One word? When seven would do…

I can’t access friendfeed or facebook but I can blog from work 🙂

Up and out this morning to school for me. Ady took me in the car as he needed to get it down the croft hill before the hard ground defrosted having come up the hill yesterday morning to load up the three empty gas bottles we had. It was a low key three hours with Stuart (headmaster, over for an overnight visit) mostly chatting about anything and everything. He did try a couple of times to ask things like ‘what are your expectations for the job?’ 😆

In terms of 12 hours of paid work a week, the chance to charge stuff up, access to the photocopier, the educational resources (which I’ve been told to help myself to anything useful for Davies and Scarlett 🙂 ) it will be good. In terms of tying me down four mornings a week, spending an hour and a half each day walking there and back and it being a nightmare when the weather is rubbish it may prove more hassle than it is worth but I need to try it before concluding anything. I did struggle with reading all the propoganda and schooly stuff and listening to Stuart talking about the importance of literacy, how we need to trick parents into doing things ‘our way’ and the smiley face sticker coercion of doing what you are told (and that was just for me when I do the clerical work well ;))

Ady picked me up and we came home for lunch. We’ll gloss over the hour or so following my return as stuff had not gone as I’d have hoped during my absence and I was rather vocal about my displeasure of that 🙁 It meant three people ended up in tears…

Ady went to visit the doctor about his (now vanished) sore neck while the kids and I had a good chat. Tomorrow the three of them are getting the donated bike Davies was given working and both children are hoping to learn to ride it. I am sure we are the worst parents ever for having such old children still not riding bikes but life has always seemed to conspire against it happening naturally and we’ve always had so many other things happening to prevent time being found for it to happen otherwise. Living alongside a busy road on a steepish hill was the main one meaning the bike would have needed loading into a car and taking somewhere to be learnt to ride on and there always being more sensible things to be loading the car up and driving somewhere to do.

My fit of efficiency at the end of last week has yet to pay off as I have not heard from Ed that the box has arrived despite that supposed to have happened last Monday to send the compost loo to us, must chase that up again. The screwfix order with the water pipe kept crashing and the time it finally went through was the time I failed to tick the alternate delivery address away from Osborne Drive so it ended up there on Saturday. Ady rang yesterday and we think we have sorted it out but it is still showing as delivered rather than re-collected. Sigh. I’m at moving, it’s at least the third time I’ve managed to send something to an address I am not at any more!

Can you tell I am less than excited about the school job? 😉

This morning Ady and I walked down to the village with Bonnie. We bumped into Fliss and Joss, Neil, Claire, Ali & Eve, Jinty and Abby. We also saw James at the castle. That is what I love about living here 🙂

We put our lovefilm in the post, put this weeks veg order in with Jinty, did a wash at the castle, bought James’ bike off him for £40 as he is leaving at the end of of March. Two hours and lots of chatting to people along the way later we were home with our clean washing to hang out on the line.

We had lunch and then the kids went off for a really long walk along the road to Kilmory with Bonnie – it was a proper walk with biscuits in rucksacks and everything 🙂 while Ady and I did stuff like chop wood, load the car up ready for tomorrow, feed the animals and other crofty stuff.

I made some bread dough and some soup for tomorrow and chopped onion, garlic and ginger ready for dinner then had a shower while Ady did the actual dinner (curry). Lots of conversations about alcoholism, dog training and life in general.

Tomorrow I start at the school. The kids are planning to walk along and meet me when I finish fairly often, we all like the idea of my children collecting me from school! 😆

This morning dawned bright and sunny but also bitterly cold (minus four I think) which meant the gas was frozen. This means it either doesn’t light at all, does light but runs at such a trickle that a kettle with enough water for two cups of tea takes half an hour to boil or it lights but flares through so erraticaly that it’s like a blow torch coming out of the gas ring. Ady tried various measures including pouring some of the precious warmed water over it which worked. The bottle and regulator is now very lagged, fingers crossed that makes a difference.

We had plans to get some tidying up done on the croft today – the area around the animals needed some attention as it is very visible from the nature trail walk and while wooden and metal animal housing looks a bit charming and rustic we were a bit crap tastic with various gathered stuff scattered about. We used up a couple of pallets to make paths across the mud to places we need to get daily (such as chicken coop to collect eggs), remounted the solar panel for the pigs electric fence on a wooden frame rather than the bright blue plastic fish box it was on, took down some galvanised sheeting from around one of the chicken houses that the chickens used to brood underneath but have stopped since we brought in another house. It looks loads better, more to do tomorrow.

I got an email from Sandy saying he had arranged to get the car that Norman was supposed to be giving us started for us but needed the jump starter unit he lent us while he was borrowing one of our leisure batteries to get his second car running. I ignored it as we were busy with stuff and he has taken to signing his emails ‘Bad Boy Fraser’ which I don’t have an appropriate response to really! We came up for a cup of tea and Sandy appeared, drunk. We talked to him for about an hour and then he went off and we arranged to meet him at Norman’s in an hour or so. We had some lunch and walked down. He was not at Norman’s so we went to him and Fliss’ where he was but had had another row with Fliss over puncturing his tyre driving back from ours. We had a cup of tea with Fliss and then came home, finished some of what we’d started and then realised Bonnie had disappeared. She’d been with Davies and Scarlett and had greeted us when we got back then just gone off. We called and called but she didn’t return. In the end we got the logburner lit, the dinner on, had a last cup of tea, fed the animals all giving her a shout every five minutes until she’d been gone for an hour and it was nearly dark so Ady went off to look for her. I’d given her raisins to eat yesterday (she shared some of mine_ but someone on facebook told me they can kill dogs so I’d been googling and scared myself silly reading stuff so was convinced she was dead somewhere.

She arrived back and I managed to reach Ady on his phone to tell him so he came home. We had dinner (which had been planned to be lunch!) and I tried and failed to read the very end of the last book in My Side of the Mountain trilogy but I was so tired the words were jumping about on the page and I struggled so we’ll finish it tomorrow. That sounds bleak and things are not but it’s all just a bit wearing at this very tail end of the winter…

We had Ranger Mike and Thalassa round for dinner last night. Thalassa is an ecology student who was here for a month last summer doing research on the newts that live on Rum. She is lovely and fitted in really well last year with the islanders. She has now finished her Phd and is job hunting but finding it really hard so filling in her time with volunteer stuff to enhance her CV and offered to come here for do some stuff with Mike. She’s been here for 3 weeks this time, staying with Mike and both of them have found it slightly straining I think. Yesterday was her last night and we’d invited them up for pizza night which Mike is always angling for invites to ;). We’d been to theirs for mexican last weekend.

I’d been down to the school in the morning to deliver the disclosure form that had finally arrived in the post (like CRB check for Scotland) while Ady went to the castle for a bath to try and ease his neck. It seemed to work and he is much better today but has a doctors appointment on Tuesday which I will insist he keeps even if he is fully recovered as he also had a nose bleed which may have been coincidental but I’d like checked over and if nothing else he can get some better painkillers as we have very little here and they would be useful to have to hand. I ended up chatting to Fliss for longer than I’d planned and walked very briskly back to the croft but was intercepted by Grace (lovely woman, talks for Scotland, much of which I don’t understand as she has the broadest east coast accent I think I have ever heard, wants to move here to run a bunkhouse, like everything here it is taking years and years to make happen). Ady had beaten me home, made the kids lunch and met me halfway in the car. We dropped Davies and Scarlett and their lunch off at Mike’s for J Ranger (where they did drawings of rocky shores and underwater species to go on display in the visitor centre and watched a dvd of British sealife.

Ady and I collected a pile of firewood and then started bringing up stones and rocks to try and create a path up the croft. It will take loads and loads and loads but every little helps so we made a start by loading the car up then reversing it up as far as we could go and unloading it into the tracks. I then walked down to collect the kids while Ady carried on. Back at home I made pizza dough and chopped some wood up while Ady got water and emptied the loo. Fingers crossed neither of these will be tasks like that within the next few weeks although Screwfix rang today to say our order has gone to Osborne Drive instead of here – pants! That means a delay.

The welly saga appears to have ended though with all returned and cancelled wellies now refunded and my new pair here and so far appearing to be suitable. The tea saga (not even sure I blogged that) is also remedied I think with a refund for the missing tea now in hand and a reorder of a replacement despatched so hopefully here soon.

We had a nice evening with Mike and Thally, pizzas much appreciated. They left about 11ish and went off singing Jessie J which we’d watched on youtube and has earwormed all of us all day today too.

Today we had pancakes for breakfast and then Ady and I went to meet the boat and wave Thally off, our Screwfix order we’d been expecting didn’t arrive although we now know why. Back at the croft we brought more wood up, I chopped a load, Ady cleaned out the chickens and we planned a few jobs to do over the next weeks or so. I am away for an overnight supermarket run with Fliss in a week, then a 3 night trip to Skye and Harris & Lewis the following week and by then will definitely have started at the school so we want to get as much done next week as possible.

We are both slightly exhausted by various goings on with Fliss and Sandy who we love dearly but are by far the most high maintenance friends we’ve ever had. I am loathe to get too involved as their issues drag me into a marriage guidance type role I am desperate to never take on again after living with my parents for 20 years – it’s very hard being a friend to both people in a shaky marriage but there are greater issues at play which the intimacy of living on an island in a small community means become everyone’s issues really. Slightly tough to see the photos on friendfeed of lots of uncomplicated friends celebrating together…

Osborne Drive is on the market, we’ll see how that pans out. I’m looking forward to family and friends starting to arrive for visits within the next few weeks to talk over plans with more impartial ears that the people who already live here!

Poor Ady has a bad neck. Not sure whether he has pulled a muscle, trapped a nerve or something else but he is in a lot of pain and not sleeping much 🙁 Classic Ady is to not slow down though so while I am trying hard to ensure he does a bare minimum rather than full speed it is proving tricky.

This morning I walked down to the village to the post office with Bonnie and then Ady drove down a bit later so we could meet the boat. We had a big delivery of animal feed, rat poison and hay bales along with another four pallets (Calmac send us over a few every so often when they have a load of excess ones). We picked up some batteries that Sandy had found for us and charged up and then came home for lunch.

After lunch we both unloaded the car although I did manage to do most of it – a solid hour of hulking feed bags and pallets around up and down the hill slipping in the mud. We likened it to our first WWOOF host Steward Wood which was mostly carrying heavy things up a steep hill nearly 2 years ago. We fed the animals and then sat with a cup of tea surveying the croft. I had a shower while Ady sneakily gatherered water from the burn (A task hopefully coming to an end once the water pipe and fixings get here).

I went to the shop hoping to meet Fliss there as arranged but Sandy was there instead so I chatted to him for a while before coming home early. Ady cooked a lovely curry (insisting on carrying on even once I got home and offered to take over) and then I read to the kids.

We listened to the newest Bad Shepherd album this evening that Ady downloaded (our first ever downloaded music from the app store, we felt very old trying to make it work!) which includes Anarchy in the UK so the kids and I had an interesting conversation about anarchy.

My disclosure form has finally come through so I guess I may be starting at the school next week. Also arrived were my latest new pair of wellies. We’ll see how these fare.

Life is settling back into a rhythm again which is good. I can’t quite see where the school job will fit into that and if I’m honest I am not really looking forward to it starting but I’ll cross that bridge when we get to it and can always re-evaluate if needs be.

We’re in a good groove of eating well – we never ate much processed food (aside from the very early days of chicken nugget parenting) and never ready meals so we’d not have been consuming accidental horse meat consumers anyway but it’s good to be cooking everything from scratch these days. We eat a lot of home made soup and fresh baked bread and while we’re a bit away from self sufficiency (as in, a hell of a long way from self sufficiency) it feels like we’re more in touch with our food than we’ve ever been before which is good.

After much debate and discussion we have a plan for the house – it’s going on the market on Friday, we have a personal lowest offer we’d accept in mind and aside from Scarlett who always gets a bit emotional about such things we are all ready to say goodbye to it and move on. It’s been our house for over 19 years but not our home for a long time. I’m so looking forward to paying off the mortgage, clearing the last of the debts and putting that whole period of our lives firmly behind us for good. We’re looking at alternative builds again and have a last date for selling Osborne Drive before knowing we’ll not get a proper house built before the winter this year so need to come up with an alternative for the winter. Options discussed so far are: Approach someone in the village about a 4 month house share over winter, get someone to look after our livestock and head back to the mainland for the winter to find work either with tied accommodation or paying enough to rent somewhere short term or WWOOF or house sit or something. Or put up another temporary build which is more weather proof than this. Something like a well insulated log cabin with woodburner could work with partitions for bedrooms. We could still use the shower etc in the static but live, cook and sleep in a cabin. Once we actually build it would them be more holiday home accommodation so would pay for itself in the long term.

I’m really adamant that we don’t just leap into a housebuild that we later look back on and regret elements of or kick ourselves for not following hearts and dreams. We spent so long looking at alternative builds and salivating over glass bottle walls, cord wood features, exposed wooden trusses and so on that I would feel we were cheating ourselves for not encorporating everything possible into our home. We have looked at over 100 kit house layouts and not one of them felt like ‘our house’ even though £100K is a fairly small budget for a housebuild I don’t want to spend that much and not feel like it’s our home. Lots of sitting looking out over the view drinking tea and thrashing stuff like this out brings us back to the same realisations and resolutions to do it the right way even if it is the hard way.

We’ve had some great chats with the children this last few weeks with everyone in reflective, philosophical, new beginning type mindsets. Today Davies was asking me the whole story of how we came to Home Educate which was interesting and some of the story was not one they’d ever listened to in full and asked questions about. We talked about pet ownership, parenting, marriage, friendship and relationships and making choices about which bits of yourself to give. We talked about if we had a cloning machine and could just please ourselves with one version of our self to do whatever we wanted, how that would pan out long term, what my alternative hopes and dreams might have been had I not ended up here in this life with these people and about loving and losing rather than never loving at all. We talked about how they’d remember me, what they’d celebrate about my parenting and what they’d feel I’d fallen short on. We talked a bit about adoption, abortion, fostering and parenting. Last week we talked about family trees and I drew out what little I know of the generations above us which is not a lot. Yesterday we heard an advert on the radio where some aging rock star described himself in ten words (father, lover, grumpy, poet…. etc) so we did the same which was enlightening.

Ah people. Such fascinating creatures.

The weather continues to remind us how lovely it can be here. We’ve had morning coffees, lunch and afternoon teas on the sporran, sat in t shirts and generally enjoyed this lovely reminder that spring is indeed on it’s way and it doesn’t rain *all* the time.

Abby came up for tea and chats on Sunday, we’ve had Vikki and Sean the Rat up for dinner and I had a good evening at the shop yesterday. Osborne Drive has been photographed and measured and sort of valued in a cagey ‘what were you hoping it was worth?’ manner, the upshot of which is it will go on the market for just under £240K with us hoping to get £230K. We’re researching other temporary housing with a view to having a plan for this winter if the house doesn’t sell or we simply run out of time this year. I want to make sure when we do build a house is our dream rather than a quick fix and I’d rather speculate more money on another, more suited to the climate temporary option for this winter which could recoup it’s cost as holiday let accommodation / WWOOFers space / somewhere for family and friends to stay when they visit which will pay for itself long term than rush through our forever home.

The school job saga rumbles on. I’m very bored of the whole business and as I said to someone yesterday if I was not feeling bad that the nursery assistant Coryla, Fliss and Ali as parents of school children here will all be put out if I tell the council to stick their job I’d be saying just that because I don’t actually really want the job anyway. Grr.

Davies and Scarlett have had a really good few days, out with the dog, playing down by the river, wandering down to the village and generally making the most of the weather and where we live. I feel the fog of winter lifting more every day and like so many other times now we are coming out the other side I realise how tough it actually was while we were in the middle of it.

Here comes the sun!

And the village springs back to life like an Attenborough documentary about deserts when it rains with people scuttling about being busy, cleaning, chatting to each other, out on bikes, walking…

Yesterday was the anniversary of our interview for the croft – one year ago. We bought a drink each and went and sat on the bench near Fliss and Sandy’s where we sat and texted people a year ago to say we’d got the croft. What a rollercoaster of a year it has been.

We sat there for about an hour til it got dark talking about how we’d felt then and how we feel now and then we went to Mike’s for dinner. He has Thalassa – a student, staying with him at the moment. She was here in May doing a research paper on the newts on the island and made friends with everyone then so has come back to do some volunteer stuff as she is job searching and needs stuff for her CV. She is two weeks through her three week stay and her and Mike are starting to drive each other mad so we’d partially been invited to dilute things I think :). We had a really nice evening with them and several rowdy games of charades which I don’t think Davies and Scarlett have ever played before and was lots of fun. It brought home how well the four of us (Goddards) know each other at how good we were at guessing things :). We left about 11pm so it was a fairly late night.

This morning we had pancakes for brunch made with goose eggs :). It’s been a gorgeous day all day so once we’d done various indoors things including having all doors and windows open for a good airing and drying through the static Ady and I went to pace out from the burn to the static (again) to finally sort out water. We’re going to plumb the static in to the burn which is where we have been getting drinking water from all along. We currently collect 2 20ltr jerry cans a day for drinking and cooking while all our washing up and shower water comes from the roof. We were drinking rainwater too but when we fitted the log burner it has meant all the water gathered from the roof is tainted by smoke and tastes revolting. Water gathering and toilet emptying are the two most time consuming and tedious tasks here, mostly done by Ady I have to admit, probably if it were me doing them we’d have had alternatives sorted a lot earlier 😉 – he is happier to graft for much longer than I would be.

So, spurred on by my parents next visit at the end of March we have measured out what we will need to get water from the burn and will get that ordered this week. Sandy has a few bits and pieces we can use too which keeps the cost down and is up for coming to help us get it all up and running. We have ordered the cardboard box on a pallet to go to Ed and Carina for them to box up the composting loo for us which should arrive with them tomorrow. I am hoping we will have the water sorted and the loo installed by the end of this month which will feel like massive steps forward. Also on my list to sort by the end of the month is Osborne Drive on the market (it was valued yesterday, not had feedback yet) or the tenants served notice, Gordon the builder talked to about giving us ground works quotes. grant forms filled out for the polytunnel and the pigs sorted out. We’ve decided to stop moving the pigs but to sort out their house better so that it remains dry and clean for them regardless of what the piece of land they are on it like as they have now been moved five times and I could see us moving them pretty much all over the croft but until we start doing stuff in the ground we have moved them on from they are better left where they are.

I’ve still not had paperwork about the school job so probably won’t be starting this week. Fliss and I are planning an overnight trip to the mainland for a big supermarket shop, I might be going off on a 3 day tour checking out visitor centres on Skye and the outer Hebrides (very excited at that idea, would love to see Harris and Lewis) in March and have signed the forms putting me forward as a director of the trust. Gav and Laura will be here soon and we have various contingency plans again now which feels better. I hate not having a plan at all even if I know we won’t necessary stick to a plan.

A Rum week. Not even sure what each day contained really. Closer to Jinty still which has been a hard task but I suspect worth it in the end. Some people are really worth the effort of getting to know. We had pancake races on Tuesday which was lots of fun and very community-ish. I’ve had ongoing welly sagas – I thought I had solved my welly need with a pair of really nice neoprene topped ones that were comfortable, sturdy and I was able to dance all night in on Burns Night but then the soles split and leaked. Wet feet when you step in puddles is Not Good when you live where I do. They are going back, I thought I’d found a replacement pair but they rang me today to say they were out of stock so had to cancel the order and get a refund. I’ve since ordered another pair. Sigh. It did lead to an interesting conversation at the shop this evening about Favourite Shoes Ever though…

We watched The Big Year which we all really enjoyed particularly as we know a couple of fanatical birders now. And we heart Jack Black.

I had a Rum Enterprise meeting, finished editing the Rum Rumble (new newsletter) and distributed it to wide critical acclaim.

We dug some holes for the polytunnel (community polytunnel that will go on our croft), killed the chicken that Bonnie injured, the goose laid her first egg and proved our deduction of which was Margo and which was Jerry wrong. The contractors are over just now (including Alasdair who moved our static) so much taking of drams with them has been happening of an evening down the shop. We have half a plan for foundations for the house. Osborne Drive has the sales team going in to do a valuation on Saturday so it should be on the market by the end of next week…maybe.

I think that brings us about up to date. I am supposed to start my job at the school next Tuesday but so far still have no paperwork. We’ll see what happens with that…

Ah Lost Weekend, a song that always reminds me of a friend who I don’t think even reads this blog any more.

Saturday we met the boat and Paul asked Ady if we were up for an early beer at the shop. We decided we were so at 5pm we fed the animals and all went down to the shop – so lovely for 5pm to still be daylight 🙂 The kids played on the computer in the hall while Ady and I had a beer or three with Paul, Lesley and Thalassa (student type staying here for 3 weeks, she was here shortly after we arrived doing a newt study and is back for some volunteering). It was a good couple of hours with lots of laughs. We’d put jacket potatoes on very low in the oven and I’d batch cooked a load of quiches earlier too which meant we were eating at a very respectable non Goddard o’clock hour too 🙂

On Sunday we had a fairly traumatic day when Bonnie attacked a chicken. She almost killed it, Ady lost his temper with her, the kids were really upset and it was all very fraught. After everything had calmed down the chicken was put in a calm quiet dark place, Bonnie was dealt with and then Thalassa came up for a cup of tea which put things further on hold. Eventually by about 5pm we had eaten dinner, watched some episodes of Robinson Crusoe on dvd, the chicken was in the house making squawking noises with a proper discussed decision made on it’s fate.

Today was another fairly hectic one – I was off out to the trust office to print off the newsletter when Vikki arrived. I left her and Ady drinking tea and went down to do that and have a chat with Fliss. I walked home with her and then back to the croft for lunch. After some inspecting we decided the chicken was going downhill rapidly and highly unlikely to make it and that we were prolonging suffering rather than perserving life so Ady took her outside to deal with her returning half an hour later with an oven ready free range corn fed bird. Davies and Scarlett have decided they don’t want to eat her as she was one of our first birds and they feel odd about it being a forced decision to kill her rather than a considered one which we had long discussed about birds coming to the end of their laying life or cockerels. I understand and respect their take on this and we talked a lot about how we all felt about it. We all cried a little when saying goodbye to her when Ady took her outside and it once more brought into sharp relief the differences between parenting, pet ownership and livestock rearing and the different levels of responsibility and emotional attachment. Ady and I will eat her feeling at least then it was not a waste of a life although we all feel very sad that it was as a result of Bonnie’s attack that she died. We have also talked about dog ownership and the responsibilities that brings and some harsh lessons have been learnt this weekend. The result of which is increased time spent with Bonnie for everyone and a lot more mental stimulation and training. Fortunately at just a year old and with a pretty obedient nature that should be more a case of time and attention than any real tough stuff.

I went down to the shop to put in our veg order and meet Fliss for a beer and ended up staying for a few hours chatting. It was a good evening and it ended with Jinty really upset about various things which Fliss and I have offered to go down and help her with tomorrow morning. Times like that remind me what community is all about.

I got home later than planned so my evening was more about eating dinner at Goddard o’clock of old and then reading for half an hour before the kids went to bed.

Another early start on Wednesday for venison-ing. This hind had several little larvae in it once we’d skinned it which Neil says are pretty common. Ady was quite grossed out by them but I found them pretty fascinating. The kids are really keen to come down and learn more about the whole processing side of stuff when we do the next batch in the summer – the cull is all but over for the season til July. We found the bullet in the carcass this time which was pretty cool so we cleaned it up and brought it home. As a meat eater I thought it was really quite good to be eating a beast for dinner last night that had been born, lived, shot, processed all within a few miles of where I live with the bullet that shot it in my pocket and the animal shot by someone I know, and the beast skinned, chopped, minced and shaped into burgers by me then cooked by my husband. 🙂

We finished processing and came home for lunch. One of the ducks was missing again so we all went out to look for it and Scarlett spotted it down by the river – it is fine and healing well but had been seperated from the others again. We returned it to the flock and then all walked down to the village, calling in to Fliss and Sandy’s for a cup of tea before coming home.

Ady cooked venison burgers, home made chips and I made onion rings with beer batter – home cooked junk food 🙂 I was wiped out after such early starts and lost nights from the windy weather so was in bed long before midnight.

Thursday we Popmastered and then went to meet the boat – we had nothing come off but collected some bits for Fliss. Ady dropped me and that off at the school as I had a meeting with Stuart the headmaster who was over between boats and we set my provisional start date as a week on Monday. We talked about the opportunity for the school to become something experimental and exciting if the parents of the children all buy in which is potentially interesting stuff.

Fliss gave me a lift back to theirs where I expected Ady to be and dropped me off at the back where our car was but Ady was nowhere to be seen so I went to the front and sure enough he was indoors with Sandy and Steve. It was all a bit chaotic in there and poor Joss had a leaky nappy so I took her off to change it – first nappy I think I’ve changed in about 8 years! Then Ady and I came home for lunch. We spent the afternoon mostly indoors with the kids chatting and the kids had showers, hair cut (Davies) and hair brush (Scarlett), then Ady and I put dinner on low in the oven and went down to the village for the RCA meeting. The kids decided to stay home so they watched a film and kept the fire going. The meeting was well attended and we had lots to plough through including stuff about road charges, the teashop provision for the coming year and other contentious stuff. Afterwards Ady went home to finish off dinner and I stayed for a couple of drinks with Fliss before walking home. I left about ten minutes later than I should have and got drenched walking home the last wee bit in the pouring rain – yuck! One day I won’t wander around in the dark with a torch several nights a week…

We watched the second half of Mary Poppins that we’d started the night before, I’d never appreciated before what a long film it is, well over 2 hours. Then I read for about an hour, we’re about halfway through the sequel to My Side of the Mountain.

This morning I went down to the castle to swap the washing over into the tumble drier and then to see Vikki. I had a chat with her and Rachel about woodland crofts which I’d been quite vocal about last night at the RCA and I explained my stance a bit more. Rach went off to make some phonecalls and then Ady arrived having caught up with me. We called in to drop some eggs off for Fliss and Sandy but they were not around and then came home for lunch.

Another afternoon hanging out with the children – some really interesting conversations lately, often inspired by the Jeremy Vine show it has to be said ;), Ady and I walked back down to the village again, calling to Fliss and Sandy’s to collect a drawing Karl has done for us of our planned layout on housebuild. Then home again. We had pizza and watched The Truman Show which I have started watching twice before over the years but both times fallen asleep before the end so finally got to see what happens tonight. We’ve been having a Jim Carey-fest with the kids while studiously avoiding any films with too much gurning so this complete it I think.

I’ve been outting final touches to the Rum newsletter which I’ll get printed off on Monday and distribute.

Up far too early (while it was still properly dark!) for venison processing this morning. We left Davies and Scarlett still in bed having whispered goodbyes in their ears and left their breakfast set out. Even the pigs were still in bed so we didn’t feed the animals on our way down to the village. We collected Neil and various equipment from his house and then to the larder.

After some initial confusion when Ady and Neil misread CIC as UHU (it *could* have said that I suppose written sideways….) we identified the two beasts for us from the 13 hanging in the larder and selected the first to work on. We all worked together to skin it and then Ady and Neil butchered it and I minced it, made up two sets of burger mix, bagged up some mince and then double minced the burger mix before making the burgers. Nearly 100 of them! Neil vacuum packed while Ady cleaned down and we were all done well within four hours. One dead animal into four steaks, 100 burgers and 7 bags of mince all packed up and into the freezer. We all took a sample of each burger home to try as we are still not in a position to be paid for the work (another sigh-worthy story for another time) so all feel there must be some perks to getting up in the dark!

Neil went off home, we went along to the pier to put the meat in our new venison processing company freezer before coming home for lunch. The kids had watched a film, played some minecraft and DS. We had lunch, Ady did some outside stuff, I made some cookies and bread dough for garlic bread to go with dinner then caught up on emails. I’d had a reply from the letting agents to say they have made contact with our tenants and will get in touch with the sales team to get the house valued and let us know their terms for selling, one from Gav and Laura looking forward to getting here in 5 weeks time and various emails from various people on Rum about the newsletter – I am now editing and creating a monthly Rum newsletter which I am looking forward to and think will be good fun. I’m planning on getting the kids to help me too. Also about the Visitor Management Group and the Bunkhouse Steering Group – meetings a-go-go again soon. One from Fliss about the school job saying they are waiting for a reference and can I send it – I replied to say that usually the employer takes up references and erm, where is the paperwork even offering me the job actually! I feel sorry for Fliss on this one really, she is still there despite having officially left in December while the council faff about not sorting out my starting.

The kids did some room tidying, some playmobil and geomag playing and more minecraft. I made dinner and we started watching Mary Poppins which I had not realised was quite such a long film. Ferry was cancelled again today and the next available date to get diesel cans sent off and back is over a week and petrol a fortnight so we will need to conserve petrol and diesel which means sensible car and generator use

Tomorrow is another venison morning so another early start but that is the deer cull done til July so all our attention then can go to marketing, planning and stuff which does not involve blood under your fingernails!

Oh my blogging is woefully boring at the moment. It feels bleak when I moan about the weather or tell tales about crazy Rum folk and that is not a true reflection of life or how we are feeling. It feels smug when I post pretty pictures or gloat about lack of traffic as it is far from all idyllic either. It is, as everywhere is, a balance, a life with some level of compromise, some tough bits and some amazing bits. I find it hard just now as everything has to be slowed down. I am far better at deciding what needs doing, getting on and doing it, then sitting down for a cup of tea (or glass of wine) and feeling great about having done it. Not so good at considering, researching, waiting patiently and frankly dreadful at waiting for other people or outside of my hands stuff to happen which is where we are at just now. We need to sell our house – it should be either on the market, assuming tenants are happy to have it marketed while they are still in it, or the tenants should have their 2 months notice by the end of this week. That becomes a waiting game them to see what happens. I need to give the CCCS our annual update but have no idea of finances to quote at them – how can I explain our lack of electric and gas bills, running costs for a car yet explain jerry cans of fuel coming across with freight charges. Until I start at the school job – waiting for CRB check paperwork – I have no idea of the full implcations of that on our finances either. Oh to have the house sold, debts all cleared and be starting afresh at last.

We’re in limbo as a family too – Ady is struggling lots with life in the static, I guess we all are but he is most vocal. It’s hard to visualise an actual house after such a long time and we still have so many unknowns about how a house will work anyway. The kids love it here, really love it, but are getting kabin fever from too much time indoors and no family or friends visiting since October. In a house this trade off would be fine as they;d have space to spread out and play, create and find alternative winter activities indoors, here they have such limited space and belongings and just can’t go outside and get wet regardless as we have no space to strip off wet clothes and get warm and dry. It’s all short term – we know we won’t be still in these conditions by next winter, we’re just not sure yet how we’ll be managing to do anything else.

I’m not going to pretend it wouldn’t be hard in some way even if we did have a house but I reckon the tough bits would be a hell of a lot less tough. Hard decisions will have to be made if our house doesn’t sell fairly quickly or if in starting to work our proper costs we realise we won’t have enough to build here because Davies and Scarlett’s childhoods are too brief and too precious to have spent more than one year in a campervan and one year in a caravan regardless of how amazing the views outside the windows might be. I never intended raising my children in a serious of temporary accommodation and I’m determined that a proper home that doesn’t not flex in the wind and let the rain in, has a bath and a washing machine will be a certainty by the end of 2013. I hope with all my heart that it is on Rum and all four of us really want it to be but Rum is not quite enough to keep us here if it isn’t. I have a lot of fight, energy and passion to expend on the right cause but until the kids are older they will always be my chief focus and I don’t want to turn around in five years having achieved all sorts of other things but having realised that my children quietly grew up in a caravan on top of a windy hill while I was busy concentrating on something else.

On Saturday night after I’d blogged I had a facebook chat with Fliss telling me about a fight that had kicked off down at the hall. All hearsay but the gist of it is that James (seasonal castle staff, someone I have never liked for an indefinable reason despite all his best efforts to ingratiate himself with us) had been goading Chainsaw Dave to the point of lumping him one. There is a funny vibe on the island just now – we seem to all be struggling to get through these last few dark weeks of winter before everything wakes up for spring again. It’s times like these I am glad we are up on our hill away from it all and able to dip in and out to the bits of island life we want to be involved in and stay well out of the bits we don’t. It’s pretty well documented anecdotally and otherwise that small island communities struggle in the winter time – fighting, drink, drugs, relationships all seem to be a bit of a catalyst for issues and this is certainly not somewhere I’d want to be single or if we collectively or individually had any serious issues or dependancies. A cracked marriage or tendancy towards needing a crutch would be thrown into sharp relief here.

Neil on Eigg was telling me about how by February all the islanders there loath each other and are desperate for some tourists to dilute the personalities a bit, come October they are all sick of the sight of strangers and incomers and keen for everyone to bugger off and leave them all alone to their island. I’ve now seen both sides of that here and totally get it. From our point of view we are simply sucking out the good bits and casting aside the rest and will remain aloof from getting involved in any of the spats in the village. We won’t take sides and are simply not involved enough with anyone to get personally involved. Its a big family here and as such people get pissed off and squabble when times are tough.

The weather continues to be wild and windy and last night our bedroom roof leaked. Not sure if it is condensation or rain getting in and the roof does leak in a couple of random locations depending on wind direction but this was the seam above Ady’s side of the bed so he spend the night being dripped on which does nothing for a restful nights sleep for him really 🙁 We are on the home strait with this winter but it does feel rather like a last hurrah of testing for us just now.

Yesterday we didn’t do much really – Ady and I popped round to see Lesley about venison stuff and then called in to see Fliss and Sandy briefly before coming home for roast dinner and a film. Today the boat was cancelled and we moved a freezer with Neil ready to fill with venison tomorrow, called in to the shop to catch up with people, came home for lunch and then nipped back down to fetch stuff from our freezer and put a wash on at the castle. Tomorrow we’re butchering venison in the morning and then fully expecting the boat to be cancelled again. I think the winds are due to blow away by Thursday so we’re expecting little sleep til then…

Where were we? Ah yes, wondering if we’d last the night. Well we did – I went to bed around 1am and it was actually a fair bit quieter in the bedroom as the wind was westerly so the lounge end was taking the beating. Ady stayed up though and came to bed around 3am. I’m of the opinion that if something emergency-like happens it’ll either wake me and I’ll run or it won’t!

The next morning Ady and I were sorting out the horse box which had indeed had the canvas blown in but as we miraculously had not had any rain with the wind everything had just been blown to one end but not gotten wet. Davies and Scarlett came outside as it was calm and sunny and re-appeared with an injured duck. We assume the one that had been missing the day before but had reappeared at feeding time that morning but was now mauled and pretty injured. She has lost all the feathers and skin from the back of her body, we assume from Bonnie although have no proof and Bonnie is actually being very protective of her ever since so maybe it was a rat or otter or something else… it’s pretty nasty and we assumed the shock of whatever had happened would probably kill her but I went to the village to see Lesley to borrow a cat carrier with the intention of putting her inside it into the chicken coop where she would be warm and dry and with other birds but safe from their pecking (chickens are nasty and will just peck at an injured fellow chicken or duck sensing weakness and using it to up their rating in the pecking order.

I found Lesley and she lent me a carrier, I went to check on Steve from the yurt to be sure he’d seen the night out okay – he had although he had managed to knock himself out on his door when it blew open and has a big lump on his head) and I reported a fallen tree that I’d been the first to notice. There is a real sense of community here at times like this with everyone checking in on each other and staying in contact, it’s good :). I came back up and put the duck in the carrier with some food and water. Later though Ady went down and found a rat sitting on top of the crate so we decided to set the duck loose and just watch her. She went straight to the other four ducks and two geese and they sort of surrounded her and kept her close. She’s been eating and drinking and has now survived another 3 nights so it all looks promising. The wound is healing pretty well so we’ll keep an eye on it for infection but given our lack of suitable isolation pens and her general normal behaviour we think leaving her to it is the best course of action.

We all went down to the village in the afternoon and checked in with Sandy and Fliss who had got the spare room ready for us expecting us in the middle of the night. It’s good to know we have that security there if needed, even though we hope we never have to take them up on it. An early night all round after the lack of sleep from the night before.

Thursday we met the boat and had shopping come off so we dealt with that and then had lunch. In the afternoon we all went down to Fliss and Sandy’s for a few hours and the kids got double dinner as Sandy fed them pasta and then they came home and had dinner again with us later :). We had a nice couple of hours round there chatting and then Fliss and I went to the shop for a few drinks while Ady brought the kids and the veg box home and got dinner started. It was a horrible night to walk home in, really windy and rainy again though.

Friday- Ady went to see Norman to maybe help him move a table – they didn’t! while I did some baking and hung out with Davies and Scarlett. Scarlett told me she was worried I am drinking too much wine so I said she could monitor me that evening and see how much I drank and that I would interchange every glass with one of water too. Hard to have them seeing some of the islanders with genuine alcoholism issues, some who just abuse alcohol a lot and not fret about their parents. Not seeing excessive drinking as ‘normal’ is something I do worry about here so we talk about drinking a lot. It’s a conversation I remember having with Sue on Eigg about their son Struan and one which I think the only sensible answer is constant communicating. It meant that Scarlett brought me two full glasses of water to every half glass of wine I had last night though which kept me very sober and up about four times in the night for a wee! We had a great evening at Paul and Carol’s with half the island playing wii dance and generally chatting and making merry. I was by far the soberest grown up and the one of us who called time at about 1230am and made the other three come home as they were all happily wii playing or whiskey drinking while I just had a water induced headache! I was the only bouncy hangover free person at the pier this morning when we met the ferry too! 🙂 Scarlett is now much in demand as the sobriety officer – oh the irony! 🙂

Today we met the boat, waved off Carol and Abby who were both off, waved on Dougie (on, off partner to Jinty), came home for lunch and then all went down to help Sandy rescue his car which had stalled stuck in a boggy bit of ground. We loaded it with wood and then went round to theirs to unload it and get some wood for us, have a cup of tea and chat with Fliss and the girls who are home this weekend from school. Scarlett and Davies spent a couple of hours on the beach playing and Scarlett found a starfish (dead) which she has brought home to dry out. Parcels arrived on the ferry from Helena (Thankyou 🙂 xx) and Julie both containing various bits for everyone so that was lovely 🙂 Scarlett says it’s her lucky day with presents through the post, a letter from Maisie and a starfish!

Dinner was sausages, bacon, potatoes, fresh eggs and fresh bread which was lovely. The chickens are all coming back into lay again so eggs supplies are building back up which means more baking. We got away with just buying in 2 dozen eggs over Christmas to tide us over the barren off lay period but that’s all, certainly our best year ever in terms of chicken ownership 🙂

Ady and I had our last cup of tea /coffee of the day on the sporran and sat pondering and chatting. This is going to be a big year for us but I think the challenges will reap rewards in the long run.