One word? When seven would do…

Not the Marti Pellow variety.

Friday morning I was Mrs Post Office. I got about halfway down to the village and it utterly poured down with rain. It was torrential, I would probably not have gotten so wet so quickly if I’d been standing in the shower! I debated running, turning back, heading for the trees and in the end just laughed and walked in it. By the time I reached the shop I was sodden right through. It was warm in the shop though and I had just about dried out by midday when it was time to head back up the hill. About half way home the exact same thing happened and I got drenched again! At least this time I could get changed. I was still not feeling brilliant so other than make pizza dough and then pizzas for dinner I mostly sat on the sofa and crocheted.

Davies and Scarlett headed down to check for post and came back with a fair bit. Doctor Who and a pretty early night all round.

Saturday morning I was Mrs Post Office again, this time Ady had been at the castle for the morning tour (no takers) and came around to chat with me while I cashed up. Various people were in and out including a load of friends of Steve Dev Officer who was over with a huge group of friends, and had invited us down to the barbecue hut to eat with them that evening. Some of the friends were also mutual friends of other friends (it seems to be a very incestuous world all these sort of Dev Officer type posts with lots of people knowing other people I know) plus a family who we have been emailing with for nearly a year were over for a day trip. They are traveling in a converted mobile library doing WWOOFing and other volunteering and actually spent Christmas in Worthing.  They had planned to spend some time volunteering with us but their schedule didn’t pan out that way and actually neither did our volunteering opportunities. It was great to meet them though and they may come back either soonish this year or perhaps next year.

Then back to the castle for the afternoon tour which was actually just some of Steve’s friends and the family so a nice tour. While waiting for people to come I had a tinkle on  the Steinway, wish I could play the piano properly, I can only remember about three songs using both hands. It would definitely be the skill I would most like to have. (And by have I mean just be able to do, not actually have to properly learn or practice!)  Then home. We’d got all the laundry done so that was all put away and then we headed back down to the barbecue via the shop to collect some beers. We had a really nice couple of hours down there chatting with various people. Davies and Scarlett left about an hour before Ady and I but we were all home by about 11pm.

Today Ady and I finished the pig move which Ady had done most of over the course of this week. The pigs are really happy now with all the fresh grass and stuff to eat. I did some more crocheting while Ady did various stuff outside and then Steve & Mel came up with a few of their friends and assorted kids to see the animals. We fed the pigs and all the birds and chatted, I guess they were all here for about an hour and a half. There were too many of them to invite in really, plus Davies and Scarlett were having showers so we said our goodbyes to them and then came in for hair brushing and dinner cooking.

And seeing next to nothing 🙁

The flushing loo required maintenance today so poor Ady donned waterproofs and did it. It meant he didn’t come on the Sheerwater boat trip with us which was a shame but actually we saw nothing other than a couple of distant porpoises just as we left Rum.  It was a pretty rough crossing and although no one was actually ill there were a lot of very green faces aboard.

The kids and I walked down to the pier chatting about all manner of things. They mostly sat inside as they often do when it is choppy and I stayed outside. Then we walked home again via the freezer for stuff for dinner, the hall to collect milk I had left in the fridge yesterday and the postbox to send a letter off to my Granny.

When we got home it was quite windy so we had the internet on, Ady watched a film on netflix and the rest of us lazed around a bit doing various things online. Ady fed the animals, the kids went off for a walk and I got dinner started.

A bit of a non day really, but some nice time spent with Davies and Scarlett and some good chats about next stages of life stuff.

Monday – The morning utterly eludes me… At midday I set off down the hill to meet the ferry. It came in early and I would never have made it to the boat if I’d not got a lift for the last wee bit of the way from Ali & Eve. Abi, my friend from library days had already got off the boat so a big hug and kiss and welcome to Rum and she introduced me to her new partner – Gary! Gary is worthy of an exclamation mark because Abi’s previous partners were called Juliet and then Alexa… I helped them carry their stuff along to the camping cabins where they were staying, had a quick catch up on Abi’s news (went to work for East Sussex county council library service in a very high powered job, became a Buddhist, got a job at a live in Buddhist retreat in the Scottish Highlands and moved here, finished with Alexa, got together with Gary!) and her with mine (went traveling, heard about a croft on Rum applied for croft, got it, moved here, did all sorts of mad stuff for 3 years, met Ben Fogle, that sort of thing… although she knew most of it because I had not one but two leaving parties with library friends – one when we went WWOOFing and then another when we came back to Sussex before we moved here to Rum. It was the week of many leaving parties and walking in inappropriate shoes when the car broke down after I had dinner with Ali in Brighton and walked part way home, then walked into Worthing the following night for another dinner with friends. I still had the blisters on my feet when we arrived on Rum weeks later… I’d quite forgotten all that until I started typing this.) Anyway, I showed them the showers and loos and the camping cabin and then headed back into the village to the shop, walking most of the way with Ranger Trudi.

I caught up with Jinty for a while as she was heading off and wanted me to do a couple of hours of sorting out veg and working the shop. I did that and had further chats with Abi & Gary who came along for some food shopping and then headed back up to the croft. We had arranged with Stevie to do a first session of staff training and tai chi so Ady and I went back down to meet up with Stevie & Claire and the kids who were already down there. It was actually quite good fun despite Ady and I struggling to take it seriously. We finished that and then came back home to feed animals and have dinner. I had a go at a recipe for happy bread which I’d seen the day before on facebook and it turned out amazingly.

Tuesday – Ady went down to collect some cheese and some mince from the freezer for me in the morning and I spent much of the day baking for Teashop. I made brownies, ginger and oat cookies, peanut butter and choc chip cookies and then Davies helped me make the 3 different flavour flatbreads. Ady was having a mammoth tidy up in the horsebox. Davies and Scarlett went off for a wander down to the beach and back and Abi and Gary came up for a cup of tea and tour of the croft. It was pretty midgey so we didn’t linger anywhere but it was fab to show them round.

I made dinner and tried a twist on the happy bread from the night before by adding herbs to the dough and then rolling mozzarella and roasted garlic in the layers. It was delicious 🙂

Wednesday – The Last Teashop for me, well certainly for now. I was also doing Post Office so Ady came down with me and he helped Ali with the first bits of Teashop. He also hung out with me in the shop along with Ross and Jed and Ian. We had a really funny ten minutes of all gathering a food order from Steve Dev Officer which had come through, it was like Supermarket Sweep in the shop! I finished up in there and then went next door to Teashop. Because it rained all day and because it was actually quite a nice atmosphere Ady stayed too so it was a pretty relaxed day all round. We had loads of locals in too which was nice and I got to chat to Ali a bit about resigning as a director which made me feel better as I was feeling bad for not talking to her about it first.

Back home and I wrote a letter to my Granny, did various emaily things, had a shower and did some crochet. Ady cooked dinner and everyone appears to have had a fairly early night, so I may follow suit.

Saturday – Ady was off ghillieing again in the morning although he didn’t do any dead deer collecting, they just walked the horses back to the village from Harris. I was Mrs Post Office. It was pretty quiet with my two most regular Saturday morning visitors off island – Fliss & Neil. No news yet from Neil & Lesley, due date was Saturday. Jed & Stevie kept me company and we drank tea and chatted. I’d had a letter from the tax credits saying they’d not had our return back but I’d done it online so I rang them from the post office. For the first time ever I got through pretty much straight away. The woman said that she could see an attempt to do it online had been made but it had not gone through because the website doesn’t work properly!! She did it all online and hopefully that’s all sorted out now. Then I loaded the car up with various shopping and two pallets and drove back to the croft.

I’d read a really lovely blog post from a sort of friend = Corinne, the day before. Corinne is an old uni friend of Mike the previous Rum Ranger and came to visit Rum just after we moved here. We really hit it off and she loved Davies & Scarlett – then she just had their two little boys with them, having left her older teen back with his dad. She has since got married and had two more boys, one just last week. I probably won’t do justice to the blogpost properly so go and read it  but it had stayed with me and when I parked the Rangerover I just stopped for about ten minutes and sat in the car. The sun was shining, the skies were blue, I had both front windows open and a lovely breeze was tickling my neck. I could not hear or see another soul and after what has been a fairly chaotic week it was a moment of pure bliss to sit there with no one wanting anything at all from me.  Moment over I loaded myself up (a bottle of gin, 2 bottles of soda water, a box of wine, 4 pints of milk, 2 packs of butter and 2 of Flora, 10 cans of beer, a block of cheese, a frozen chicken, a large bar of chocolate and various post. None of it essentials really ;). Lovely Scarlett saw me walking along the path and ran down the croft to meet me and take one of the bags from me, Davies met me halfway to take another bag. They asked why I’d been so long and I told them about This Moment.

We had lunch and Ady arrived home soon after. I messed about with some string art for a while and then tried to do some stuff outside like water the polytunnel and look at the strawberries but it was crazy midgey so I retreated back indoors.

Today – Ady and I walked down to the village in the morning to do a load of washing as Ady had a few blood stained clothes to get cleaned off. We chatted to Ross & Doug for a while and then went off picking some of the last raspberries while the washing was on. Back up to the croft for hanging washing out and having lunch. Scarlett has been desperate to go swimming all summer and today seemed like the best day so far so we all headed down to the peat pools just below the croft. Davies was in wetsuit, Scarlett in t shirt and pants. I semi thought about going in and latterly wished I had done but didn’t in the end. We sat for a good hour chucking crocs in the water for the kids to race to get and throw back, much hilarity! Bonnie was most bemused by the whole business, the kids were exhausted by the end of it. They went a really long way down the shallows of the river like the rapids at Centerparcs, it looked like so much fun. Home for showers for the kids and finally my hour down in the polytunnel watering, transplanting a few things, harvesting some peas and purple spouting broccoli for dinner and some lavender for baking.

Ady made dinner, I brushed Scarlett’s hair, had a shower and rang my parents to check all was well with them after the airshow crash. Mum had been at the show and said it was really awful. Brought back all the memories of us seeing a plane go down in the field behind us at the 2007 show. So, so sad 🙁

Dinner and Doctor Who, lots of emailing back and forth with an entrepreneur who has made contact with us after the Fogle show and has some interesting ideas to chat over. Not sure if anything will come of it all but exciting to talk about possibilities.

Tomorrow a friend from my library days is visiting for a couple of days, staying in the village but hopefully spending some time with us. I’m looking forward to catching up with all her life changes over the last 4 years.

Monday – TV day. Having heard we would not be getting a disc of the show in advance we, well I, spent most of the day in a state of heightened anticipation. I was worried about the general reaction, worried about what the show would actually contain and most worried that everyone else would see it and we would not.

In the morning Ady and I went down to the shop to send some post and get various bits. We had lunch and then because I had a bit of an inkling that it all might get a bit mad after the show aired we went for a walk out into the island. The idea was to get some perspective, to be able to walk far enough inland to look back at the croft and see the sum of our years here, to see it all in perspective to the rest of the island, to see how small the village really is and that what often feels like our whole world is small even by Rum standards, let alone the world. I also felt it would help to be away from phones and internet and the obsessive need to keep checking both.

It was a lovely couple of hours. We talked and laughed and teased and were just us five (Bonnie was with us obviously). We took our perspective photos, walked past a couple of visitors (one going and one coming), had a moment looking at the croft discussing whether it had all been worth it, walked in various configurations of twos, threes and fours and enjoyed just being us.

Back at the croft the kids and I gathered rucksacks and headed down to collect the veg while Ady fed the animals. Except our veg order had not been put in – Jinty found it today actually, lost in the pet food section of the shop :rolls: So all that walk down for nothing. And no veg or fruit this week. Poor children will have rickets along with no friends 😉

So home, for an early dinner ready to be sitting down at 9pm. Renegade TV had refused to send us a disc but agreed to send a link pre the show actually being aired, it came through about half eight but I didn’t check emails til just before 9pm. So we ended up watching at pretty much the same time as everyone else. We didn’t have adverts on our link but it buffered several times due to super slow internet which meant we actually finished watching around 10pm too, the same as on TV. Within 20 minutes my email had gone crazy with loads of messages from people who had found a way to email us including friends from school days. Facebook was mad with load of messages and tags and comments, about 8 friend requests and loads of messages in the others folder.  We rang my parents and then everyone else went to bed. I stupidly checked twitter after someone had mentioned the hashtag for the show and so slept badly mentally composing retorts in 140 characters to the handful of people who had said mean things.

Tuesday – woke to more emails and friend requests but ignored it all and went off to work. We were doing the final move of the SNH office but a boss from the mainland was over so it was far more efficient that usual :). Lots of chatter about the TV show as everyone had seen it and then home for lunch. I spent the afternoon baking, the kids played outside and Ady did loads of outdoors stuff to sort out the pig fence for a pig enclosure expansion we are waiting on some fence components for.  In the evening I replied to all the messages and emails and friend requests.

Wednesday – Teashop – My penultimate one and financially my best so far with over £100 taken. Woohoo! It’s not massively lucrative given the amount of hours of baking the day before and being in the teashop on the day, not to mention ingredients and gas usages at the caravan but it’s cash nonetheless. Ady went and did some work on the bridge and then went home, the kids came down to hang out in the hall. We had a mini tea party afterwards with leftover cake before heading for home. In the rain.

Our new caravan curtains had arrived so once we were dried off we took down all the old curtains, organised the pelmets and while Ady cleaned and bleached away all the mould Scarlett and I cleaned up the curtain hooks and threaded them on all the new curtains. Davies sort of helped but mostly played on his tablet. He did organise the music though, which is a pretty key role to such things ;). It all looks so much nicer and more homely now 🙂 And less moldy.

I ended up starting dinner prep while Ady fed the animals and we watched lots of Eureka. Final disc still to come and that’s us done with that series – an excellent recommendation.

Thursday – debate on whether to Sheerwater or not, there are only about 4 left I think. Stuff has been seen, a basking shark just last weekend, pods of whales and dolphins, just never on a Thursday afternoon it seems. Ah well. This week was no different although there were lots of rafting shearwaters and diving gannets which are always a delight to see, particularly when that’s all there is. Ronnie didn’t charge us either, so a free ride at least. Ady and I had been playing mechanics before and after trying to fix the terminals on the battery of the Jeep which were worn and corroded away. It’s not entirely sorted but neither did we break it irrepairably ether which felt like a victory.

Today – Adys first day of being a ghillie. He’s doing it tomorrow too and then will be again in the coming weeks. He wanted to do it if only to say he’s done it as it seems to be a bit of a Rum rite of passage. I’d have a go myself if I were not scared of the ponies. He headed off, leaving the kids and I home alone. This happens so infrequently it felt quite retro and old skool and we almost fell into old dynamics which was sort of nice if just for one day. I made some flapjacks and cheese scones and we had lunch together, then I headed off to meet the boat. When I got up the littlest piglet, Wattles, had beenout roaming and I’d woken Scarlett to help round her up but she’d gone back in to the pen by herself. She is slowly winning me over to the idea that we may not kill her for meat, which is what everyone else on Rum – and Croft 3 – is campaigning for. She does a fine line in Wilbur-ing 😉

The Jeep didnt start so I took the Rangerover and collected the meat from the ferry, dropped that off in the freezer and then went to the shop to collect animal feed from the van as it had been driven round there. I stayed and helped unload the van too and Derek & Jinty helped load the animal feed into the car for me. I drove back, across the river and unloaded it all, loaded some of the delivery of loo rolls into the Pajero and then took the car back across the river. I left two sacks of pig feed out to bring up to the feed bin next to the pigs (over 50kg in weight- a harsh barrow-load to get up the croft hill) and brought the other stuff up the hill. The kids helped put stuff away and then got the kettle on while I went to take the wheelbarrow down to load up. When I got back to the top of the hill it was to discover that Barbara Pig was now out. Argh!

The kids managed to sneak down to the pig pen and rattle the feed bin and she legged it back in. I bought the feed over and put it in the bin while they checked the fence for damage. Then back to the caravan for my cup of tea. I unwrapped the post which was new crocs for Scarlett, new wellies and trousers for Ady and some hanging shelves for the kids wardrobes. Then Barbara got out again. I was fed up by then and just wanted to make pizza dough for dinner and have my cup of tea so Scarlett, wonderful girl, went and dealt with Barbara while I did that. I love that girl 🙂 And it worked, she didn’t come out again this evening.

I spent some time organising another trip off for a check up for Davies which is on a Wednesday so annoyingly means four nights off! One of them we can stay at friends but 3 will need to be in a hotel in FW, we should get some of the costs back though.

Finally Ady came home, covered in blood and knackered but having had a really good day. So glad he enjoyed it 🙂 Pizza and Doctor Who to round off the ‘working week’.

Thursday – Ady went down before us to watch the ponies being tacked up. He is doing some ghillieing next week and Good Neil the Farrier was over so the ponies were being shod. The kids and I packed up a picnic and followed him down. We walked along to the pier with Trudi and Debs walked part way with us for a chat too.

There were high hopes for a good Sheerwater trip but to no avail. We sailed all the way around Soay but Ronnie the usual skipper was off and the skipper was not chasing anything even if it was there. On Saturday they saw a basking shark so they are out there, just not on our watch it seems. Plenty of manx shearwaters though and lots of diving gannets, a couple of porpoises doing their thing and one of our fellow passengers on board being seasick…

On the walk back we collected enough raspberries to make a single sacred jar of raspberry jam. Ady went home to feed the animals, get dinner on and give Bonnie some time outside, the kids and I went along to Sean & Ali’s for Eve’s 7th birthday party. The kids spent the time playing mostly outside. Ali is so funny, she always makes such a point of how well they all get on and is utterly oblivious to the fact that Davies and Scarlett are playing babysitters – they more or less enjoy doing so and have fun but it’s not as though they are getting their teenage social needs met by the two little girls… Fliss stayed too and we chatted to Sean & Ali and updated them on all they’d missed while they’d been away (they’d been off for two weeks, getting back the day before). They told us tales of the mainland and also having been at Kilmory meeting Dermot O’Leary and Gordon Buchanan  who were on Rum for a night filming over on the other side of the island. Various folk met them, I’d have quite liked to meet Gordon, we really enjoyed his polar bear and wolf documentaries.

Ady joined us and loads of other folk down at the shop for a very late night. Most of the village was out I think at some point but the die hards were us and The Neils, Jed, Sean and Nicola. It was a really good evening and I think we finally made it home just about by midnight having had emotional goodbyes with Good Neil and Bad Neil, who were both heading off the next day.

Friday – morning the potential new family came up at 11ish and stayed til about 130pm. They were nice and asked lots of sensible questions. They are also interested in Home Ed and we talked a lot about that. I always forget how big a part of our lives that is, it feels so much an incidental but is one of the biggest things about us (well maybe not since we moved here I guess). Ady and I had a quick something to eat and then headed off down to the pier. The boat was running a half an hour late according to Calmac but the Friday boat is often late anyway and it was actually a full hour late coming in. Fortunately our petrol came off after the walk all the way down and the wait. And it was sunny and not midgey! We waited with a father, son and son’s friend who had been here for a few days. The boys were the same age as Scarlett, attached to their phones and ranting about lack of signal and wifi – a good reminder to Ady that our simple life and unconnected from social media kids is no bad thing. Calmac left the van so we drove Jinty’s van back to the village and Jinty drove that, we helped unload the van, took Bad Neil’s chicken food along to him which had arrived and chatted for a while to folk before coming home. Jinty had had some cream doughnuts come on the delivery so we’d bought them as a Friday treat and enjoyed them with a cup of tea back at the croft with the kids.

Davies & Scarlett had emptied out their wardrobes and made piles of storage / outgrown / wearing now so I helped them fold stuff up, put stuff in vacuum bags and tidily back in their wardrobes. I also ordered some hanging shelves for them both to tidy them even more. Davies made pizza dough and then it was time to head down to the shop again, this time for Nicola’s leaving party. There were jugs of cocktails and it would have been very easy to stay longer and later (several people did!) but we were all pretty tired from the night before so headed home by 9ish for pizza and Doctor Who.

Saturday – work for both Ady & I. Post office first for me. It was fairly quiet with no Neil and not many other people in. Ady was cleaning the White House so I walked along to meet him. As he had the place entirely to himself he had taken the liberty of having a bath which seemed like such a good idea that I did the same! Luxury! It probably won’t happen again as next Saturday we’re not working and after that the work on converting it back into 2 houses should have started so it seemed like too good an opportunity to miss. Then along to the castle to do a tour. We had four people on the tour, two were constantly watching the clock and were actually quite rude and annoying, the other two were charming and really enjoyed it so we chatted to them awhile longer. Ady told them that there was a show about Rum on TV on Monday, neglecting to mention it was actually about us – will be funny if they watch it! 😀

Back home for late lunch and catch up with the kids. I did the last of the vacuum packing up my wool under the sofas and Ady cooked a lovely curry. A couple of episodes of Eureka and then a fairly early night all round.

Today – I had planned a lie in but woke just after 8 and read for an hour or so instead of sleeping later. Ady is starting to fret a tiny bit about his ghillieing so went on a long walk around the village and crofts with Bonnie. We realised that Scarlett’s duckling was missing so spent ages searching for it only to find it swimming on the river. Both lovely to see and amazing to realise we could have lost it as it is a rubbish walker so may well have struggled to get back up to the croft. Scarlett came down to help get it out and return it for some much needed food after it’s adventure.

We had lunch, I made some brownies, we ate some brownies… I did some weeding and sorting out in the polytunnel, a tiny bit of weeding in the walled garden and then had a walk all around the croft picking flowers, taking photos and stopping to sit and just enjoy the view for a while. Ady scythed the next line for extending the pig fence (now waiting for more electric fence wire to arrive, should be here within the week) and put in some posts. The kids had showers. I brushed Scarlett’s hair and we watched the first of a two parter of Doctor Who, then the second part with roast dinner.

Tuesday – work in the morning for SNH. Still on the office move and still not remotely organised or properly planned so lots of standing around waiting and a small amount of moving boxes and dismantling furniture. All a bit of a joke really. We went to the shop after work for some snack food for lunch and I begged a cup of tea off Jinty too, there were a few of us round there so we hung out chatting before heading back to the castle for the next installment of our work on the Japanese bridge. We planned to strip the old chicken wire off the bridge and had gone armed with tin snips and thick gloves. We should have also gone armed with midge nets and spray! It was very midgey and not very pleasant work but we got it all done and then headed for home.

It was a lovely afternoon so after a cup of tea, chocolate brownie and catch up with the kids I turned the music up loud and did my Teashop baking and made dinner, Ady went outside to water the polytunnel and strim the pig fenceline as the grass was touching the electric fence and earthing it and the kids went out to play outside. I made 30 flatbreads, some banana and choc chip muffins, a loaf of bread and a steak pie for our dinner, finally getting everything on the table just after 9pm – four solid hours of baking! The sunshine and music helped 🙂

Today was Teashop for me and Deb was working with me today. She had made soup and cakes and we did a good solid trade taking nearly £200 between us. Ady went along to meet the boat as we were expecting petrol off but it got bumped as there were more than 100 foot passengers (random maritime law which states no dangerous goods can be transported if there are more than 100 foot passengers meaning that gas, petrol and diesel will all get bumped in favour of people despite Calmac in theory offering a lifeline service rather than a tourist line plus it being acceptable to put 99 people’s lives in danger but not 100!?). Our next stash of vacuum bags arrived though so that is the plan for Friday 🙂

We have a family here this week who are interested in moving here so they called in for a chat and arranged to come up to the croft on Friday to meet and talk properly. Am slightly fatigued by Rum politics just now but will try hard to be positive and continue doing a good PR job 😉 We learnt last week that Gav & Laura (croft 2) have split up which was quite a shock and found out today that Stuart & Julie (retired headmaster and his wife who was the nursery and clerical assistant, they left Rum a few month ago) have also split up after 30 odd years marriage. Am slightly reeling from hearing about both those couples. The Locks are wanting to come and stay on the croft in our tent in a couple of weeks too and I am just exhausted at the prospect of it. It’s like meeting new Home Educators All The Time and knowing that it’s really important to help and answer their questions and assist and help spread the word and swell HE numbers and give something back to the community that helped you so much when you first started out, but also just wishing that everyone could bugger off so you could just get on with HEing you own children and living your lives too!

I caught up with Dev Officer Steve who is over and we chatted for ages and ended up going next door to the shop for Beer O’clock, then Bad Neil bought me a beer, then the IRN security guys who manage all the fire alarms on the island and come over every 6 months to service and check them and Ady and I get on really well with arrived and Kenny bought me a beer. Then Good Neil the Farrier arrived and offered beers but it was suddenly nearly 7pm and despite emailing and voicemailing Ady I had not got hold of him so I headed off with the kids home for dinner having arranged to go back down for beers with them all tomorrow and bring Ady too. It’s Bad Neil’s last night before he goes off to meet Lesley to have the baby and his life changes forever… who will I chat to on Saturday mornings?!

I rang my parents when I got home to tell them we’ve been scheduled. I had an email from Kate today so say she will hopefully have a disc on the way to us tomorrow so fingers crossed it arrives over the weekend and we get to see it at least at the same time as the rest of the country. We’ve been invited down to various houses in the village to watch it go out but would quite like to watch it just the four of us first and see what we think before watching it with other people. Hoping there are enough cringey bits to make fun of but enough good bits to have us not look like complete crazies!

has whizzed by…

Wednesday – Market Day for me – it was Fliss & I and we were medium busy with a few flurries of busyness but no real rushed off our feet moments. Ady went along to meet the boat and collected exciting parcels for us – new phones. Our monthly contracts were both available for upgrades so we’ve spent the last few weeks researching and had both chosen new phones. Ady went for the Samsung Galaxy s5 – he’d previously had the S3 and I’d had the S3mini so a literal upgrade for him with more or less a better, slightly bigger version of the same phone. He is really pleased with it. I prefer a smaller phone so had been reading up on the mini and compact models on the market and chose the Sony xperia z3 compact. My favourite phones of the past have been Sonys (I think I had about four in a row going back when we used to be on annual upgrades). This had the best reviews for battery life, music sound and small-ness which were the things most important to me. I also went up a tariff as I have gone over my allotted minutes a fair few times in the last year so decided to upgrade to unlimited minutes which was an extra £3 a month but meant I got a ‘free’ gift (and yes, I know, none of it is free but we justify our phones as we use them as cameras, music players and our only actual communication method with the world outside of Rum. Internet is so patchy here that being able to access phone signal and data on our phones is sometimes our only way of reaching people) of a kindle fire tablet. I’d not have bought one and have not played with it much yet but it will come in useful when we go off as I can take it instead of my kindle and be able to use it as a tablet too. Need to fiddle with it more to get used to it but have been consumed by playing with my new phone!

Davies and Scarlett came down to sit in the hall while I was doing teashop and were really helpful with a couple who were trying to use the computer in the hall but couldn’t get it to work. Such a cliche having teens understand tech better than adults but also so totally true 🙂

We came back home together and the rest of the afternoon and evening was spent fiddling with phones and getting them set up. Davies and Scarlett have now got our previous phones so I was setting them up with giffgaff cards and trying to get everyone’s email accounts, playstore accounts to download their apps and so on sorted. I had a real headache by about 9pm and had to give up.

Thursday – Also in Wednesday’s post was a delivery of vacuum storage bags. We have accepted another winter (maybe more!) in the caravan so are looking at ways to improve things and decided to declutter / make more space / ease up on the mould gathering stuff by getting some vacuum bags to keep clothes, bedding etc in. Massively more room under our bed and in our wardrobes now. Kids rooms and storage under the sofas next on the list.

The weather was pish so we had a vote as to whether or not to go on the Sheerwater. The vote was 3/4 in favour so we headed off leaving the caravan in a semi tidied state. Another one of those not really worth it Sheerwater trips but two basking sharks had been spotted that morning just off the coast of Rum so they are about and we’d have been devastated to miss them if they’d been spotted from that trip, so always worth the gamble. There were loads of shearwaters and gannets out feeding so it was not entirely uneventful. Back at home we finished the tidying and vacuum bagging then I went down to a meeting while Ady stayed to get dinner sorted.

The meeting kicked off and various people walked out. Including me! Having utterly lost my temper, shouted and sworn. So hacked off with various stuff here to do with IRCT things and certain people. Never mind, it will either blow over or I can just walk away from that side of life here. The upside is, as always, Rum quickly forgets and the same people who were all really really pissed off with each other in the meeting in the hall were all sitting having a beer together afterwards at the shop, me included, once I’d calmed down.

Friday – Can’t even really remember what we did in the morning, probably tidying of some description. Then off to meet the ferry as friends were coming to visit. Jenna, the girl Davies and Scarlett met at Outward Bound, along with her little sister Iona and parents Alison and Leon. We stayed with them at their’s in Glen Uig (about half an hour from Mallaig) for Jenna’s birthday back in April and this was the much talked about but not organised return visit. They brought two wee tents to pitch to sleep in outside on the croft and borrowed camping mats etc. The kids all walked back to the croft while we drove back with Alison and Leon, drank tea, got their tents up etc. Then the kids walked back down to the village while we gave them the tour of the croft and then Alison retired for a nap (she’s not been well), while we took Leon for a beer at the shop. Back at home I made pizzas all round and we all stayed up chatting and drinking rather too much.

Saturday – work. Post Office for me and then along to the castle for my first tour in months and months. We’d invited everyone down so we had the four of them, plus Davies and Scarlett, a family of four and a special guest family of three which included the daughter of Peter Wormall, the very first Ranger / Warden on Rum. She grew up here in the 70s, went to school and both her parents did PhDs here, as did she. She told us all about how she used to play hide and seek in the castle and when I talked about the wildlife and the reintroduction of sea eagles here she was able to share the story of how her Dad dragged her and her sister up the road to Harris to see the bedraggled birds in their cages all the way from Norway looking most reluctant to be released into the horizontal rain and howling wind that was the Rum weather that day. She told us about how her Dad made a speech about it being monumental and of great historic importance but they just wanted to go home and watch telly! 🙂 Really lovely to have her on the tour, plus she was really complimentary about our tour too 🙂 A lovely Rum moment. I quite like doing the tours, particularly as you always end up chatting by the end when it’s a smallish group.

The others all returned to the croft but Ady and I spent some time faffing as the power had gone off in the workshop meaning our freezer was off. Lots of wandering from one end of the village to the other in search of Ross had us finally buying some electric cards off Jinty. That didn’t work either but then Fliss appeared with another card and it eventually all worked and we were able to go home.

I cooked ‘wedding reception food’ for dinner – hot and cold buffet style spread of sausages, cold meats, new potatoes, freshly baked bread, cheese board, crisps, nuts etc. which went down really well. We just can’t sit 8 people down for a proper knife and fork meal so this was perfect and fairly stress free. Another nice evening.

Sunday morning was an early-ish start with them needing to pack up as the ferry was at 1050am. We were all on target and the kids walked down to the pier with us driving with their stuff. We were there in loads of time and I chatted for a bit to a bloke who is over doing some research on circular economy. He was really interesting and he and I had been aware of each other but not managed to properly chat before – a shame he was off on the boat… Goodbyes all round with all four kids quite sad it had not been a longer visit. We have invited the girls back any time, they can even come for the long Saturday stay on the summer timetable and I think we may go over to visit them again for their Bonfire / Halloween stuff in Glen Uig. They are all nice easy company and it’s great to have such local friends.

Back at home we were all pretty exhausted and Scarlett has a cold so we had lunch, then watched some DvDs and ate popcorn before having a nice roast dinner. Early nights all round the order of the day!

Monday – yay, caught up! Ady and I walked down to the village this morning to post a couple of things, get some shopping bits and collect something from the freezer for dinner. Back home for lunch and then I did some baking. It rained and rained all afternoon scuppering any plans of outsideyness so we mostly listened to music, drew, played with lego and read.

I made three dinners – lasagna for Ady & I, spaghetti and meatballs for Davies, Spaghetti Bolognaise for Scarlett, baked some bread and some garlic bread and made cookies and brownies. Ady walked down to the village to collect the veg delivery and check for post.

I had an email from Kate the TV Producer to say that she had heard this afternoon that they have scheduled our show for next week, bumping it to the current series rather than the first episode of the next series as originally planned. Slightly in shock! We had planned to go off island and be on the mainland to watch it in comfort, somewhere slightly anonymous with an actual TV, instead we’ll be hoping to have decent enough internet next Monday night to watch it up here. I have asked Kate if there is any chance of an advance copy on dvd so we can see it but suspect the answer will be no.

Castle shift for Ady and I this morning. Instead of the dusting in the castle we were helping with the office move though. The White House (current SNH office) is being turned back into housing and the office is moving to the Big Green Shed agricultural building outside of the village. With Lesley on maternity leave, Doug on holiday and Mel gone SNH have very depleted staffing levels these days, so Ady, Claire and I were on helping the Reserve Team this morning. This basically entailed moving some stuff around in the old common room / bar space in the castle courtyard and then loading the trailer a few times at the White House, then walking back to the castle to unload it again. In four hours we did very little as Manager Mike is very flappy and panicked by everything.

Ady and I went and looked at the bridge we are repainting for the Friends and started to pull off the wire which needs removing  but it was tipping with rain and we’d not brought gloves with us which we’ll need for that task. So we came home. We half planned to go back down if the weather improved like it did yesterday but it never did.

Scarlett was doing room tidying, after I gave her grief about the state of her bedroom yesterday. She is such a hoarder and in a cupboard sized room that really is a problem. She took it on board though and was doing an excellent job of decluttering and properly cleaning stuff up. Davies had tidied his room too.

We had some food and I got stuck into baking for Teashop / Market Day tomorrow making 30 flat breads, 4 loaves and some more cookies. Then I made dinner, so a whole afternoon in the kitchen. Having lived in a very open plan space for all this time now (camper van and now caravan totals 4 and a half years!) I could not imagine going back to a living space where the kitchen was separate to where everyone else hung out. Sectioning off the kitchen from the living space seems such a mad idea.  It was really sociable chatting, listening to music, Scarlett bobbing in and out with her stuff, me cooking, Davies making some mad film on his tablet, Ady doing some online research and then Ady and Davies playing a game of scrabble. A lovely afternoon 🙂

We watched the second part of Doctor Who and a couple of episodes of Friends. We’re on the last series of Eureka and hopefully the latest disc of that will come from LoveFilm in the post tomorrow 🙂

This morning it was tipping with rain. Ady went to feed the animals and I made some bread (I had sold a Croft 3 ‘hamper’ of bread, eggs and jam to someone coming off the boat) and some cookies ready for Market Day / Teashop on Wednesday. The weather cheered up so Ady did some sorting out the pig pen – he’d put a load of cut grass in for them as bedding but the random weather we’ve been having had meant instead of drying out to make nice bedding it had started composting instead, so was stinky and very wet but giving off steam! He raked all that out and put (bought in) straw in instead. Good compost fodder to go down to the raised beds area though…

We had planned to do some work down on the bridge this afternoon but the weather was still looking pretty changeable so instead we went to the boat and then came back for a later lunch. The men collecting the hamper were delighted. Nothing came off the boat for us but we helped Jinty take some of her stuff along to the shop and had a quick look round for the cat. No sign, but other people are now looking out too so that’s good.

Back to the croft for lunch. The kids washed up and then headed down to play on their tablets in the hall for a bit. Ady and I spent some time in the fruit cage as yesterday he spotted lots of problems with the fruit tree leaves – caterpillar and aphid damage and some rust on some of the apple trees 🙁 We did some sorting out of that, sprayed them with washing up liquid and I picked all the currants and the very first Croft 3 raspberry :). We watered the polytunnel and then Ady headed off to meet the kids for Film Night. I was avoiding the village and the weather remained nice so I did half an hours weeding before coming back up and getting dinner started.

The others all watched the Minion Movie – mixed reviews with the kids saying it was ‘Good, well ok’ but Ady saying it was ‘excellent’. 🙂 We watched en episode of Friends (we’re re-watching it before selling on the discs) and then one of Doctor Who.

This morning Scarlett and I walked down to the village to have a look round for the cat and write on the board outside the shop that he is missing from the croft and has been spotted in the village. No sign of him today.

Before we left I made some cheese scone mix as we were out of bread, so when we got home I baked them for lunch. Davies is struggling with his nose the last few days. He has very swollen turbinates in both nostrils which he had looked at by the doctor last year and was prescribed nasal spray and anti histimines. He doesn’t use either and I stopped nagging / reminding him after the first few weeks as he was so resistant and I decided it was down to him. If the swelling, snot and lack of sense of smell bothered him enough he would use them, if not then he would not. Suddenly he is suffering and is clearly finding it tough, I assume due to some sort of seasonal hayfever or similar so has actually used both for the last two days. But the spray tastes nasty when it trickles down the back of his throat and he says it is initially quite burny. He has agreed to try for the next week to see if there is any improvement and if not to see the doctor again.

After lunch the weather had changed and was alternately midgey and raining. I had a rant at everyone – Davies was bored and annoying Scarlett, Scarlett didn’t want to do the washing up and was moaning about that, Ady was being unsupportive of me telling the kids off and trying to make out I was nagging . Grr!

We have ordered some vacuum storage bags to keep spare clothes, bedding etc in the wardrobes to prevent them going moldy this winter and the bedrooms all need some cleaning out but it seem silly to do that until the bags arrive so instead I cleared off the bookshelves in the lounge. If you didn’t know they probably wouldn’t look any different but they are now back in a sort of order of genre and have all been hoovered and cleaned behind. If we’re doing another winter in the caravan we’re hoping to make it a bit nicer and cosier in here, starting with storage, a bit of redecorating and making it warmer. We’ve always maintained each winter would be our last so never really done any improvements to the inside at all but this will be our fourth winter and it is tired and could do with some TLC.

Ady cooked dinner, we watched Doctor Who and everyone has had a pretty early night. Think I might do the same.

Wednesday was meetingtastic. First Fliss & I met Manager Mike to chat about the community polytunnel being put up in the field near the castle. An excellent idea as it will be nice and central for everyone to use. Mike agreed although he later came back and said that there would need to be planning permission which sort of takes the whole thing back to where it all started 3 years ago when it ended up being put on Croft 3. Ah well, not our issue any more…

Ady picked me up on his way passed and we went to the ferry. We had various stuff coming off – we are repainting and repairing the little red footbridge in the castle grounds for the Friends of Kinloch Castle Association so had ordered all the paint, chicken wire and stuff for that which all came off. Ady came back to the croft while I walked back to the village with Steve The Man, our local councillor and IRCT Chair Allan and some visiting folk from Marine Harvest Fish Farms. I walked for a bit with Allan chatting to him, and then got chatting to two of the fish farm people who we’d met when we visited the Muck fish farm earlier in the year. They remembered we’d been about to be filmed by the TV crew so were asking about that.

Then it was Full Board meeting of IRCT – usually we are more speedy as Allan is due off on the ferry but this time he was getting a lift back with Marine Harvest so there was no rush and the meeting dragged on rather. Lots to talk about I guess. There was a split then as some people went down to Jinty’s new barbecue hut for the official opening / hut warming and MH had supplied some salmon. Others went into the hall to have tea and cake with Debs as it was her birthday. To be honest I think we’d have rather gone to the hut but felt obliged to go to Debs so did that. We then couldn’t go along to the hut as we needed to feed the animals and come back down for the official MH presentation at 630pm.

That done pretty much everyone else went along to the hut but I got caught with Claire and Steve to chat about various stuff from the board meeting which I was a bit pissed off about doing on my own really. Sigh. By then we decided that everyone at the hut would have been many, many drinks ahead of us and it was already about 8pm and we were hungry so we came home.

Thursday was a nice day, probably the best this week. And Sheerwater boat trip day. Sadly although the weather was lovely the only thing we saw was a sea eagle. I know, I know, *only* but where are the dolphins?!? Fliss came along with her friend who had been staying all week and her 2 children – 12 year old Scarlet (one T) and 9 year old Logan who Davies and Scarlett got chatting to and really made friends with. To the degree that they hung out with them for the whole of the rest of the day and then met up with again on Friday before they left to go home. Shame they only met at the end of their week here.

Ady and Big Dave did some stuff on the Jeep while I meant to get dinner prepped and organise the storage under the sofa where we keep food. Just as I had weighed out a batch of bread dough and left the yeast to activate and strewn sofa cushions all over the floor so Bonnie started barking and Doug and his wife and son appeared. So I shoved everything away and in they came for tea and chats. Doug was a ghillie here two years running and then got the Estate Workers post but his wife and two sons still live down near Bristol. The boys have a year of A levels left so won’t be moving until at least after that and I wonder about whether Ursula is remotely interested in moving here anyway, it’s her first ever trip here in all that time. She seemed nice and we chatted easily. Ady came home and we all went over to feed the pigs as Doug was keen to show his son them and then we went down to put in veg orders and have a beer.

Friday – it rained and rained and rained all day. Poor Manon decided to leave rather than brave out a day of rain as I’d already said she did not need to work in such weather. So she packed up, I did some baking and some reading. Manon came in for lunch. The kids went off in waterproofs to find their mates for a last hang out before they left and then BD and Faye came over with pig feed from their stay and we all went down to the ferry. We waved off Dave, Faye, Manon, Fliss’ friends, Jinty’s dad and sister, Doug and family… a busy boat for goodbyes!

We called at the shop to collect some bits and Ady spotted the black and white cat down in the middle of the village. We chased it but it legged it. This morning I spoke to a few people and it has been spotted several times this week around the village so I have now come clean and said it seems lost down there and to let us know if it’s spotted so we can try and get it back up to the croft. Hmmm, hopeful I guess.

Back home for pizza and Doctor Who and enjoying just being us for a few days.

Today – work for both Ady and me. It tipped with rain most of the morning, was sunny for bits of this afternoon but still mostly showers. Can’t believe it’s August. This afternoon Ady did a big hoover of the lounge (he bought a hoover recently that runs off the genny and is wet and dry so good for sucking up when the roof has leaked, which currently it seems to not be doing so badly after Ady’s latest fix). I mostly did stuff online and we caught up on Dragons Den.

We’re all really knackered and hoping to have a day all to ourselves tomorrow.