One word? When seven would do…

But it already feels as though we’ve done a full weeks worth of stuff!

Monday – the morning was spent packing stuff up, turning things off and then walking down to the village with Bonnie, all our overnight stuff, all her overnight stuff (including crate, food, bowls etc) and a turkey. It was a lovely warm day which was loads better than it raining but meant everyone was bad tempered at being too hot wearing coats and carrying lots. We dropped Bonnie and her stuff off at Vikki’s, then I called in to see Deb at the school to collect her car key while the others carried on to the pier. I walked the last bit of the way with Bad Neil who was meeting Lesley off the boat. Davies realised he’d left his shoes outside Vikki’s house when he went to change from his wellies so he and Scarlett dashed back to collect them. It was slightly fraught when the ferry came into view a long time before they did!

On the boat we had chips and then sat upstairs where the view is better. It was a nice crossing but got rougher as we went across. When we got off there was much talk of no boat the following day which had us worried.

There was some confusion at the pier as we had expected Martin to meet us to collect the turkey and he was not there, and we had been told to ring Morar Motors to come pick us up and they were already there waiting. I wanted to dash across to the bank to pay a cheque in so Scarlett and I went to do that to find the bank had closed five minutes previously and was not open until five minutes after we needed to board the boat the following morning. Grr. The cheque has been left with Martin, I am hoping he is able to sort it but suspect that won’t be the end of that tale….

Martin arrived and took the chicken, Scarlett and I came back, we all had a chat with Pete, the skipper of the Seafari who happened to be there chatting to the Morar Motors bloke and didn’t realise we did turkeys so wants to buy one from us and will spread the word too. Glad we have ordered 10 more turkeys for this Christmas, I suspect we will sell them all! Whizzed to Morar Motors to do paperwork and then we were on our way.

We had time in FW to stop at Argos to collect some wine glasses we’d reserved online, go to Poundstretcher for teatowels, some blueberry bushes, a new oven glove and other such exciting purchases! Then to Lidl where we picked up seven fruit trees (yay!). At that point I had a crisis of fretting I may have misunderstood the dentist and decided our appointment was at 7 when actually they closed at 7! The thought that we may have come all that way and miss the dentist was too scary so we headed round there. Sure enough our appointment was for 7pm, so reassured we went back to Morrisons and did a mini shop there too. All very frugal and sensible stuff. Then back to the dentist. Everyone was fine – Davies has only one baby tooth left to lose and has all of his adult teeth present. I just needed some teastains cleaned off my teeth, Ady the same and then Scarlett had her filling. She was very brave and did well. The dentist explained his theory that the lack of enamel on her back teeth was probably caused by something during my pregnancy – I wonder if it was the ear ache which had me on prescription painkillers and ABs? It was an otherwise dream pregnancy and birth.

We left there and had McDonalds for dinner, mostly funded by luncheon vouchers from pinecone surveys 🙂

Finally off back to Mallaig, arriving around 10ish. Ranger Mike was at Martin’s so they both came up to our room in Martin’s B&B and we all had a beer / glass of wine. They were both rather then worse for wear on whiskeys which was quite amusing. They left and we all settled down to sleep = a long and mad day with another one waiting for us the following day. The bed was very creaky so I didn’t sleep well as every time Ady or I moved it woke me. Scarlett struggled to sleep as the injection wore off and her mouth was sore. She had some paracetamol (her first non calpol painkiller experience!) but was moaning about being too hot, not liking being in the bottom bunk, the TV being on and so on.

An early start on Tuesday with lots of uncertainty about the boat running or not. Breakfast was an odd affair as Jenny, Martin’s wife is a bit of a strange one and failed to take note of the time pressure on us. Eventually we escaped, having bartered the turkey in exchange for the nights B&B (love that, it was so the way we wanted to live and here it is possible :)). Ady and the kids dropped me off at the CoOp and they took the car back. I did a final mini shop there (mostly reduced to clear bits and some cheese which is pricey at Jinty’s) and then headed to the Calmac office. In there were various other islanders including Lucy from Eigg and Julie from Canna so I sat and chatted with them until Ady and the kids arrived back. We finally got the ‘yes we’re sailing’ from Calmac at about 945am which was a massive relief. Mike arrived just in time to board.

I sat downstairs chatting to people for a while while Ady and the kids went upstairs with Mike who had Tinker so had to sit up there. About halfway through I bought some drinks and headed up to join them. Poor Scarlett was feeling and looking rough and sure enough was sick about 20 minutes before we reached Rum 🙁 Hurrah for Calmac sick bags!

Vikki had brought Bonnie to meet us and Deb had brought their van to collect our stuff. Ady, Bonnie and Scarlett walked with Vikki, while Davies and I got a lift with Deb. We dropped off Vikki’s CoOp shopping and collected Bonnie’s crate and then Deb dropped me and all our stuff off at the fork in the road to the croft, saving us a massive amount of walking with stuff from the pier. The kids had already headed up to the static with Bonnie, we did two trips with the wagon and got everything up. Hard work!

We had some lunch and then put everything away, it was a very modest haul this time due to financial and vehicular constraints!

In the afternoon we worked on creating the Croft 3 2104 Masterplan (mwah ha ha!) covering our plans for animals, crops, infrastructure and building, Business, and Fun. A long list under each which now allows us to work out weekly job lists and goals to try and cover everything. Ady and I had another trip down to the village to put stuff in the freezer and get stuff out, we also collected 3 batteries from Sandy so that was two trips back from the fork to the croft, then fed the animals on the way up the final time.

In the evening I went down for a meeting (lots and lots of walking yesterday, my legs were most protest-y by the end of it) at Fliss’ to talk about Development Officer recruitment and whether or not I wanted to reconsider my resignation and continue with being a director after all. Ady and the kids and I had chatted about it lots and concluded that as long as I find a way to make it less intrusive on our time and less draining on me then I should do it again. I said as much and Ali, Lesley and Fliss all seemed very pleased.

The meeting moved from tea at 7pm to a glass of wine at 9pm and finally finished at 10pm. I got rained on walking down and rained on walking home again, my knees were no longer my friends but Ady had cooked a lovely curry AND waited to eat with me despite us agreeing that if I was not home by 9pm he would eat and just keep mine warm.

We all slept very well!

Today was a planned day – we have now created a list of tasks and aim to tick off at least one thing from each of our five categories of the masterplan over the course of a week so we feel we are covering everything. Today was supposed to be chainsaw / firewood but it was such a nice morning that we decided to add in laundry and managed to get all the washing done. It’s not all dry, although at least one load is now in, dry and folded, the rest can come in over the next few days as it is currently being rained on outside! I also collected up all the cardboard and rubbish which Ady had been piling in the woodshed now we’re car-less so not easy to take to the skips and the pier. I seperated it into bottles and tins which will need to go to the pier for recycling and burnt everything else. I don’t like burning plastic but the minor eco impact of me burning a bit here is offset by the alternative which is sending it off by ferry, then skip lorry to go to landfill. I think a few fumes is way lower carbon impact!

Ady got out Dad’s chainsaw which he has given us. The chain is desperately in need of sharpening but we got it going, I had a lesson in how they work and we went and felled a small tree and chopped up some fallen branches. The kids were out playing on the croft and they came to help carry some wood back before lunch. We’re going to ask Mr Rhys to sharpen the chain for us and then spend a morning or afternoon a week chopping wood to keep our firewood topped up and get a supply for next winter sorted too.

I made flour torilla wraps for lunch which were very nice but made lots of condensation. We watched Dragons Den and then the kids washed up while Ady and I processed some more laundry and chopped some more wood. I made some faggots too as I am trying to wean Ady off his chemical firelighter habit!

I made bread, rang my parents and had a shower. Ady cooked dinner. We have 8 episodes of Will & Grace left after watching 2 tonight.

Saturday – Scarletty and I went to work. The shop was a shambles after a bit of a session the night before, it was the contractors last night so they had been partying with various people. Scarlett set to the floor with the mop, I washed up all the cups and cleared the kitchen, taped up the big bag of museli which had been dropped and split and Mel (first customer of the day) helped sweep up broken glass and other recycling. Bad Neil who was one of the partiers came in and looked so forlorn and hung over that I made him two cups of tea and then the contractors appeared and were contrite too so I made them cups of tea and sold them lots of chocolate to raise their blood sugar levels and gave them lectures about conducting themselves 🙂 It was lots of fun and all very sociable. And Scarlett made a fortune in clearing up dropped cash from the floor! 😉

Various other folk came into the shop for purchasing and socialising – I do enjoy my Saturday mornings :). We popped to the freezer for some bacon and then walked home. Ady and Davies had spent the morning working through a choose your own adventure book and Davies had created a very elaborate and lovely map. I keep thinking I am picking proper printed things up and then realising it is something Davies has drawn.

We had lunch and then it was just windy and rainy all afternoon to the point that we had to tether the wind turbine. I got dinner sorted (Chris French’s roasted root and rice gratin which may have originated with Delia but will always be Galoka’s to me :)) and some rhubarb, ginger and apple crumble which was very delicious. Vikki came up at 6ish and we had a lovely evening with her catching up on everyone’s news.

Today I enjoyed my Sunday lie in with a cup of tea and an hour (or maybe two) in bed with a book. Ady and I walked down to the village to put stuff in and take things out of the freezer. We took Bonnie and did a circular walk of the north trail. I tend to use the bottom path pretty much always as I love the river so much that I would always rather walk alongside it but the top trail is lovely too for the view of the cuilins and the sea and the bay. I am also secretly a bit nervous of the Rum ponies who are sometimes in the bottom field you walk through on the trail so never take that route on my own. With the exception of waving to Mr Rhys we saw no one.

We got back home and had just started to make lunch when Scarlett spotted Mike and Deb walking along the bottom path toward the croft so we had a manic five minute tidy up shoving everything in bedrooms while they climbed the Croft hill before welcoming them in. They had come to say they were worried about our vehicle situation and wanted to a) offer us use of their van here on Rum to move stuff around the village. It won’t get past the fork of the track towards the croft but that is barely half a mile from the croft whereas the pier is 2 miles from here so would save a massive amount of trailing to and fro with the wagon or carrying by hand. They also have a car on the mainland in Mallaig which they wanted to offer us use of. It’s too late for tomorrow as we have a car booked for that trip but we’amare going to start the engine and take the handbrake off for them on it (they tend to seize with the salty sea air if left for any length of time in Mallaig) and can use it in the future if we need to – maybe for our cob course trip. Also they have contacts on the mainland who may be able to help us source a new car. Yay. Love them 🙂

They left and we finally had lunch by which time it was nearly 3pm. Ady went to finish off the turkey that had been hanging ready to take off tomorrow while I decided it was too late in the day to start ditching so knitted instead! The kids and I listened to music while doing various things and then Ady cooked dinner. We watched several Will & Grace episodes including a filmed live one which has the cast corpsing several times which was very funny. I got facebook messsages offering me a regular slot in a crowd funded magazine (no payment but free subscription and more coverage of me which is always good).

Tomorrow is Mainland Land for the dentist so will be no onlineliness. See you Tuesday!

A very wet and rainy day. I only briefly popped outside today to get some firewood in a tiny weather break this afternoon.

We had a water letting session of our bedroom ceiling this afternoon resulting in 10ltr captured in pans. A real family effort with Davies and I stood on the bed pressing the ceiling bulges while Ady and Scarlett caught the deluge in pans and towels through the light fitting hole. The bulges are now empty and the ceiling has stopped dripping. That was a *lot* of water.

Ady and Davies have done more of the choose your own path books stuff, Scarlett and I made a start on a sew a cuddly toy kit she got for Christmas in 2012, we did some jigsaw puzzle, both the kids took some photos – Scarlett of Humphrey and Davies of his lego screen machine, we listened to the radio, talked about charity and volunteering and what people can really do to make a difference in the world.

It’s been a nice day indoors even if it’s been a very windy rainy day outside. We tied the turbine up for the windiest couple of hours this afternoon but it’s free again now and charging everything up beautifully.

I was woken in the middle of the night last night with the thought ‘Ady has the light on’. I quickly added to that thought with ‘and he is standing on the bed dancing’. He infact was not dancing but did indeed have the light on and was standing on the bed as the bulging roof was leaking in the rain and our bed was getting steadily wetter. It often leaks through the light fitting (not such a concern when you are on 12v rather than mains!) but the actual noise of the dripping had woken him. The sleeping bag we actually sleep inside had not gotten wet as we have another sleeping bag laid out over the top of it and he had laid a towel out too. Bit shite though 🙁

So it rained and rained and rained and rained all night but was fairly still wind-wise. This morning the burns and waterfall and river were really, really high and Ady had to rescue the dustbin which was now in the river rather than about 25foot to the side of it. Everything else on the croft was fine though. We did Popmaster and then we donned our oranges and headed off to the pier to meet the boat. We took Bonnie and the wagon although Gav picked us up when we were almost there. It was a busy boat with Mel, Vikki, Sorcha, Nell and Sandy coming off – Sandy with a friend to collect a load of his stuff and head back to the mainland again, still insistent he is not coming back. Also Karl from Eigg came off between boats. Gav and Laura went off on the second boat as Laura’s granddad died so they are heading back south for the funeral and some visiting of parents etc while they are there. More unsettlednesss on the island with the brief appearance of Sandy.

Ady wanted to see him and offer some help, I was less inclined to join the circus and conscious of the kids at home waiting so I took Bonnie home and started on lunch. Ady followed not long afterwards and was back in time for cheese on toast which always seems to take forever to cook but is always worth it.

I then left the others to it and went down to Deb’s to do some more learning of spinning. I get the idea of it but what is really required is practice, so if someone could just happen upon a spinning wheel and send it to me that would be great 😉 Had a nice chat with Deb though and we walked to the shop together where I had arranged to meet Ady to collect veg. While I was there I got an email from Fliss saying at the most recent board meeting they had been discussing director resignations and wondered if I would reconsider mine and rejoin the board as things have shifted about a bit. Not sure what I will do on that one just yet, far more pondering required.

Back home we arrived with literally seconds to spare before it started to hail. We so often get in just before weather comes in, although we just as often seem to be caught in it. It has not stopped all night and is now pretty windy too. Forecast for tomorrow is wind and rain all day so we’re planning an at home indoors with internet on all day day. Lots of reading and knitting for me then 🙂

Today was laundry (two loads, although much of it is still out there currently getting rained on 🙁 ), breadmaking, digging out five galvanised sheets and measuring them to dictate the size of the planned cob chicken house.

That took us to lunchtime!

Meanwhile Davies and Scarlett were building a lego screen machine for a competition . Over lunch we watched Dragons Den although this weeks didn’t really hold the kids’ attention. I drew out the plans for the chicken house which was a job well done as in doing so I realised I had miscalculated a little and needed to readjust.

After lunch the kids washed and dried up and cleared away lunch stuff then got back to their lego-ing while Ady and I measured and marked out the site for the chicken house. We’re doing it at the bottom of the croft, just above a ditch which will extend to sort out the drainage. We marked the external and internal footprint so will be digging the trench inbetween the two lines. Tomorrow and Friday are looking pretty wet and miserable so that will probably be a job for the weekend.

We walked down to the village as Ady has been cleaning the hall and campsite loos for Vikki while she’s been away. Along the way we saw Norman and Claire so stopped for chats with both of them. We fed the animals on the way back up to the static and then Ady played with the kids for a while – Davies picked up the whole series of books for choosing your own ending and playing with dice which they have all been playing with together and has seen Davis creating a whole notebook with fab drawings and maps and things to go along with them. I peeled and chopped tatties, swede and carrots ready for dinner – we were having haggis.

Having realised series 8 is the end of Will & Grace we watched the last couple of episodes of series 7 and started on the first of S8. We were flagging rather but having realised we are near the end we are excited to see how they tie up all the ends. Ady and I had long since stopped watching it back when it was on TV by about series 4 so this is all new to us too.

Almost not going to blog today but actually I probably should.

Feeling a bit rubbish about stuff today. We have borrowed lots of my Dad of late which he is fine about and keeps reassuring me he can afford and doesn’t mind etc but it’s not how I planned life would be when we moved here. We’re in the gap between winkle picking and tourist season meaning we can start to earn money easily. I have approached the magazine with some article ideas but that won’t happen til next year anyway, I’ve asked Jinty about more shifts at the shop and we’re going to see if there is any point in picking winkles this late (won’t be pre Christmas prices but if we could raise the cost of a car ourselves rather than going to Dad again it would be good).

On paper our life just about adds up – the income with get from various things covers our cost of living and gives a small amount for putting towards growing the croft – investment in more livestock, more alternative energy stuff, things to make life easier like tools, the extra stuff we can earn at certain times of the year should eventually mean we can move things forward. In practice it is very tight and means that in emergencies we end up going to Dad again.

Today was tough I think because we were helping Mike pack his van up to head off on the boat and we are all really sad about him and Casey leaving. Sad because they are our friends, sad because Mike has been here a long time and is leaving really disillusioned with Rum and the community, sad because a house coming up and a ranger post being vacant has brought out the very worst in so many people here all scrambling to get what they can and looking at what everyone else has got.

February, a month for getting the blues I fear.

Yesterday we did a couple of loads of laundry and hung it out, had some lunch and then headed off to collect the car from the pier. It was a gorgeous sunny day so it was a slow meander with plenty of pausing to look at the view and talk about the last two years along the way.

At the pier Ady took the batteries off charge and fixed them back in the car (it had broken down too far away for the chargers to reach so he had to disconnect them and carry them to the boat shed to put on charge – the Pajero has two batteries). Meanwhile I took photos of the view, the kids played on the beach and Bonnie mostly watched one of the Bunkhouse builders filling up his digger with building stuff to take along to the site.

The car started ok but only went a very short way before it conked out. It carried on starting ok but failed to actually drive anywhere and then died. Ady and the builder pushed it out of the way to a sensible place and we left it there. There is noone on the island with the skills to sort it out so the search is on for another vehicle as we simply can’t be without one for any length of time given our animal feed, own groceries, petrol etc deliveries we need to transport from the pier up to the croft – not to mention firewood. Just what we didn’t need 🙁

We walked back to the village to buy a beer each from the shop to take round to sit on the bench and toast our two years since being offered the croft. We bumped into Claire along the way and she invited herself along which felt quite symbolic somehow – a sort of illustration that you are not alone here, even when at times you’d like to be, and that you are also somehow responsible for others, as she was in clear need of a friendly chat. It was actually a nice hour or so sat with her there and she took our photo meaning it is not our usual precariously balanced self timer shot.

It started to get cold and we had animals to feed so we parted ways and headed back to the croft. I got dinner on while Ady fed the animals. We watched Pirates and Scientists (or whatever it’s called) and had a really nice roast lamb dinner followed by rhubarb crumble.

I got an email from Lesley asking if my offer to help with recruitment for the development officer post was still open and if so could I look at the applicants CVS – all 14 of them!

Today – it’s rained and rained and rained. This morning after Popmaster Ady and I donned oranges and walked down to the village to put our veg order in, get a few bits from the shop and some stuff for the freezer to ensure the next 3 days dinners are all sorted and mean we don’t need to go down for anything til Thursday. Forgetting that we had agreed to help Mike load his removal van tomorrow between boats but never mind, it’s good to be organised!

Back home for lunch – soup and fresh rolls for me and Tarly, rolls for Davies and some leftover roast dinner for Ady. I did some jigsaw and some knitting and some chatting to the kids. Davies did loads of drawings – he’s experimenting with black, white and grey and shading, along with recreating characters from Adventure Time and putting them into his own stories, changing expressions etc. He really is very talented with his drawing. Scarlett spent most of the afternoon decorating the cover of a notepad with drawings and sticky things – it looks fab. I love that both of them have a trademark cartoon style character of themselves they draw, I must get photos of them.

Ady made dinner with Davies as sous chef and it was delicious. I scored all of the applicants for the Dev Officer job and filled in the matrix we have for essential and desirable skills. A couple of clear interwviewees to my mind, hopefully the other people scoring agree.

Tonight I’ve done a good job of clearing my email inbox. We’re off to Mainland Land for an overnight next Monday to Tuesday for a dentists visit – we have a car booked, will have time to scoot round Morrisons and Lidl in FW before the dentist then straight back to Mallaig where we’re staying at Martin’s for the first time. Martin has a guest house and an actual house in Mallaig and introduced himself to us during our first week here to say we would be welcome to stay there anytime and if he could ever help bringing stuff across or having stuff delivered to him as a mainland address he was always happy to help the islanders. Our mainland mentality always prevented us from taking him up on it but we decided to try. Plus he is taking a turkey off us – Ady killed it this morning, so we are able to pay him back in kind which feels better. So that trip needing some final details sorting. I’ve also emailed a list of suggested topics for articles to the Scottish Island Explorer magazine editor for 2015 to see if he takes me up on any of those. I got an email from the COb course woman yesterday confirming our places and receipt of our deposit and saying they are looking forward to meeting us and hearing all about Rum 🙂 Our test blocks in the polytunnel have all dried rock hard and it seems that our soil is just right and will need very little added to it at all. We think we have worked out the chicken house design, just need to draw it on paper so we have some idea of plans and then we can start digging!

So car aside all is well.

Saturday so work for me in the morning. Tarly came with me again and we had a nice morning with various islanders calling in. After work we had been expecting Ady to arrive having put the car on charge but he didn’t so we walked to the workshop to meet him. But he and the car were not there. We decided he’d either broken down (very likely) or was cleaning the campsite loos (also likely) or with Dave Chain (also quite likely as he was supposed to be helping us fix the back door). We got all the way to Dave’s before Gav came driving towards us with Ady and Bonnie in the car. The car had indeed broken down at the pier and was on charge.Fingers crossed it is better tomorrow after a charge but we seriously need to look at a new car.

We all walked home via the freezer to collect dinner for tonight and tomorrow, and the shop to collect post – Davies’ tablet case ordered while we were off on the mainland had finally arrived 🙂 Back home for lunch.

I spent the afternoon starting a jigsaw and finishing the first sock. Davies spent it drawing and playing on his tablet, Ady spent it looking for eggs (he found 4) and de-moulding our bedroom and Scarlett spent it tidying her room. It was all very harmonious with everyone pretty much happy with their pursuits.

Ady cooked dinner and we finished the last few episodes of Friends series 1. Series 2 and 3 are on the way. Tomorrow is laundry day, weather permitting.

Everyone exchanged gifts this morning. I had bought the other three a pack of Cadburys Creme Egg biscuits each. Apparently they are delicious. Davies had made Scarlett a book which went down very well. Ady bought me a bar of posh chocolate from Jinty’s. Well technically he didn’t buy it as he put it on my tab so I will buy it tomorrow, and I also chose it but somewhere in there was a thought or something. Scarlett was the one who went all out and made gifts for everyone including Humphrey and Bonnie. I got a hand carved dibber with Mummy carved into the wood.

After Popmaster Ady and I walked down to collect the car from the village – we also grabbed four sacks of wood, then brought it back and unloaded it – animal feed and vegetables from yesterday along with firewood. I carried one sack of wood and the veg up the hill then chopped wood while Ady brought the other three up. It’s pretty wet so we’ve bought lots of it in to dry out indoors a bit. It’s burning okay but will coke the flue up I suspect.

We had lunch and then the kids had showers and then I made popcorn and we all watched Frozen (again, we’d seen it once before Christmas), I brushed Tarly’s hair and sorted out her hair wrap which was coming loose.

Ady went down to the village to help Mike move some heavy furniture downstairs ready for a van coming on Tuesday. The kids and I listened to music, did drawing, played DS, did some more sock knitting. Tarly made the pizza dough for dinner.

We ended up with a late dinner as the gas ran out mid cook, so Ady had to go out in the rain to swap bottles over. Everyone was late to bed and as I have work in the morning I should probably be off myself.

The thread (see what I did there?!) throughout the day was the Sock. I have turned the heel which felt rather like some sort of dark art and am now knitting in the round (also a black magic) before finishing the toe. I may well wear my pants on the outside once I have finished this and fully expect people to laud me as inspirational all over facebook.

Ferry this morning to collect animal feed and an order from the local butcher. It was a nice atmosphere down at the pier with lots of chit chat and laughter. We dropped the car off in the village and walked home but not before Ady had managed to knock over two cartons of milk which split open and leaked all over the shop floor. He has a reputation for dairy breakages so was very embarrassed. I paid for them (well one of them, Jinty refused to take money for both) and took him home!

Back home for lunch which was pancakes as we had rather a lot of milk 😉

The afternoon was knitting, drawing, some teaching Bonnie new tricks, dismantling the old feed store area… I’ll let you work out who did what of the four of us 😉

At 5pm Ady and I walked back to the village to collect the veg. We stopped for a beer and a chat before walking home. We had planned to drive but Chainsaw Dave offered to look at the back door of the Pajero and Ady is helping Ranger Mike move some heavy stuff downstairs tomorrow so we decided to leave it there as we can’t get across the river just now anyway. Neither of us had a working torch (mine had been in my pocket and must have been on as it was flat) and we didn’t have phones either. We decided to go for it and were fine almost all the way but I slipped climbing the croft hill and am worried I have further injured my knee – we’ll see how it is in the morning…

I cooked – potato gratin (using up that milk!), pork chops, sugar snap peas in garlic and butter and a creamy gingery sauce made by deglazing the pan. Friday night is pizza night so this was my nod towards romantic meals 😉 Scarlett made the bread today and it rose furiously, it looks good baked too, hurrah for my little homesteader 🙂

We watched some Friends and some Will and Grace. W&G is losing it rather but the kids are getting into Friends so we have ordered the next series. They are both very excited about Valentines Day tomorrow so I need to go to bed incase they are excited enough to get up early!

We’d planned to do polytunnel stuff this morning but it was way too windy to try and reattach a door so instead we stayed in. Well I did, Ady popped in and out as he does.

I had a go at starting a sock making kit I got from Lidl when we were off and got confused and scared by all the many needles so shoved it in my bag to take down to the village with me later. I finished the Rum newsletter and emailed it to Fliss for printing and replied to some emails.

After lunch Ady and I walked down to the village together – him to clean the hall and campsite toilets which he is doing to cover Vikki while she’s away and me to join Fliss, Debs and Ali for a Crafternoon. Debs is teaching Fliss how to properly use her spinning wheel and me to use one too (Debs has about four spinning wheels but a little portable travelling one which she brought with her). I sort of get it but it seems a bit like a sewing machine to me, I suspect I’d spend as much time fiddling with it and correctly mistakes as I would actually spinning. I think I might prefer drop spindles… On the plus side Deb taught me a really cool way of casting on which is LOADS quicker than the way I’ve been doing it all this time and removed most of the mystery of all the double ended needles to the point that I think I might understand the socks knitting now. I came home and did pretty well but then managed to pull the wrong needle and took all the stitches off it so unravelled it to start again. Will do some more in daylight but can see how that might be a nice thing to do.

I left and walked home in a real snowstorm which was very cool 🙂 The other three were all out on the croft playing it when I came home. It was almost dark so everyone came in for hot chocolate / tea laced with whisky to warm up (that’s hot chocolate for kids and tea laced for adults not either tea or hot choc both laced with whisky…)

I cooked, we watched some Friends and some Will & Grace and that was Tuesday. The kids are excited about Valentines Day and have been making presents for each other, Ady and I. They do not seem to have fully grasped the romantic aspect to it and just view it as a day to celebrating loving people. I am loathe to put them straight really… Davies is making a book for Scarlett and doing loads of writing, drawing and only checking the very odd word here and there. His handwriting and spelling is better than many adults I know so at least I have not failed him there with the slapdash home ed 😉 Scarlett is mostly whittling gifts for everyone.

Another beautiful winter day here on Rum. The light has been fantastic. I walked down to the village at 5pm to put our veg order in and it was stunning. The low sun shimmering on the river and the individual rays of the sun broken up over the ridge.

It’s been a mostly indoors day today. Ady made phone calls to order animal feed and meat for us from the local butcher. I put together most of the Rumble newsletter, just waiting for a couple of last minute items. We were planning on spending some time in the polytunnel but never quite got there.

I’m juggling finances rather more than I’d like to be – we have an overnight off to visit the dentist in two weeks time and I have still not booked the cob course which I’m twitchy about incase it gets fully booked. The winkle money which I had earmarked for that got used to sub the expenses from Eden which I am still waiting for half of and inevitably we overspent a little while off. On the plus side we simply can’t over spend like we used to and within a month we are back on track but there are lots of things I’d like to spend on just now – cob course, fruit trees…

In good news the editor of the Scottish Islands magazine has asked me to submit any other feature ideas for consideration for 2015 and the tenants paid the rent on time again.

Mean lack of blogging…

Friday – we spent the day playing with mud. All outside, all collecting samples. We dug some holes down where we want to build and took some samples. We did various tests with them and deduced the soil was not clay-ey enough for cob building. We had lunch and then sent the kids down to the village to get some stuff out of the freezer while Ady and I did some more digging. First at the very top of the croft where the top soil (bad quality top soil it has to be said) goes way deep and everything is wet and boggy. Then to the far west side of the croft where it turns out we found clay. We gathered lots of samples, did jar shaking tests and then went down to the riverside to collect some sandy stuff and experimented with some cob mixes to see what works. We did ball test (drop from waist height and see what happens to the ball) and made various bricks which are in the polytunnel drying out to test further.

I made pizza and bread dough, constructed pizzas and then went down to the village for band practice and did some singing. Was fun 🙂 Back home for dinner but then Scarlett called me to her bedroom and talked to me for about an hour about Stuff She Is Worried About (standard 11 year old girl stuff, nothing that concerns me but obviously needed an audience) after which I was exhausted and went to bed!

Saturday morning Scarlett came to work with me. We had a nice couple of hours, calling at the freezer on the way home to collect some food and popping in to see Fliss and deliver a Herman cake starter to her. Deb took one, as did Abby so that is our four distributed.

Home for lunch and then Ady went down to the village to watch rubgy at Lesley and Bad Neil’s. The kids and I chatted, read, listened to music and just hung out. I popped out to feed the animals and got rained on. I delayed starting dinner as although Ady was supposed to be eating down at the rugby I suspected he may come home hungry. As indeed he did 🙂 I cooked and other than Davies managing to lose two wobbly teeth during the course of dinner it was enjoyable!

Today was a lie in for everyone, except Ady but he never lies in anyway! So brunch rather than two meals. Ady had already been down to the polytunnel for a while but we went down together to do some more and got it all sorted and ready for working in again. I’m now looking forward to spending some time in there and getting things growing.

I had an email from Deb inviting us round later for games, tea and cakes. It was from 430pm so we said we’d be there after 5pm animal feeding and put dinner in the oven really low. We expected to be there for an hour or so but didn’t leave til nearly 9pm which meant it was 930 by the time we’d walked home (and bumped into Gav and Finn, then Bad Neil and Evil Cammus on the way). So we sat down to dinner at Goddard O Clock which we’ve not done for a while. It meant everyone was late to bed and in theory I lost another evening but I have stayed up later to catch up on the basic that it might be Monday tomorrow but I don’t have to get up for work! 🙂 We had a really nice time with Mike & Debs and they have lots of amazing skills we could learn – Debs is teaching me to spin and Mike is going to help us create a sustainable woodland plan for our proposal to rent some woodland.

Tomorrow is Rum Rumble sorting out day.

The new sleeping bag is doing well. It is smaller than our old two zipped together but they were about 6 years old and had been in full time service for the last 3 years in Willow and then here. The one which is still intact (the zips busted on one) is now seeing out it’s life with Davies who loves it.

I woke to an email from John, the editor of the Scottish Islands magazine who I did a guest column for last year. I’d chased him to ask if there was any chance of paid writing work last week and he said they may be and he was sorting out the schedule for coming issues. He has offered me an article for the end of 2014. It’s not much money at all (under £100) but I’m very chuffed and motivated to chase some more work now.

It’s been sporadically rainy today and I got stuck into reading a book about cob so was not inspired to head outside. Both the kids had a lengthy bath shower (running the large shower tray full with plug in gives a small shallow bath for them) Scarlett was in there for nearly two hours! Scarlett then had hair brushing, Davies had a haircut before going in. A low key day with various incidental chats, listening to the radio, discussing William Roach when that news broke, reading aloud bits of the book when I was particularly inspired. Davies has been writing a minecraft poem – I think he was inspired by our Burns Night poems and has been asking me to make up more ever since. He still checks spellings of many words but pretty much seems to remember them the next time and not need to check again.

Ady sorted out the water into the static, it’s been playing up a bit with air trapped in the pipe and the pump not doing it’s usual priming and we were worried the pump may be on it’s way out. It turned out to just be a kinked bit of pipe but he did have to go under the caravan to find and fix it. In the last week he has sorted out at least one thing every day which previously we’d have needed to call someone to help with. Old dogs, new tricks 🙂

At 5pm we left the kids home and headed down via feeding the animals to the village. Ady is covering Vikki’s job of cleaning the campsite and hall loos so he did that and then we went to the RCA meeting. A good meeting with a few things thrashed out. Manager Mike then asked me if I’d be up for singing with the band and I said yes. Very pleased about that too 🙂 Band practice tomorrow night.

Home for dinner, a slow cooked joint of our own pork which was very delicious 🙂 We’ve run out of Will and Grace so have gone back to Friends again while we wait for the next series to arrive on dvd.

I know there is nothing I can’t still learn but I do have a private list of things I just wish I already knew, trees and forestry is one of them. If we lived on the mainland I would definitely do some kind of course on forestry and learn more.

After Popmaster I was consumed with the need to be outside today. Scarlett is still a bit snuffly so we left the kids indoors where they have done more drawing, played with lego and messed about with tablets. Their current ‘thing’ is Adventure Time so they are drawing that lots and creating versions of it on minecraft. They are happily consumed by it so I am tending to leave them to it!

I hung out a load of washing from yesterday and stuck the final load in, then went off with my axe. Ady was fixing the log burner flue and generally tidying up around the static. He also fixed two broken / rotten slats on the pallets that surround the static. I went into the woodland between the croft and the river and cut down loads of alder and hazel from some coppiced trees. Long, straight and very green so nice and easy to bend and weave into each other. The autumn sowed garlic has already got shoots which the chickens were pecking away at so I wanted to net the raised beds. I netted the two with garlic in them and planted another one up with some more garlic and netted that too.

There are loads of cockerels in the chicks from last year, we need to decide which we’re keeping and start killing off the rest for meat. I have earmarked a couple of particularly pretty or character-ful ones to keep. They are all just starting to crow and chase the hens to mate with them, it’s really funny being down there as they find their voices and act like teenage boys! It was not particularly sunny today but it was still, dry and not too cold. A perfect day to be out working in. I really enjoyed it.

We realised at lunch time that we’d left it too late to have our planned dinner of slow cooked pork as we’d not actually taken it out of the freezer so swapped for tomorrows planned dinner of fish cakes. Sadly it was not until nearly 8pm when Ady had already cooked and mashed the potatoes that we realised we had no tuna! Jinty was already closed and we had no tinned meat or fish at all. We used my emergency chorizo chopped up small and added some cheese and made some really nice potato, chorizo and cheese patty things though which were delicious. I did realise at 5pm that if we were going to have slow cooked pork tomorrow it would need defrosting today though so walked down to the village to get it out of the freezer. I met Deb along the way so stopped for a brief chat (but only brief as I’d not taken a torch).

The forecast tomorrow is rain so will probably be an indoor day again. The polytunnel needs attention but it is such a mess I want Ady to come and do it with me, it is a sad place to be at the moment so I want to have company while I put it straight again.

Ady has a horrid cough. I consulted Dr Google last night and found some forum folk suggesting asthma. He always develops a dreadful, unproductive cough after a cold which lingers for weeks and has me fantasising about killing him. Last night he was in bed coughing so I went in and dug out an inhaler for him. I had thought he was awake and so going in, explaining I was on the brink of stabbing him and so therefore thought he should try the inhaler was reasonable. He was infact asleep and woke to me saying I was going to kill him, rummaging through a drawer for what he assumed was a weapon, throwing it to him and then leaving had him terrified! Or so he maintains in the rather humorous retelling of it to anyone who will listen today! 😆

10 minutes after I went to bed Scarlett woke crying and came into our bed too, so I spent the night with her next to me wriggling, blowing her nose and coughing and Ady snoring and coughing, all in our cosy double sleeping bag. It was not my most restful night ever…. :rolls:

The chimney on the log burner has burnt through and Ady had tried a quick fix on it which had lasted well but this morning when he lit it all the smoke just billowed into the room and on inspection he realised it had come undone. Another quick fix with tin foil which should last assuming its not too windy. The proper heatmate self sealing mastic stuff arrived on the boat today fortunately so tomorrow morning he can look at it again and hopefully patch it up enough to last for the 6 weeks or so left of woodburner weather.

Ady and I went down to meet the boat – we’d left the car in the village so had to walk down to collect it then drive along to the pier. We collected Vikki on the way as she was off today on holiday. Our sleeping bag (and new pillows for Ady) finally came, along with Potato Council GYOP kits. Hurrah. We stopped for various chats with various people and got home for lunch. Leftover soup for Scarlett, leftover garlic bread for me and leftover lasagne for Ady.

This afternoon we got a couple of loads of laundry done, emptied the car of all of the things in it which included a sack of flour, some peat blocks, dog food and two guitars. I fell over once in the mud. We had a communal push to finish the jigsaw so we could clear it off the table.

I tried to ring my parents but the line was really bad despite retrying a couple of times so after a very quick check in that everyone was okay up here and down there we gave up on that.

Tomorrow is more laundry and maybe some planning of crops day.

Scarlett has a cold 🙁 She tends to fall hard, weep and wail and then recover fairly quickly but she clearly feels pretty rough just now. Ady is still coughing. He did stop while we were away but it is back with a vengence and I am not sure whether he has a new cold which Scarlett has now caught or whether the original one has come back now we are back in the damp caravan. Either way I am trying to be a patient carer and failing massively. Especially when Scarlett used up all the loo roll blowing her nose, came crying to me about the lack of tissue at 1130pm and I had to venture out in my nightie and Ady’s wellies in the wind rain to go to the horse box for another roll!

This morning after Popmaster Ady and I went down to get some bits from the shop and some bits from the freezer. There was quite a gathering at the shop (bad weather and cancelled ferries always bring people out to stand around talking about Great Storms Of The Past ;)) and it was all nice and jovial. I’d made bread dough before we left so stuck some rolls in the oven and made some soup on my quest to get more vegetables into ill people to cure them and well people to prevent illness.

Norman and Scarlett had been talking about jigsaw puzzles on Saturday and Norm happened to be at the shop with a 500 piece puzzle for us to borrow so this afternoon I set that up on the table and predictably everyone has been drawn to it and done a wee bit. It does mean the table is out of action which is a bit of a problem here really, we need something to put on top of the puzzle so we can still have dinner on it.

Vikki came up feeling a bit sorry for herself as she knows everyone is talking about her giving Sean notice to leave her house. We had a good chat over cups of tea which turned into glasses of wine as she stayed awhile and she left feeling happier.

Hoping our new sleeping bag comes on the boat tomorrow…

I forget what happened otherwise…

Erm, Friday…. ah yes. It rained. In the morning Ady and I drove to the pier, dropped off an empty gas bottle, collected a full one, gathered up five sacks of logs, got the car across the river and then came home. The trailer from What-you-wanna-do-Dave has proved fantastically useful, particularly given the back door of the Pajero is stuck shut again (this happens regularly).

It was a horrible weather day that just demanded soup really so I made some ; leek and potato. It was lovely and worth the delayed by an hour lunchtime that making it meant.

At 4pm we had a last minute burst of efficiency when we tried to organise a dentist visit trip but it was scuppered by Deb arriving for a cup of tea and chat. I made a Herman cake starter and pizza for dinner.

Saturday was work for me in the morning and Scarlett wanted to come along too. She is excellent company and we very much enjoyed guessing who would visit us as the post office, drinking tea, creating a Post Office playlist on my phone (Please Mr Postman – Carpenters, Letter from America – Proclaimers, Return to Sender – Elvis, Love Letters – Alison Moyet, Letter to You – Shakin Stevens, and 9-5 = Dolly and Little Shop of Horrors for the shopkeeping side to the morning). We had many visitors, lots of banter and some complicated post office-y things too. All good 🙂

We left and walked the top trail home. We’d awoken to a fairly heavy snowfall on all the peaks so the top trail meant we got to admire a gorgeous Rum landscape in full panorama.

We had lunch and then all went down to meet the disrupted boat. We were expecting various things – most awaited by Ady and I a new sleeping bag (we use our sleeping bag in favour of duvets after we got through three this winter, going moldy after just a week or two. Our sleeping bag is very old having been one of our first camping purchases and then our every day bedding while in Willow and camping out at Osborne Drive and friends. We’ve been using it for a couple of months here and the zips have gone, it has a couple of rips and for something that gets used every single night we felt we could justify a new double bag.) and for Davies a tablet cover. Neither came – grr.

There was supposed to be a six nations rugby big screen in the hall with pizza but only a handful of people arrived so we decamped to Bad Neil and Lesley’s. I have never watched rugby before and will probably never bother again. As Davies confessed to me later in the evening ‘I really don’t get the point of sport’ 😆 It was fairly entertaining watching the other people who do care though. We watched most of both matches and then left before it got too dark to walk home and feed the animals.

I had noticed only 5 turkeys present on the way down and sure enough only 5 came up to roost at bedtime so Ady had a quick look around with a torch to see if he could find the missing one which we were fairly sure was Rudolph but with no luck. He and Scarlett stayed home to get dinner on while Davies and I went back down to see what music practise is all about. Manager Mike is getting musical folk together every Saturday to practise a few songs and Davies had been invited along to learn a bit more guitar. It was bitterly cold in the hall though and Mike is pretty structured in his practising so Davies was a bit out of his depth. All the musical folk have offered one to one time with Davies to teach him though so he is going to take everyone up on it and do the rounds to see who he learns best from. We walked back home again in a brief clear patch (it tipped down about 20 minutes after we got home) and the stars were amazing. Really enjoyed walking down to the village and back and having some one to one time with both Davies and Scarlett yesterday :).

It was a late dinner and we all ended up going to bed at the same time around midnight.

Today I had planned a lie in – I like taking a cup of tea back to bed and reading for an hour or so on a Sunday morning but Ady had gone turkey hunting and the wind turbine was getting so much power it kept overloading and making the regulator beep so I had to get up and sort that out. Rudolph was found safe and well on the wrong side of the river so Ady brought him home.

Ady went down to watch the rugby at Lesley and Bad Neil’s but the kids and I decided to stay home. I got dinner on (ham in coke and roast everything else) and did some baking, wrote out 3 sets of instructions for Herman cake ready to pass on next weekend, listened to music and generally enjoyed being home with Davies and Scarlett. When Ady got home Davies and I played a game my Mum gave him and the other two sort of joined in.

Scarlett has been doing loads of drawing recently and has been making up characters, writing their names and creating stories around them. She is suddenly doing lots of writing and spelling and reading. Sometimes I fret slightly when I hear about what their same age peers are up to but I don’t think I – or they – would change their rather Katie Morag-esque lifestyle for the world!