One word? When seven would do…

Saturday morning – Ady met Mairi from the boat and I got down to post office nice and early to meet her walking round from there. A nice morning with various people popping in for chats and catching up with Mairi there too for plenty of tea drinking and gossip. We walked along to meet Ady from work when he was finished and then came home for lunch – nice bread, chorizo, olives and crisps from us and lots of nice cheeses brought up from Mairi, was lovely 🙂

As usual Mairi had brought gifts – birthday art stuff for Davies, a little magnet from her recent Italy trip for Scarlett, a card which reads ‘I meant to behave but there were too many other options’ and some flower bulbs for me and plenty of chocolate for Ady. Along with croissants for Sunday breakfast and a bottle of the award winning local gin her friend makes. She also brought a load of seafood to make dinner for that evening and chocolate to melt and dip strawberries in to. I love Mairi 🙂

We had a nice afternoon chatting and catching up and then went down to the shop for a few drinks. It was one of those evenings down there when there were a handful of people around and everyone was in a really good happy mood. Chain brought a guitar out and he and Jed both played a few songs we could all sing to, we spent about an hour playing I Spy – which is actually hilarious after a few drinks, and telling really silly jokes. We walked home in the dark having bought a cheap headtorch and batteries from Jinty which she sold us saying ‘these are pretty crap!’ and they were – the torch dimmed about 20 paces from the shop! A lovely meal, another bottle or two of fizz, some pop quizzes, some arm wrestling and a late night proper chat for me and Mairi after the others had all gone to bed (the chat, not the arm wrestling!).

Sunday – Ady and Mairi had lots of chats and then we all had croissants – the kids and I getting up rather later than Ady and Mairi. We fed the animals, drank lots of tea, Mairi had a wander with her ipad to take some autumnal photos and then she and I walked down to the village to call for Lesley and for Mairi to have a peep at baby Dougal. We called in to the Tattie House craft shop on the way and Mairi bought a couple of bits from Kate and we chatted to Ian. As we went past Trudi’s we called for Trudi and collected the bag of snacks and drinks Mairi had bought at the shop and left at Trudi’s the night before to take round to Fliss’. We were having a Womens Afternoon which had moved venue and day but was no worse for having done either. We had Trudi who was in need of sisterhood and solidarity, Lesley in need of a couple of hours sitting and chatting out of the house and a reason to do her hair and put mascara on, Fliss, Debs, Mairi and I. It was a really lovely afternoon with lots of nice food, a couple of bottles of fizz, juice and chat and laughter.

We walked home and Ady had made a really good curry for dinner. An earlier night as we were all pretty tired.

Monday – Mairi and I had a gentle bramble picking stroll down to the village, calling in to the shop for her to say goodbye and the craft shop to buy some more bits as presents for friends then home for lunch. Ady managed to block the sink with some rice so he did some plumbing! Then we took Mairi down to the pier to wave her off. It was a really nice visit, she is such an easy guest.

Home via the shop to collect veg. Davies had made a popmaster quiz for Ady and I with lyrics rounds, clips rounds and everything including a 3 in 10. We did it – I won, AND got 3 in 10. He had also recorded us doing it which we listened back to and it was very funny. Mad memories like these will be the story of their childhood!

I made jam and loads of bread, for us, for dinner and for taking down to Sean’s birthday celebration the following day and everyone was pretty early to bed as we were all tired from the mad weekend.

Tuesday – I made birthday brownies for Sean, Davies made an excellent rat in a party hat card. I tidied up the kitchen and the shelves above the cupboards and windows in the lounge, the kids tidied up their bedrooms, Ady sorted out the compost loo in the horsebox. I spent some time online trying to sort out the shed order, I tried to organise accommodation for a trip off in November but couldn’t because my debit card runs out at the end of October and the new one has not arrived yet but it wouldn’t let me pay with a car which will have expired before the trip.. argh! Ady rang Halifax to find out when the next card will come it it should be here by Friday. Phew.

We walked down to the shop. had a couple of beers and then all went into the hall for Sean’s birthday meal. It was a collaborative effort with various people bringing various contributions – we’d taken two sorts of bread and the brownies. There were a couple of soups, veggie and venison chillies, pasta, a big birthday cake and brownies. I also bought some ice cream and Deb bought some bramble liqueur. It was a really nice evening with great company. Davies and Scarlett left around 930pm with Ady and I promising to be home by midnight which we just about were. Another night of over indulgence though…

Today – was a much needed slower start. I slept in really late which I needed and the weather was pants this morning anyway. Ady did some cleaning while the rest of us slept. We had lunch and then he and I went down to the village to collect post, food from the freezer and some fish we’d bartered yesterday with Rhys for eggs and jam and the others had alongside their dinner tonight. Back at home Ady and I watched the Gareth Malone choir thing that Ady had downloaded and I’d wanted to watch after having heard him on the radio the day after we’d been talking about starting up a choir here on Rum. Then Ady and Scarlett played Top Trumps while Davies and I played Big Brain Academy on Davies’ DSs. He beat me two games to one.

We tried watching a new TV series from Lovefilm – Suburgatory but it was pretty pants so after two episodes we decided to give up on that and went back to rewatching How I Met Your Mother. Annoyingly I then got an email from amazon to say the next disc of the show it on it’s way. Poo! Everyone else is in bed and I am about to head off too. Only one night before Mum & Dad arrive and  I lose my bed!

Where did I get to? Tuesday was a late one for Ady, I think he got home around 830pm bless him. He had a good day and really enjoyed it but I don’t think he’d easily manage more than one day a week.

Wednesday we went down to the village planning to pick brambles, collect some stuff from the freezer, get some firewood from the castle (Billy the roofer is over and creating a pile of firewood for us again). We nipped to the shop and while I chatted with Jinty and then walked around the back of the hall to pick some brambles Ady headed off to collect wood. He came back to say our animal feed had come on the boat so he dashed back to the fork to drop off the wood then came to collect me to go to the pier and get the animal feed. I chatted to Sean the rat, Bad Neil and Chainsaw Dave (yes, I know we all sound like characters from a dodgy childrens book) and then we got the feed, came back, swapped all the stuff from one car to the next, brought the other car across the river and on to the croft and finally had a late lunch. After lunch Ady emptied the car and then did some loo maintenance while I walked all over croft 2 and 3 looking for ripe brambles and finding a broody duck. I gathered enough brambles to add to the ones from earlier and turn into 3 jars of jam using chillies from Norman that I had found in the freezer last week. Quite poignant as bramble and chilli was his favourite and I always made him a jar each year, odd to think that not only would he not taste this batch but that the chillies which went in to it were from him.

Davies was heading down to check for post so I walked with him and we collected some more brambles. The post was some birthday cards for him and a couple of parcels for Ady. I made dinner and baked bread.

Thursday – Last Sheerwater of 2015. We started with high hopes as it looked like perfect weather with flat calm sea and overcast skies but as we pulled out of the loch it began to rain and the sea got all choppy. Then I spotted a pod of porpoises so we chased and watched them for a bit before heading to Soay. Last wave at Anne and her dog rowing out to collect the post. It’s an odd relationship – we wave at each other every single week from April to September and have done for the last four years but I have no idea if she knows who we actually are or anything about us other than that we appear each week on the boat that brings the post… even here in this life we have people who are fixtures in our lives without knowing anything about each other.

Ronnie went searching for some minke whales he had spotted on the way over from Eigg on the way back and sure enough we found them and had easily the best encounter with whales (or dolphins for that matter) this year with the whale going under the boat and seeming to play with us for quite a while. Totally magical 🙂

Back home we watched the Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel which had come from Lovefilm but Davies and Scarlett were very unenthusiastic about. They both sat and watched with us in the end and I thought it was every bit as lovely as the first one. Gentle, excellent cast, funny and poignant and just a pleasure to watch. What I love most about both of them is the idea that you don’t need to be young, beautiful, fit, rich or perfect to still be alive and living, to have adventures and learn new things, to make mistakes and do your thing. Very inspiring, particularly to those of us who sometimes wonder whether we are far too old for starry notions…

Today we thought we were meeting Mairi so after an early lunch of tortilla wraps which Ady and I cooked together in proper Chuckle Brother style with smoke alarms going off and everything, we headed down to the boats. The Orion was in early, the Brushda was in late, she was on neither… we did all our laundry, Ady did a castle tour, we caught up with Lesley, the baby and Lesley’s Mum, collected the post and came home. Turns out Mairi is coming tomorrrow… which means my head, liver and most of the rest of me should probably be in bed sleeping right now in preparation!

Sunday – I did indeed sleep much better and even stayed in bed reading for a while after I woke so got up feeling much more rested. It was a real sunshine and showers day but I had to collect a few bits from the freezer for the following day so spotted a break in the weather and headed down to the village. I also checked the car for post (there was – the last couple of birthday bits, yay!) and picked 500g of brambles. The rest of Rum is starting to catch up, I reckon a fortnight from now and we’ll be struggling to keep up with them ripening but for now it is an hour of scratching around for them. Another four jars of jam made though. I made the dough for Davies’ cinnamon rolls for birthday breakfast, made the jam and Ady and I brought back a wheelbarrow load each of wood up from the Jeep. Some really good bits for making shelves in our planned shed / shop.

Dave and Faye came over to look at the Rangerover which had been playing up a bit so Ady went to do that with them while I wrapped up Davies’ presents and Scarlett made him a card. We had dinner and a fairly early night all round again in anticipation of an early start on Monday.

Monday – Davies ‘ birthday. For a boy who struggles to get out bed in the morning, literally, he is rarely if ever up before midday, he certainly can still manage on Christmas and birthdays. 730am start. Living here makes gift choosing even harder. I think all teens are probably quite hard to buy for, but living here with such limited space for acquiring more ‘stuff’ means we are all really sensible about what we ask for as presents. Davies had gone for a new 3ds having researched it quite a bit. He also wanted a couple of games and books, all of which are not actually released yet so has a couple of to follow items anyway. He got his 3ds and some pens and was delighted with that, along with a voucher to get some apps / games / music / whatever online.

Ady and I walked down to the shop in the morning to get some biscuits for birthday tiffin but other than that we were all home all day. I did various baking / cooking – brownies to take to the shop to share, tiffin, pizza for lunch. Dave and Faye came over for lunch and then we waved them off. Davies and I played some brain training game on DSs, he thrashed me. Not sure if that is an indication of an acceptable education or my gaming ineptitude but it was fun anyway :).

Then down to the shop for singing and brownies. Lots of folk came along to wish him Happy birthday and he had several cards and gifts from people. Davies rang my parents and then I chatted to them both for a bit while Ady cooked dinner – venison steak and chips. Thanks to having processed a beast ourselves we were fairly affluent in venison steak and all had about four each. I reckon there was about £80 worth of meat on the table! Delicious though and it was a celebration meal. Davies wanted to watch Doctor Who so we watched two episodes and then it was bedtime.

Today Ady is off ghillieing – they have gone on one of the most challenging routes, so not sure when to expect him home and fairly sure he’ll be wiped out by the day. The weather is not particularly kind either.

I was being interviewed for the radio – BBC Scotland Out of Doors show. In theory it was supposed to be about the Community Land Use Plan which has been in the news lately  but while I was chatting to one of the team as we were putting our boots on the presenter decided that was more interesting so it mostly was about our family, crofting and just a touch about Rum and future development. I fear I have become perfect media fodder… 😉

I walked by Fliss’ after that and she called out to come in for a cup of tea so I did which was nice. Then I walked round to the village with the radio presenter again who wanted to check a couple of facts and then I went along to visit Lesley and meet new baby Dougal. Lovely to see her after such a long time away from Rum – they got back late Saturday. We caught up, she shared birth story details, I reiterated that I’m around if she needs / wants anything and then came home for lunch.

Friday – I had a meeting at 10am so headed down the hill for that. Ady was off working at the hostel and we both anticipated being home for midday for lunch before heading down to meet the 2pm ferry. In the end my meeting went on til 115pm and Ady carried on working. I walked all but back to the croft (infact Davies and Scarlett saw me out of the window and got the kettle on before they realised I had double backed and gone away again) having realised that Ady would never cut it that fine so I must have missed him.

I caught him up just before we got to the pier as he’d stopped to chat to Chain. We got a lift the rest of the way and then waited for the boat to arrive, it was running slightly late as it often does on a Friday.

Big Dave and Faye came off, along with a new car battery for the Jeep. We had a lift for all their stuff and the four of us walked along to the croft. We swapped the battery into the Jeep and it started straight away! 🙂 It has since started several more times and appears to have been the problem. Can’t believe how chuffed we both are that a combination of a new battery and our amateur mechanics in putting new terminals on has fixed it. Yay!

We came home (finally) for lunch and doughnuts, made pizza dough and caught up with the kids. Then we walked along the top track to the cabin and called for Dave and Faye while the kids went the bottom track and we all met down at the shop for a few beers. It was a nice evening down there with a handful of folk all on good form so we stated for a couple and came home just before it got dark for pizza and Doctor Who followed by the last two in the series of Modern Family.

I put some feta cheese on Ady and my pizzas which with both cheddar and mozarella made for super cheesey pizzas. Which is what I am blaming our dreadful nights’ sleep on. I woke at 4am and after going to the loo and getting a drink of water could not get back to sleep, so I read for a while. That woke Ady who then could not get back to sleep even when I was tired again so he got up. I think I fell asleep again about 530, not sure if he went back to sleep in the lounge or not. I felt really exhausted all day today though as a result.

We were supposed to be going to Canna for the day today for the Small Isles games but Calmac put out an amber warning for the boats this afternoon due to the weather forecast so all of us planning to go decided against it yesterday. It meant I was able to do post office today after all so I went to the village for that. Ady came down a while later and stayed for Saturday morning coffee and chats at post office having brought the car down and collected all the various things we had  in the village (slab of tinned pasta, beers, box of jam jars, food from the freezer etc). We bought all that up, had lunch, called over to the cabin for a cup of tea and chat with Dave and Faye and were back home just before the forecast weather did indeed come in.

Ady made curry and everyone has headed to bed super early, I am about to follow. Hoping for a better nights sleep despite the howling wind.

because we didn’t really get a Scottish one… so far this week has been glorious. Almost midge free, sunny to the point of mild sunburn yesterday and without a spot of rain.

Monday – Ady worked in the morning. I walked down to the village for a cup of tea and chat with Fliss. I forgot to take the freezer key with me so came back to the croft to collect it and met Ady heading down to meet the ferry as our petrol was coming off. So I went with him. We got a lift down to the boat and a lift back for our 2 jerry cans of petrol, while we walked back in the sunshine. We came back up to the croft for a late lunch and then headed down for Tai Chi. We stopped for a beer afterwards at the shop before coming home for dinner.

Tuesday – Ady did various things out on the croft while I baked brownies for Trudi’s birthday and got dinner all prepped and ready to go in the oven. We went down for Trudi’s birthday and the first meeting of Whisky Club – an idea Ady had for tasting the expensive whiskys that Jinty sometimes gets in. However many people who want to join in split the cost of the bottle between them and all get their share. This means some of the pricey £35-40  bottles she gets in turn into a fiver each and they all still get several healthy measures. Predictably it was a very late night with three bottles of whisky sampled…. Jinty utterly ran with the idea dusting off a notebook to create Whisky Club, nominating Ady as Mr Presidento – Forever! and insisting on everyone giving each whisky a star rating out of five and commenting on it in the book. It was a hilarious and very fun evening. I don’t drink whisky, well in theory I don’t so I was given free Baileys as an honorary non whisky drinking member, although I know for a fact it was being regularly topped up with whisky anyway.

Trudi had a great birthday, ending up sobbing at the end about being drunk on whisky and nearly 50, as is right and proper on anyone’s birthday. Davies and Scarlett came home, cooked their dinner, got ours heated up ready and were very tolerant about us being late 😉

Wednesday was our wedding anniversary – Ady went off to work for a couple of hours in the morning (hostel cleaning for Billy the roofer, quite our favourite of all the contractors that do work for SNH – he was here when we came for our interview and moved here and has been back every winter since. It was his mats which helped get the caravan up the hill to the croft and last year he gave us enough old wood from the White House roof to keep us in firewood for the whole winter. We heart him lots) while I slept off the whisky club hangover and the kids slept off the late night. He came home with a bottle of fizz 🙂

Scarlett and I went down to do an hours bramble picking and walked all the way along to the campsite and old pier to check the ripeness of the bushes there – a few weeks away yet. We walked back along the beach which was very lovely. We collected the post and some shopping on our way home.

Today has been super windy but still sunny. We voted on the Sheerwater and decided it would be too choppy so not to go, the kids have spent too many two hour trips to Soay this year feeling sick and not seeing anything anyway. Next Thursday is the last trip of the year and at the moment the forecast is good for that day. After lunch Ady and I headed down to do some work on the bridge for the Kinloch Castle Friends Association and then called in to the workshop to organise our freezer. We needed to do a stocktake, scrape off some of the ice which has built up so much it was hard to close it and clear out some of the stuff which has been in there ages and probably won’t get eaten now, meaning Bonnie and the pigs all had feasts of food for dinner tonight. It now closes and locks, we know what’s in it and there is space for the first stash of pork which should be done in the next couple of weeks.

The birds are doing a great job in the fruit cage of clearing weeds and grass around all the trees and bushes and should also be eating any caterpillars and slugs. Now all the fruiting is over they should not do any damage to the trees and bushes and are far more efficient than us at weeding and trimming the grass down. We will probably get them to do the same in the walled garden around the raised beds. All we have to do is throw a couple of handfuls of feed where we want cleared and they scratch around for it and do all the ground clearing at the same time. Genius 🙂 We walked the croft planning our next project which is the creation of a volunteer base camp for next year – we need to construct a compost loo, camp kitchen / hang out spot, firepit and places to pitch a tent including our bell tent. The plan is to attract groups of volunteers who we just pass food to do organise themselves and to be able to offer camping pitches too. Our next task towards that is a bonfire for some of the clutter we have built up, a sort out of a couple of shed spaces and dismantling of two then moving the posts and corrugated sheeting over to the base camp area ready to construct it.  If we have more weather like this it will be a pleasure to be outside working on all that.

Wednesday – it was mostly lovely to not be doing teashop 🙂 We walked down to the village to collect the charged battery with intentions of sorting the car out. As we were walking back up the hill with a wheelbarrow talking about getting some straw bales to make a compost loo for volunteers we walked past  a young couple coming the other way.  We smiled and said hello and they said hello too and went to keep walking, then double backed and blurted out ‘we saw you on telly and came to Rum because of it!’ so we chatted for a while. Turns out they had seen the show and were coming to Skye on holiday so changed their plans slightly to include a day trip to Rum. We must have completely lived up to their expectations walking along talking about stuff like that 🙂

In the evening we went to watch a couple of plays  which were both really good. The first, Mallory was a single hander of a man standing talking, Mallory had he not died in his third Everest attempt, but had done it instead and returned home to his wife and children victorious. It was really good and very captivating. The second was a farce style play about Heslop Harrison’s story of finding rare plant species on Rum and was good, if a little patronising in it’s oh-so-clever -Oxbridge-uni-types manner. All a bit Stephen Fry and Rowan Atkinson. I warmed to the actors a lot more when  there was a power cut – classic Rum, meaning they had to continue without sound or lighting. Ady lent them a headtorch and they spotlit each other in turn depending on who was speaking and threw in lots of impromptu one liners about the dark, electricity and so on. It was hilarious.

Thursday – we decided against the full Shearwater experience of the Soay trip too so spent the morning packing, tidying and generally doing stuff in the caravan. Ady made pancakes for lunch as we were out of bread and then we headed off. The Sheerwater trip was very rocky indeed – no one was actually ill but there were lots of rough looking people. I sat outside with Ady and Bonnie, in a heightened state of everything because of having Bonnie, being aware that several of the people on the boat had seen us on TV and worrying about the kids who were inside feeling ill and failing to get past the packed boat of people to get to the side should they actually be ill. It was all fine but a very big boxer dog sitting next to us was pushing all of my dog fearing buttons and I was very pleased to get off the boat when we finally arrived at Arisaig.

We’ve never been to Arisaig before and didn’t really know where the hire car car park was so roamed around a bit with Bonnie jumping up at every car we passed, being anxious and finally being sick, all of us carrying stuff and trying to look for the car park and being a bit stressed and me needing  a wee! Finally we asked in the Spar shop, took a wrong turning and asked someone else and then actually spotted the car. The hall where the keysafe was was not marked but I took a guess that it was too big to be a residential property in the middle of normal sized houses and sure enough the keysafe was there. So finally in the car and on our way. We stopped at Poundstretcher for a stock up on various stuff then to the hotel. We booked in, got Bonnie and the kids settled, dealt with wifi sign up stuff and then left them in the room while we went to do Morrisons food shop and get McDonalds for dinner. We were back in the room for 9pm, went to move the car as we’d left it in a  loading bay and fortunately some cars were leaving the carpark so we were able to park there rather than the other end of the town and walk back as we’d planned. Then back for baths, telly and bed.

In the morning we had a 8am dentist appointment. I was first, followed by both children, then Ady. All fine with no need for anything other than x rays for Scarlett and Ady and a clean up for me. Both kids will get referrals for orthadentist which will mean another trip off at some point soon. Ah well. We were back in the car for 845am so went to Lidl for various shopping there, then parked up for a quick look in the high street, a stock up on medical supplies at Superdrug and then back in the car to head to Mallaig. We had time there to load stuff onto the van (so much better than carrying it all on), a quick CoOp shop and then on to the ferry. Friends of Big Dave were over using his cabin for the weekend so they introduced themselves and we chatted to them, a Dutch mother and daughter visiting Canna and a couple who visit Arisaig every year and come across on a day trip to Rum. Also to Gina, the catering manager on the Calmac who was delighted to see me and tell me how she’d seen the Fogle show and that the four of us ‘are bloody mental!’ 😀

The home  bit was so smooth – we managed to drive all the way up the croft which meant unloading the shopping was so easy, we all helped put stuff away, ate some of the junk food we’d brought home and had pizza for dinner. We had half thought about going to the shop but it was a bit grey and drizzly so we stayed in instead.

Saturday – work for both me and Ady – shop / PO for me followed by castle tour, castle tour and cleaning followed by another castle tour for Ady. Home for 330pm with time to put dinner on low, feed the animals and then head down for a beer and catch up with Rum folk at the shop. I had heard through the grapevine that Lesley had had the baby so that was talked about and we had a nice couple of hours down there with various folk before coming home for curry. Later I had a text and photo from Lesley 🙂 Exchanged a few texts with her over the night / today. She is hoping to be back to Rum for next weekend 🙂

Today – Scarlett and I went bramble picking this morning as she had spotted some last night infront of the hall that were ready. We got enough for 3 jars of jam 🙂 Of the 8 I made last week I have already sold 6 so it was good to get more done. I finally bought jam jars this year after recycling them usually. It is so nice to use brand new ones 🙂 Nice to have an hour with just Scarlett too.

After lunch (more mainland junk food) we all went back outside – Davies and Scarlett to play / hang out with the animals and me and Ady to gather up the pieces of a shed base which we acquired and have been using all around the croft on boggy bits of ground but now intend using as a shed base! We’re going to put a shed at the croft gate to act as a shop for next season. We did that and it started to rain so that meant the end of outside time although I did manage to water the polytunnel and take some seeds I got while we were off down there.

Back indoors Davies did a birthday card for Ranger Trudi, Scarlett had a shower, I made popcorn and then we all sat down to watch Jurassic Park together which we’d bought while we were off. I think Davies has seen the first one before but Scarlett had not. We have 2 and 3 also and will then get 4 when it comes out on dvd.

Roast dinner, Doctor Who and bed.

Monday – We had arranged to go and see Steve & co so wandered down there after lunch. We had a coffee with them, were donated all their leftover food (mostly milk, cream and apples) and said our goodbyes, then walked back to put some of the stuff in the freezer. We had planned to call in for a cup of tea with Fliss but she was not home – realised afterwards she’d have been collecting Joss from school. So we walked round to the hall where Davies and Scarlett already were.

We had post in the car from Saturday evening, a big box of jam jars from Amazon and a few other bits. We did our hour of tai chi (which Ady insists on calling chai tea) and staff twirling – this week there were 8 of us. We stopped for a beer at the shop – Bad Neil’s brother John-Alex was over for stalking so chatted to him a bit before heading for home, animal feeding and dinner. We had the last 2 episodes of Eureka to watch.

Today – Ady and I planned to do try and fix the Jeep. We did some stuff to it but now need to fully ascertain whether it is the battery has had it, whether the car is doing something that is draining the battery or whether we need to do a better job on the battery terminals. We took off the second battery from the dead Pajero and got that on charge so will see how that fares tomorrow.

We came back up for lunch just as Davies and Scarlett were coming down to meet us with travel mugs of tea and coffee 🙂 We had lunch and then all walked down to the village to mess about on the beach for a couple of hours. We wanted a walk but the kids wanted to wear shoes not wellies so it was the best option for not going on one of the sodden pony tracks. Back home again for dinner and dvds.

I’ve spent ages today sorting out our car hire for Thursday / Friday as we’ve gone back to the local car club membership again suspecting we may have a few localish trips this coming year. Finally got it all organised so tomorrow will just be trying to sort the car out a bit more and then packing ready to head off on Thursday. Bonnie is coming with us on this trip due to lack of dog sitters on island and it just being a one night dash.