When we arrived here I remember saying to Ady that the people who we first thought were friends would not necessarily be the ones we ended up close to. It’s interesting how different people have taken different lengths of time to warm to us or find connections. We were doing our bad, good, learnt stuff for a six months in blog post over on WW and Ady mentioned how being here really demonstrates what community means. He talked about how although we knew our neighbours in Sussex noone ever offered to help each other or even just called in and out of each others houses really. It made me think about the last two weeks here: we’ve been in Vikki’s house for a cup of tea, Fliss & Sandy’s countless times for cups of tea, a crocheting afternoon, to grab something from their freezer, to Claire’s yurt to have lunch when we helped put her shed up, had a cup of tea brought to us from Steve’s yurt while we were doing it. Had a cup of tea at Mike’s while doing J Ranger and he fed the kids breakfast last week and biscuits this week while they were with him. We’ve had Fliss and Sandy up for dinner, Sandy had lunch with us three times last week while he was helping with the kilt, Fliss has been up twice this week for tea and cake. Today Neil popped by with some paperwork and stayed for a cup of tea. We’ve offered to chicken, sheep and cat sit for Neil and Lesley when they go off island tomorrow for a a few days. For all the squabbling that sometimes happens on the island there is a real sense of community, of neighbourhood, of being there for each other I have only previously read in books or seen on TV but never actually experienced myself in a real life situation.
Add to that this view when I opened the front door and stepped out for my regular deep morning breath of Rum this morning
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and this as I stood on the sporran with my last cup of tea of the day this evening
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those white bits are the ducks and geese coming up to say goodnight with Bonnie hot on their heels.
I love it here so much! 🙂
Today was an all day at the croft day, breakfast followed by washing up, some time doing bad, good, learnt and then Popmaster. Then everyone outside. The kids played darts for a while and then did some Bonnie training and general playing on the croft while Ady and I emptied the horse box out and put stuff away again. We’d come back from the mainland with Lynda and Stuart, then had Julie and Chris here, then my parents so had just shoved the food shopping we bought back in there and had not really done a proper inventory. So Ady pulled stuff out, I restacked the shelves and wrote down what was in there (played shops basically!) and then Ady finished off putting the rest of the stuff back in while I came indoors to make some soup and soda bread for lunch – leek, potato and onion soup and soda bread rolls, it was delicious 🙂 Ady, Scarlett and I really love our home made soups for lunch. Davies always tries them but in that screwed up nose, taking a tiny sip having already decided he won’t like it way that kids often try things. At least he tries I guess…
Scarlett and I had been talking about the ‘How the whale became’ stories by Ted Hughes yesterday and she’d asked if we could read them again so I said I’d see if I could get them off amazon or on the kindle. While I was sorting the horsebox I came across a copy with a 20p sticker from a charity shop we must have bought and forgotten, along with a Morpurgo book and a heap of My Story books we’ve had from Book People for years but never looked at. And a Shakespeare stories BP box set too. I got all of them out and the kids have been looking at them. I read a bit of the Ted Hughes to Scarlett and we now have a nice pile of books to get on with some reading aloud of too. We all really enjoyed that last week so plan to make time for it more often.
I burnt some rubbish while the bread cooked and then we all had lunch. Ady and I moved some stuff from around the horsebox down nearer the animals and talked about where we’d put a shed and some raised beds which are my next plans to get looking at. We might even get some raised beds marked out this week depending on what the weather does. I went to put the kettle on and got distracted by several emails asking for meetings: vistor management group, Rum venison processing, Rum enterprise, training for Rum enterprise so was quickly replying to them when Fliss arrived.
We sat on the sporran chatting with a cup of tea, Ady went down with the kids (Fliss had brought Joss with her) to feed the animals. They left. I went to get some water from the burn for showers while Ady and the kids dealt with the poo loo. I peeled, chopped and seasoned some veg for dinner and got it in the oven, had a shower and rang my parents. Ady had his shower and made toad in the hole. We watched Jumanji on Lovefilm instant over dinner which we all thought was pretty good. We do like Robin Williams :).
Right, another blogpost in another place to do.
God, that view is a bit heart-stopping in its beauty, eh? We’ve had days of fog and I get really down when I can’t see the views that I love – Brighton all spread out at the bottom of the hill and Stanmer Great Wood out of the window at work. I prefer cold and clear any day.
Are you still doing a bit of sitting down type HE in the mornings? Our L has joined a biology IGCSE group now and has a little bit of homework each week – all very odd. He won’t sit the exam until 2014 (when he’ll be 14 – eek!) but it feels a bit like getting on the treadmill again. That said, it’s interesting stuff and P doesn’t seem to have lost all enthusiasm for learning through getting her IGCSEs and still does lots of self-motivated stuff alongside the slightly sloggy studying for the exams. She’s applying to college in the next few weeks. I may have just another three or four years as an actual home edder – very odd. I guess you have no such timetables in your lives? Do you think it likely that D and S will stay on Rum into their early adulthood? I suppose that’s a silly question ‘cos you don’t know. But it’s interesting. I am sort of imagining a future where my kids have either left home or are living independent lives in our house. I guess your future is far more likely to be continuing to work together on the croft?
Ignore me if I’m being too nosy 🙂
Feel free to be nosy 🙂
Nah, the sitting down stuff didn’t last long, it was more to connect us altogether each day than anything else as we were all conscious of slipping into our own stuff and not necessary having time to do that just hanging out together making learning happen thing. Life has settled more and we don’t seem to have that drifting feeling any more. If either of the kids asked to do it then we would but they seem happy enough not to and we’re all looking forward to lots of time cooped up inside over the winter so I guess we’ll pick up stuff like that again then, for now it makes sense to spend as much time outside as possible!
I really hope D&S don’t stay on Rum without at least going off and living a bit first. Currently they have a plan to go and travel together when they are older; they both have various bits of the world they want to see although they both also intend coming back to make a home here at the moment realistically I can see that is unlikely. I think in terms of supporting them there could be plenty here, they have utter freedom to find whatever way of making a living they like from here and lots of scope for things that interest them but I imagine they will hanker for a bigger world than this at least for a while when they start spreading their wings.
If I’m honest part of our plans in moving here included something for Ady and I after the kids were grown and doing their own thing.
I must admit that a lot of what D and S are getting to do is our Leo’s idea of heaven and I feel a bit sad that we’re off down the path to exams with him. I think he’d be happier learning about bird ringing. But I guess he’ll have to go and find that when he’s older. Here and now his peers will head off to college (it’s pretty much the universal choice for home edders at sixteen) and I think he’ll need to be ready for that. We’ll see – maybe something unexpected will happen!
I love the idea of your D and S off travelling together. Their fame will travel before them!