Wednesday – Halloween. In the morning the kids did pumpkin carving with very minimal supervision. Scarlett wanted to do the ‘original jack o lantern’ while Davies did an angry pigs design from his angry birds annual. Both were excellent :).
Meanwhile I made some bread and some gingerbread biscuits which I turned over to the kids to decorate and made a lasagne for dinner which just needed heating through later.
The kids made themselves up as zombies and we headed down to Fliss and Sandy’s. We had a cup of tea and chat with Fliss while Ady did some stuff with Sandy (helping with something up in the bathroom of the B&B and then helping try and fix Norman’s car), then we went to the party at the school. They (as in Fliss and Coryla) had tried really hard to create an event catering to all comers but meeting the very different needs of 2 3 year olds, a very highly strung 4 year old, a nearly 10 year old and a 12 year old with collective parents is always going to post a challenge. We did some Simon Says, some sticking your hand in bowls of gruesome feeling stuff, a pass the parcel which was a bowl of green spaghetti with sweets buried inside and more. All of the little ones cried at least once due to something, Davies was a superstar, helping to calm the fractious toddlers, Scarlett went into total sugar overload and was just loud and boisterous. I was just feeling twitchy about being in a school at all! The autumn leaves collages made me feel a bit militant about formal education 😆 There was lots of nice home made spooky snack food so I managed to overcome my feeling of being trapped in a pushy middle class toddler group and remind myself these were actually my friends and fellow islanders who I like lots.
We left there and went to the shop for the pumpkin growing competition results – Fliss was clear winner with a HUGE specimen so she got her prize. The kids had brought their carved pumpkins down so they lit them and did a bit of trick or treating around the village netting a huge haul of stuff. They then offered the last of our cookies out and were given cash by the contractors over here for them so made about £7 and got bought more sweets and coke in the shop. The clear advantage of being the only kids out in the village in nice contrast to me feeling they were a bit like that sketch in Sorry I’ve got no head being the only kids in the school earlier!
We stayed for a drink and then headed home to cook the lasagne and watch Escape to Witch Mountain on dvd.
Thursday – boat in the morning. We’d been told our freezer would be delivered to calmac between 7 and 8am so rang to check and it had been delivered. We didn’t really expect it to be on the boat but it was :). So we got a lift to the workshop with it from Neil and managed to manhandle it in to position then leave it to settle. We put a wash on at the castle, transferred it into the tumble drier, popped round to see Sandy and got shown how to find winkles for winkle picking which may be a money spinner for us in the coming weeks then came home for lunch. I’d prepared pumpkin and sweet potato soup which was ready to go.
It rained in the afternoon loads so Ady and I had to don waterproofs to head down and collect the washing. We left it in the car, wrapped up in plastic bags as getting it up to the croft in the rain would be impossible. We would have been very happy to stay in for the evening but had been invited to Steve’s yurt for dinner and there was the monthly RCA meeting so we all dressed up in waterproofs and braved the rain to head to the village. The RCA was not very busy but a few thorny issues got resolved. We chatted to Fliss for a while and then headed down to the yurt with Claire for dinner. It was a really nice couple of hours and all the better for ending nice and early – we were back home by 1030pm with the walk to the village, drive to the crossroads, walk to the croft all in a break in the rain too.
Today – Scarlett had a disturbed night with a couple of nightmares so ended up in bed with us for part of the night 🙁 This morning the kids played with lego while I did some knitting and Ady did lots of mould and mildew cleaning and preventing. He’s moved our bed away from the wall along with Davies’ and Scarlett’s mattress is now raised up with a bit of ventilation beneath it to help the air circulate. We’ve been bringing bedding into the lounge to put infront of the fire to really dry it out too but we had totally underestimated how much of an issue condensation and therefore mould is going to be. With us still having a full five or more months of cold weather ahead we will need to rethink how we deal with it and I think a log burner is the only real answer. It will provide a dry heat which can be left constantly low to prevent the swinging temperatures through the day and night. Cold I can cope with by using more clothes, hot water bottles etc but damp and condensation is out of our control and none of the suggested measures of bowls of rice, constant wiping of windows etc are making enough of a difference.
We had lunch – leftover soup and soda bread – and then the kids elected to stay home and watch dvds while Ady went to help build the bonfire with various other blokes and I went to Fliss’ to mix up burger mix to marinate for the barbecue and then to sit and chat and crochet / knit. We talked about Home Ed and parenting and then Sandy and I chatted about log burners and tin roofing on wooden houses. I walked round to the shop and Ady and the kids came down to meet me having fed the animals and put dinner on. We stayed for a drink and then came home for dinner.
It’s been a really busy week with stuff happening every day and several evenings which is great, I so don’t want to end up stuck up here not seeing anyone for days on end all winter. It’d be nice if the rain stopped mind you…
You have my sympathy with the condensation issue. We have several de-humidifiers in the house and use various techniques to manage it in different rooms. When we first moved in we got really bad mould and Dani got pneumonia. I have been told that trying to keep a constant temp is the key too. Good luck.
Comment by Allie — 03 November 2012 @ 12:23 am