One word? When seven would do…

I had foiled shower this morning – just as I had put conditioner on my hair and lathered up the rest of my body the water ran out 🙁 There is a vent in the roof of the shower so it is never a nice experience being in there on a windy or rainy day anyway but covered in lather, wet and naked exposed to the elements was far from fun. Ady went up to the burn to investigate and the filter covering the hose had gotten clogged up and come loose. He fixed it, I waited for the tank to fill back up and finished my shower. Brrr.

That took us to Popmaster, after which Ady and I went down to the village to see Gav who had offered to tow the Pajero back to the croft, complete with full load of animal feed which arrived on Saturday. Bonnie was out playing on the croft and Ady and I attempted to sneak past her by crouching down low behind the wall. We both found this hilarious and were snorting with laughter which attracted her attention and had her furiously barking as we made her jump. I almost wet myself laughing, it was so funny! Ady took her back home to the static and we carried on our way.

We had a cup of tea and chat with Gav and Laura before heading to the pier and bringing the car back. We’ve left it at the fork off to the crofts from the main track so that it is a good halfway point between the village and the croft – people could get to the car with their vehicles to drop stuff off for us and we can use it to hold things too. Eventually we will get it all the way down to the croft but for now it is good there.

Back home for lunch and then candle making for Scarlett and I. We had the idea of making layered ‘moods of Rum’ candles similar to my scarves having brainstormed for a while how to make them more Rum-esque and therefore more saleable to tourists. Another excellent idea was midge filled citronella candles which we’ll make when the midges return soon as I need to collect more for my resin stuff too. Scarlett designed four candles – The Sea is Alive (ocean colours), Rum Cuillin Ridge (grass, grey peaks, blue skies), Summer Skies (a series of blues) and Sunset at Kilmory (reds, oranges, yellows). We made them in silicone cake cases and they look fab. We need to get the layers more even next time and think they would be even better if taller and perfectly cylindrical rather than graduated wider at the top but an excellent first attempt and perfectly sale-able 🙂

Davies and I had a big chat about what he wants to do with his life – he is adamant he wants to travel more but didn’t really have much of a plan beyond that so we talked about deciding where he would like to travel, whether he is looking to stay long term in places or just pass through, to save up and travel like on holiday or to work as he goes, or to make traveling his job somehow. We got out the map of the UK and talked about the different counties, different places we’ve been to around the UK, where friends live, memories he has of various holidays, WWOOFing, trips and time spent in different places. It made me realise anew how well traveled the kids are in this country, both in the standard tourist destinations but also in culture and proper geographical knowledge.

Vikki came up for dinner and I had a rant about universities, we realised Vikki has never seen Torchwood so we ordered series 1 on dvd to watch with her one day next week and had a nice evening before she braved the wild weather to head home. It is mad windy out there tonight, reckon the gusts must be 70mph.

Wild weather here today although it started really calm this morning to the extent I thought about doing a load of laundry. Glad I didn’t as it would now be being blown all over the croft getting wet and muddy.

In the end I had an indoors day – I ran all sorts of anti virus stuff on my netbook which is playing up and now seems a little happier and faster. I also created two new logos – one for Croft 3 Produce and one for Made on Croft 3. I did some director stuff (emails and some editing of documents) and did some sock knitting too. I replied to some emails and felt at least a little productive if not very active.

Ady kept bobbing in and out between rain showers, he really struggles with staying indoors all day.

At 5ish Ady and I walked down to the village to collect the post and get a couple of bits from the shop.

Scarlett has had a dicky tummy today so we’ve been boiling water for drinking.

If the weather performs as it is supposed to tomorrow (ie dreadful) I want to do something with the kids.

Erm…. yesterday morning I didn’t get my lie in because it was super windy and the charge controller for the wind turbine caught fire 🙁 It is supposed to have a brake which obviously didn’t kick in so I have emailed the supplier to see if they will replace it but their customer service feedback reports are pretty poor (they are by far the cheapest place to get wind turbines so worth the gamble) – if we have no luck we will replace from somewhere else. We had the spare one from the previously damaged wind turbine which is inferior but works so Ady put that in but it stayed too windy all day to hook the turbine back up to test it so Ady spent the whole day fretting that the turbine might not work anymore. It does – we tested it today.

I did some baking – another weeks supply of Nic-ola (granola), some snickerdoodles and an apple pie.

We’d arranged to collect some paint from Ranger Mike so went to the village with the wagon to do that. Lots of ends of pots, many with just a dribble of paint, which we have brought back to the croft and I will rummage through in nicer weather to see if there is enough to repaint the horse box with, gypsy stylee like the honesty larder fridge. While we were down there I took my laptop to the IRCT office and Steve came to see if he could get it to talk to the printer. We spent over an hour trying but admitted defeat. In the end I emailed the newsletter to everyone for this month. I hate printers.

Davies and Scarlett stayed home and had showers / hair washes. Really noticing the changes in their hair and skin just now as they hit puberty. Not little children any more…

On the way home we bumped into Vikki who was heading up to visit us bearing banana and chocolate muffins to share so she came in to drink tea and eat cake which was lovely. Vikki left, Ady sorted dinner, I emailed newsletters, Davies finished a poster for his postcards, Scarlett got out her candle making supplies and we all had dinner and watched Friends.

Today Ady and I took our veg order down to the village and collected some bits from the freezer. Back home for lunch and then we went back out to do some firewood. The chainsaw is proving incredibly useful and in less than an hour we had filled our wagon and wheelbarrow with full loads – enough to keep us going for at least 4 days. It took almost as long to get it up the hill and stack it all up as it did to chop it up! The next plan is to start chopping, splitting and stacking for next winter, just wish I knew where the right location to site a wood store will be…ah for a crystal ball!

We emailed Gav to tack on our mortar order to a Travis Perkins order he is doing – next step for us on the chicken house is to fill in the trench with small stones. Maybe we’ll start that tomorrow, weather permitting. The fruit cage is looking great with buds on all the fruit trees and loads of the fruit bushes, it is definitely chicken proof 🙂 All four trays of peas have sprouted in the polytunnel and the salad leaves are all sprouting too. Spring is coming!

I’ve been all uncoordinated and clumsy today. I made cock ups at the post office, spilled a load of milk, have my period and maybe a sore throat but maybe not.

I think I’m just tired. I’ve read a couple of haunting books this week – one about concentration camps and another about a ‘sliding doors’ style split life and I’ve been dreaming myself in the stories at night. Last night I got home around 1230am so read for an hour or so but Ady was very snore-y so I didn’t sleep well again and then I had to be up for work this morning, the one morning this week when I struggled to wake and get up.

Scarlett didn’t fancy coming down today so I was on my own. Ady came to meet me having been to the boat, we had a fair bit of post and picked up various stuff from Jinty that we’d ordered including coal, wine, beer, tins of sweetcorn and beans and other bulk purchases, all trundled home in the wagon.

A parcel from Dad came in the post – containing two chainsaw blades and a pair of waterproof trousers. I’ve thought of him several times this week, not least when there was a question on Popmaster I knew he’d know and would be thinking about us and laughing if he’d listened to it. I rang him for a good old chat this afternoon and he told me not to worry about a car, he’d find one and drive it up when they come at Easter. I miss him so much I can’t really think about it too much, it would make me cry 🙁 I’m happy to know he thinks of us too and misses us lots but it doesn’t make it any easier.

Back home for lunch and then a fairly lazy afternoon. Ady bobbed in and out, I made bread and pizza dough, knitted a bit, replied to some emails and thought about posters. Davies made a new poster for his postcards.

I made dinner and we watched a couple of episodes of Friends – new series 4 and 5 arrived in the post today.

I think I need to have an early night, read something cheerier and hopefully get a good nights sleep.

A pretty productive week again with the cob chicken house trench dug and draining really well. Next week we’ll fill it all in with gravel and drainage pipe and then we’ll be ready to start building – first is a metre high stone wall before we start with the actual cob bit.

We’ve done lots of other stuff around the croft too including fixing the fruit cage and netting on raised beds, tidying up a bit and Ady did some chainsawing so we have some more firewood stocked up. I have done various Director-y things but thankfully nothing unpleasant this week.

Yesterday was Abby’s birthday so we went down for beer and cake and singing at the shop for that. It was nice 🙂 Today has been mostly rainy so aside from a brief walk to the village to collect stuff from the freezer I’ve been catching up on emails and stuff like that. I still have various things to do like posters to get ready for the ‘season’ but might try and tick all those off this weekend.

Tonight Vikki has invited me and Lesley round for a glass of wine. Not sure whether it is as simple friendly evening or if she has something on her agenda… will see.

A splendid start to the week 🙂

All the laundry done, the fruit cage door fixed and all the netting removed tidying it up, my raised beds with garlic in all re netted so everything growing is now chicken and turkey proof – yay! Although I did find five chickens in the polytunnel tonight so they may have just moved indoors for their buffet!

We got the whole footprint and runaway ditch trenches dug for the cob chicken house – lots of clay like stuff, some decent large stones useful for building too. Next step is to fill the trenches in with small stones for drainage but as rain is forecast over the next couple of days we’re planning to see how the water runs away (or not) and make any necessary amendments before filling in. Hopefully we get some dry weather at the weekend or early next week to start that.

The kids had been outside loads, Scarlett even paddled in the river – yesterday it was deliberate, today she just accidentally got a wet foot! 🙂 We got a very lovely Hotel Chocolat gift box from a Sussex friend which has been much scoffed and enjoyed, the kids now have waterproof over trousers that fit them.

I still have a HUGE job list but it does feel as though it is slowly getting smaller. Meetings tomorrow.

Have felt most outdoors deprived of late.

I worked this morning at post office – Scarlett came down with me but Davies appeared an hour later with some cash so they bought some sweets and wandered off to play. I had a nice morning chatting to various people and selling stamps.

I found the kids and we went home for lunch.

Ady had got two more loads of washing done so he made lunch while I hung that out and then everyone scattered outside doing different things. Ady stayed near the static to watch the washing machine and moved some pallets around to allow some ground to dry out and preserve some other ground from getting too messed up before the better weather dries it out. The kids and Bonnie headed off adventuring, while I went to the fruit cage and gave it a really good tidy up, collecting some blown around cardboard and plant packaging, snipping off the ripped netting that had been the roof, cutting off the long ends of tie-its used to secure things. I took the door off, repaired it and netted the whole thing before fixing it back on. It needs the netting secured a little more with some string which I’ll do tomorrow but I’m fairly confident it is now chicken proof. Yay 🙂

Next job is to chicken proof the raised beds and plant out the chitted tatties. I also want to do some more sowing in the polytunnel although that could wait for a not such weather day.

Our plan for tomorrow is a trip to the village to collect post once the ferry has been and then the start of the cob chicken house trench, we’re hoping to carry on with that on Wednesday which should pretty much mean the trench is done and we can put down drainage and start gathering stones for the first layer of the foundations / chicken house wall. Tomorrow I’ll re-read that chapter in the book and make a list of the stuff we need.

Ranger Mike was due up to dinner but didn’t arrive – he has a lot going on so I assume either he forgot or something happened (there have been several incidents these last couple of days). I rang my parents and we gave up on Mike and had a later dinner than we’d hoped. Ross and Rachel have just split up in Friends, Scarlett shed a tear or two.

I hate conflict. I find it so draining that I feel physically exhausted by it. This week I have dealt with the lead up to, execution of, and aftermath of a discplinary hearing, been copied in on a really stroppy email about not moving things in the hall and finally today heard two sides (always know there is the third side to every story – ie the truth!) of an incident last night which led to the police being called and an assault reported which will probably mean a visit from the police to the island and will still probably not go away.

Sadly every single one of the above involved Mike the ranger 🙁 He has been such a good friend to us, Davies and Scarlett adore him and Ady and I think the world of him too but he needs to leave now. He is out of his house but clinging to his job which he is not even doing properly any more, just kicking around carrying out what he obviously feels is unfinished business with various people and becoming daily more paranoid, bitter and frankly unhinged. I wish he’d just leave. Just go to where Casey is waiting for him to start their new life together on the mainland and put his time here on Rum into perspective so he can be proud of all he’s achieved, remember the great and good bits and forget all the little niggly things which is all he seems to have left to focus on now.

After I got into bed last night having taken my contact lenses out and everything I remembered I had promised to make cinnamon rolls for breakfast on Sunday, way back on about Tuesday. So I got back up, found a pair of glasses so I could see (I have about 3 pairs, all different prescriptions, all unworn and only kept incase we need to evacuate at night so I can shove a pair of glasses on and see rather than stumble around trying to find lenses) and made the dough.

This morning I read in bed for a while – a Jodi Picoult about the Holocaust which is very haunting and probably has not helped my frame of mind as it’s been my bedtime reading matter all week. Then got up and made the cinnamon rolls. We all had breakfast and then Ady and I loaded up the wagon and headed down to the pier with our recycling. We met Mel and Vikki and then Gav and Laura along the way and learnt that Gav and Mike had had an altercation last night. At the pier we learnt from various other people that the version of events Mike was telling was rather different to what Gav had told us and then we bumped into Mike on the way back from the pier and indeed his version is different. Sigh.

We came home via the shop where some parcels had arrived for us. Back home for some lunch and then I did a load of laundry and Ady and I walked along to Gav & Laura’s to look at the new path Gav has been building.

Ady cooked a lovely roast dinner and we watched a couple of episodes of Friends. We have a good long job list for this week and only a couple of things which will take us away from the croft and down to the village – Wednesday, Friday and Sunday should be all day long up here which will be great, particularly if the forecast weather holds true and we have some sunshine.

Yesterday morning I walked along to Ali’s to prepare for a disciplinary hearing. It went smoothly in the end but was stressy and horrid and one of those things you’d really rather just not be part of. I came home for lunch and in the afternoon Ady and I went and collected some firewood from the woodland at the foot of the croft.

We walked down to the village to get some beers for Ady and some pineapple for pizza and stayed for a beer with the various people at the shop. A nice evening with a toast to the fact it was the 3 year anniversary of arriving at our first WWOOF host Steward Wood which really doesn’t seem like such an extreme existence these days! Who’d have thought those people struggling up a hill three years ago would live at the top of their own hill now?

I worked this morning – it was a quiet shift and the boat was cancelled due to crazy weather. Ady was next door in the hall helping various folk clear up the village hall ready for the season. I joined them for an hour after work before we headed off home for lunch. The kids had downloaded a new game app on their tablets last night which has been consuming them most of the day.

It rained all afternoon so I finished off the newsletter, Scarlett had a shower and I brushed her hair, the kids played with the Lego between tablet time and we had dinner and watched a few episodes of Friends.

Tomorrow I am looking forward to no alarm clocks and no need to be anywhere at any time with anyone.

Work for me this morning and it was the most frantic post office shift I’ve ever done. There were special deliveries, postage to all over the place, people buying in the shop, folk coming for cups of tea and chats and a million things inbetween. Ady met me and we took our veg home with us.

Home in time for lunch and to watch Outnumbered and hang out with the kids for a bit before heading back down to the village for spinning. I have not yet got the knack so it was a slightly unsatisfactory hour or so trying but the company was good.

From there on to the hall for the monthly residents meeting which this month had some fairly thorny issues to be covered. There was a really good turn out of residents – with well over half the on island at the moment residents coming along. We thrashed lots of things out but it was a very long meeting in a very cold hall. We finally got home after 8pm.

So a very late dinner – the kids had been stars and kept the fire going and put the genny on and got everything charging up. We watched several episodes of Friends. So far being a director again has been very time consuming and tomorrow I am sitting in on a disciplinary hearing – next week I have another meeting and it is a long way from the one or two meetings a month and a few emails I promised the kids. But we have an EGM at the beginning of April to elect two more directors and once we have our current round of recruitment sorted things should calm down. I hope.

Up early (for me) for me this morning and away down to the village for interviewing. We saw the three candidates and as we’d hoped by the end of the morning we had a clear and unanimous decision on the successful one. All three were very strong and gave good interviews but one just stood out above the rest and Lesley, Ali and I all agreed he was the best choice. We’ll let them know tomorrow and fingers crossed he accepts the job and will be in post mid-April.

We retired to Ali’s for a final chat on the candidates and to drink tea as Eve is off school ill so Ali needed to get back home. That done I came home for a very late lunch. I sent a couple of quick follow up emails and then dashed down to the fruit cage to finally plant the pear and plum trees so I can fully tick that off this weeks list. I started looking at the netting on the raised beds too but it was very cold and nearly 5pm so I just took off the damaged netting and will look at that again tomorrow (if there are any breaks between the forecast heavy rain).

Ady and I walked down to the shop to get some eggs – that feels pretty crap given how many chickens, ducks and geese we are feeding! We fed the animals on the way home and met Davies and Scarlett out on the croft with the goose who has been ailing for a few days. Scarlett had picked her up (as she has done most days, she is pretty tame) and we looked her over again to see if we could work out what the matter was before coming in for a cup of tea. As we looked out of the window we saw her flapping wildly so Ady went out to check on her and as he picked her up she went limp and died 🙁 Very sad and very strange.

The kids are pretty upset, she was one of our original pair of geese and ironically the only one laying eggs just now. We will probably cut her open tomorrow and see if we can ascertain what happened, whether she was eggbound, ate something or had internal injuries that we didn’t spot from the outside. Geese can live for over 30 years so she was very young to die naturally and given the low risk of poison or disease here it is a little concerning and we’d like to try and work out what happened.

This evening Mel and Vikki came up for pancakes. Ady cooked an endless supply until everyone declared themselves ‘out’ and full. We had a nice evening with them, plenty of laughs and setting the world to rights.

I’ll be glad when we have this Development Officer role filled, it’s been two evening meetings, an afternoon and tomorrow will be a whole morning away from the croft so far. Which rather makes a mockery of my promising Ady and the kids being a director again will be less onerous this time…. hmmm.

This morning we finished the fruit cage and I planted the cherry trees in. The top of the cage is still very wet so Ady spent some time this afternoon putting some ditches in to help drain it, we’ll hopefully plant the plums and pears out tomorrow afternoon. We need to think about netting for the top to stop birds getting in once there is actually fruit on stuff but for now at least the bushes and trees are safe from the deer and our own birds who won’t fly into the cages and scratch around.

We had lunch and I headed off to meet the boat and our interview candidates. One woman, two men. One of the men used to live here (before our time but only just) and is very keen to move back with his partner (also lived here, they met here and moved away but now want to return). Lesley and I met them off the boat and walked them round to the village hall stopping along the way to point out various landmarks. We were with them for a good hour or so and then left them to do some exploring before they had their dinner at Fliss’. We went up to Ali’s who was stranded home with poorly Eve off school so couldn’t join us but will be interviewing with us tomorrow for a quick debrief and final chat about the interviews as Ali is very nervous about them having never interviewed anyone before.

We left there and I popped to the shop to hand my veg order in, then to the freezer to collect some bits and then bumped into one of the candidates so stopped for a chat which went on for nearly an hour. Nice guy, I am glad I bumped into him as he was able to ask some questions which will hopefully relax him pre-interview and allow him to do his best. I finally got home about 630pm.

I like talking to people about Rum, about the potential for the community, the amazing things we do here and the even more amazing stuff we could do in the future. I’m looking forward to the interviews tomorrow and hope we find a really strong candidate to be the paid person taking some of the stuff forward that needs to happen but those of us living here lack the time, skills or capcacity to manage ourselves. Just need to keep that balance tipped in the right direction.

A nice long lie in bed this morning reading restored me no end 🙂

Ady cooked everyone bacon sandwiches for late breakfast / early lunch. Having called a chip sandwich a ‘butty’ on the ferry on Monday the kids are very taken with the word and are now using it in place of sandwich at every opportunity :). It’s by no means a new word to them but I do remember being delighted with new words as a child myself and using them whenever possible.

I burnt some rubbish and then we set about putting the new fruit cage extension up. I planted out the two new blueberries we got and we put up four and a half of the six panels before it started to rain and we called it teabreak time and ran for cover. Except it never stopped raining really. Well it did but not for a good hour or so by which time we had got dinner on and were watching dvds with the kids so we called time on it for today and will finish off tomorrow. It should only take half an hour to complete.

Dinner was roast pork (our own pig) and delicious.

Scarlett has taken off with writing, thanks to a DS game – Scribblenauts which has you working through riddles and dilemmas by giving characters props or making them do things. She has made a notebook filled with all the word she uses lots and her spelling is really very good. She is way better at working out the sounds and therefore the letters than Davies ever was – she is also streaking through very fast and suddenly reading stuff too. Keep the faith took the odd battering here and there and it’s not over yet but it all looks like it’ll come good…

I finished the second sock. It’s a little shorter in the foot than the first due to miscalculating when to start reducing but has sufficient stretch to still fit just fine. They are very cosy. I’ve started another using a different pattern but need to work out some of the stitches still. We got Boppit back from Mike yesterday so Davies and I have been playing that too – he now holds the all time Goddard high score 160, and we have been playing a fair few rounds of one on one with it too. After we kept annoying Ady and Scarlett by shushing them Davies plugged headphones in which takes it to a whole new immersion level 🙂

At 630pm I walked down to Ali’s for a meeting with her and Lesley about the Development Officer interviews and caught up a little more on stuff in the two months while I wasn’t a director. We have three candidates coming tomorrow overnight and we’re interviewing them all on Tuesday morning but will meet them from the boat tomorrow and show them round the village a bit. I’m also planning on meeting with Mel to talk about some business ideas for Croft 3 in the castle hostel this season. I got all the way down there without a torch – longer daylight days are coming!

Back at home the kids had only just gone to bed so I said goodnight to them before a quick catch up online. Hoping for an equally efficient week next week but suspect the various meetings and interviews may interfere with that.

Everyone is really tired today, don’t really know why but we’ve all been yawning loads.

Scarlett and I headed to the village first this morning and opened the shop with Ady and Davies (and Bonnie) following not far behind. Scarlett abandoned me and the shop in favour of Davies but I had various visitors to keep me company so that was fine.

Everyone congregated back to the shop at midday so we all went home together for lunch.

Our initial plan for this afternoon was fruit cage construction but it was a really showery afternoon and not at all nice for being our working in so we decided not to after all. The kids stayed in playing and Ady and I headed down to see Ranger and check for any post.

Back at home I made dinner and helped Scarlett with spelling for her Scribblenauts game while Davies and Ady did some of Davies’ books. Dinner and Series 2 of Friends – we finished the last ever Will & Grace last night.

Tomorrow is Fruit Cage day and I have interview meetings in the evening.

In a bid to let the weeks stop slipping away from us quite so fast we’ve drawn up a Masterplan and divided this years hopes into small chunks. It all feels a bit structured and to-do listy but does mean we are less likely to fritter time and get to feel all smug and productive and efficient. Having taken the director role back on I am determined to better manage my time so that I get to still do all the things I love and do them well and know when I have taken on things I can’t do anymore and find the way to drop them.

So we divided up things to do this week ensuring we are doing something for animals, crops, business and infrastructure every week and broke down morning / afternoon size things and slotted them into the week, all weather permitting. Yesterday was cockerel cull in the morning and ‘help Mike’ in the afternoon. So Ady and I spent the morning killing cocks and then plucking, gutting and oven readying them. We returned to the static at lunchtime covered in mud, blood and feathers but with six birds – two for dinner last night and six for the freezer. All pretty lean and on the small side but that’s free range birds for you! The balance looks so much better down there now with the hens all visibly relaxed and enjoying the lack of male attention. There is at least one more to get but they are all a little cagey around us so we’ll leave it a week or so before doing it.

We had lunch and then Ady and I went down to the village to see Mike. He was not actually needing any help after all so we came home but there was a load of amazon deliveries for us outside the shop so it was good we had been down and collected those. We fed the animals and came in for showers and to cook dinner.

At bedtime for the kids 1030ish we realised the northern lights were doing stuff so headed out in coats adn wellies over pjs to watch for a while. It was definitely the aurora with a greenish tint to the sky and dancing lights but none of the spectacular colour displays that folk further south seem to have had. Still very chuffed to have seen it :). The others all went to bed but I stayed up til nearly 130am watching and was rewarded with some more greener lights later.

Today on the list was dealing with the compost loo in the morning for Ady (it needs turning periodically and them emptying of the composted material, he does it every 4 months or so) and some chitting of seed pototoes and sowing of seeds for me. The kids and I set up the Potato Council tatties of which we managed to get FOUR this year – our usual two and then one which I’d ordered for the school when I worked there and Derek had just delivered to me instead of the school and a fourth one which came with Ady’s name on it. Hurrah for many tatties! They are now all set up. I sat with my seeds and my River Cottage fruit, herbs and veg books and worked out what could be sown in the polytunnel now and then went down to do so. I cleaned up the last of the evidence of yesterdays chicken cull (we plucked them in the polytunnel as it was quite windy) and then sowed about 12 seed trays of various seeds, must now remember to water every day in there.

Back for lunch and then Ady and I took our wagon and walked down to the pier (2 miles) to collect the fence posts we have on our car rood ready to make our fruit cage extension for the fruit trees we bought earlier this week. Ady was convinced we’d not be able to use the wagon but I was sure we would and so persuaded him we should try. It was a slow walk back with 10 posts loaded on and tied up but with Ady pulling and me steadying and sometimes pushing we did it. We got them to the fork where the road becomes really stoney and so carried them on shoulders from there over two trips – Ady did four on the first trip and two on the second, I did two on both trips. They are now all on the croft ready to start the fruit cage tomorrow afternoon if the weather is kind.

Ady and the kids then went down to have a drink with Mike and do a bit more helping him move stuff. I elected to stay home, catch up on some emails, get dinner going and enjoy an empty house.

Tomorrow is work for me in the morning, where did that week go?