dave, (Static hero, harbourmaster, chainsaw sculpturor) Sylvia (his wife) and Andrew (their baby) arrived so we joined them in the sunshine for a cup of tea and chat, learnt the very romantic story of how they met and the kids went off to play in the park. We keep getting distracted by tea shop, shop and chatting but I guess we need to adjust to island time anyway and this is all very valuable networking and friendship forming stuff that is always going to be more worthwhile than anything else we can do. Dave had delivered our second gas bottle and our newly arrived wheelbarrow to the croft for us.

Back to the static and we headed down to the horsebox to gather some more stuff. We’ve all been wearing a small selection of clothes so were able to dig out more along with our duvets and the hot water bottles, an electric camping heater and various other ‘essentials’. We trekked back up again and deduced that the smell coming from the fridge was indeed, as feared, coming from the chicken. Turns out time on the ferry, then sitting around in the car while we sorted the static on Wednesday , then going in a fridge which kept getting turned on and off will make a chicken go off – who’d have thought? 😉 We debated taking a risk but decided chucking away a £6 chicken now and finding a different dinner option is way preferable to D&V disposal of said chicken in 48 hours time in a static with no plumbing. So I made pizza dough and we left it to prove while popping down to the shop. We needed to dump some rubbish (including chicken) at the skip on the pier – our long term plan is to burn any rubbish we can, reuse anything we can and excepting plastic packaging or recyclable stuff not need to use the rubbish skips at the pier but all in good time. We also filled up our water and then called in the shop for a drink.

Back at the static we put the genny on and the kids watched a film while they ate and we used the camping heater at the other end of the static to warm up the bedrooms. It worked quite well but drank fuel and we’re planning getting a portable gas heater instead – something like this http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/PORTABLE-GARAGE-WORKSHOP-SHED-GREENHOUSE-GAS-HEATER-4-2KW-/380396297368#vi-content to have down in the bedroom area of the static for the colder times. Warmth, food and the ability to get clean are going to be basic requirements we’ve decided and that is where we’ll spend our limited resources above anything else.

The drive along the village road from the pier to the shop was just stunning, Loch Scresort was calm and mirror-like, a couple of small yachts were docked in and the sun was going down. We watched some campers sitting outside their tents admiring the view and decided that while they must be feeling so very lucky to be on holiday here we actually live here :). There have been more than enough moments like that this first week to balance out the frequent ‘WTF have we done?!’ moments, thankfully 🙂

Sunday – I’ll blog a little of our morning although we are not very far into the day yet. Ady headed off to take some stuff down to the horse box and bring some more back up. Bonnie is very attached to him, probably because he is the one getting up with her first each morning. I’ve ordered a couple of kindle books to help me get to grips with her as I have spent the least time with her and want to ensure she is bonded with me too. I suspect in terms of all the advice on training we have already made loads of mistakes with our rather crazy first week with her but she is loving running with the other dogs on the island, adores the kids and has made what could have been a really hard first week for them an exciting adventure so everything else can fall into place later.

I spent an hour chatting to the kids about Home Education. I believe so strongly in the approach we have followed so far but our lives are changing and I want to be realistic about how that impacts on Home Ed. We have had various offers of help from people to spend time with the kids and teach them things and I am very aware we will be under scrutiny living in such a small community in a highly visual way. Tourists are aware of us and ask questions and there is the school teacher on the island who will no doubt have an opinion of what we are doing. I want to be able to confidently appease any challengers along with of course continuing to meet my first priority which is delivering an appropriate education to my kids. With that in mind, we talked about how best to move forward from here. I explained that in school the end result is qualifications to prove your level of education but that has never been my intention, I think that deciding what you want to learn and then learning it is the right path, getting qualifications if required for a specific purpose. I think it is still far too early to be fretting about what they want to do / be when they grow up but I also don’t want them to have missed chances to learn things when they have cropped up. I am aware that our previous method of spending all our time together and finding interesting / educational opportunities wherever we can is not as easy to pull off now we live on an island with no access to museums, galleries, cities etc but we do live on a national nature reserve, rich in wildlife, geological interest, full of interesting and talented people with many skills and with a constant stream of other people all of whom may be able to teach us things. It is ensuring we tap into all of those opportunities which may take a little more input from me and a little more forward planning than we have previously had to employ.

We talked about ways to cover the next step – both the children want to improve their reading and writing along with generally following their interests so we have decided to spend an hour or so every morning after breakfast together on something, as decided by them. I have offered workbooks or similar as online stuff is not going to be as easy to access at the moment or that they find something that interests them and we work on that instead. I know my preferance is for a project of their choosing that encorporates literacy but it needs to be their decision. Thankfully they both want the same. Claire is coming up today to teach us how to make books by bookbinding which is something I did years ago in college but have long since forgotten so will be great for all of us and then the kids plan to make a series of books they created themselves containing all the things they want to learn about.

The current list is as follows: Davies – wants to write a story about vikings on Rum, he has a plan for the plot and some characters and would like to also make an animation of the story. He wants to sell the books to tourists and maybe show his film in the village hall. He’s found a book people book about story writing and was inspired by a book I made when I was about his age. This will need further researching and we found a Horrible Histories Vikings book in the horse box which he is going to read aloud to me as a starting point, along with collecting drawings and character ideas in one of his books and spending time talking to Mike about the vikings here on Rum and looking at locations for his story as we explore the island. He’ll keep an account of all of this process as he goes so it will end up as a massive project with various bits of evidence of what he’s learnt and different skills involved.

Davies would also like to do a proper survival sleepout with me. He’s going to research and plan the whole expidition including plotting a route on a map, working out what we need to take with us and packing it, planning the best time to do it with regard to weather conditions etc and he wants to head to one of the bothies with an overnight outside in a shelter we’ve built too, maybe some foraging. We probably have all the necessary resources for this already except a map so we’ll pick one of those up from the shop. Everything he does towards it will be documented in one of his made books too.

Scarlett wants to do a river life project on Rum. She wants to do river dipping and identify, measure and photograph / draw / record her findings. She wants to do it over different weather and seasonal conditions to compare results. She wants to learn more about the different life cycles and behaviour patterns of what she finds and also look at different stretches of river. She would also like to do similar in the islands lochs.

Scarlett wants to do the marine trips with Mike and learn about the sealife around Rum. She has realised how unique where we live is and wants to become an expert on all things water related in the area :). All of this will be recorded in her books she’ll make.

Scarlett would also like to learn various things from various islanders. She wants to learn about soap making from Fliss. She would also like to learn more sewing, crochet and knitting from me having seen the stuff Fliss sells in her shop.

Ali and Martyn who manage the deer research project are people Scarlett wants to spend time with. She’d love to be at a postmortem and learn more about all the work they do here with the deer. She’ll record all of this in her books.

Both the children would love to do a Come Dine With Me style activity now we have our own kitchen again. This will involve them planning and cooking a meal for the whole family each and getting rated on it. Julie & Chris do it with Jack, Maisie and Lorna and we’ve been really keen to do it ourselves. We’ll get our recipe books up from the horse box and do that too.

They are both keen to start learning more about wildlife photography and there is no lack of subject matter or people who know about it here so that is on their lists. They would also like to learn more about astronomy now we have all the starts displaying for us with no light pollution, actually so would I so that is something else to add to our list.

This is an amazing place full of amazing possibilities and I want to make sure we grab everything we can. A breakfast meeting for the four of us every day will be a great way of managing all our time and making sure we get our time together as a family and all get to go off and do our own thing too.

On which note although I have so much more to say I need to go and have lunch and see if Claire has arrived to teach bookbinding yet. More soon!

A way better day today 🙂

After a first night sleeping in the static everyone was feeling a lot better. To wake in our own home, sort out breakfast without the small talk with other residents and just start the day at our own pace was fab. Even if Davies ate his cereal dry off a dinner plate and Scarlett wanted milk on hers so ate from a saucepan as we’d not unpacked bowls yet!

Ady, Scarlett and Bonnie waited at the static for Dave who was coming to give a hand moving us further along the track. Davies and I walked down to the teashop for internet access and electricity. Davies sat with his DS and bought himself a new game online while I caught up on emails, blogs, picture uploading and various other online stuff. I made a couple of phonecalls (there is phone signal there too :)) and generally got stuff straight.

I chatted with Claire who runs the teashop, Steve who is the resident expert on all things eco and is the one who gave us the Earthship dvds and a couple of tourists, one girl who missed the ferry yesterday so is stuck here til tomorrow and another guy who wanted to come and shake my hand having heard about us and tell me he admired me and my family greatly and thought we had ‘great spirit’ :). Earlier we’d been chatting to a guy walking past the static who knew who we were and wanted to give us his address in Mallaig incase we wanted him to take delivery of anything on the mainland and stick it on the ferry for us. He does bird watching stuff over on Canna too and invited us along for free to any of his events.

Scarlett appeared a couple of times having walked down with Bonnie. She went off for a dog walk with Georgie and Tinker (Fliss’ dog who Georgie borrows to walk) and they had a great time. She then went along to Fliss’ craft shop where she was unpacking the un sold stuff from yesterdays craft fair and offered to help. She was there a while and came back with a bag of fudge she’d been given for helping and wanted to share with Davies. Davies and I had bought a couple of muffins (one each for the kids) which got me a free cup of tea and then later we were also given a toastie, another cup of tea and a hot chocolate with marshmallows and flake which Claire had made to take photos of and so donated to us 🙂 Scarlett got back in time to share the hot chocolate.

Davies wrote out some postcards to family and friends and we popped them in the postbox before walking back to the static. It’s moved about 50 foot today which doesn’t sound a lot but it has been round a very sharp bend and almost all by hand using a slow process with rollers and chocks and things. I felt a bit bad for leaving Ady and Dave to us but I was assured there was little I could have done to help anyway and it was good for Ady and Dave to bond.

We did a trip to the horsebox for various bits and pieces, including bowls! Then came back for dinner. We bought the genny along and spent some time hooked up and charging stuff up. Am very pleased with our set up, will be even more pleased once we have it all set up where it’ll be staying,

After dinner we went down to the shop, mostly to buy Dave a beer as we knew he’d be there. I chatted with Claire and Sylvia (Dave’s wife) and a good time was had by all. It’s late again and the most important thing we got from the horse box was my hot water bottle so I’m away to bed to make the most of the snuggliness

So, so many challenges.

The tough bits:

We bought some dog food that appeared not to agree with Bonnie. Lots of poo to clear up 🙁 Then realised that getting more was going to be very non straightforward. We will get the idea of ordering stuff across and ensuring we have enough time but dog food for a new puppy was not a great way to learn! She is now okay on that food though and we have two more sacks on the way so dog food won’t be an issue for a while…

When we were here last time we had fast internet access in the castle so I’d stupidly assumed the same would happen again. Wrong! There is a monthly limit which had already been used up so no access. Phone signal is patchy (ironically the best place so far has been up on our croft land, so good for us long term, not straightforward while we’re staying down in the village). That meant all the tidying up loose ends stuff like cancelling car insurance, sorting out SORN for the Pajero, ordering groceries etc has been really challenging. My phone battery does not last when it is constantly searching for signal so we’ll have to get used to switching it on for a bit each day when we know exactly where signal is and not having it the rest of the time. We have 2 sets of walkie talkies which I think will work fine almost all over the island so the four of will carry those instead and can at least stay in touch with each other.

The fucking politics! I know we were warned, I knew it would be the case but it is probably still worse than I’d expected. There are so many divides and issues. Between SNH and IRCT, between islanders, between directors and non directors. There are people here who used to be couples and are not any more. It’s just such a small amount of people, with so many different priorities and loyalities and history and nothing is straightforward. This has been really hard for Ady and I to get to grips with – everyone has been friendly but some are slightly distant and we are not used to be taken as anything other than ourselves. If someone hates me because of me then I can cope just fine with that (Ady not so much but at least he can understand it and frankly I don’t think anyone has ever hated him anyway!) but to come up against people not wanting to even try and get to know you is really tough. I understand their reticience and the fragility of this place but it’s still not a great atmosphere to arrive to. Vikki, the development officer has been off island (she came back yesterday on the ferry with our static) so I suppose she would have been the one to show us round, introduce us to everyone, give us the lowdown on who everyone is and what they do and just help us find our feet. As it is no one picked up on that job so we have done a fair bit of aimless wandering, unsure where to go or what to do.

On Monday we were told that everyone on the island thought we’d never get the static on to the croft but no one had thought to share that knowledge with us. We also learnt that even bringing a static at all is a bit politically sensitive as others have had permission turned down and that if the driver could not get it to the croft then we’d need to seek formal permission for it to be anywhere else and no one seemed to have any idea where that might be. I started off fairly upset and then just got really hacked off. On Tuesday we went off searching for Sean, the director who interviewed us and wrote the letter giving permission for us to site the static beside the river and got some monosyllabic answers and stuff like ‘well we knew you wouldn’t get it on to the croft, we’ve been waiting for you to realise and come and see us’. Well thanks a lot!!!

On Tuesday evening we went to the shop, where certain people hang out of an evening with a beer and chat stuff over and it all suddenly clicked into place. Norman (older guy, delivers the post, been here years) took us under his wing and talked to Chainsaw Dave for us who has the other static on the island. Dave is now our new best friend and hero and champion and is basically getting us down the hill.

I’m really cross that the scale of the challenges was not made clearer to us in advance. We knew there would be tricky times ahead with developing the croft, building a house, keeping livestock, just living on an island but these are skills we have enough of to make it work and logistics we are able to overcome. The not being made fully aware of how fragile the place is people-wise or quite how much work there is to do in forming a cohesive commmunity has made what would have always been a tough first week a *really* tough first week.

All that aside we did indeed spend our first night in the static. The 12v lighting works well, the pump works, the heater works, the fridge and oven work. The beds are comfortable and we’ll move it one step at a time until it is where it is supposed to be. The fact it is now somewhere we don’t have permission for it to be will have to be dealt with by someone else if it is an issue as I have already run out of patience for nonsense!

Good stuff – there has been loads 🙂

It has not really rained at all yet, it’s been blue skies, sunshine and gorgeousness. This remains the most beautiful place and that is enough to keep us calm, positive and retain belief in our adventure.

We managed to get a food shop sent over from Co-Op, same price as usual, done by email with more or less everything we wanted on it. That was beautifully straightforward and we’ve decided to ensure we place an order in time for the Friday ferry each week with supplies of nice stuff arriving for the weekend. The shop here stocks almost everything food and drink wise we could need and we do intend to use it but I think one bigger food delivery each week (ferry permitting) from the mainland will keep our budget in check with top ups from Jinty (along with stuff like milk, we won’t have space in our little fridge for a whole week’s worth at a time).

Davies and Scarlett are having a ball. They are spending hours outside playing in the river, walking Bonnie and spotting wildlife. The people here are lovely to them and I came into the tearoom on Tuesday night to find Scarlett sitting on Claire’s knee drawing wildlife pictures with her and talking about the time Claire swam with a basking shark in the harbour. We went to a talk by the ranger on Tuesday night about the wildlife on Rum where the kids sat for the whole 90 minutes rapt with attention. Davies told me afterwards he started to drift off in the middle but then realised he lives here and the wildlife being talked about is outside his window every day so he started listening with excitement again. The stars are amazing, the moon is a tiny sliver this week with Venus shining brightly. With no light pollution and clear skies.

When people are lovely, they are so, so, so, so lovely. We got our castle stay half price (that’s £160 off!!), we’ve had hugs and reassurances, offers of hospitality and meals and stuff and I feel we will make some real friends here given time. I remain, as ever hopeful, optimistic and positive. I don’t really know how to be any other way. I just hope it is not a folly that I’ve dragged others into along with me!

Tuesday – the start of the epic journey ‘home’. We woke to pouring rain, which felt like it must be in some way symbolic, I just wasn’t sure quite how. Tasha tweeted to say ‘Worthing skies are crying because Nic is leaving’.

We’d talked about being away between 10am and 11am, knowing full well it would be a challenge so when we actually left at 1130am I didn’t think that was too bad going. It certainly felt different towing the horse box fully loaded, even more different to towing it half full on Sunday. Scarlett asked ‘what’s the matter with the car?’ when we had been going about 4 miles. So it was a slow and steady drive to Sheffield, rather like being back in Willow again. And with a similar sort of fuel consumption too!

As we passed through Chesterfield Babs rang to say ‘Guess what?’ to which my joking reply of ‘you’re still in France?’ was met with the chilling words ‘I’ve missed my flight’ 🙁 Babs gave me a couple of numbers to contact Chris who was supposed to be heading out of school and on his way to pick her up so I spent a frantic 15 minutes trying to get hold of Chris, eventually persuading the girl on reception to run and find him. Fortunately she did and so at least Chris didn’t head off towards an airport where Babs was not going to be.

We pulled up at Babs’ and without thinking things through properly pulled into the turning circle at the end of their road which had another car parked in it and promptly got stuck! James came out (Kirsty & co were at Babs’) and Ady and James unhitched the horse box which then dropped too low to hitch back on again due to all the weight in it. About 20 minutes of rather stressful negotiating commenced with Ady, James and I eventually tugging it round by hand, then getting the Pajero in position pointing down the road, lifting it back up to re-hitch it and then driving down the road. This also involved James’ car jack, several swear words and all three of us going funny colours trying to push, pull and lift a very loaded up horse box!

That done we retired to drink tea, mix up pizza dough and lament poor Babs being trapped in France. Chris arrived home and eventually we found ourselves some hours later with Chris on the phone to Babs trying to work out the best way of getting her from Stanstead airport the following evening, Kirsty and I frantically getting stuck pizza dough off al three of the pizza stones (Kirsty did tell me the dough was too runny, I failed to listen!) and Ady and James outside in the growing darkness trying desperately to close the back door of the Pajero which had stuck open and then trying desperately to open the back door of the Pajero when it stuck closed! Not the way any of us had imagined the evening!

Later after James had gone home, the kids had gone to sleep and Chris and Ady had gone to bed Kirsty and I stayed up and chatted. Definitely a Babs shaped hole 🙁

Wednesday – I woke up pretty early considering the late night but with loads to do once I had stirred about 8am I got up rather than going back to sleep as I normally would. We spent the morning being very efficient opening accounts at Harbro and Direct Pet Supplies pet and livestock suppliers in Fort William, so we are now able to ring through orders and get stuff delivered. I also had some email exchanges with the puppy breeder to coordinate puppy collection for the following day, with Neil and Sue on Eigg about various things including setting up a weekend visit to them sometime over the summer and with Shiona, who lives near Mallaig and is selling us a breeding pair of pigs – Kune Kune crossed with Gloucester Old Spot. Our plan is for them to be our stock for breeding meat but to use them to clear large chunks of land for us aswell. They are ready as soon as we are, mid May at the latest, so chicken and duck houses followed by pig fencing and shelter now top of the priority lists!

After lunch Ady and I unhitched the horse box and went to Lidl and Tesco for a few bits we decided would be best bought before we left the mainland – loo rolls, toothpaste, pasta, rice, cleaning stuff, flour and so on. We also went to Screwfix to collect three jerry cans we’d reserved online – two for petrol and one for diesel. We filled the Pajero up with fuel and then headed back. James arrived not too long after us and we fed the kids. The Barts left having given us a fab present of a 1947 cloth map of Rum 🙂 Thanks guys xxx

Babs and Chris arrived shortly afterwards so we got some food sorted and sat to eat with them. It was a later night than was really sensible given the enormity of the following day but it felt such a short snatched time with Barbara I was desperate to eke out every last possible moment.

Thursday started at 6am – ouch! We were up, dressed and out by 630am and breakfasted on the way. We stopped first at Cumbria, again at a services somewhere along the M6 and then carried on the whole way. Stops were for wee breaks and fuel refills only, we had food packed to keep us going. When we left Babs the satnav said we’d be there for 145pm, it was actually closed to 430pm when we finally arrived. We’d looked on googlemaps and google earth the day before to gauge the best place to park so did that and walked across to the vets were we’d arranged to see the puppies. The breeder, Heather, is the practise manager there and had brought one dog and one bitch for us to see. The dog was gorgeous, quite a bit bigger and more boisterous than the bitch but we decided the calmer of the two was probably our best option and I had wanted a bitch really anyway. So after discussions about puppy training, feeding, vaccinations, neutering and so on we left, several hundred pounds poorer with a squirming mass of black and white fluff in our arms.

We’d had much discussions about a name for the puppy with Willow and Wanda front runners. Davies didn’t like Willow as he was not keen on anything replacing the original Willow, Ady was less keen on Wanda. The rest of us liked the idea of having a dog called Wanda to keep the wonder / wander theme going. She was Wanda for a short time when suddenly Davies had the brainwave of Bonnie, as in Bonnie Scotland or bonny wee lass. It was perfect, so Bonnie she is 🙂

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We left Bonnie in the car with the kids to all get to know each other while Ady and I dashed into Morrisons for dinner and other last minute supplies, then we went back south to Acharn Farm where we’d booked a night in a wigwam. I cannot recommend it highly enough. Corrinne, the owner was the most welcomming, warm and friendly host. She struck just the perfect mix of seeing us in and making us feel at home while not swamping us or making us feel on show. She took our pizzas off us when we realised there was not an oven to cook them in and brought them back cooked for us, along with a beer each for Ady and I. Her son lives about 10 doors down from my parents (you would not believe how many people we have met in the last week who have connections with Worthing!). She was hugely supportive of our adventures, loved Bonnie and only charged us £30 for the night. I think it was the best nights sleep I’ve had in months! Bonnie was an angel – slept right through happily in her crate, the cushions of the converted bed was so comfortable and when we realised we had no phone or mifi signal we all went to bed together around 10pm and instantly fell asleep.

Friday which meant we were all awake again by about 7am and ready go to by 8am. Corrine saw us out with the reversing and we were on our way. We stopped at Harbro the animal feed wholesalers on the way to pick up a tick comb and a brush for Bonnnie and then on to Mallaig. We arrived really early, by about 11am and saw Richard, the SNH Reserve Managed there and Ali and Eve (Ali is the deer research assistant, married to Sean the estate worker for SNH and Eve their 4yo daughter) all coming back to Rum with vehicles. Ady asked Richard for help reversing on to the ferry which he’d been really stressing about and Richard agreed to do it for us :). The ferry was delayed anyway so we then had about 90 minutes to kill. We went to Johnstons Bros the petrol station and hardware store, bought stickers for our jerry cans, filled two of them up with petrol, got the dangerous goods licence to fill out for the ferry crossing, talked to them about how it works ordering things and got contact details to do so, went to the CoOp for some very last minute bits and chatted to every other person we walked past on account of having the cutest puppy in town along with us 🙂 Everyone told us how we’d love it on Rum and that this area is the best place to live :). Back at the ferry we chatted to Ali and Eve which was good.

The ferry crossing felt very symbolic and fortunately it was a good, smooth one. The sea was like glass, smooth and gorgeously reflecting the blue skies. We could see a warship in the distance skirting the small isles with a helicopter escort, a jet flew over a couple of times and then the captain announced there were dolphins riding alongside the boat so there was a mass exodus outside to watch that. We saw them several times afterwards. Amazing to think of all the dolphin chasing we have done over the years and how now they are just part of our commute home! 🙂

We arrived and Fliss and Georgie were there to meet us with hugs and ‘welcome to Rum’. Fliss told me the other islanders watching us drive off (we were last on, so first off the boat) had been chanting ‘fresh meat, fresh meat!’ which I found both amusing and rather alarming!

We had a quick chat, were introduced to a few people we’d not previously met and then drove along to the castle to check in. On the way we were flagged down by Norman, who is the postman as he had some mail for us – the doll from PlayMerrily, the invoice for the chickens and ducks arriving in a couple of weeks and the no claims discount proof for my car insurance! In the castle we found our room -we’re all together in one room this time and have managed to bring Bonnie up to the room in her crate too which is nice.

We took the Pajero and horse box up to the croft to unhitch the horse box. We managed to get just inside the croft land and it all got stuck. We unhitched the horse box and then got the Pajero stuck. The kids went off with Bonnie and various props and made a camp next to the river while Ady and I puzzled out the best way of getting the car out. It took about an hour but we got there 🙂

Back at the castle we had some food, chatted to people and then wandered along to the shop which serves as an evening hang out too. A few people were there including their dogs so Bonnie got to socialise too 🙂 Kids and dogs ran round with sticks while adults had a beer and some getting to know each other chats. All good 🙂

Back at the castle the gas supply ran out so we had to call out Rachel the catering manager to sort it. It made for a late dinner but I think we were all just so amazed to finally be here an early night was never on the cards anyway.

Saturday – the beach clean. Bag packed with food and water for Bonnie and some sausages for us we were collected at 930am by Ranger Mike and along with Rachel and her sister (over visiting for the weekend) and her little son we all bundled into the landrover and headed over to Kilmory. It’s about 6 miles away, very rough ground, about a 2.5hr walk and a half hour drive due to the roughness of the path. We went through the Jurassic Park esque gates to the National Nature Reserve (NNR) and within a few minutes started seeing deer. There are about 900 on the island and as part of a uni study they have been watched and researched for years.

Mike gave us a bit of a tour talk as he drove us there and then we started gathering rubbish and putting it in to big sacks to be hauled back up later. Amazing how much stuff washes up on the beaches. There is a big wrecked fishing boat from France just around the corner from the bay and most of the stuff is from there apparently. Quite a lot of ill feeling towards fishermen from the islanders. We worked for a couple of hours on that in the perfect sunshine. Davies, Scarlett and Bonnie spent the time playing on the beach and both the kids have loads of new freckles and healthy looking glows about them again :). So lovely to see them running with Bonnie on a beach 🙂

Ady carried on helping Mike but I stopped to chat to Ali who had arrived. Some swapping of life stories and fledgling friendship building stuff :). We cleared the whole of that section and then dragged it all up the hill to Martyn’s. He is the deer research person and lives alone at Kilmory in his little house. A really cool bloke, who is a zoologist but told me his degree counted for nothing and everything he’s done has been based on experience which he got working as a volunteer on research projects for about 10 years. He’s worked all over the world with meerkats, lions, turtles, wild dogs, chameleons and of course deer. He told us (mostly Scarlett and I – understandably Scarlett was loving every bit of this) about his role – the deer year is three seasons – currently we’re in mortality season where most of the deer deaths happen, those in poor condition who have used all their reserves through the winter and just don’t quite make it to the spring/summer. Martyn’s job is to post mortem them all – take bloody, fur, tusks and any other samples possible dependant on the freshness of the corpse. Next season is calving, new calves born. Martyn watches the pregnant hinds and knows the signs to be aware when they have calved. He then finds the calf and has just seven minutes to do his thing – weigh and measure, insert ear tags and collars and just check their general health. He likes to find calves at a day old before they have become nervous. His study is a mecca to the curious about animals no matter how gruesome it might be nine year old girl called Scarlett 🙂 He showed her his little book in which every single hind is listed, by name with distinguishing features, ear tags and collars. Stags do not have their own name, instead they take their mothers name and their year of birth, so Davies would be Nic 2000. Martyn was fascinating, really up for telling us how it all works and keen to have us visit again to learn more. What a fab contact 🙂

While talking to Mike he invited us out on the Thursday sightseeing tour to Soay – usually £10 per head but he said we can go as often as we like for free. It’s the small rib that takes the post out to the three people who live on Soay from Rum once a week and Mike comes along to give a commentary on wildlife spotted on the way. Again, what a fab person to have in our lives with all his knowledge and passion.

We had lunch – sausages over the open fire and I sat and chatted to Ali for a bit longer while the kids headed back to the beach with Bonnie. Then the adults went to help Sandy who was moving the seven massive panels (as in 15 foot square) which will be made into a new hide for the red deer rut and needs putting up on the cliff edge. It took eight of us, two on each corner and was bloody hard work, just like WWOOFing! My knees knew I’d done some work last night!

That done we had another cup of tea with Martyn, more chatting and then back to the village. We wandered down the shop later for a beer, chat and play where Bonnie was really thrilled to meet a couple more dogs and make friends 🙂

Another late night for dinner.

Sunday – today. I’m racing through this because it’s nearly 2am, I’m really tired and I want to go to bed, but I know I’m already forgetting stuff so I want to get it down and I can come back later with details and pictures.

This morning we went off to the croft land. I’ve not had much one to one time with Bonnie and it was another gloriously sunny morning so Bonnie and I walked while the others drove. Bonnie was a star with her walking (she’s rarely on a lead, the issues of car etc don’t exist!) and stayed with me all the way aside from one brief confusing moment for her when I didn’t head towards the village as we’d done every other time she came 🙂

The kids and dog played in the river, I caught up with texts and emails and phonecalls – we have signal on our land :).

We had one of those perfect moments today, Ady and I sat drinking a cup of tea looking out over our land, sea eagles circling overhead, sun shining, kids and dog happily playing and the gentle sound of the river running by. We have all sorts of concerns about the static and other moving stuff but today we found time to take deep breaths and remember why we’re here.

Like I say loads more to tell, I want to write properly about Bonnie, ticks, people, stresses and so on but I’m falling asleep over my laptop and tomorrow is another busy day!

Another morning of stressy squabbling – me and Ady, not Davies and Scarlett. It’s stress, anxiety, totally understandable different ways of dealing with everything but all makes for a fairly unpleasant time while people are shouting at each other 🙁 Hurrah for that all being over with now.

We did not get as far as I’d hoped with packing up when Caz, Bid, Archie and Eliot arrived. We’d asked them to bring their kids scooters with them and the four kids spent the whole morning scooting about up and down the road. I had some common sense, supportive loving words from Caz while Bid helped Ady clear the garage – most into our horse box and a few bits into their van. We drank lots of tea / coffee and ate food on the lawn. It was very good for all four of us.

They left with just enough time for us to clean ourselves up and walk up the road to Mike & Rose’s for a pre arranged afternoon tea. Due to various things they had Mike’s mother, sister, BIL and niece staying with them so it was a full house. Mike had produced a section of crusts cut off sandwiches, scones with jam and cream, proper tea leaf tea and a chocolate cake. It was all very delicious and very English which I think was the intentional theme – our last English afternoon tea before a lifetime of neeps, tatties, haggis, highland shortbread, irn bru, whisky and of course deep friend Mars bars 😉

Mike’s sister and Mum were not at all what I would have expected having known Mike for about 5 years. Ady said the same. Funny how you have in your head an image of who someone is and where they came from… they were all very nice and we had a lovely few hours chatting, a walk to the park across the downs with the dogs and then they left us to it with Mike & Rose in the garden for a final cup of tea and chat. Mike and his daughter Chloe will be visiting us in August and Rose is hoping to come up next year so it’s not a long term goodbye at least.

We walked back down the hill home again in the sunshine. We then planned to finish off the packing the horse box with all but last minute things but Mum arrived and had a cup of tea with me while Ady did further horse box loading.

Mum left and we whizzed up to the retail park – we filled the Pajero up with petrol, got some food for dinner tonight, breakfast tomorrow and snacking in the car – all paid with with five bags of coppers that Davies had been stashing and saving. We realised if he wants to spend his money once we’re on Rum it will probably be ordering stuff online therefore he’ll give his cash to us and we don’t want a bag full of coppers so this seemed like the best way of changing up the money. It did mean about 10 minutes at the self service till though, loading in hundreds of coppers to the coin slot!

I called in to Boots to stock up on make up (I wear Boots own brand stuff) and Ady picked up some padlocks from Argos for the horse box.

It was late when we got home so dinner was late all round. Ady and I had Last Baths and did a bit more packing. We reckon we have about 2 hours worth of stuff to do in the morning – last minute packing up and quick clean round as we go – we are only in two rooms now, all others are empty and cleaned.

It’s been a typical last day really, can’t say it’s been easy and the seeing of friends has meant we’ve not really got as much done as I’d hoped but I suspect that has been a good thing. Everything will get done and the time in the sunshine with friends is what makes life worth living – not the shouting at each other over what should have been packed next which is where I fear we would have degenerated without the time with friends.

Tomorrow – the final goodbye to Sussex.

A complete rollercoaster of a 48 hours. 😉 🙂 🙁 😳 😯 etc.

Yesterday morning I woke in pain from my foot – the larger blister on my left foot had burst and was incredibly sore. I patched it up with some plasters and an eye dressing – everyone most amused that by calling it an eye pad we all instantly thought of something else. And a really unsettled emotional feeling. I had not slept well and was feeling faintly guilty about the people I’d not managed to talk to properly the night before – Sarah who had organised it all and Livvy who told me right at the end she had failed her 2nd year of uni and was waiting to hear if she can repeat it or will be kicked off her course – either way a bit of a blow to her dreams – she is training to be a teacher. She has always talked to me lots about teaching, education and alternative philosophies and has asked me for advice about her studies and ambitions and said she was really sorry she’d not got to chat to me because she’d really wanted to, so I felt bad that I’d not been there for her. I gave her my phone number and facebook messaged her when I got home, along with offering a retreat up on Rum if she needs some time and space away from her world for a bit but I hate feeling I have missed a chance to be there for someone 🙁 Not least because I spent the evening chatting to someone I’ve never met before about Earthships – interesting for me and her but not entirely what the meal had been about and arguing with James about opportunities for children on the island. I felt bad that I’d not caught up more with the people who had made an effort to come and see me. I chatted it over with Ady and I’m sure it was more in my own head but left me with a hard to shake feeling of not quite rightness.

We met up with Julie & co as planned and had a nice walk round Highdown Gardens where we have spent lots of time together over the years. The kids ran off and played and we alternately sat (hurrah for my blister) on benches and walked around (boo for my blister). It all felt very symbolic as the last time and Julie and I, probably because Ady has been with us each time, have not really recaptured our closeness the last few times we’ve been together in person (chatting on the phone has been fine). Julie cried when we hugged goodbye and although I’d been cautious about being too enthusiastic about our new life and we’d all focussed on how soon they will be visiting the kids all looked pretty sad to be saying goodbye.

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We went to Sainsburys and collected some stuff to eat in the car for lunch, using up the last reward on our nectar card and a voucher we had – no Sainsburys where we’ll be going. Then we headed into town and I dashed into M&S to buy a couple of bottles of wine with a voucher a friend sent us while we were on the road last year but we’d never spent. Once again, no M&S where we’ll be going so it made sense to cash in all such things now.

Then to Worthing hospital. Place where Davies was born, Scarlett had her chin stitched up, I had my ankle x rayed and my Granny is currently residing with a hernia and ulcer and in a fairly grave state. I have not always seen eye to eye with her but she is my sole living grandparent and the one I have had most contact with (one grandfather died a couple of years ago but I only ever knew him as Frank anyway, met him about 10 times, the other died when I was 2 so I have no real memory of him. My step grandfather died about 8 years ago and I spoke at his funeral. My other grandmother died when I was about 10 but I never knew her other than as an old, old lady). The care in the hospital is crappy on the ward she is on. The nurses appear uncaring and rough and it was hard to see her there defenseless, in pain, rather confused with all of us thinking but not saying that it will probably be the last time we see each other 🙁

Davies and Scarlett spent some time chatting to the woman in the next bed and told her all about us and our adventures and what we’re doing next. She was very and said ‘I think you are marvellous. So brave :)’ – all of the people on the ward ended up listening to the conversation between her and the kids so when we left we were waved off by about 20 people – patients and their visitors. When Mum went in later she was regaled with tales of her daughter and grandchildren 🙂

We stayed for nearly 2 hours, Ady went off to get Granny some polos as she had a horrid taste in her mouth. I offered to go and collect things from her house as she was in a pair of mens hospital pyjamas. I also offered to go and clean up in her house as she was worried about the state it had been left in (she’d been very poorly with sickness and diarrhoea and not made it to the bathroom) but she refused to give me the key. We left promising to see her in Rum. I hope the promises come true, I have no idea if they will.

Back at home Ady cooked roast dinner and we watched some Life After People. That (understandably) failed to cheer any of us from our rather melancholy mood so I read a couple of chapters of Danny Champion of the World (we’ve nearly finished it) before bed. I was exhausted from the last few days and ended up curling up on the bed and falling asleep before the children did.

Which meant I was awake just after 7am this morning – see I’m not lazy, I do just need less sleep and prefer to take it at a later hour than most 😉

I got up first and stuck the kettle on but Ady was up soon after and I woke the kids. We’d all breakfasted and were dressed and ready to go by 8am so were in the curious and most unlike us situation of hanging around waiting to leave the house.

We dropped the kids off at Mum & Dad’s having decided they would probably have a better time with them than hanging around while Ady and I had trailer training. We were so early we had a quick peep at the local car boot sale, looking for dog bowls but found nothing. Most strange to be out just Ady and I, holding only each others hand 🙂

We arrived at Bruce’s and the first job was to change over the locking wheel nuts to some non locking ones that Ady had picked up. The bloke at the breakers was so taken with our story he didn’t charge Ady for them at all :). That was straightforward but the next job wasn’t – the fuse on the side lights and dash lights had blown and kept blowing. Ady had looked online and found lots of people saying the same had happened to them when they had changed the stereo which is one of the things we’d had done. 3 hours later this was proved to be the case as a cable designed to turn the lights on on the stereo when the side lights were turned on had been connected wrong and was shorting it out. Six fuses and lots of swearing later it was all sorted.

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Then it was trailer training time. We hitched up, grabbed some cones and went to one of Bruce’s fields. Ady was first and practised reversing in a straight line, driving forward towing through some cones, reversing back through the cones and then reversing around a corner. I also had a go (and was not as good as Ady and he wasn’t brilliant). It’s way harder than it looks reversing a horse box!
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We reached a stage where we’re confident between the two of us we’ll be fine for the limited amount of towing we’re planning on doing.

Bruce then gave Ady a chainsaw and we had another emotional ‘see you in Scotland’ goodbye.

Then to Mum & Dad’s where they had waited for us to have lunch. Which was nice in one way (we were starving!) but less so in others (it meant Mum didn’t do any dinner which I’d sort of been banking on, particularly as we ended up there until gone 9pm and the kids were vocally hungry). Ah well. We had a mostly nice afternoon with them – see how I gloss over the issues? 😉

We loaded up the horse box – now about half full and CONSIDERABLY heavier to tow, I can feel it even as a passenger!

When we got home – via the late night Co Op for food supplies, Davies had beans, Scarlett had soup, Ady and I had sausages – I had a little cry. Dad had been teary saying goodbye and that had set me off although I’d hidden it there. He’s had a hard week – his best friend’s wife died on Thursday, his MIL is looking fairly gravely ill, another of his friends has a terminal brain tumour and his daughter and grandchildren are moving 600 miles away. I’ve done really well with all the other goodbyes, because really I am thrilled to be going and very excited about our new life but seeing my Dad wipe away tears will get me every time 🙁

The others never quite know what to do when I cry so everyone was very nice to me, tiptoeing around and looking rather shocked. Ady even asked if I still wanted to go!?!

Tomorrow is yet more goodbyes, further loading up the horsebox, the Last Bath, the Last Sleep and frankly the end of our life as we know it. I’ve left this house and Sussex three times now, I reckon this time really will be forever.

Yep it’s another night out for Nic in an Italian restuarant 🙂

Today we were supposed to be meeting Julie & co for a walk at Highdown Gardens. All was going swimmingly when David knocked on the door to say we’d left our lights on. Easily done in the whole no dashboard lights, streetlight directly over our driveway meaning it’s light anyway situation last night. But meant the Pajero’s batteries were flat.

Ady got them on charge and I rang Julie hoping to persuade her to come over this way instead. She was not to be convinced so we put it off until after lunch.

Determined to make the most of a day at home I ticked more things off my job list including booking a campsite for next Thursday night and replying to some emails.

It became obvious that the batteries would not be charged enough to use today so I rang Julie again and rearranged to meet up tomorrow instead. I spoke to my Mum about Granny who is still not well and in a high dependancy ward but was being taken to theatre today to have a camera put inside to see if they can diagnose just what is wrong. I’m intending seeing her tomorrow.

The generator arrived much to Ady’s delight 🙂

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I had a couple of emails from Rum – one about a venison processing community owned company that they have won a grant to fund and want residents to get involved in – emailed straight back to that one saying yes please and another from IRCT to say we’d been successful in our application to be the Odd Job People for the trust, jointly sharing the role between Ady and I. It’s only likely to be about 10 hours a month but at £10 an hour that will be perfect for not getting in the way of our plans but trickling in some income. Finer details to be sorted once we arrive next week.

I read the article I wrote yesterday to the others for their approval, changed a couple of bits at their suggestion and emailed it across along with some photos. I really enjoyed writing to a brief like that, reminded me why I want to do more of it.

I got ready to go out and the set off to walk into town. It’s about 3 miles but 2/3 of it is along the seafront so it’s a nice walk and the sun was shining.
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Unfortunately I learnt nothing from yesterdays striding and wore the same shoes again so am now sporting blisters the size of beer mats on the soles of both feet. Ouch.

I had allowed 70 minutes for the walk but it only took 45 so I had nearly half an hour to kill. The restaurant let me come in and have a drink while I waited though so all was well.

The others 8 arrived in trickles and finally we were all seated. I was a bit rubbish at looking at the menu really and got distracted by bacon so ended up eating more or less the same meal I had last night. Except I did my usual thing of talking rather than eating and therefore not eating very much at all then feeling self conscious that everyone else had finished so stopping eating too. Am a bit hungry now…

It was lovely to see everyone – I met two partners for the first time too which was fab, particularly as they both seemed lovely and are making my friends happy :). As ever I talked more than I listened and had a rather unsatisfactory discussion with James about Davies and Scarlett living on an island. It was all perfectly amicable and I was reassured later that he’d been winding the other parents at the table up anyway with his 18 year olds views on the world but I hate feeling I’ve not conducted myself well and come across as fanatical or too alternative rather than the mostly reasonable and rational and considered person I like to think I am. Maybe I should add deluded to one of those lists… 😉

Waved goodbye to everyone and hobbled to Sarah’s car as she was dropping me home. I got in to find the kids watching Bedknobs and Broomsticks and a bath waiting for me. What I think I’d really like is a curry but at 130am I should probably just go to sleep really!

I actually have a friend, Nina, who was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar when I met her. None of the other bits of that song are relevant to our friendship but we had some great times together (eating toast and jam at 4am, topless sunbathing on her garden roof, drinking cocktails til 3am and singing together. We got ‘discovered’ once while singing raucously along to I will Survive by two blokes who wanted us to join their band. We knew they were just hitting on us and they knew we knew but it was a fun evening having drinks bought for us and compliments lavished upon us :). Nina settled down before me – she had her first baby while I was still having my heart broken, but I finished having babies before her – her youngest (she has two sons and a daughter) is a bit younger than Scarlett and is called Rose, because she liked the idea of a daughter named after the colour red too :). Her and her partner took their two boys off travelling for a summer round Europe before they started school and before they had Rose and they now all live on a smallholding and post pictures on facebook of them with newly born lambs and lots of dogs. Weird how lives can run in parallel with people you least expected.

This morning, after Popmaster, which was just lovely as the second competitor was ringing while getting ready for his wedding a couple of hours later and knew his bride to be was listening where she was getting ready and had texted mates on their way to the church to listen too. Not only did he win, he got maximum points so goes through to the winners final at the end of the year. Then he sent a lovely message to his about to be wife and went off to go and marry her. So lovely 🙂

Anyway, after that we walked into Lancing clutching various paperwork. The balance cheque for Macleods for the static, now posted. The cheque for the bathroom flooring, now chosen, paid for and fitting arranged. Our driving licences, now scanned at the internet cafe, put onto a memory stick and emailed across to the insurers which is all now sorted. We had a quick peep in the charity shops and picked up Life After People: The Complete Season One (3-Disc Set) [DVD]
which we had seen bits of on TV ages ago and even have a couple of episodes saved to the hardrive which the kids watched the other day but have never seen it all. Bargain at £2.50 🙂

We got caught in the rain (heavy downpour) and amended our plan to walk down to the seafront to heading back towards home, calling in at the letting agents to firm up any details needed for the tenancy. They need another two front door keys which we’ll drop in tomorrow, the gas safety certificate which Dad is sorting out with his plumber and will need the tenancy agreement signed. I said they can email it to me to look over and then sign it on my behalf so signed something else to that effect for them. The ad was still in the window and the kids spotted it so Hayley took it down and let them stamp it as LET with the big red stamp before putting it back up. Fingers firmly crossed this all continues to go well.

Back at home we had lunch, I emailed the insurance company and got a reply back to say all documents have now been accepted. Phew.

We called over to my parents – Davies wanted to collect the X box which we’re not bringing to Rum so he could have a last play with it at our house before we go. I saw Dad for a quick chat too. Then they dropped me home (I had intended to walk but it was pouring with rain, in the event it was just as well, I was to do far more walking later!).

Ady and the kids went over to Bruce’s, then to a place to get some wheel nuts as the Pajero has six locking wheel nuts but no key meaning changing the wheel would be rather tricky. Bruce has a tool to remove the locking ones but they’d need replacing with non locking. They picked those up and then went over to Chris & Julie’s so Ady could spend some time with Chris. Julie & the kids came home while they were there and they spent a lovely few hours with them all.

Meanwhile I had a cup of tea, enjoyed the feeling of being all alone (such a very rare thing!), took one of those odd facebook tests about how well travelled you are – why does Winchester Cathedral make it on there but not the Menai Bridge, Blackpool tower or Hadrian’s Wall? Most odd. I then cracked on with two of the things on my job list – ordering a puppy crate and writing an article for WWOOF UK magazine. They’d asked for 2000, with only a cursory eye on word count I ended up with 1993 🙂 Need to proof read it tomorrow and add some pictures but that will make her deadline of 20th with a whole week to spare :). I checked train times and headed off into Lancing to the station. A combination of being fitter and probably doing it without children for the first time in many years meant I got there way faster than I’d expected. Retrospectively such striding in shoes I’ve not worn for a long time and were rather on the sloppy side of fitting (clearly I had far fatter feet before we left to go WWOOFing, I’ve noticed several pairs of shoes feeling too big) was probably ill advised, but retrospection is for smug people ;).

Mum rang while I was on the train to say Dad’s best friend’s wife had passed away 🙁 She’s been very ill for several years with cancer and in constant pain for quite some time. Roy is not in great health himself, having Parkinsons and has done all her caring. I don’t know if the end of a life can ever be called a relief but at least suffering has ended. 🙁 This will hit Dad hard, he is feeling his age and has lost several friends and acquaintances in recent times, another friend of his has a brain tumour and is terminally ill. I think what almost disturbs Dad most is that people in their 70s are considered to have had ‘a good innings’ and news of their death received with no great shock. When you too are in your 70s this can be hard to deal with. Mum was mostly concerned it would clash with when we were having the carpet fitted and Dad had said he’d be there…

The other bad news she had to share was that my Granny was taken to hospital this afternoon, having been ill since Monday. The doctor had come to check on her and rung an ambulance to take her in. Mum was ringing the hospital for further news but seemed mostly put out at the inconvenience 🙁 I will go and see her tomorrow or Saturday and take the kids in if appropriate too.

Ali met me at the station and was witness to me somehow putting the train ticket in wrongly and the barrier eating it. I got waved through anyway. We walked (note further foot transport) down into the town to find somewhere to eat and ended up in an Italian restaurant I’ve eaten in at least once before. We had a really nice meal, shared a bottle of wine and enjoyed talk ranging from ranting to sympathising, surreal to silly. Was lovely :). We left there and went on a cheesecake hunt. We had no luck although did find a very cool coffee house where we were most e.ntertained by the bloke behind the counter and the very quirky decor. Would have loved to hang out there if they only had alcohol and cheesecake. We tried a couple of other places to get in for dessert including Ask where the guy told us he had no tables. I said he should get some if he was running a restaurant, which I suspect made him mightily relieved he’d not had room for our sort anyway 😉 We ended up in the cocktail bar of Browns, which leather smell aside (fine for me, less welcome for my vegan friend!) from the seating was all very nice. We decided rum cocktails would be appropriate and chose one with chocolate and lime too and they were delicious and far better than cheesecake in my opinion. This is why I was talking of Nina in the first paragraph as I went off on a memory lane kick about my cocktail drinking times and also shared a tale of coming over to Brighton to watch one of the waiters from the cocktail bar in panto (he was also a dancer). He got promoted from his dancing role to being the woodcutter as Eddie Kidd who was supposed to be the woodcutter had fallen off his motorbike and broken his leg. It was all very exciting :). Scary to think that was all 20 years ago now…

I walked Ali to her bus stop and waved her off then walked down to the seafront to meet Ady and the kids who were on their way to collect me. Ironically I’d not got a train home as I was cautious of walking home from the station in the dark. Ady rang me after a while to say the rear lights on the Pajero were not working so he was going to go home again and I should call a taxi. The coast road is very well lit and has a 30mph speed limit, his brake lights were working as were the front lights so I told him to carry on coming to get me as I don’t know any taxi numbers, wouldn’t know where to ask them to collect me from anyway and would probably have been half way home by the time they arrived. He carried on and I told him to ring me when they reached the King Alfred swimming pool along the front so I could tell them how far I’d got. They rang me just as I reached there too – I checked later on googlemaps and I’d walked 3 miles from leaving Ali, bringing my walking tally for the day to about 7 miles. No wonder my feet ache!

Back home again and the kids went off to bed, I had a bath and Ady read an email I’d got from someone who used to live on Rum and knows all about statics and off grid living. He’s been following the blog and made contact to offer advice and potential one day assistance. He signed off by saying leaving Rum was one of the hardest things he ever did but he needed to go and see the wider world. I reckon he’ll be back at some point.

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Cheers Ali, it’s been lovely having you as a local mate. Thanks for a fab evening and see you in Scotland xxx

Where stuff did actually start to fall back into place again.

Ady rang the letting agent who said they were waiting for the tenants deposit to be transfered and as soon as that was done they would start drawing up paperwork. We decided to cancel the bathroom flooring being fitted on Friday just in case.

This morning we called over to Mum & Dad’s hoping to collect the proof of NCD form which had been requested on 3rd April so should be there and our driving licences. And found neither. The place I assumed the driving licences would be did not contain them. As I had no memory of actually seeing them to pack them we assumed they must be back at our house instead so came back again.

They were not.

I then spent ages on the phone trying to get the NCD proof from previous insurers, I rang the broker, the actual insurance company – twice! The first time I got through to an answerphone message giving an email address and a fax number for sending stationery orders to and no matter which numbers I pressed I couldn’t get back to a real person. I finally got through to someone who said it had been requested already and would be on it’s way. I asked how long that might take and was told 10 days, which I explained would be a problem as my new insurer was threatening to cancel the policy if they didn’t get the NCD proof within seven days! The guy promised to email me the proof this afternoon.

We had lunch and the agent rang to say the tenants have paid the deposit and would like to move in 27 or 28th April – perfect 🙂 In time to pay next months mortgage and the first installment of paying Dad back what we’re borrowing from him.

I’d collected our seed stash from allotmenting days from my parents to take inventory and draw up a ‘what we still need’ list so did that. Am thinking of contacting a couple of seed companies to see if they are up for sponsoring us with a few packets in return for trialling them and writing a review.

We went back over to Dad’s via the big pet shop to cost out puppy stuff – collar, lead, food and water bowls, toys.. we spent ages trying to work out whether we need both a carrier for the car (which will only really be used the once) *and* a crate to be it’s home within the static / bed / space to retire to. I suspect we probably do just because I think the size crate we’ll need long term won’t fit in the boot of the Pajero. Actually have now been proper googling and reckon if a 30inch crate will fit in the boot then that’s what we’ll go for, it’ll certainly do for the journey, be a back up travel crate and if the dog gets too big we can order a larger one later rather than have two now.

Over at Dad’s Ady went to rummage for the driving licences and produced them at the exact same time as I got an email through with the NCD proof. Hurrah!

We ordered the generator while at Dad’s. On it’s way to us now, £1200 worth of shiny red electricity provision 🙂

Dad gave us the cheque for the balance on the static and a cheque to pay for the bathroom flooring and we totted up what we’ve borrowed already and what we’ll need for the next few weeks (diesel, ferry crossing, dog, hostel, big food and other essentials shop). Very pleased we have a tenant and will be making a start on paying him back 🙂

We waited to see Mum when she got in from work and arranged to go over there Sunday afternoon / evening to load up the horse box and say our goodbyes. They are planning a visit end of June / beginning of July so it’s not too long before we’ll see them. Will have to cross the bridge of quite how we manage their visit when we get to it…

Home for dinner – I’d employed more foresight this evening and made pizza dough before we went out so it was a nice speedy dinner rather than last night’s very late Goddard o’clock eating. After much toing and froing I organised an evening out tomorrow and have spent a long time this evening googling to learn about puppies, training and other dog related stuff.

Today has been a not getting very far with things sort of day. This morning I tried to sort out redirecting post to our new address – except it doesn’t exist. So I’ve emailed Royal Mail to try and sort that out (The Yurt, Isle of Rum is listed so I suspect Croft 3 will be accepted, no idea how long that process might take though) and just done the redirect to my parents again. I had planned on changing our address on driving licences, bank account etc but suspect I may hit the same problem if it is not on the royal mail database and I don’t have proof of address either. So that is on my deferred list!

Further insurance woe – they need copy of No Claims Discount and driving licences too, clearly addresses will all be different again but fingers crossed scanned versions (I have paper copies so worst case scenario will have to go to library and take copies and post them) will suffice.

Ady rang the letting agent who said that Saturdays viewing would like the property please. Can they have it for £950? (it’s on at £975, with a planned £25 drop built in so yes), can we replace the bathroom carpet with vinyl and can we rehang a gate. Yes to £950, yes to carpet and no to gate (it was never hung, just fixed rigid to a gap). Rang carpet man for quote for bathroom (he still had measurements) and arranged to go in tomorrow and pay and choose flooring to be fitted on Friday. Agent never rang back though so won’t spend £200 on new flooring if they don’t take the property anyway. Argh. Another thing to chase again tomorrow.

Ady rang SNH office to get the permit for the lorry delivering the static. He had a little chat with Lesley who is the other crofter as well as a ranger. He said she sounds really nice. He also said he thought she’d got the registration number wrong. I got copied into the email to Calmac and she has. So another email. Argh.

Ady this evening suddenly said he wasn’t sure the static is actually being sited by the company, maybe just delivered. Cue frantic googling to see what siting a static involves. Phonecall required tomorrow to static people. Ady also having a quadruple check on generator spec before we order it. Flea in Ady’s ear from me about last minute-itis and not being thourough enough with things. Cue tears from Scarlett about Ady and I being cross with each other. Argh.

At Bruce’s we got the heater fixed on the Pajero and the radio swapped over. We also managed to get the rear door jammed shut – it did get reopened with use of a screwdriver and liberal coating of WD40 (yes, the stuff I am probably allergic to – it didn’t feel like the right time to mention so I just stood back). It also turns out the fancy tyres have locking wheel nuts and no one knows where the key is. So Bruce will take them off for us on Sunday and replace them with non locking ones which are now on our job list to find before then. More cash, more running around. More argh really.

All very minor stuff but just added phonecalls and trips out and spending we could do without now.

This evening I had an earbashing from my parents for not ringing over the last week – my Mum said ‘we didn’t know where you were’. I clarified that actually they did because we’d said we were off to Glastonbury and then either home if we had a puppy or to Marcus and Michelle’s if we didn’t. If we had come home we would have called in so they could meet the puppy. She agreed she did know that and therefore if we’d not called in so she could meet the puppy then we must have gone to Marcus and Michelle’s. I then pointed out that if she’d been concerned she could have rung us!!! Best not to get too stroppy, particularly when we are about to ask for a huge wodge of money this week for the static balance, the generator and the initial costs of travelling to Rum, doing a big food shop on the way and money for a puppy, chicken shed and chickens.

Everyone is edgy, tetchy and ready to go. Being at Bruce’s today was very strange – our sharan is on the drive, Willow is in the barn and our bantams are scratching around the yard. It’s like some sort of museum of the life we used to have.

Seven more sleeps.

A lovely time at Marcus, Michelle & Chloe’s as always 🙂

Fantastic food (cooked breakfasts, cooked lunches, cooked dinners, loads of meat; beef stew, curry, haggis and roast lamb), plenty of free flowing beverages (hurrah for fizz!), wildlife walks, Easter egg hunts, Morgan Freeman film fest, laughter at youtube clips, splendid music, but most of all wonderful company and lovely friends.
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It was lovely to celebrate Marcus’ birthday with them, particularly as we’d been there for mine and be able to toast Rum and new adventures this time knowing we really are off there (last time was pre interview so hopeful but not certain).

On the way home today we did a detour to visit Alison & Chris with guest appearances from Layla & Si. Fab to meet Rufus and have a few hours with them all. There was Pimms and chili and cups of tea made by teens who have no business being quite so tall and old when in my head they will be forever 6 and 8!

It’s been a week for looking forward; driving around in our new 4wd that will be perfect for our new island life but is not really suitable for taking us and the Humph and all our stuff around the country, saying farewells all over the place and answering questions as they occur to people ‘how will you do your washing?!’ ‘Do unicorn’s need to be overwintered indoors?’ but it’s also been a week for looking back.

Glastonbury has been the scene for so much of the last year – our second WWOOF host – and our third and the one we have returned to not once, not twice, but three more times since we were first there exactly one year ago at the very start of our adventures.
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At Marcus & Michelle’s we found ourselves reminscing about the first time we’d met at Kessingland” alt=”” /> and then at Castle Day where we decided we did like each other after all 😉
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Today has had me thinking that different people would definitely need to go at the back row of this picture if we took it now!
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This coming week will have more of the same – lots of looking forward, lots of looking back. In order to get where you’re going you have to have been where you’ve gone.

Hadn’t realised I was not quite so far behind with blogging actually 🙂

Yesterday was our last day – I spent some time in the morning topping up bottles of cleaning stuff, handwash etc from giant containers and then half an hour doing a real rush job on placing a wholefood order before the deadline. I was given a £200 budget and instructed to ‘surprise me!’ by Jill 😆

I made some logo labels for the egg boxes that had arrived to sell the Middlewick hens eggs in and Scarlett came and joined Leyah and I in our production line of cutting them out and sticking them on. We know how to live 😉

We had lunch, Ady and Davies were busy carrying firewood about on the quad trailer and lighting fires, Scarlett and I went and helped Leyah with some stable cleaning and then we went to visit Tucker who makes e dens – the Glastonbury take on a camping pod. There is a plan being hatched for us to have 2 or 3 of these on our croft, funded externally. Jill is interested in the idea of crowd funding which is something I’d not heard of previously and does feel in line with our ideals but is not necessarily what I think the concept is about. I need to ponder further on the whole idea but I do love the e dens and would love to work with Tucker and Jill so something may come of it.

A very complicated and over arranged evening was finally executed after many changes of plan and renegotiation of arrangements – none of them to do with us. Leyah came and spent the evening in our cottage with Davies and Scarlett – who she loves and love her just as much back 🙂 while we went into town with Jill, Johnny and Tucker and partook of many beverages, talked in ever increasing volume of ever increasing nonsense! A grand time was had by all :). A complete lack of taxi availability meant we ended up cadging a lift for 3 of us from someone else in the last pub we were in (we did pay!) which included me, while the other two, which included Ady, walked home. Jill and I snaffled chocolate from the shop and had heart to heart chats about stuff and then the blokes came home, they went back to their house and after a chat with Leyah it was the end of the evening. A fitting last night in Glastonbury and this time it really is the last time for quite a while.

Today was a late start all round. I had a bath and so my goodbye to Johnny was from one side of a closed bathroom door as he came to say goodbye, bringing a very nice bottle of fizz which we promised to crack open on our first night in the static and toast them with when we arrive properly on Rum. We stripped beds, emptied bins and loaded the car up before having a last cup of tea with Jill, a last cuddle with puppies and a last goodbye to everyone else there. Having been four times now in the last year and stumbled upon the people and place by accident I do feel we are leaving something of ourselves there forever really. It is not where I would want to live or be long term but there is a feeling of home about the place and we have made some lifelong friends there who will definitely walk alongside us for part of the next adventure, wherever that takes us.

We got some food and fuel from Morrisons before heading across country to Marcus and Michelle’s.

There is of course a sadness in saying goodbye and having all these lasts. It is tinged with a real sense of excitement that we are now only 2 weeks away from leaving the mainland. I had an email today from IRCT with the community business plan for the next 3 years asking for our input and comments. We are now on the mailing list for all community emails and although we have yet to arrive or even put faces to all the names it is starting to feel a lot like that is ‘home’. I’m looking forward to going home.

Slack bloggers R us !

Monday I have no idea what sort of dementia our sat nav has (she is a lady in her doteage – we call her Sally and in satnav years I consider her to be in her late 70s) but she led us on a merry dance to Glastonbury. The Pajero speedo is still in kph although the actual dial is in mph which means it reads as 100mph when you are doing nothing even close. So Sally is now set to gauge speed for us, which she does well but it appears to be at the cost of her going all scatty about where she is actually taking us and we can only have one reading at a time so have taken off the miles to go or estimated time of arrival in favour of her telling us what speed we are going in mph. Oh the decisions 😉

Past Stone Henge which always feels surreal and eventually the Tor came in to view and we commented on what someone had said to us on our first visit to Glastonbury a year ago ‘If you come back once you’ll keep coming back’. It’s certainly proved the case for us, here again a year on from our first time staying here.

When we arrived Jill was in a meeting with a couple who are having their wedding reception here later this month and we met the last time we were here. We had a chat with them about our impending adventures as they left and finally caught up with Jill.

All of the puppies are now sold and infact we were around to help make the decision as to who the last puppy went to. In a very Glastonbury fashion two people had appeared both interested in him via different sources and both were vicars in south London. Jill was texting / emailing them both yesterday evening and we were rooting for the one called Frazer Day (which is so close to my brothers name it’s uncanny). He rang at 9pm last night to say yes please he’d like the puppy and could he come and collect it next weekend which had us all cheering :). Having met the puppies, gorgeous as they are I am not upset we won’t be taking one – I am still set on a collie bitch 🙂 Davies and Scarlett are of course utterly smitten but have a different favourite puppy each, neither of which is the one that was last to be sold.

We had a really evening – Ady and I cooked veggie lasagne for everyone which was very delicious. I love how we are able to just come here, find our way round J&J’s kitchen and cook for everyone and feel so at home here.

It was late and the wrong side of lots of empty bottles that we came back to our cottage last night…

Today Ady has done some digging in the garden while I have done some copy writing and marketing type stuff. The kids have been off up to the Tor with Maggie, built a Danny Champion of the world pheasant and keeper down in the woods out of mud (it’s fabulous, will upload photos later) and generally been off all day doing their own thing. I love the freedom they have here and the outdoorsyness and creativity it inspires.

This evening Jill cooked and we had another boozy evening over there. Tomorrow is our last day and night before heading off on Thursday – it’s gone very quickly!

instead of an April one.

Up with the alarm this morning as we were due at Bruce’s at 9am to perform the Great Car Swap.

Smiled at our horse box, patiently awaiting our collection in 2 weeks time – can’t wait 🙂

Bruce gave us a quick once over on the Pajero, we’re going back over when we get back from Glastonbury for some Trailer Towing and Reversing For Beginners lessons along with Getting To Know Your 4×4. Love Bruce 🙂 His brother Keith appeared for a quick chat too which was nice – when I first met Bruce and Keith their kids were younger than Davies and Scarlett are now, it’s odd seeing all the generations growing up.

Ady’s been listening to ‘Everybody’s Free to wear sunscreen‘ recently, which he somehow missed when it came out in 1999. We played it to the kids last night. Suspect, just as the song says, it’s wasted on the young 😉

We drove over to my parents to show them the car, getting some diesel on the way (plenty of garages seem to have empty pumps but there were no queues so the crisis is over – for now). We all had mixed feelings about the car really. It is *much* smaller than the Sharan, or indeed Willow. Having driven round in a seven seater, proper MPV for the last 10 years and then a campervan getting into a two door car feels very odd. Scarlett decided she hated it and wanted the Sharan back 🙁 In talking her round I think the rest of us convinced ourselves though and we are all now happy with it. If we were staying on the mainland it would NOT be the right vehicle for us but we aren’t. We’ll be doing very little driving anywhere, it will get us up to Scotland, tow the trailer and then be the perfect working vehicle on the croft, we can drive all over the island, collect people from the ferry, whizz down to fill up our water containers etc. As I said to the kids it will be the car they both learn to drive in. The condition for that was that they could reach the pedals and see over the steering wheel at the same time. Having checked they both can they are now content with the car again and keen to start lessons ;).

Mum, Dad and Frazer all came out to stand on the pavement and admire the car. It does look quite striking 🙂 We realised we have had more red cars than any other colour over the years – Ady’s first car was a red Cortina (at the time I was on my second ever car, a beige Escort – the MOT ran out on mine first so we shared the Cortina), replaced with a slightly newer red Cortina a year later. We also had a red Escort (after I wrote off a white one, the red one was crap- we bought it for £300 and it kept conking out on the way to work in Brighton. I remember breaking down on the same roundabout each day for about three days running!). We also had a little red Metro and a red Fiesta estate as crappy second cars for a while when Ady did a gardening round on his day off pre kids, I think the gardening just about paid to run a second car and as we worked in totally different directions to each other it made sense. Our second ‘decent’ car (we’ve only ever had four cars to date that cost over £1000) was a red Peugeot and now we have this. Worst car ever was a handpainted fold Fiesta, nicest was Ady’s company car Touran with built in dvd players. This falls somewhere towards the nicer end of the spectrum with a sunroof but a tape player cancelling each other out!

We stayed for a cup of tea and pinned my parents down to a date to come for their first visit. They are intending staying in the castle, Dad says he is ‘not prepared to rough it’. I suspect he will have no choice ;). While there I had a chat with Frazer and urged him to go traveling. Dad and I had been talking about Frazer and bemoaning his lack of adventure or life experience earlier in the week so I decided to spent the last couple of weeks on a one woman campaign to persuade him to go off chasing life before he hits 40. He listened and I was at least sober for the first leg of my ‘Listen to your big sister with her crazy hippy ways’ speeches which hopefully gave it a little credibility. Will continue in a similar vein when we’re back next week. Maybe I’ll start texting him an inspirational quote a day… 😉

We came home for lunch, eaten sitting outside in the sunshine. Ady washed the car while I packed up clothes to take off with us next week and went through all the toiletries in the bathroom. We’ll leave kitchen and bathroom tidy but intact but all the rest of the rooms will be emptied of stuff for the week in hopes of plenty of viewings. Ady overheard some people in a car today having stopped outside the house peering in saying ‘the garden looks okay’ so we’re clearly getting interest.

I wanted to have a go at driving so I took the car our for a drive, down to the seafront, along the coast a little, back through the village with speed bumps. The speedo is in kph so we’ll have to rely on the satnav to keep us within speed limits. Driving an automatic takes a couple of false grabs at the gear stick as you go round a corner to get used to but is surprisingly quick become accustomed to. I was very impressed with the suspension over the bumps, my chair sort of rocked on itself. Ady and the kids have been watching YouTube videos of Extreme Pajeroing with people putting their cars through all sorts of conditions and challenges.

I spent a very happy hour or so trawling through seed catalogues and starting to make lists of stuff to order. Ady cooked dinner and then after baths I read some more story to the kids. Looking forward to seeing Jill & Johnny tomorrow :).