One word? When seven would do…

Off to Eigg on Friday. Before we left Scarlett and I had a row about her clothes, she had been arsey with me a couple of times during the week and I’d let it go each time but on Friday morning she just kept arguing with me until I lost my temper and shouted at her and she cried. It cleared the air though and we chatted about it, she apologised and order was restored. At least our fallings out are over and done with very quickly. After that we had a really nice day.

We were the only people on the boat – the Orion, which is the boat we very first went to Eigg on when we went there to WWOOF. This time though we know the owner, Pete, really well so spent the journey gossiping with him, drinking tea and he got Scarlett to steer the boat for a while, while he made the drinks.

Eigg was, well Eigg really. There is much I like about the island and much more I don’t. Of the four Small Isles if we had chosen to actually live on an island, rather than choosing a croft which just happened to be on an island, we would probably have chosen Muck. That is far more Katie Morag and while it is not without it’s community tensions it does seem more ordered and charming. Canna is similar to Rum with the issues surrounding joint land ownership – in Canna’s case with National Trust Scotland, in Rum’s case with Scottish Natural Heritage. There are some fab people on Eigg making really interesting things happen, but equally there is a hardcore of drop outs making it an uncomfortable place to be at times too.

We got a lift along to the health centre and were very warmly welcomed. We chatted to all sorts of people, caught up with Neil & Sue (our WWOOF hosts there) and various other folk, put a couple of faces to names of people I am facebook friends with but had not actually met before in real life, chatted to lots of the NHS people who were there and attended a really interesting talk by two doctors from Alaska on the NUKA  system of care. Really fascinating stuff.

We bimbled around chatting to folk until it was time to head back to the pier to get a ride back to Rum. Pete was doing the school run so we were getting a ride back with the school kids and going to Muck first, so Neil was down there to pick up Struan who was home on the boat for the weekend so we chatted to him a bit more. He’s a really good bloke, nice to catch up and hear some of the same issues happen on Eigg as on Rum.

The boat ride home was much the same, via Muck so a bit longer and a bit colder as the sun had gone in. Home to let Bonnie out for a bit to run around after most of the day in the caravan and make pizza dough for dinner. Loads of deliveries had come on the Friday boat so we loaded them into the Rangerover and drove that back home. It was mad midgey so we just dashed around unloading what was necessary and left the rest. On the way we were met by a couple who had been looking at the croft and were really interested in learning more about life on Rum and what crofting might entail. We chatted for a while and then they said they would email with then rest of their questions.

Saturday morning is generally my favourite of the week, having never lived alone and for the last 15 years almost never having been home alone I really cherish the space of Ady being at work and the kids still being fast asleep for a couple of hours. It’s just me, Bonnie, two cups of tea, Graham Norton on the radio and a crochet hook and now I have Kira too 🙂 Lovely. I did the washing up naked, because I can! Made lots of rainbow bunting and observed the amusing antics of cat and dog working out how to share a space. Ady came home earlier than usual bringing with him a bag of laundry, some wet, some dry to be sorted and hung out on the line and chatter from the village which rather shattered my final half an hour to be honest ;). He went off to do some pig pen maintenance while I set up the campbeds in the bell tent. We paced out the length of hose required to plumb the sink in and got that ordered and then I made up the mini greenhouses. Ady had finished his pig pen stuff by then so he made us both a cup of tea and we sat and chatted down by the polytunnel while drinking that, sat on a pile of bags of compost, one of those perfect moments. Then Ady scythed the inside of the fruit cage while I worked through the polytunnel bringing out the herbs ready to plant on in the herb spiral, replanting some of the tomatoes, planting out the peas which had germinated and discarding the ones which hadn’t. Still much to do down there but definitely feeling about right progress for the end of May in terms of what is growing and where.

I closed the shed up and organised the jams and eggs a bit, we could actually do with a couple of nasty weather days to get on with restocking things in there – we need some more candles, some more bath bombs and some midges – both the in-resin type and the crochet type as I have sold another two crochet midges today – yay! 🙂

Davies had not realised the power was running low during the day and had managed to all but kill the solar battery so there was not enough charge to use the internet in the evening. I was pretty cross about that but Ady and Scarlett went off to bed and Davies and I sat up til midnight having a really good chat instead so it was all ok.

Today – I made bread rolls and pizza dough and finished getting the herb spiral sorted – got the slates all put back and some wood cut to create a fence around it. Then Ady and I did sausage making with our new mincer, really impressed with it :). I finished the herb spiral and got it planted up with the herbs and then Neil, Lesley and Dougal arrived. Ady had got the barbecue lit and the pizza oven fired up and we had a feast – our sausages, a lump of pork rib roast, burgers they had brought up, bread rolls and onions, salad and a load of pizzas. All really nice 🙂 We had some wine and beer and sat outside chatting for hours. We moved indoors around 9pm and had a last cup of tea before they headed home. It was a lovely afternoon with perfect non-midgey weather and just really nice to do something like that.

Kira has been outside loads, she likes going under the caravan but that is excellent for mice and rat prevention anyway and she always comes back out. She is pretty good at coming when I call her and is slowly exploring but dashes back to the caravan every time. I am so glad we got her, she is just exactly the sort of cat I was missing having in our home. Ady and the kids love her too and Bonnie is being very tolerant and accepting.

Lots on this week, waiting on stuff arriving, friends visiting…

I had a surprising facebook message this morning from Bad Neil asking about the sheerwater boat trip – what time and how much. I assumed he was asking for someone else but no, when we arrived at the pier he, Lesley and Dougal were there ready to get on with us!

First though it was talk at the croft – when we first arrived here we met a couple of uni professors here with a group of students and doing experiments about the worms here on Rum. The paper which one of them was writing was published last year and hit the press renewing interest in the worms. We gave a talk to some of their students that year and again the following year. We missed the next year as we were away but this year they had been in touch to ask if we would give a talk and croft tour again so they came up this morning. We had been clear about our available window – between Popmaster and having to head off on the Sheerwater – we are busy people! 😉 We packed up lunch and met the group. We did a fairly standard Q&A session, talked about crofting generally, crofting on Rum and why we personally were here, then talked about our animals and crops and took them round to meet the pigs, the penned mother hens and chicks, the new peahens and to see the wind turbines. It was a good session and came after getting a reply to a speculative email I’d sent to one of the big cruise ships that calls at Rum and brings passengers ashore for castle tours offering croft tours with the As Seen On TV Goddard family. Exploiting all possible opportunities 😉

Then off to the pier to meet the Sheerwater. It was busy – Neil, Lesley & Dougal, Fliss, Debs brought Eve and Joss on a ‘school trip’, Trudi and her two volunteers and a whole load of tourists plus us. We grabbed our usual seat at the back and Fliss, Neil & Lesley joined us so it was a bit of a locals day trip which was fun. We didn’t see much – a few porpoise fins at one point, so Ronnie the skipper took us to the south east corner of the coast of Rum where there is a kittiwake colony. We were really lucky to see a sea eagle flying through the middle trying to snatch kittiwake chicks. It didn’t succeed but had a couple of fly-bys trying delighting all the binocular wielding folk.

Back to Rum where we had to clamber across two moored boats at the pier to get ashore. We’ve had to climb across one before but never two. We drove slowly back stopping to position the wellies for the trail as we went, got stuff out of the freezer for dinner and then came home. Davies and Scarlett headed back down to deliver a dozen eggs to Fliss. I took Kira outside for a while and she wandered around the caravan a bit then managed to get underneath. I could hear her miaowing so we knew she was there. We took the hatch off where we access the generator and I called her and she came out. She seems unscathed by the adventure and still very keen to get outside. She and Bonnie had a few face offs but seem as cautious of each other really. Kira tends to bolt for the caravan when scared too which is heartening. We will keep letting her out a few times every day with us around until I am happy to just let her be outside but I am confident she will be just fine and of course she is such a long way from roads that she is safe too.

Ady had been making a hole in the wall next to the bell tent earlier so that campers can access it from the top trail so we were looking at that and chatting more about ideas for up there, we closed up the shop and the polytunnel and Mike & Debs were walking around the nature trail so we chatted to them for a short time but it was very midgey so none of us wanted to linger.

I brushed Scarlett’s hair as she had had a shower and now I’m knackered after too much sunshine and talking! More of the same tomorrow as we’re off to Eigg for the day.

Yesterday I used the blog to find out the exact date of Lorna’s birthday as I am never sure just when in early June it is and rather embarrassingly could not actually recall how old she is about to be either. I used to be sooo much better at blogging and having sensible blog post titles, which is really useful when you are playing detective like that. 10 years from now entitling a post Sunday & Monday won’t really assist. Mind you using random song lyrics probably won’t either and I did that for years!

Yesterday morning I started fab sealing the tent while Ady scythed the spot we were planning on putting it. Ady put Kira outside in a dog crate for a while thinking she would enjoy the sunshine but she hated the crate and just miaowed constantly for about 10 minutes until I took her out. She stayed close to me for a while but then got a bit bolder and as I was barefoot so I could walk over the tent I was edgy about being able to dash after her so I put her back in the house. I bought her out again later in the day and several times again today. She is pretty fine and has walked all around the outside of the caravan exploring, checked out under the horse box, the pizza oven, the wood shed. She gets nervous about Bonnie outside though and I am still too worried about her getting spooked and dashing off then not being able to find her way back. So far if she gets afraid she runs back into the caravan and is quite good about coming when you call her. Another week or so with regular forays into outside while we’re about and I am sure I will feel more relaxed about it and she will be fine. She makes me very happy though, I am so delighted to have her 🙂

We had lunch and then Ady put some waterproofing stuff on the caravan roof on a spot where it’s been leaking in heavy, straight down rain (which we don’t get often really!) while I started painting some welly boots to be a welly trail to lead people to the croft. There is Sign Wars happening down in the village with the various craft shops, bike hire and so on, mostly between Fliss and Kate but it does mean we need to also maintain a presence otherwise it looks like the A frame advertised craft shops are all there is. Ady had the brilliant idea of painting old wellies to mark the way to the croft so have decorated ten boots and we’ll stick them along the way tomorrow on the way back from the Sheerwater.

All that done we moved the bell tent. Unfortunately it did not pitch very well and we were forced to conclude the slope on the bit of ground we had chosen was probably too steep. So we chose another bit higher up the hill and a bit flatter. Ady went to scythe it while I watered the polytunnel and did some more welly painting.

Today Ady woke me ringing the CoOp to pay for today’s shopping at 7am and I couldn’t get back to sleep. I read for an hour and then got up and was outside painting wellies in the sunshine by 830am – unheard of! Ady was whittling tent pegs from some green wood he’d cut and we set the radio up outside. It was really nice and we had Kira out with us a bit. Ady drilled holes in the bottom of all the wellies so we can put stakes though them so they won’t blow away.

Off to the boat for quite a lot, but not all of the deliveries we’re waiting on. CoOp came, part of the Halfords order (chairs and campbeds ordered, one chair arrived), some monthly amazon groceries stuff. We also picked up a gas bottle as we are now on our spare as the gas went out last Friday and on the way back to the croft we spotted that a fallen tree Ady had mentioned to Mr Rhys we’d pay him to cut down for us had been done and stacked beside the road so we collected that too. And some laundry we’d put on while we were at the boat. We bought the CoOp stuff up in the wheelbarrow and came home for lunch. Then back down to pump up the tyres on the Rangerover and take that up to where the Jeep was parked and transfer everything across into the Rangerover. Dr Butt, the famous worm professor drove past while we were doing that so he stopped and we chatted to him and his assistant for a while, then brought the Rangerover home loaded up and got it up the croft. All unloaded – so, so much quicker and easier than wheelbarrowing it all up here, that would have taken days.

The kids went  down to the village to watch Star Wars on Rum cinema while Ady and I moved the tent again to it’s new new spot. And finally it is looking good 🙂 I’ve ordered some cord to make new guy ropes as a lot of them are worn and frayed so we’ll replace those when that arrived. Also the groundsheet is a little bumpy as the ground below is so when we take it down to replace the guys we will re-scythe it and trample it down more. We went across to the cabin to collect the sink Dave said we can have and worked out where to set that up so it’s all coming together nicely.

Polytunnel watering, shop shutting up and in for showers and dinner. I’m worn out today and tomorrow is another busy one so for once I’m off to bed in the same  day I got out of it in!

Sunday – In the morning Ady did some scything,  he is planning on getting back to an hour a day like he did last summer. Then he went to meet Big Dave as they were doing car maintenance stuff together. The Rangerover is now fine and running again 🙂 Yay, that will save us lots of time when we have big deliveries of stuff like animal feed, or in the case of this week camping beds, chairs, mini greenhouses and more.

I did some weeding of the herb spiral, which is now finished. Some of the slates I had put around the edge had grass totally grown over so I pulled that up and have placed it on top of some of the bare ground patches around the static, it might take. While I was doing that Neil, Lesley and Baby Dougal appeared so we looked at the peahens and then they came in for cups of tea, chats and to meet Kira cat. Ady and Dave came in while we were chatting and then headed across to the cabin where they were doing some painting. I walked down to the village with Neil & Lesley to check for post and then came back up to have some lunch before finishing the herb spiral.

I spent some time sitting out on the sporran in the sunshine with Kira trying to start getting her used to the outside and all the birds. That went fairly smoothly, I’m hoping to let her out from next week sometime and will carry on working towards that with small exposure steps.

Ady came back and we fed the animals, watered the polytunnel and then discovered that the broody chicken in the woodshed had hatched the first chick from the four eggs she was sitting on. The woodshed was a really bad place for her to go broody so we’d already decided to move her as soon as she hatched the chicks so we knocked up a small house with scrap wood, caught the hen and chick, gathered up the remaining eggs and put them all into the new house in the new pen. Not heard the chick at all today which does not bode well really but at least the hen has returned to the rest of the eggs.

We watched Doctor Who and had a delicious, if very late due to the chicken house making, dinner.

Today – This morning Trudi appeared with her volunteers to start digging out the old community polytunnel which is finally being relocated down to the village. Hurrah! Ady went off to help Dave with some ditch clearing, I walked down to the village to post the mis-ordered mini green house covers. An expensive mistake, that has cost me over a tenner 🙁 I got some milk and some bits from the freezer for dinner tonight and tomorrow and came back meeting Ady along the way. We had lunch and then Dave and Faye came over for a lift to the boat. We chatted to some tourists on the way down who were sitting outside the shed, another £30 taken in there today 🙂 Need to replenish stock of candles and bath fizzers.

We waved them off then collected the post from the car which included my repaired phone, hurrah and yipee! All fixed, now fitted with a new case I bought and all software upgraded too. So pleased to have it back 🙂 Ady and the kids went down to the hall as Rum Cinema was running the new Star Wars while I came home to set up my phone. They arrived back early due to technical issues – as in Trudi couldn’t get the film to project onto the big screen, so Ady and I fed the animals together, watered the polytunnel, decided on a location for the bell tent and marked it, brought in dry washing and hung out the load Ady had got washed while he was down in the village and then had a cider on the sporran before coming in to get dinner on.

Tomorrow is planned to be an entirely on the croft day – priorities this week are the fruit cage which needs the grass cutting inside and the net roof fixing back on, and getting the bell tent area set up. I know it’s only Tuesday tomorrow but this week will run away with us as we have various stuff happening at the end of the week, so it will be good to have a super productive day tomorrow.

Friday – yesterday morning started much like this morning, windy and showery. The rain did break after Popmaster though so while Ady went out to tidy out the Rangerover which we’ve been using as storage prior to Big Dave’s visit I did some more herb spiral weeding. I have some slates around the outside to create a strimming / scything edge which are completely overgrown with moss and rushes which is a long but theraputic task. Ady and I checked the bell tent for leaks (it needs fabsealing which we have ready to do but had been letting it really air as it was smelling musty after a winter in the Pajero before applying it and sealing the mustiness in). We had an early lunch and then headed down to the village. We put a wash on, collected some bits from the freezer, went around to the hall to put some pork ribs in water to start defrosting for later, collected the laundry and went to the pier. Big Dave and Faye were coming off and we were hoping for a delivery of some mini greenhouses. About six weeks ago we decided to buy a second polytunnel to move stuff like chillies, peppers and tomatoes into as I was running out of space in the one Ady built. It didn’t turn up and didn’t turn up so I chased it and finally after several emails the supplier came back to say actually there would be an additional charge for delivering it here. I then had to fight to get my money back as they wanted to wait until it had arrived back with them having told their courier to return it rather than pay the extra charge. It was just really poor communication and service and so I ordered four mini greenhouses instead thinking maybe that would be better. Those have also taken an age to get here and were finally shown as delivered on Tuesday but didn’t turn up on Wednesday or Friday. So I chased them too and it turns out they had arrived yesterday after all, in the post as actually they are not mini greenhouses at all but reinforced replacement covers. Argh! So have now tried a third time to get some from somewhere else and requested a return label for the covers. Having gone back and looked at the listing again it does say covers but it pretty misleading as it says ‘mini greenhouse reinforced cover’ which I took to mean a mini greenhouse with a reinforced cover rather than a reinforced cover for a mini greenhouse… the photo is of a whole greenhouse too rather than the competitors listing for replacement covers which clearly show the cover in a bag rather than the whole thing. Anyway, I am not bothered about arguing over the cost of sending them back and will learn the lesson to read listings really, really carefully in future.

Back home to get changed, feed the animals and then head down to the hall for monthly bring and share meal which was themed as Takeaways this time. I had planned on doing some fried rice while Ady was doing sticky spare ribs but the hall kitchen gas has run out so we called off the rice and Trudi kindly let Ady use her kitchen to make the ribs. It was another good night with nearly £50 raised for the hall, plenty of laughs and fun. Davies and Scarlett left about an hour before us, we were home just before midnight but walked home in the rain.

Saturday Ady was at work this morning so I had my usual lovely Saturday morning but with added loveliness in the shape of Kira snuggled up next to me purring. I read in bed for an hour then got up to crochet, drink tea and listen to Graham Norton on the radio. It was really rainy which made it all the nicer and both Kira and Bonnie were being affectionate (quite possibly in a competitive manner with each other but I’ll take my loving pet behaviour where I can get it!). I finished a couple of scarves which were both half done, labelled them up and later Scarlett put then in the shop. I finished a couple of crochet thistles I had been faffing with and sewed on pins to make them badges / brooches. I need to make a few more of that sort of thing and then I can put them all down in the shop too. I laughed so loudly at Graham Norton that I woke Scarlett up so she sat with me chatting until Ady got home and it was lunchtime. The weather had cheered up by then too. Ady, Scarlett and I fed the animals and then walked down to the village to collect cheese from the freezer for pizza for dinner. Really, really sadly we discovered Mrs Turkey back on our croft with Mr Turkey and no chicks 🙁 She has lost them all. We spent some time looking for even remains but found nothing. So sad. At least we know they are both fertile and she can hatch eggs, next time we will pen her and the chicks as the crows and ravens must have taken them all. Poor Ady is really sad.

Back at home I potted on some lavender which had arrived – cheap on ebay the mis-shapes that are too big or small or have started to flower which can’t be sold as standard 10cm potted herbs to supermarkets and garden centres so they sell as seconds. I watered the polytunnel and got some more sand up for Kira’s litter tray. Back in to make pizza dough.

Dinner watching BGT (guilty Saturday night Goddard Heights pleasure!) and then part 2 of the LOST pilot episode.

No Sheerwater for us today. Trudi went and said it was wild, they saw nothing other than an otter next to the pier and she was nearly seasick. So I’m glad we didn’t go, maybe we’ll be fairweather dolphin chasers this year.

Instead we had a productive indoor day. Lots of cat cuddling and Kira & Bonnie integration. Bonnie appears to have decided Kira is not so bad given she comes with a bowl of cat food. Kira is still mostly curious (classic cat trait 😉 ) but wary. She still legs it into our bedroom given half a chance but we’ll not let her in there again until she stops doing the bolting under the bed thing.

I tidied up two areas which were cluttered and bugging me – on top of Bonnie’s crate and a stool which had become a crap magnet. The crate top seems to have been refilled by the stool remains clear… small victories. I did the Rum newsletter and emailed it out, cleared my inbox of volunteer requests, replied to a couple of other emails and set up the bell tent on airbnb. Ady and I ordered camp beds, camping chairs, stove and cooking set and started working on what else we’ll need to set it all up. We listened to several downloaded Desert Island Discs .

Davies and Scarlett caught up on various online things – they are both watching series and eagerly await the next episode being released online of things. They both did some bedroom tidying and Scarlett found £20 in her room she didn’t even know she had, the best sort of tidying! 🙂

When Ady fed the animals he discovered a dead turkey chick 🙁 So we’re down to five. Not sure if it had been strangled or squashed but it was all tangled up in the mother turkey’s feathers still and dangling from her. Ady tried blowing into it’s beak and massaging it’s chest as it was still warm although we suspect that was body heat from the mother rather than it’s own heat. Very sad though 🙁

I made dinner – tacos and tortilla wraps which I made from scratch as none of us felt like walking down to the freezer to get a packet of wraps out. Lengthy and as I don’t eat them anyway not rewarding in any sort of selfish manner but clean plates all round made it worthwhile. We watched the first episode of Lost which we’ve been telling D&S about for ages and felt was an essential part of their ongoing popular culture education 😉

A quiet morning – I was rudely awoken by Ady sitting quite heavily on my legs trying to get phone signal to ring the CoOp to pay for our shopping. Not the nicest way to be roused.

After Popmaster we went down to meet the boat to collect said CoOp shopping. The mini greenhouses I am waiting for and had hoped would come today did not so everything crossed for them for Friday. I am desperate to move the tomatoes into another space in the polytunnel. Back home for lunch and an animal programme for Scarlett and I as she’d been asking for a few days. Then down to Fliss’ for Crafternoon. A nice couple of hours chatting and crocheting down there with Ali, Fliss and Debs before walking back home again.

I watered the polytunnel and had taken down some thinned out tomato plants for Ali who had come up while I was doing the thinning and begged the ones I would have chucked out as she had not sown any yet. The thinned ones are all doing well, as are the herbs which are all ready to be planted out once I finish weeding the herb spiral ready for them…maybe tomorrow. I checked over the raised beds which are all seeming fine, I might give some feed to some of the crops, the broccoli has gone to flower which is not a great sign.

Bonnie and Kira continue to coexist ok, Bonnie is more chilled out about Kira being here although she is wary she no longer appears terrified! Kira is using the litter tray just fine and seems pretty settled. The advice is two weeks inside or until she seems to be relaxed so we’ll just see how that goes.

Scarlett had a shower so it was hairbrushing duty for me. Tomorrow would be sheerwater boat trip but weather is looking very wet so we won’t bother if that is the case. Instead a mammoth tidy up session in the caravan is scheduled if it’s an indoor day.

Thursday – Continued glorious weather. We went off on the Sheerwater boat trip, our first of the year although I think the third of the season so far, we’d just not bothered as the weather had been pants. It was gorgeous, sunny, still, blue skies etc. We went off with our rucksack packed full, suncream applied, sunhats and sunglasses etc but without any real high hopes of seeing much with it so early in the season.

The outward trip was justifiable of our expectations without even a seabird in sight but as soon as we left Soay to head back to Rum it all got very exciting. There were at least two, probably four minke whales, porpoises aplenty, kittiwakes and shearwaters, gulls and gannets and the friendliest bonxie (great skua) we’ve ever met. At various points there was something happening in every single direction you looked in. We chased the whales for a while, the bonxie chased us and it was just heavenly.

Back on dry land we came home, watered the polytunnel, fed the animals and I made pizza dough then we headed down to the shop with Birthday Brownies. A good turn out of folk to celebrate Ady’s birthday with him and plenty of beers bought for him. Davies and Scarlett headed back up a little ahead of us and I think we got home around 930pm.  I made pizza and that was Ady’s birthday celebration really. I went to bed around 1am and Davies and Scarlett were both up and wide awake making birthday cards. Sign of the times…!

Friday – A slightly strange day really – I was off at 4pm on the boat which always means the day is spent in expectant limbo. I packed and Ady and I walked down to the shop to pick up various things Ady needed for later in the day for dinner, back home for lunch and I said goodbye to the kids and Ady and I went down to meet the first boat which had a butchers order coming off for us on. We put that away and then hung around the village until it was time for the second boat. Mike & Deb were on it along with Colin, a long term contractor who is over at least once a month and is always very friendly so we all sat together and Colin bought us all cups of tea and kitkats 🙂 Mike and Deb offered me a lift to Alison’s so after a quick dash into the CoOp we set off. Unfortunately my message to Alison had not got through and Leon had been along to the station to pick me up so we all arrived at the same time. Mike & Deb headed off and I settled in to Durbin-world, the land which Alison and Leon inhabit which is all very slowed down and low key, which despite four years on Rum I still struggle with a little.

A nice meal was already ready (hours and hours before Goddard o’clock obviously!) after which Leon drifted off, the girls went to bed, Alison, Phil (the barefoot beekeeper dude who was leading the course and staying with Alison too) and I had a few drinks before calling it a night. Jenna had very kindly given up her bedroom to me for my stay so I slept pretty well although after the first night I kept the black out blinds open at night – it really freaks me out to wake in complete darkness and try and adjust, I am much better waking in daylight with the sun even if it means waking earlier in the morning and struggling to get back to sleep if you rouse at some ungodly summer daylight hour.

Saturday – Alison made breakfast for people, I just had tea and we headed off to the village hall for the course. It was a really good day with lots of interesting people – about half very local, about half having travelled, some from Inverness and the Black Isle, some up from Glasgow / Edinburgh and me across from Rum. An interesting mix of interesting people and personalities. Lots of chance to chat and get to know others on the course too which is always good. We finished around 5pm and headed back to the house. Alison had put forward the idea of going out for the evening to a local pub for some music – I actually know the people who were playing and it would have been good but everyone was a bit tired (which is the natural state of being at their house!) so once we’d had dinner we decided against it. We did instead decide at around 10pm to start constructing Alison’s new bee hive! So that slightly gin fuelled adventure was embarked upon. I went to bed around midnight and left them to it. I’d had some long and interesting chats with Phil  during the course of the evening but was ready for my book and bed,

Sunday – I was up way before anyone else – Leon had been off on a weekend overnight course doing island survival bushcraft with a group up from Glasgow for the weekend and he is usually the earliest riser. Phil got up shortly after me, then Alison and the girls. We had logistical issues getting all of us plus dog and beehive to the course venue so Alison took Phil and the beehive while the girls and I got ready to go in a second run – the hall is only five minutes from their house. The second day of the course was just as good and offered plenty more chatting opportunities with people. I do love going on learning adventures like that, you really bond with the other attendees and everyone always leaves so enthused regardless of what you’re learning, our cob course was just the same. After the course I drove me, the hive, the girls and the dog back leaving Alison and Phil doing the final tidy up. Leon was already home so he went back to collect them and I unloaded and put away then reloaded the dishwasher, tidied up the kitchen a bit and then did some crocheting waiting for them to come back. The idea to go to the pub for dinner was put forward and voted as a very good one by everyone so we drove the five miles ish to the nearest pub for dinner which was a real treat 🙂

Back at the house Leon went off to bed as did the girls while Alison, Phil and I chatted for a while over some wine. Then I left them to it and went off to bed, I was really, really looking forward to getting home.

Monday – I got the school bus with Jenna into Mallaig which got me in about 830am. I did a modest CoOp shop, small enough to cram into my rucksack and then went across to the Calmac office. When the tea kiosk opened opposite just after 9am I went and got a cup of tea while looking out for my assignation. Sure enough around 930am a van pulled up with Animal Rescue Centre painted on the side and I dashed out to meet them. Fiona and her husband John, plus a pair of peahens for Ady and a little black cat for me!!! This was all rather last minute and I had not really believed it would all happen until it actually did. The added surprise being that Fiona grew up on Rum! Much chatting with them for 20 minutes or so before saying goodbye, leaving the peahens to be loaded onto the car deck and collecting my bags to walk on to the boat with the cat.

I settled myself at a table in the cafe bit as upstairs was totally full and had started chatting to the people at the next table who were heading to Eigg but had been to Rum last year and on a castle tour led by Ady when Niall the farrier got on. So he and I sat and gossiped and drank tea for the entire trip which was lovely, he is such a nice bloke. He helped me off with the peahens and Ady met us to load them all into the car. Davies and Scarlett were off playing with their mates who were over for the weekend (Claire’s new partner Dan has teenage girls who he has on alternate weekends and part school holidays. They get on really well with Davies and Scarlett and spent loads of time with them when they are over visiting . But they all came to meet the boat for hello-I-missed-you cuddles before heading back off again. Ady and I bought cats, peahens and stuff up to the croft and had some lunch before going back to collect the rest from the car. D&S returned having waved their mates off on the second boat.

Bonnie and the cat had their first meeting which went fine. So far they are mostly just scared of each other, the cat is more curious than Bonnie is but there is no aggression and I am confident it will pan out ok over the next few weeks before we let the cat outside.

It was fantastic to be home, I had missed everyone so much.

Today – we decided to come up with a name for the cat. She came called Piper which we decided we would keep if she responded to it, but she does not so we wanted to call her something which meant something to us. We came up with a long list of about 10 names and all chose our top three, any with more than one vote went through and we all chose our favourite from that. That left us with two votes for Kira and two votes for Jinx. As her official human I got casting vote so Kira she is. Ciara is gaelic for ‘wee dark one’ but pronounced kee-ra so we have gone for the phonetic spelling and named her Kira Cat.

It rained pretty much solidly all day long so nothing much got done other than hanging out with the cat, crochet, listening to radio downloads and Ady tidied out a kitchen cupboard. At 5pm it cleared up so I walked down to the village to the shop and freezer before coming home to get dinner sorted. I had a shower and called my parents with my cat news.

I’m being quiet about it on facebook as the woman who I got the cats from last year is my facebook friend and I have never been able to bring myself to explain that we never saw them again after they escaped so I always say they are out and about on the croft but never come in the caravan. I actually don’t think she’d mind but it feels a bit insensitive to be all thrilled about a new cat somehow.

A lovely two days of no village intrusions on Monday and Tuesday… well until 5pm on Tuesday anyway.

I’ve been weeding and sowing and potting on and planting out in the sunshine, singing along to music and just enjoying life, sold nearly £50 worth of stuff from the shop including the first midge. Scarlett’s been playing in the river, Davies has had loads of solar and wind power so been busy online and Ady has been pottering Ady style. We got the bell tent up and decided we will try and rent it out, maybe on airb&b, so we’re working out what we need to do to set that up. For now though it is pitched and looking really lovely near the caravan 🙂

Tuesday afternoon brought Mike up with tales of woe from the village and then Ali with a bottle of fizz and some beers to celebrate Jim finally having his heart op. Jim is Ali’s FIL – Sean’s Dad and one of the various ‘Rum parents’ who is well known to everyone here by virtue of spending lots of time here on the island over the years. We were nearly at the end of the bottle sitting outside in the sunshine when Sean sent her a heart stopping text saying ‘need to talk’. They finally got through to each other and it was bad news, there had been complications and Jim was back in surgery and looking bleak. After debate we opened a second bottle and talked lots. Ali stayed for dinner and finally left about 10pm. Very, very sadly she messaged me in the early hours of this morning to say that Jim had passed away at 130am 🙁

So this morning I went down to be with Ali for a couple of hours. They are all in shock and not really sure where to start making arrangements. It appears there may be some issues to do with the surgeon and maybe an inquest, all of which is just even sadder really. Eve, Sean and Ali’s 7yo was with Sean but Ali’s parents have now collected her and are bringing her home to Rum next week, Sean will stay with his mum and Ali is now covering Sean as full time deer researcher as it is calving season.  All just sad and a reminder to us all of how fragile life is and how very far away from everything we are here.

Ali and I went to the boat and I came home with Ady – we had animal feed and CoOp shopping off the boat and Ali had decided to head off to Kilmory for some headspace. We came home for lunch and then all four went down with a wheelbarrow each to unload the car – two trips for everyone, I think it nearly killed Davies! We also popped to the village for milk, cheese and to collect the post so saw a few people and were re-immersed in the village life once more.

Back up here I did a bit more stuff in the polytunnel, I’ve now been ruthless with the tomatoes and potted them all on and discarded the small ones, which to salve my conscience about just killing the tiny seedlings Ali is taking as she has not sown any tomatoes yet. I still have a couple of raised beds to weed and some more stuff to plant out and the herb spiral needs weeding, netting and the herbs planting out but I suspect that job will roll over into next week now.

Back in the caravan I made dinner – quiche, new potatoes and salad so lots of faffing with pastry making and I decided to make the birthday brownies tonight too while the oven was on along with a batch of mini quiches to take on the Sheerwater trip tomorrow for lunch. I am off on Friday which is Ady’s actual birthday so we’re doing birthday brownies at the shop tomorrow evening instead.

Because that one rambled quite a way from today!

I woke with Ady and he made me a cup of tea but I read for a while with the intention of getting up and then fell back to sleep.

I got up for a cup of tea with Ady when he came in for a teabreak and then went down to the walled garden. Ady was doing stuff with power – fixing up a solar panel to charge the pig battery and doing stuff to the wind turbines to have them both working – one into the caravan and the other to charge up a spare pig battery.

I cut up the pipe which arrived on Friday into hoops to make netting tunnels over the raised beds. I part weeded one of the raised beds, watered the polytunnel and got some peas out ready to plant on. Lesley was walking along the nature trail so I chatted to her for about half an hour. D&S walked down to the village to collect the post, I came up for lunch which Ady had made and we ate out on the sporran.

Then back to the raised beds for me to plant out peas, cabbage and broccoli. I battled with netting and did a little bit more weeding.  I am waiting for a mini polytunnel to arrive to put the tomatoes, chilli and peppers into so I can do some more sowing as I have run out of room really. I have a load of stuff to tidy / sort through which Ady has moved across from dismantling an old shed so that is my next job.

I came up for a glass of wine on the sporran at 7pm just as it was getting midgey. Ady had got dinner on already and it was smelling divine. I had a shower and repainted my nails (all chipped and scuffed from the weeding!) and we watched BGT from last night followed by Doctor Who with and after dinner.

First midges this evening, not biting but definitely there. Tomorrow is supposed to be good weather again  so more outsideness on the cards 🙂

It occurs to me that this blog is no longer really very bloggy. It’s sort of not about HE and not about the kids and not very regularly kept… Given how very secret and select the audience I could probably use it a bit more for more diary style stuff, I’m not even sure who actually even reads it any more – apart from Michelle 😉

So on that basis, where are we at?

Davies – aside from the odd moment of fleeting teendom, perhaps a five second glimpse of it once a month he remains the same person he has always been. He has gotten more private over the years and is definitely still the deep one of the family but seems happy and well adjusted and fine. He does have his moments of taking himself off for a walk, I watched him from afar last weekend in a group and he took some time out every so often to adjust. I do think this is a genuine dealing with his own shit type thing rather than an attention  seeking heading off to get people to follow him. I am not entirely convinced that Rum and our remote lifestyle are great for Davies but he insists he is happy with this. He does have a very wide social circle online and having chatted to other parents of teens back on the mainland / in school / in more conventional settings it would seem that a huge amount of teen socialising is done online regardless of physical proximity to real people anyway so I don’t especially feel he is missing out there. I am always impressed with his being so comfortable in his own skin, he is confident and happy with who he is. I love his sense of fairness and intolerance for racism, sexism, or other isms 😉 We very much let Davies do his thing from time he gets up to what he eats. Very rarely I will lay down the law on things – an example being not accepting him not talking to me if I have pissed him off over something, which always upsets him still, he hates being in trouble. Davies has a real sense of integrity and wi. sll often call Ady or I on something if he thinks we are wrong which I am really proud of. I love that he won’t choose an easy path just because it is easy, I hope he retains that sense of honour. I occasionally have  a rant at both the kids about wasting opportunities and how so many (if not all) of their peers are at school or college or doing exams and they are largely drifting but in the main I am pretty comfortable with that. I am still really confident that our approach is the right one for us and will pan out for the best. Davies is very tactile still with me and I get hugs, strokes, ‘love you’s and other affection countless times every day. It would be really easy to demonise Davies as the least productive, least helpful and least active member of the family but the reality is that he is a quiet calm presence who very much has his place in our dynamic and it is his role as observer, teller of truths and subtle humour which makes him as valuable as any one of the rest of us despite never putting the kettle on or doing the washing up without very direct requests.

Scarlett – remains very young for her age. On the day I learnt that her same age cousin has been self harming Scarlett had spent the afternoon stood in the river catching fish. She does take herself off for alone time moments and is certainly not above having a hormonal rant and days when nothing I can do it right but she is capable, responsible and intuitive. She still flatly refuses to read, despite knowing it would please and relieve Ady and in some ways I am celebratory of that. Secretly I think she can more or less read and is happier clinging on to childhood that letting that final bit of dependence on grown ups melt away. Scarlett still craves attention and would probably have been better with another couple of years or normality before our adventures in some ways as she’s not yet finished playing with toys, pretending and imagining and being a child. As with Davies she is also very happy in her skin, I do firmly believe that this is the greatest gift we have given our children – a confidence to be themselves, able to accept what they can’t do, happy to learn and continue to strive for what they want, making no excuses for what they are not. I love how Scarlett is so totally and utterly herself and so free from inhibitions and the need to conform.

The kids are very much in  a bubble here. A home ed bubble where there is no pressure on them to learn anything, to be tested or measured, or do practise papers or know where they are at compared to anyone else. A real world bubble where they are not living in a world with bills, traffic, working parents or any of the things which pretty much everyone else they know exist within. I have no real idea whether this is sheltering them from things they would be better off being part of or whether this is some sort of eden where they get to grow up without all of that to distract them and can view it from a distance and dip in and out as they see fit, knowing that the’ real world’ is merely one option among various choices and that entering it is fine and has many positives but also comes at a cost. The best we can do it to ensure they are aware of the whole world and all the possibilities offered by all the various choices.

We continue to talk and debate about options for the four of us moving forward and both Davies and Scarlett are very aware of the failings and downsides to this way of life. For now they both want to continue with this reality even though the compromises they make between the perfect life they may wish for (wifi, power, cinema, friends, junk food… the usual teenage trappings) and quite what this life offers are becoming more apparent.

Can’t at all recall what happened last Thursday or Friday. There would have been Crafternooning no doubt, pizzas undoubtedly but over and above that I simply do not recall.

So I will skip ahead to Saturday instead. We were up at a most unGoddardly hour to drop Bonnie dog off at Sean and Ali’s and be at the pier ready for the 850am boat. I will reiterate that once more incase you missed it. A boat BEFORE 9am. This is still the middle of the night usually for Davies, the early hours for Scarlett and pretty darn early for me too. So we were not entirely sunny and cheery ;). Ady and I left the kids to their devices, safely installed in the seats next to the plug sockets and had tea and toast in the cafe on the boat. Pre-Canna we chatted to Martin a bit – he is a bloke who used to come to Rum lots as a volunteer bird surveyor, doing stuff with the eagles and shearwaters but fell out with SNH so no longer comes. Between Canna and Muck we mostly listened to ill informed people talking with authority about things they knew nothing about and getting them wrong as we sailed past the back of Rum which is always entertaining. Between Muck and Eigg we talked about Eigg. After Eigg we chatted at length to some tourists who had been on Eigg for a few nights about island life. Most amused when they told us we should go on that show, the one with the nice man, what was his name? Oh yes Ben Fogle… We later saw them again in Mallaig – they had managed to lose a holdall and speculation was that it had been sent off all around the second tour of the islands on the ferry again. Between Eigg and Mallaig we mostly ate chips and got ready to get off.

We collected the car, popped into the CoOp for some supplies and headed off to Alison and Leon’s. We were going to Leon’s 50th birthday party which was sort of an all weekend affair given they had lots of people staying over but the official party was on the Saturday. Lots of food, drink, music and chatting. It was very lovely but was also the most middle class event I think I have ever been to. There was an actual, non ironic crisis when the balsamic vinegar was found to have run out, there was lots of Kumbaya style guitar strumming, token folk with dreadlocks and even someone called Caspian. I suspect we were the token ‘meet our crazy friends’ contingent and this was confirmed when someone actually said to me ‘Oh you’re Nic! I’ve heard about you’. In the afternoon I seemed to spend a lot of time chatting about Home Education, in the evening a lot of time being generally silly having found a couple of people to be sarcastic with and the following day a lot of time talking about crofting and island life. It was a nice weekend though, the kids had a ball with a gaggle of other teens, Ady had lots of opportunities to tidy and be helpful and I spent lots of time chatting and making crochet midges.

On Monday we headed away, leaving rather later than planned as a local teen had been desperate to come over and hang out with D&S again before we left so we delayed leaving for another couple of hours. We got to Fort William and stopped at Morrisons for some food for lunch, went round Lidl for various bits and then back into Morrisons for microwave food for dinner before heading along to the camping pods just south of Fort William. We overshot the village by about 10 miles somehow, I think we were distracted by the bike track for the six day trials plus Scarlett was in the front as she gets really carsick so I was struggling to navigate / watch out for landmarks from the back. We realised and turned back but it added a good half an hour on to our driving time. We arrived and Corrine  was just home herself. Excellent to see her again – we stayed there the night before we moved to Rum, complete with Pajero, everything in the horse box and tiny puppy Bonnie having just collected her.

We had showers, cooked our microwave food and had a fairly early night after a couple of very late ones. The camping pods are really comfy, warm and cosy, loads of room for all four of us and we were all so tired we slept really well. I woke up at about 430am and dashed across to the byre for a wee but got straight back to sleep when I came back.

Tuesday – Ady and I headed into Fort William first thing for Ady’s X ray – the reason for staying off extra nights. The actual x ray was super quick but we had to wait for the cash office to open to claim back expenses so had a quick look around the charity shops in FW while we waited. We got the ferry and mileage costs for Ady reimbursed and then went back to collect the kids. Off to Oban which we last visited about 3 years ago and I think was one of our first trips off Rum after we arrived. Which probably explains why we remembered it as better than it actually is 😉 We wandered round the charity shops, looked in book shops and watched the boats coming and going. We went to find the CoOp we had been in last time but could only find Tesco. Davies managed to get some of the clothes he was desperate for in there and when I chatted to the cashier she confirmed that CoOp had been there and had closed down two years ago. We got food for lunch and to take in the cinema and then drove back and managed to park right outside.

We went in to the smallest screen room ever, just 20 seats, like being in someones’s lounge, although once the film started you forgot how small it all was. The film was great, really enjoyed it and the cinema experience, it’s high on all our lists of things we miss about the mainland. Back to Tesco for stuff for dinner and then back to the camping pods. I chatted to Corrine again for ages and ages. Her son lives in the same road as my Mum & Dad in Worthing and she has always been a big fan of ours and what we are doing compared to the lifestyle her kids and grandkids are leading. We packed most stuff up and for me at least it was another early night.

Wednesday -the weather forecast had been dire for days and we were not at all sure we’d get home as ferries were on amber alert. We’d booked accommodation in FW just incase but had decided to take the car back and catch the train back to FW if the ferry didn’t run as we didn’t need the car for anything and the return train fare would be much cheaper than two more days car hire. We parked the car up and put the keys back in the safe, did a last minute fruit and veg shop at the CoOp and cancelled the accommodation having been assured the ferry would run to Rum but nowhere else.

It was a choppy crossing but not too dreadful – Scarlett who suffers most with travel sickness slept through it and was ok. It was pissing with rain and pretty bleak when we arrived home which is never a nice welcome back but there were friendly faces to greet us and offers of cups of tea if we wanted to put off going back up the hill in the rain. We didn’t take Fliss up on the offer but it was nice to have made. We drove round to Sean and Ali’s to collect Bonnie and her crate and then home. We managed to get everything in two wheelbarrows and didn’t even get too wet walking up the hill. We unpacked everything, had lunch and made the most of the wind turbine action. I rang my parents for a long overdue catch up chat.

Thursday morning was much the same. I cleared all my backlog of emails and was very productive online. In the afternoon I went to Fliss’ for Crafternoon and met up with Ali, Debs and Fliss. Lots of general chit chat, caught up with Lesley on the way home. Ady rang a contact for possibly getting peacocks. I had also asked about possible black female cats (it’s an animal rescue place Corrine had told me about) and got an email back saying they had a 2 year old black female cat if we were interested. It turned out to be the cat Scarlett and I had been looking at a photo of in a shop window in Oban and cooing over. We had no idea if it would be at all feasible to organise but it turns out the husband of the volunteer loves driving and was happy to drive to Mallaig to meet me, so we’ve organised it! I am beyond excited at this, I have missed having a cat sooo much and have tried twice before – once with the kitten when we first arrived here and again with the feral cats who did a runner (and still get periodically spotted on the island!) but this feels right – a black girl cat who is friendly and desperate for a home after her owner died. Mrs Broody Chicken hatched two chicks!

Friday – In the morning I walked down to the post office to send off my broken phone which is supposed to be being fixed. No idea if it will end up costing me or not but I have sent it off as requested. Ady was building a run for the hen and her chicks – a third had hatched. I helped move that over the chicken house for them and the kids were both up so we all had lunch. We had been planning to go to the boat but there were technical issues and the boat was coming in very late. The kids had showers and I brushed Scarlett’s hair, then Ady and I went down to the village. We collected the post, a delivery of wheelbarrow and hosepipe to male hoops over the raised beds to put netting on, dropped off some eggs to Jinty who has some broody hens but no cockerel to fertilise their eggs, chatted for ages to Lesley, Ali and Ross who were knocking about in the village and then came home for pizza. We watched a film – Now You See Me which was pretty good although I fell asleep before the end so the others had to tell me what had happened this morning.

Today – Ady was working this morning so I enjoyed my usual Saturday morning of lots of tea, Graham Norton on the radio and crocheting before the kids get up. Two of the pigs were out so Scarlett and I rounded them up. Ady came home with clean laundry so I sorted and folded that, we had lunch and he did some pig fence maintenance while I fixed some hooks in the shed to hang scarves from and put a mirror up in the there. We walked down to the car to put together the wheelbarrow and then walked down to the village as Ady had bought milk but left it in the hostel. We fed the animals and came in. Ady cooked dinner and we watched the first few episodes of Yonderland which was very funny.