One word? When seven would do…

Yesterday – Scarlett had planned to come to Harris with Ady and I to feed the animals and I was half thinking of not going myself and staying with Davies. But she decided to stay behind as there was lots of wind turbine power and Davies got up earlier than usual too, so Ady and I headed off instead. There is a missing cow who didn’t arrive for feeding although another one was very late to arrive so maybe it was just lumbering along slowly. Back to the village to collect post, feed Ali’s chickens and get stuff from the freezer then home for a late lunch.

I made dinner in the afternoon as it’s a condensation creating meal. After careful monitoring of the power, the wind and the heat of the turbine charge controller we decided to tie the turbine up as the wind was clearly way stronger than the 50 mph gusts we’d been forecast. A bit scary as it involved Ady up the ladder in the dark in said >50mph gusts but he did it while I monitored from inside and got ready to kill the load on the turbine as soon as he had it tethered. Mad our lives!

Today – An at home day all day. It’s continued to be wet and very windy all day but very mild too. Ady went out once to do a big animal feeding rather than the usual two and do some work on the pig fence as Waddles keeps getting out. We think she is in season which always makes the girls restless anyway but she is a pain. The sheep are scared of her – quite funny to see them all sort of interacting with each other.

We watched some iplayer stuff – a crofter on Lewis and some Revolting Rhymes. I made pizzas and did more crochet.

Scarlett and I took down the Christmas tree and decorations. The tree was starting to tinge brown and drop needles and I was ready for it to go. I bullied Scarlett a bit as we had said New Years Day but everything was feeling just too chaotic for too long in here. Bonnie’s crate has been in Scarlett’s room so that is now back in the lounge, all the chocolate is divvied up into boxes, all the other food is put back into cupboards and the drink put away. The big piles of boxes and gifts have found their way into the kids rooms. Yay! I love Christmas very much and I love it when it’s over too.

It’s a year tonight that Ady was helicoptered off. I’ve felt quite twitchy the last few days in a very irrational manner but will be really glad to get that anniversary out of the way.

I think I got to Thursday… when we didn’t get a ferry. I confess to holding out hope of a ferry pretty much up until the last minute on Christmas Eve even though everyone else had been doom-mongering all week and Calmac were promising nothing.

I think I made the chocolate log (which was not actually that nice in the end, but the pigs enjoyed it) and Scarlett iced and decorated the Christmas cake.

Friday – Ady and I went over to Harris to feed the cattle and ponies. It was mad windy and we got out to take photos at the lodge. I managed to drop our freezer key at the deer gate and didn’t realise until we went to the freezer. I’d only got out at the deer gate and at the lodge but we thought we might have to drive all the way back over again and were worried it could have just been blown away but it was still there. Phew.

Saturday – Christmas Eve – we popped down to the village in the afternoon and had a quick beer at the shop with some islanders, dropped off gifts to Fliss and fed Ali’s chickens. We had intended to go down again on Christmas Day but decided against it. First time we’ve not done so but there are so few people here for Christmas it felt a bit desperate and bomb shelter in the blitz-esque.

We had a lovely curry for dinner, a throwback to the days we always used to get a takeaway delivered on Christmas Eve, watched Nativity 3 (which was really, really crap) and all stayed up very late to see in Christmas. The kids went to bed about 1230, Ady and I got the presents under the tree and in stockings and then had a last dram while listening to carols before heading to bed around 2am.

Christmas Day – we were missing a fair bit of stuff – Davies’ main present, plus another two smaller gifts for him and three gifts for Scarlett. Plus quite a lot of food and drink supplies although we had got more or less everything from Jinty’s shop and we are pretty philosophical about ferries not coming and what that means. I did feel sorry for Davies but we’d said all along that it might not arrive once ferries got cancelled so he already knew, he had several other things to open and use (headphones with mic, new 3ds game) plus loads of silly things. The kids had threatened a 7am start but in the end Ady woke them about 830. A really nice day of nice food, nice drink, lovely presents and the promise of more on the next boat, good stuff to listen to on the radio and iplayer. We played a hilarious game of charades from a pack Scarlett had got in her stocking and just about saw the day out before bed.

Boxing Day – we all four went over to Harris for pony and cattle feeding, heading over after lunch. Ady and I had popped to the village to feed Ali’s chickens, take some rubbish to the skip and put a load of laundry on and the kids had walked down to meet us at the fork. It was a nice drive across the island and on the higher ground there was quite a lot of snow. It took ages for both the ponies and the cattle to come for feeding, they had all been tucked down on lower, sheltered ground so it was getting dark when we came back scuppering plans to get out and play in the snow for a while. The usual loads of food but nothing to make a dinner with festive dilemma in the evening.

Tuesday – at last a ferry!!! It came early on an amended timetable so Ady and I went and collected everything, waited in the village for the post to be sorted and brought it all up to the caravan and sorted it /put it away before waking the kids. It was definitely like a second Christmas with Davies’ tablet plus his other gifts of a t shirt and some new boots, two cake decorating books and mini muffin tin plus cases for Scarlett, my secret santa from online friends, a box of goodies from Mairi, a joint birthday and Christmas present from Scarlett’s friend, loads of cards including one filled with new from friends in Berlin, 18  bottles of wine, an order from the CoOp including fresh fruit and vegetables and our monthly amazon order with things like cat food, sugar, tea and coffee (which we had fortunately not run out of already!) plus an animal feed delivery.

I made bagels for dinner which had been our Boxing day planned meal. The CoOp had sent a tiny pack of smoked salmon though so it was stretched very thinly between us.

Today – A wet and windy day. This morning I did some crochet while Ady was outside repairing a fenced area. We don’t have anything in it at the moment – it was the first sheep pen – but might need it so it’s good to keep it as a safe and secure area just incase. I woke Scarlett as she had asked to make cakes today but then we realised there were no eggs. So we rejigged the day and Ady and I went to the village to collect the laundry, feed Ali’s chickens (and collect some eggs) and grab some stuff from the freezer before coming home for lunch and cupcake making. Scarlett also made some rose and violet creams as part of a present she is sending to a friend.

Sunday – Completely escapes me. I’m pretty sure there was hairbrushing for Scarlett and a visit from Bad Neil. There was a roast dinner and a festive film.

Monday – Ady and I went down to  the village for some shopping, some post office business, some getting stuff from the freezer, collecting the SNH car and animal feed for Ady to do the run across to Harris to feed the cattle and ponies the next day as he is covering while main SNH staff are off island. We saw Neil at the shop so he came up with us to collect his sheep who we had got penned.

We managed to catch it to treat it as he had bought up some meds to do so while it was captured. He also checked to see whether it was intact and as I was already fairly sure would be the case it is. So very likely lambs in the spring. Bollocks.  We caught up on The Apprentice.

Tuesday – Ady went off to feed the animals. I had planned to go with him but it was very windy so I thought it would be better to stay with the kids in the caravan. I finished a crochet midge for Jen, if we get another boat before Christmas I’ll get it posted to her.

In the evening Ady and I went down to Fliss’ for her Christmas party. Last year it was a real highlight of the year, this year there are so few of us around generally and on island just now specifically it was very quiet – Fliss and Sorcha (who came home on Monday for Christmas), us two (Davies and Scarlett elected to stay home despite being invited), Bad Neil and Jed. Mr Rhys came along for a short while too. We had a nice few hours getting home just before 12.

Today – Ady’s been dodging the rain and hail showers building a bigger pen for the pigs. I spent the morning wrapping Christmas presents. Then we headed down to the village to collect laundry, load the SNH car up with animal feed for the next feed on Friday and go to Sean & Ali’s to check and feed their chickens and wild birds. On the way home we got caught in a hailstorm.

That was me in for the rest of the day, I stared sewing a duck toy that Scarlett wants me to make. Ady chopped up some wood and then he was in too.

Everything crossed for a ferry tomorrow, particularly one bringing the last few things we are waiting for…

Tuesday – I slept badly as I was convinced we would oversleep so every time I stirred I woke enough to check what time it was on my phone. At least three times. The room was stuffy and I woke from a really vivid dream about discovering a house underground on the croft. It was so clear that I can still remember it now and for a while I lay there seriously considering ringing Ady to tell him exactly where to start digging to find it.

We got up and headed to the radio station which is on an industrial estate just outside the town. We struggled to park so had to walk a short way to it. I had emailed the studio manager thinking he would be the best person to arrange a behind the scenes tour but had not realised that in a station so tiny no one is employed like that and infact he was there presenting the breakfast show. The station is largely music and ads with a minimal amount of talking between tracks really so he was able to chat to us loads with just three instances of turning the mike and the red light on and broadcasting while we stood there.

Davies did a good job of leading it, having thought about some questions to ask and with fairly minimal prompting from me. David LOVED him, really liked the idea of a Small Isles station or show, told Davies he was really interesting, liked the whole Home Ed thing, loved our story and lifestyle, offered help with all sorts of things from a Young Presenters course to a SVQ in broadcasting, to come and help set stuff up, assist with finding funding and so on. He was ridiculously effusive but if even half the things he said he could help with actually happen then he will be a massively useful contact.

We left there and headed to the secret charity shops (a local precinct of about 10 shops just outside the town where there are two charity shops), then back to the Premier Inn where we left the car and walked into the town. I needed stuff like Christmas cards, wrapping paper, Superdrug shopping while the kids wanted to look for presents for me, so we looked at the charity shops together and then split up for half an hour or so before meeting back up and going back to the room for lunch and telly.

Scarlett and I went round to the dentist, getting there about 15 minutes early on the off chance as Gregor is always so efficient he never seems to have a backlog of waiting patients. Sure enough we were in, Scarlett was seen, had some elastic bands between top and bottom jaw fitted and we were back in the hotel room before her appointment time! It meant we were there for Ady arriving as he had got a lift with Sean and Ali rather than catching the train so was nearly an hour earlier than expected too.

Ady and I went along to Poundstretcher and the supermarket for various bits and pieces and picnic tea to eat in the room. Baths all round and then sleeping.

Another bad nights sleep for me, it was so hot and I had opened the window but Davies (who was sleeping in the bed closest to the window) had shut it again. It was 25 degrees in the room, at this time of year our bedroom is regularly around the 8 degrees mark so very different.

Wednesday – zoo day! We were up and out by 830am on our way to the Highland Wildlife Park, Scarlett’s belated birthday treat. It’s a small zoo by normal UK zoo standards but important for having the only UK female polar bear and the first polar bear the kids had seen in real life. There could only have been about 20 people in the whole zoo and the keeper talks were pretty limited – Japanese snow monkeys, polar bears, Scottish wildcats and Amur tigers. But we went to all of them, drove round the safari reserve bit twice, saw the snow leopards and the wolves and had a really good day. Scarlett loved it 🙂

We debated heading on to Inverness for dinner and food shopping but decided to go back to FW instead. We had a discussion about the best place to get dinner and in the end decided to go for picnic food again with fish and chips for Davies. So Ady and I did the Morrisons christmas food shopping, Ady dashed along to the chip shop and we were back for food and baths. We mostly packed up ready for another early start.

Thursday – home day! All packed up and on the road just after 830am again. I drove back to Mallaig as the kids secretly prefer my driving plus I was feeling pretty ropey travelling in the back the day before. We arrived, Ady dashed across to the Coop for some milk to bring home, I reversed onto the ferry and we were on our way home. The crossing was pretty choppy but we managed. Home, collected Bonnie, gathered up the Jeep, bunged stuff in the freezer and then came back to the croft with wheelbarrows. The day disappeared in a haze of unpacking and putting away and a lovely venison steak dinner by Ady. Good to be home.

Friday – Ady worked in the morning. I made mince pies, the kids slept in. In the evening Ady and I went down to Debs for a pre Christmas meal with Debs, Fliss and Jed. It was a really nice, if slightly strange evening. We were home just before midnight.

Today – I spent the morning almost finishing the puzzle and listening to the radio, Ady spent it doing loo maintenance. In the afternoon Scarlett actually finished the puzzle while Ady and I walked down to the village to get stuff from the freezer and collect the post. Pizza for dinner delayed from last night.

We still have additional livestock…

Saturday – in the morning I listened to the radio and did the festive puzzle while Ady went down to post a parcel for me and pick Dave up from the boat.  He had forgotten to collect some stuff from the freezer so we walked down together to get it and collected the post from the car too. We fed the animals and then popped over to Dave’s cabin for a cup of tea and a blether before coming in for curry and Polar Express.

Sunday – We fed the animals then took the laundry down to the cars. We wanted to take the Chevy down to the pier and it needed a jump start to get going. We put the washing on and took both the Jeep and the Chevy to the pier, replaced one of the headlamp bulbs in the Chevy as it was really dim and we’d got the spare when we were off but not had a spanner to swap it over and kept forgetting until we needed to use it again. We left the Chevy there ready for today and drove back to the castle where the washing was. It was still in the washing machine so we walked round to Fliss’ to feed her cats and fish but Debs was already there doing so, so we chatted to her for a bit (which was quite good as I suspect she would have come up to ours otherwise that afternoon) before going back to swap it over into the tumble drier. Then we walked around to Ali’s so she could show us where all the feed was for their chickens and wild birds as we are looking after them while they are away over Christmas. We hung around a bit waiting for the stuff to dry then came back to the croft for a late lunch. We fed the animals, then Ady chainsawed up some wood and I split it by which time it was pretty much dark and time to come in.

Ady cooked a lovely roast beef dinner and we ate the last of the mince pies (for now, will make more when we get home) and watched Arthur Christmas.

Today – we spent the morning packing up and getting ready to come off. It was a rough-ish crossing but not dreadful. I chatted to Dave who was coming off too after the weekend on Rum. We smuggled off a couple of jerry cans for Dave to fill up and smuggle back on again when he comes back up for Christmas so I gave him a lift to his car, we put two huge bags of clothes from the big sort out a while back into the clothes banks in the car park and then we were on our way to Fort William. The dash clock had not been put back so was an hour fast but it being already dark I believed it was 530pm because that seemed quite reasonable… so bonus extra hour when I finally realised! I collected something Ady had reserved for me at Argos, we popped into Morrisons for bubble bath, chocolate, stuff for breakfast and a bottle of wine (foolishly picked a really cheap one and it’s very disappointingly nasty, will get something nicer tomorrow!) . We checked in at the Premier Inn which was been done up since our last visit – very recently, the corridors still smell of fresh paint and watched some crap Tv while eating monster munch – living the dream!

We went across to McDonalds for food, then back for baths, more junk TV and a phonecall with Ady who is joining us tomorrow.

We’ve a busy couple of days – off to the local radio station tomorrow for Davies to have a chat about local and community radio which is something he’s interested in, a bit of shopping, then dentist for Scarlett in the afternoon. Ady’s arriving on the train late afternoon and then zoo park on Wednesday before home on Thursday.

Thursday – Ady was ghillying for SNH. The original plan had been for them to be out all day but he was actually home by lunchtime. I had some email conversations with Calmac about whether or not they were sending our animal feed delivery and once they had confirmed they were I headed down to the pier to collect it. I was in a bad mood – Croft 1 sheep had arrived on our croft again the day before so Ady had managed to pen them in our sheep catching pen but they had butted their way out of there and we’re just hanging around our sheep on the croft.

There was loads of rat shit in the car so I swept that out and headed to the pier. Dave had as usual commandeered the parking space right next to the Calmac van even though there was not actually anything coming off for him so I parked next to it and opened all the boot and back doors on our car but was seething. 13 bags of animal feed for us that I’d rather not carry any further than I have to. I started loading it and once the rest of the Rum deliveries were off the van Derek and the Calmac man started helping me. Dave then loaded three sacks onto a sack truck – the balancing act required took longer than actually just carrying three sacks individually would have done and inevitably one of the sacks split. I know he was only trying to help but I’d really rather he just didn’t help at all or helped like a normal person rather than trying to always over engineer and be clever. I drove back past Fliss’ and popped in to feed her cats and fish, then to the shop to grab some bacon for dinner and some more milk. Jinty pissed me off in there so by the time I had marched back up to the croft knowing that I could either spend the whole afternoon wheelbarrowing 13 bags of feed up to the croft 2 sacks at a time or leave it in the car to be rat feed I was already a woman on the edge.

When I’d gone down I’d noticed one of the ducks in the fruit cage and assumed Ady had put it in there for a reason. I could hear it quacking from the foot bridge so decided there was nothing wrong with it after all, it must have flown in there by mistake at feeding time. So I shooed Neil’s sheep away as one of them was trying to mate with our sheep and then went into the fruit cage to free the duck. Which I spent about ten minutes chasing around the fruit cage with it passing the wide open gate at least 20 times and running past it rather that through it. It kept getting into the really muddy corner where I was not prepared to do the necessary dash to grab it and catch it knowing I was guaranteed to fall over in the mud so eventually I decided it could just stay in there.

One of the sheep had indeed buggered off but the other one was very determined so I decided to herd our girls into the pen and shut them away. I got them in no problem but I then realised that the catching pen had been trashed by them when Ady had shut them in the day before and it would be really mean to trap all three of ours in there. Neil’s sheep kept coming back and coming back and I just lost it and starting yelling at it to fuck off. At which  point I burst into tears. I don’t remember the last time I properly cried but I was feeling incredibly sorry for myself, hormonal and utterly fed up. So I sat in the sheep pen next to the sheep house and had a good old cry. I decided to sit it out for a bit before going back in to the kids, also to stay and ensure our sheep stayed in and Neil’s sheep stayed out.

In theory Neil’s sheep (two boys) have been castrated by him however I am fairly certain it was not done properly and everything I have been reading about sheep breeding suggests this to be the case. Our girls would only come into season if the males are giving off hormones and the boys would only be interested if they were intact. And they are very interested. In all likelihood they have already mated with them and our girls may be pregnant. This is not the end of the world however, we very specifically were not planning to lamb next year, I would have waited until they were a year older, I knew they were in good condition and able to cope with a Rum winter, I would definitely not have chosen Soay tups to breed with them either. I’m just so fed up that we are doing everything we can to make things work with careful planning and it may all go wrong because of someone else’s crapness. I think of all the lessons I have found so hard to learn and live with here on Rum it is that I cannot control everything…

I had also spent the day before reading up online about the avian flu stuff and in consultation with the other chicken keepers on the island we have initially decided to not pen any of the birds but to be extra vigilant and adhere to the bio security measures. Even if a case were found here on Rum the cull zone would only be our island. This time of year there are no visiting tourists, livestock transfers, no vehicles etc so the risk is so low that the welfare impact on the birds by housing them would by far outweigh the other risks. All of this is in line with the advice from Scottish government and DEFRA. It’s still crap and seeing the fallings out online on facebook poultry and smallholding groups has been shite.

So there I was sobbing away saw on the floor next to the sheep pen when suddenly Ady appeared back early and looking very concerned!

I told him all of the small things that had totted up into one big thing and tipped me over the edge, he chased the lurking sheep away and then spent the afternoon getting all the animal feed up the hill while I recovered myself drinking tea and doing the Christmas puzzle and making bagels.

Today – Loads of wind power all day so more of the same really. Ady feels the need to be busy and outdoors regardless of the weather. I like the indoors time at this time of year. The kids are with me – particularly if there is power for the internet and tablets!

We watched The Apprentice with lunch.

I’ve been reading back over the two blogs to compose a round up of the year. It’s been a very unsettling one which I suspect is contributing to my state of mind. Re-reading about Ady’s op, Tom dying the stress of Bob and Blackie arriving, looking at the bad, good and learnt stuff we talked about at the end of last year and realising that the bad stuff is all still bad, along with various emails floating around to do with community stuff (nothing personal – stuff like what the fish farm would like to do and whether we get a mobile phone mast put up in the village) are all really unsettling.

Monday – Ady went off to work in the morning. I wrapped Scarlett’s birthday presents and then started the Christmas puzzle. I love puzzles 🙂 The kids have both a bit of  a go at it but it’s been mostly me. We had lunch and then I prepped dinner as we were heading down for the school nativity play in the early evening so I wanted dinner ready to shove in the oven when we got back.

We got down and back crunchy through the frosty ground, it was so beautiful and twinkly. The play was actually really good fun. The four school kids had mostly written it themselves and it had them pondering various questions about Christmas traditions and visiting various islanders to find out the answers as we sat in the audience. So why do we have Christmas trees answered by Mr Rhys who chops firewood, why were the nativity animals kept in a stable when ours are kept out in the fields by me, why a baby was born in the stable rather than a house or bunkhouse answered by Ady in the absence of Bunkhouse managed Jed, why babies are special anyway answered by Lesley, why there was a star in the sky answered by Fliss, why we send cards answered by Trudi who does some post office shifts and why we give presents answered by Ali. We sang Away in a manger and it was all very festive. Mulled wine and mince pies and then home for dinner and A very merry Muppet Christmas movie.

Tuesday – Scarlett’s birthday 🙂 I’ll do a page for that later. She had threatened to be up at 7am but my Mum woke me ringing at 8am and we finally got the kids up just before 930am as I’d put a dedication on the breakfast show (which they didn’t read) so wanted Scarlett up for it! She had a fair few presents; mostly baking stuff as she’s really into cake decorating just now, so a load of tools, a mixer, loads of sprinkles, some playmobil, a jar of marmite with her name on it, some lights with her name. Her main gift is a zoo trip next week so she was thrilled with what she got. Pancakes for breakfast and then mostly over to me for food. Scarlett and I made some cupcakes and she spent ages and ages decorating them, I made bread rolls and soup for lunch, venison pie for dinner and birthday brownies.

Ady went to the ferry as we had some amazon coming but otherwise we were all home all day and it was a nice day. We spoke to my parents, watched Nativity 2 and drank fizz. I did the photo calendars for us and for my Mum & Dad’s Christmas presents.

Today – Ady worked this morning. It’s been really windy so I spent the day catching up with various online stuff – monthly residents newsletter, friends of Rum newsletter and reading up on the avian flu stuff. And some puzzle.

Thursday – Ady went to work in the morning. He and Ross used the ATV (all terrain vehicle) and trailer to bring up a load of wood. I was in the shed getting some jam and it really made me jump! I packed up loads of stuff including two secret santas which I have posted very early but were ready and we don’t have much space, plus there are limited posting opportunities really with only about 9 ferries left before Christmas. I also posted Mairi’s ten crochet midges and her birthday present as she was supposed to be coming up this weekend but had been in touch to say she wasn’t going to make it. I posted a little bottle of home made liqueur to a friend who was having a shit week as a surprise and some jam I had sold. I also took down the midge with a tam o shanter hat for Trudi. So a very productive post office trip. Davies and I then both saw the doctor – Davies had a slightly dodgy tick bite that was fine but worth getting checked. I had an asthma check up. It turns out I have been using my inhalers wrong as I’d not been told how they actually work and that I should be using the brown one twice daily all the time as a preventer and the blue one if and when I feel wheezy. I’ve now started doing just that and while it may well be psychological I already feel the hill is a bit less challenging to walk up on my lungs…

We came home and Ady followed not long behind. We had lunch and then I headed back down to Crafternoon for chat and crochet. Then round to the hall for the monthly community meeting. I stopped behind to gossip with Lesley as I’d not seen her for a while and got home just before 8pm for a shower and dinner, then the first festive film of the year – Rudolph. An animated one we had loved when the kids were small and watched over and over again.

Friday – Ady to work again in the morning. I made bread dough, pizza dough and cheese scones and put the sheep in.  In the afternoon we chopped wood and faffed around with the sheep a bit trying to keep them in.

Saturday – I slept in way later than I meant to, got up and made mince pies as Ady had already left to go to the boat and put a deer on for Eigg – a long running favour back for someone there who helped us when we very first arrived. So glad it is finally sorted although it continued to be hassle-y right to the end. We decided to start letting the sheep roam grazing on the croft which is after all what we have them for. Bonnie is mostly unfussed about them and was actually quite helpful at rounding them up and herding them into the pen at bedtime. We did some firewood processing and then decided we would bring the Christmas tree in. We have always waited until after Scarlett’s birthday not wanting it to be overshadowed by Christmas but actually we’re doing the advent calendars, festive films and Christmas music anyway so it made sense to have the tree in too. Scarlett was the most supportive of this idea! So in it came and we decorated it.

Today – Tree planting this morning as that has been the thing which got pushed back all week in favour of all the other things. We made a start, bringing the speaker out with us so we could listen to Christmas songs. Sean, Ali and Eve appeared while we were working and stopped for a chat, then they went on their way. I woke Davies – Scarlett was already up and they both came out and worked with us for an hour or so until we had finished the run behind the caravan. We now have about 20 willow and 15 hazel left which we’re going to plant in the fruit and veg cages so they are definitely safe from marauding deer. That should take less than an hour one afternoon this week and we’re done. 420 trees in all, which with the trees we have already planted since we’ve been here means a legacy of about 500 trees we’ll have planted on the croft.

We came in for lunch, watched a Dangerous Earth episode about lightning and then the kids washed up and tidied up a bit while we went back out to do some firewood, put the remaining trees down in the fruit cage ready to plant and feed the animals. I was just sitting on the sporran having a last of the daylight appreciation of the view moment when Lesley arrived for mulled wine and mince pies. Which morphed into white wine and a very long catch up gossipy couple of hours before she finally left around 9pm having got here about 4! We did offer her dinner but she headed off and messaged to say Dougal was still up when she got home!

We had dinner, watched Four Christmases and now I’m all caught up on this blog at least.

Well yesterdays post was a bit bleaty wasn’t it. It came after a crappy couple of hours of low level bickering with Ady and a thorny conversation with everyone else about what we’d do next if and when we leave Rum. Unfortunately that is quite an emotive chat to have and so after everyone had gotten upset we agreed to shelve it for a few weeks, probably until after Christmas and to all ponder on it a bit.

Anyway… not a great night’s sleep.

This morning Ady’s alarm woke me which it almost never does and then the front door slammed when he let the cat and dog out, then I needed a wee and then I couldn’t get back to sleep so I laid in bed and read. I had to have the light on for quite a while as it didn’t get light for ages. I finished the book, read it in two days – the latest Jodi Picoult about racism. I really like her books and this was a good one. I also read all her authors notes at the end. It was really thought provoking.

I got up, woke the kids and then headed off, putting the sheep away as I went passed – sigh. I got to Fliss’ just before 10am and she had already collected the first skinned and quartered deer that Ady and Neil had done. She and I started working on butchering it and then she went along again an hour or so later to collect the final two and was followed back by Neil and Ady. All four of us got through the first beast and then  Neil headed off. The rest of us got most of the way through the second one before stopping for lunch and then doing the third. We listened to the radio, to music and then chatted about all sorts of things as we worked. It was quite nice. We did two for Fliss and made a good start on the third one which was for Deb getting all of the fancier butchery done before Ady and I headed away at 330pm to get home and feed our animals before dark. That left Fliss with some final getting meat for mincing off the last two front legs and between the ribs and the actual mincing and bagging up to do. Debs would have arrived shortly after we left to help her finish.

As we arrived home we saw Neil up at the caravan come to find his sheep who have been hanging around our croft. He came in for a cup of tea before heading off with a bag of feed to try and lure them home. I am quite worried that Neil has probably not effectively castrated his sheep and they may mate with our ewes who also keep getting out. Argh!

We watched Gareth’s Choir and I made dinner – pork chops, brandy sauce and potato gratin – yum. Watched a couple of Supernaturals and as of tomorrow we’ll be on the festive films.