One word? When seven would do…

Hmmm, got to Tuesday I think.

Lost track of days a bit this week but it has mostly been raining. It is still really cold and windy and there has not been a single day where it has not rained at least once every hour even if just a brief shower. There has been hail pretty much every day and one morning Ady said it briefly snowed first thing. Sigh. If this had been our first year here I honestly think we would have jacked it all in.

Quite a lot of soul searching this week as a result. We lost some more birds – of the four goslings outside two suddenly stopped being able to stand up. We brought them in and have got them both back to fine again but decided to let the other two go with the pack of geese as there was something deficient in their diet in keeping them penned. The first night and day that worked fine and the mother goose settled back in with the other five (we still have one broody goose on a nest) with all six protecting the goslings. The second night we lost one and the remaining one then could not walk so Ady brought that in. That one is still convalescing indoors while the other two are now back to full health and spending their days out with the pack and their night times in the horse box where they are safe. The indoor and outdoor ducklings are doing ok just now. We had a chick (bantam) hatch but it got taken. We have tried so hard this year with penning the broody birds and hatchlings but that has not worked either – some managed to escape, some have been gotten by crows as they are still sitting targets despite best efforts at pens and rats can get into even the best pens as they dig under. The ones we have kept safe from predators have all fallen foul of some sort of diet issue due to being kept on soiled grass and not having access to all they need outside. We’re away in just over 2 weeks and will need to work out how to deal with them all while we’re not here too… It’s incredibly disheartening.

We have all been talking about more time in the caravan and are accepting of another winter I think – lots of planning how to best make that work but no one wants to leave so we’re going to do our best to make that happen and start focussing on what we do love to do here with the cob build happening in the background rather than being our sole focus. Probably need to write more on that really but it’s cold and I need to get to bed so won’t be tonight.

I had two days of a weird buzzing noise in my ears and pressure in my head. It felt like being on a plane and my ears needing to pop. Extensive googling and my own diagnosis suggests it was probably stress related somehow. It left when I had a good evening out celebrating Fliss’ birthday last night and has not returned today, so fingers crossed it was indeed stress related.

Vikki has been back for the weekend for a visit. Nice to see her but she is never cheery company. We need some sunshine!

Ooops.

Monday – I was working Post Office in the morning. In the afternoon Steve came up for a cup of tea and chat.

Tuesday – Ali and I did Steve’s review in the morning at her house. That went well, can’t recall the afternoon.

Wednesday – we cut it fine heading to the pier to meet Kirsty and James and then the car wouldn’t start. Ady doubled back to get the Rangerover while the kids and I dashed along flagging down Fliss along the way for a lift to the boat. It was a chaotic busy boat with various people coming off including The Barts so I got hijacked by various people before managing to say hello to them. We shoved their stuff in Bad Neil’s car and started to walk back towards the village meeting Ady along the way in the Rangerover. The kids had already set off walking. They dropped me in the village as I had a board meeting and they headed up to the croft.

The meeting was fine, lots to get through but all done and then I walked back up to the croft. We went to the shop for a beer or two that evening which was nice.

Thursday -Sheerwater boat trip. The weather was pretty pants but we went anyway. Poor Scarlett was seasick but I think the rest of us mostly enjoyed the rollercoaster-esqueness of it, despite not seeing anything of interest really. A late evening seeing in James’ birthday.

Friday – James’ 40th 🙂 We listened to Popmaster and then packed up the Jeep with all 8 of us, Bonnie and a rucksack and headed over to Harris. The poor car was very overloaded but managed it. Thanks to the rain the previous day our usual route of leaping across the river at a lowish point just before it hits the beach was not possible (first time we’ve ever not been able to cross there) so we followed it back inland to the bridge to cross there. Everyone gathered driftwood for the fire and we cooked sausages and marshmallows over it, toasted James with a beer and enjoyed the fact it was not raining even if it was not exactly sunny either.  I popped to the shop in the evening, Ady cooked a lovely curry. There was cake and singing and a quiz which the kids won.

Saturday – Ady and I worked in the morning. I managed to lock myself out of the post office system by putting in the wrong password 3 times so it was more of a coffee shop than a post office 😉 Jinty came along and reset it for me in the end and Ady had finished early so had also come along for a coffee – all very sociable 🙂 Back home for lunch of leftover pizza, curry and beans on toast depending on who had what leftover from previous dinners. It continued to rain all afternoon meaning we stayed inside before heading down to the boat early evening. Davies and Scarlett had already gotten wet once that day so they stayed behind at home to keep dry and manage the wind turbine. A fairly early night for all of us – a much later on for The Barts who drove all the way home.

Sunday – Ady and I had arranged to see Fliss for a cup of tea and Ian to look at some drainage pipe so we decided to do that and headed down to the village. We met Sean’s Mum and Eve so walked with them for a while, then Bad Neil off to feed the sheep so we went with him and leant on the croft gate looking at his flock and chatting about sheep, lambing and crofting, then went to see Ian and looked at his shed and drainage before going round to Fliss’ for a cup of tea and chat. All very sociable 🙂 Home for a late lunch and then Ady made roast dinner and I made apple pie.

Monday – Ady and I were working at the hostel in the morning – when we got home the kids had just got out of bed – a mad weekend finally caught up with them! I had some emails to reply to, Ady made a duck hut for the captured duck with ducklings. I went down to the shop for a few bits and to catch up with Bad Neil and Lesley about venison stuff. Back home I rang my parents for an overdue catch up chat.

Tuesday – Scarlett and I made cookies, after Popmaster I went outside with Ady and we chatted about various things, measured the drainage pipe area on the cob project, took the old eggs out of the duck pen and generally debated life, the universe and everything. In for lunch and then he went back out to strim the pig fence line and measure up for wire for training the raspberries and currants. Davies skyped with friends and made an animation on his tablet, I sent some photos across to Kate the TV producer for our back story and then Scarlett and I did a load of batch cooking with 3kg of venison mince. Under my guidance Scarlett made one portion of shepherds pie base, two batches of bolognaise with chorizo, a cheese sauce and then two massive lasagnes – one for tonight and one to freeze. She made garlic bread and dough for  a loaf and made meat balls for Davies. It was excellent to spend time with her, I’ve felt very Davies and Scarlett deficient of late somehow.

Wednesday – Ady’s birthday. 51. We realised it was 22 years ago that he passed his driving test (on his 29th birthday), somehow that made him feel older than being 51 did! We packed up a bag after Popmaster and headed off to Harris beach. We gathered loads of driftwood and Davies laid and lit a fire while Scarlett beachcombed for treasure. She collected quite a heap of stuff.

We cooked onions and sausages over the fire and put them in home made rolls to make a lovely lunch. Ady and I had beer / alcoholic ginger beer and the kids had coke. I had meant to bring some marshmallows but forgot, we always seem to forget at least one item for Ady’s birthday trip, last year it was the sausages! It had started as a lovely sunny day but had gotten overcast as we drove across Rum but after we’d eaten the sun came back out again and it was a gorgeous afternoon, I even caught the sun a bit. We had a really interesting conversation  about childhood, what Ady and I remember from being kids and how life is very different now. We packed up and tidied up a bit and then walked further across the rocks to the river which joins the sea further along the beach. We sat on some rocks and the kids were playing chicken with the waves before realising the tide was coming in really rather quickly. Scarlett got scared and actually screamed and yelled she was scared. Not sure I’ve ever heard her do either of those things before! Ady rescued her. We walked back, dragging our various treasures to take home with us and then realised there was a really good rock to sit and play chicken on with less risk of getting washed into the sea but increased chance of getting wet. The kids were well up for that so Bonnie and sat away from the spray while the kids sat right on top of it and Ady sat midway getting photos. It was all very lovely.

Back at the car we sawed up a very long piece of black pipe which we have had our eye on for well over  a year but never quite worked out how to get home. It must have been 100 foot long. We cut it into six pieces, each about the length of the car and then strapped them onto the roof rack. We also had various fish boxes and lots of random tat like buoys. We drove home and saw highland cows, goats, Rum ponies, loads of deer. Back for a cup of tea and making a venison pie for dinner later – Rum venison, home made pastry, Ady’s favourite dinner. Then down to the shop – I’d sent an email around the night before and pretty much the whole island came out to sing Happy Birthday and eat cake 🙂 I love Rum most of all on birthdays I think. Davies and Scarlett left slightly before Ady and I and came home to let Bonnie out and put the genny on. A late dinner despite all the pre-shop prepping.

Thursday – further compost loo debating, the design is far from finalised and is taking rather more dealing with than we’d hoped. While we were outside debating modifications Doug arrived brandishing some firearms forms he wanted me to be a referee for as director of the trust. He stopped for a cup of tea and chat while I filled the relevant sections out and it was very nice sitting in the sunshine chatting to him, one of our newest Rum residents. When he left we realised it was already midday so there was some dashing around packing up a picnic to take away on the Sheerwater and then driving down to the pier. There was only us, Trudi the Ranger and Gav – a very regular visitor to Rum for the last 10 years so someone we have known for all our time here – on the the trip. It was a stunning day for it, the sea was like glass and visibility was amazing – we could see South Uist, Outer Hebrides in one direction and the snow capped peak of Ben Nevis in the other, probably the best part of 100 miles.

We saw a dolphin, which Scarlett was convinced was a bottlenose in contrast to the common short beaked which we usually spot around here, several porpoise, a fair few seabirds and everyone but me saw the first minke whale of the season – I managed to miss it despite it surfacing about 3 times. It was lovely to be out though despite not seeing the whale.

Back at home Ady did yet more loo stuff while I fed the animals and got dinner in hand.

Friday morning we were both working – me at Post Office and Ady and the hostel. After my shift I walked along and joined Ady for an hour and a half of hostel work too (although he had pretty much done everything so mostly we sat and drank tea and chatted). He whizzed along to collect Davies and Scarlett as it was pissing with rain and they were on their way down to meet us for Norman’s memorial. A crowd of us gathered in the Bluebell Woods to say a few words and scatter his ashes. It was a strange occasion which felt right to be part of but odd to attend at all. Derek had a picture of Norman in his younger days and various people said a few words. Some of us went back to Dave & Sylvia’s for a cup of tea afterwards. We didn’t stop long but came home.

Saturday – work for me again in the morning, Ady went down to collect Mairi from the boat as she was here on a flying visit. I met them coming back up and we all went down for a cup of tea in the hall before I went to do Post Office. Ady came home and Mairi came with me to sit, drink tea and chat to everyone coming in to post office for the morning. It was sociable as usual. We left and walked home for some lunch. Sean the Rat’s Dad (also confusingly called Sean) is here visiting and Sean and Sean came up for a cup of tea and tour of the croft. After that Mairi had a power nap and then Scarlett and I took her out to help feed all the croft animals and show her the little piglets, ducklings and goslings. Then Mairi cooked dinner, Ady had a shower and the fizz got opened (way, way too early…. We all ate and then the kids stayed here while Ady, Mairi and I went down for the anniversary ceilidh.

It was a good night, I had had far too much to drink, which combined with PMT made me a bit ranty but fortunately everyone else had also had too much to drink so noone is likely to recall anyway… Lots of dancing – me mostly with Sean the Rat and Steve the Man which was fab as Ady won’t dance so I was thrilled to have partners. We’d said we’d be home by midnight but Davies and I were emailing each other (he had lots of hashtags in his replies) and he said we needn’t hurry home so I think it was about 1ish when we left. It was a tough walk back, windy, cold, all of us rather compromised by drink stumbling around but we made it. Ady made tea and toast for everyone – kids included – and we were all in bed by 2am I think.

Today – an earlier start than I would have chosen to be honest and I have been slightly on the delicate side all day long. We took Mairi down to the pier, via the Bluebell woods so she could pay her respects to Norman. I also laid a stone I had picked up from Harris beach but not brought down on Friday on the pile, then along to the ferry. It was a busy gathering as the band were all heading off so much banter before heading back for home. We came via the freezer and collected some venison steaks for dinner. It has been really cold and quite showery all day so I brought my hangover indoors and did various online adminny things all afternoon while Ady did various outside things. The kids had a pj day. Dinner was lovely and after such a late night everyone is in bed super early tonight with me about to follow suit.

The weather has been shockingly bad again. Sunday was dreadful, almost 24 hours of non stop rain. We had a lovely roast dinner, assumed Tom would not attempt to walk back in the rain, not least because after such rainfall the river are in spate and utterly unsafe to cross so your previous route may no longer exist.

Ady went out to feed the animals and the sun briefly came out and the rain stopped, I had a message from Jed to say Tom had returned after all, having fallen and hurt his ankle but was ok and would be staying in the village that night. Later I had multiple phonecalls and messages from Claire to more or less say the same thing but with added drama :rolls:  It turns out he had indeed tried to cross a river, fallen in, been carried along for a short way before shedding his rucksack and managing to scramble out. He lost his rucksack (clothes, wallet (who takes their wallet walking in the hills?!), sleeping bag, stove), hurt his knee, ankle, banged his head and cut above his eye. Folk in the village are taking pity on him, we are a little irritated as his vagueness to be honest. We caught up with him the following day and I bought him a beer, checked whether he needed food, clothes, anything else and arranged to see him when he is feeling up to coming back up.

Monday was meetingtastic for me = directors meeting and then a meeting with Ali and Trudi the ranger to talk about the fact she has failed to win more funding to continue her post so frankly should be on the next ferry off Rum! She is good at her rangering part of the job but when we took her on nearly a year ago we made it clear that part of the post was getting further funding and she was just really slack about making that happen, assumed she would get continued funding from a previous funder, faffed with the grant application and then had it turned down. So serious chat time as really she should be out of a job. We want to carry on with the ranger programme for the season as we have advertised it but she needs to appreciate that she has to justify her wages every single month as the trust is now paying and we can’t really afford to do so. So firm words and some straight talking which Ali was really not happy to do alone.

Back home, via seeing Bad Neil for a chat, helped Ady fix the fencing around the duck as it was blowing all over the place and then back down for a beer and to collect veg. I’d done some mending clothes in the morning too. I like doing that, it makes me feel very survival-y. Not enough to want to do kentwell or anything though… 😉

Today it has continued to rain mostly. It was very windy so plenty of scope for power, I did loads of baking – bread, rolls, cookies, four layers of birthday cake, jelly for the base layer of a trifle, granola. Ady did some maintenance on the flushing loo which has various teething problems – deeply unpleasant and another reason why I love him so much – I could not do that!

Can’t recall what happened on which day but I know there have been ducklings – in the caravan, out on the croft. We remain at two indoors and five outside. The five outside have had adventures already – they all broke out with their mama and went down the croft but we were worried about them being too vulnerable so herded them all back in and reinforced the pen. Two still got out again yesterday so further reinforcing in order. They appear to be thriving though, Crispy is doing well as ducks are often pretty crappy mothers. The two inside also doing well, utterly imprinted on Scarlett to the degree that they were sat on her lap last night pecking at her tablet screen with their beaks as they clearly watched her and thought that they should join in with poking at it 🙂

Broody goose has five goslings, assume no more will hatch in there but they are all doing well with no escapees. There is definitely one more broody goose which is being joined fairly regularly on the nest by another goose. Not sure how many eggs they are on but will keep watching and construct a pen around them once they appear to be close to hatching – they get really hissy and feisty when they are due to hatch so easy to tell.

We spent some time outside in the fruit cage trimming down all the grass growth, planting out some peas, earthing up around the potatoes and planting out the two fruit trees that the film crew bought up for us. Everything in there is doing well – loads of leaves on the bushes and trees, the start of currants on the black, red and white currant bushes, loads of leaves on the raspberries and gooseberries, buds and leaves on all the fruit trees and lots of blossom on the cherry trees. I love the fruit cage, it makes me really proud 🙂 The seeds planted under plastic in the walled garden are all fine, hopefully will see germinated seedlings peeping through in the next couple of weeks. Need to do some weeding in there and organise netting over the beds, also repair the fence where it got trashed by winds and deer.

A lovely Sheerwater boat trip on Thursday – it was just us, Trudi and our two WWOOFers plus a guy with a HUGE camera and lenses who had paid for the trip and so Ronnie the skipper was chasing anything and everything. We saw a sea eagle mobbing some gannets, flocks of kittiwakes swooping about, a great skua and a flock of pomeranian skuas – excellent birdwatching day but far too choppy so see any cetaceans. An orca had been spotted the previous day off Skye and dolphins were seen from the Sheerwater yesterday though so they are all about – maybe next week.

Lots of digging on the cob plot – Tom the current WWOOFer is a real grafter and Ivan From France has started coming back up a few times too to work for his lunch. He is due to head off tomorrow though but has been a very entertaining WWOOFer and has made me rethink my previous stance on putting off potential volunteers who don’t seem to have a good grasp of English as I was worried they would not fully understand what we were asking of them here. We have had a couple of very amusing emails from other French WWOOFers just today and are looking forward to more Ivan From France type folk here joining in 🙂

Sunday – breakfast with Big Dave and Faye over at the cabin and then we headed down to the village for a workshop. It was using a mechanical theatre and started off really well but a rather woolly collaborative story telling session followed by an even woollier joint art creation left the whole thing a little flat. I was very candid on the feedback form! It did lead to interesting conversations about collaborating, working together, sharing ideas, compromising and knowing stuff about yourself afterwards though.

Back at home BD and Faye came up for dinner – roast gammon cooked by Ady followed by cheesecake made by me. A really lovely evening with lots of laughter and fun.

Monday – A very productive morning with Tom (WWOOFer) digging on the houseplot. After lunch BD and Faye came over to say goodbye and then they headed off to the boat. Davies and Scarlett went down to the village to patronise the Star Wars themed teashop while Ady, Tom and I did another hour or so digging. Feel like we made a good dent in that.

Tuesday – Ivan appeared to help so I didn’t do digging and left Ady, Tom and Ivan to it, they were super productive and got loads done. I went through my seed box which had been left out in the rain last week. The TV crew had planned to film me planting stuff and then I had done digging instead and the box had gotten left out in the rain. It’s not waterproof so lots of the seed packets had got sodden. Most are rescuable I think but the few that were not and the seeds had gotten wet needed to be sown so I spent the morning in the walled garden sowing parsnips, leeks, carrots and salad directly into some raised beds and then covered them with plastic from the polytunnel. I also sowed in some seed trays and covered those. Not really according to any planting plan or ideal but better than just throwing the spoilt seeds away. More to do on that tomorrow as all the peas had got wet so may as well be sown but I’d like to do those in the fruit cage I think and create a pea archway in there so need to plan a little bit more.

Lunch was cheese and onion pies I had made last night with some pre made pastry the crew left me last week and needed using up. Served with leftover dinner from last night (Fish cakes and mash potatoes) made into patties and shallow fried – a good WWOOFers lunch!

Cripsy Duck had hatched more ducklings. Two dead – one just found dead, one dead in it’s shell, and another drowned in the water 🙁 We’ve tipped that out so it won’t happen again, hadn’t even though of it as a risk for ducklings and had worried more about ensuring Cripsy had water. Two more were looking iffy so we brought them in for the kids to raise, not sure if they will cope with the temperature of the caravan at night without a head lamp or a warm mummy duck but they have each other so they might. Better odds than outside anyway. That leaves her with five fluffed up ducklings and another few potential eggs to hatch. The first broody goose has started hatching goslings too, Ady reckoned he could see at least 3 tonight. Yay! Now the battle to keep them alive against the weather, rats, crows and hoodies commences.

I walked down to the village for a cup of tea with Fliss and then a beer at the shop. It rained and rained but I borrowed Ady’s posh SNH waterproofs which were excellent.

What a novelty!

Work for me and Ady this morning – hostel for him, post office for me. Still not the same without Norman. 🙁

My morning was fairly tame, a few customers ranging from Ross, Bad Neil, Trudi, Claire, Fliss, Mel, Chainsaw Dave and some regular tourists who it’s always nice to see back again. Chatted to them a bit about Norman and the winter just past. I was very proud of myself working out how to fix the printer. Then I walked around to meet Ady. He had finished work so was biding time til 1pm so we sat in the comfy chairs in the hostel chatting. Collected bits from the freezer for dinner today and tomorrow and then headed home. We waved to Big Dave and Faye on the way, walked past Fliss and her girls having a picnic and then had lunch with Davies and Scarlett. We watched the last Masterchef and then Ady and I went down to measure the polytunnel for plastic and start digging. Some discussion about working out how to deal with the slope on the houseplot finally resolved and we set to digging. We probably did an hour before Dave & Faye arrived.

The plan is for them to come and help dig tomorrow and our volunteer arrived on the late boat tonight so there could be five of us working on that for at least part of tomorrow.

We went to look at the Rangerover which was leaking petrol and Dave was able to fix it. That took us to 5pm so I walked down to the shop with BD and Faye for a beer, while Ady took Bonnie home and fed the birds, then followed us down in the car as we had to meet the late boat to collect Tom the WWOOFer and send empty jerry cans of petrol off. A nice couple of hours at the shop before coming home to cook dinner. Tom seems nice (based on a five minute chat) so we packed him off to pitch his tent and find his bearings and arranged to see him in the morning. I am desperate for a lie in!

How did our lives get so mad?

Monday – The crew were up with us filming in the morning and then they broke for lunch and said they’d be back with Ben. He was arriving on charter boat from Skye. They came back up at about 430pm with him and he came in to introduce himself and say hello. We then filmed the ‘pretend hello’. We did all the indoor filming with him that afternoon / evening which included watching QVC footage of Ady and them comparing presenter notes, me cooking venison sausages for dinner for us all and that being filmed. So, so strange! They all cleared off around 930pm and the four of us sat here in shock!

Tuesday – the fullest day of filming so far. They arrived at 730am and it was non stop in the way that all the filming has been in that there has been mostly lots of standing around. One their first day one of the crew said to us that the saying which sums up his career in TV so far has been ‘hurry up and wait’ and I totally know what he means now. Having been up so early I had made good use of the time and made cookies which went down *very* well with the crew. Having been caught out the day before I also made pizza dough as a precaution for later.

We got all of the filming with Ben done pretty much – kids showing him the piglets, him teaching them knots and talking about Home Ed, Ben and I at the polytunnel, the pizza oven, us all digging, Ady and Ben at the wind turbine, killing a cockerel. I cooked the cockerel which no one ate but was filmed coming out of the oven – several times!

Later Ben and I were filmed delivering eggs to the shop and then it was the ceilidh. The Rum Band – manager Mike, Jed and Sean the Rat were playing, the crew had put several slabs of beer behind the bar and the visiting student group had been invited along to dance and meet Ben Fogle. Easily the most surreal evening of life here so far. Loads of filming of Ady and I chatting with Ben, then me introducing the band and then finally me ceilidh dancing with Ben. They all left around 830pm with Ben due to sleep in Ivan the WWOOFers tent. I stopped him to say I would be feeding Davies and Scarlett so he was welcome to come across to the caravan for dinner with us. He said he would but I didn’t really believe him. D&S went up and Ady and I followed, rather later than planned. And there was Ben in the caravan, with Davies and Scarlett chatting about music! I got pizza sorted, Ady and Ben drank whisky, it was one of the most random nights ever.

Wednesday – a real schedule – Ady and Ben filmed bringing up animal feed in a wheelbarrow, walked some of the path the static took, Ben and I were filmed talking more about Home Ed and The Future. I made some more cookies.  And the suddenly that was it, all was filmed and everyone was saying goodbye. I got Ben to sign our WWOOFers / volunteers book as he had been digging the house plot with us. We got all the crew to sign the calender across the days they were here and we all had lots of hugs and kisses. They were all very heartfelt in their goodbyes, telling us that we have made them think and reevaluate their lives. We exchanged contact details with several of them and actually have missed them since.

Thursday – oh to wake with no prospect of filming! And to a beautiful sunny day and the first Sheerwater boat trip of the season. We saw porpoises, gannets and shearwaters and it was just blissful. I developed a headache while we were out there and intended coming home to bed but felt a bit better once we got home, also Scarlett was worried about me so I didnt want to just disappear to bed. Ady was doing some flushing compost loo maintenance, Scarlett and I sexed the piglets (def 4 girls and 1 boy, still not sure about the 6th one) and then I got dinner started. Ady took over and I went to ring my Dad.

Today – Ady and I both worked this morning at the hostel so were up and out and on it by 9am. A good and productive morning after which we headed to the pier to meet Big Dave and Faye who were coming off the boat. They had bikes so we followed them back up and they came across for a cup of tea and catch up. The kids headed down to the village, Ady and I finished the duck pen around the broody duck, fed the pigs and then headed down for a beer. We stayed for a couple before coming home where on checking the duck I managed to walk into a protruding  bit of wood and am developing what may be my very first black eye.

Work again in the morning and I just got a facebook message to say the volunteer I was unsure about the details of is in Mallaig and coming on the morning boat. Ah well, craziness continues…