Friday – erm… I genuinely have no idea at all what we did. There would have been some firewood processing, I have no idea what else. I do recall heading down to the village to get pepperoni for pizza and beer for Ady and collect the keys for the shop ready for the following morning.
Saturday – back to work! Post office for me, so a good catch up with Bad Neil, Ali, Trudi but a quiet morning generally. Ady was at the hostel and went off to the ferry to collect Big Dave and Mairi who arrived. They walked along to me, we said our hellos and then they headed up to the cabin while I went to meet Ady from work. We went to the shop for beers and I cooked ridiculous amounts of cheesy pasta bake for dinner with sufficient leftovers for the following night for Davies and Scarlett who were unlikely to eat the curry Big Dave was cooking for us. A fun evening at ours.
Sunday – Mairi had brought us up a load of croissants and pain au chocolats so we had lovely Sunday breakfast. The weather was abysmal for most of BD and Mairi’s visit this time so we didn’t manage much outside stuff at all. I think there was more firewood processing and definitely tea drinking and chatting. I’m fairly sure Ady was coming down with the Mainland Cold by then so we caught up on some iplayer stuff in the afternoon too. BD and Mairi went to the shop for a beer then came up to us and cooked dinner for us – chicken curry which was very lovely. Other than Adam the WWOOFer no one has ever cooked for us in the caravan before so it was a real treat. People on Rum don’t do a lot of eating at each others houses somehow so dinner made for you feels very special. I think that was the latest of all the nights – I recall watching lots of music videos on youtube and being very silly.
Monday – Ady and I went over to the cabin for breakfast and Popmaster, except Dave’s radio wasn’t working so we didn’t listen to Popmaster. The breakfast made up for it though – red onion, chopped up bacon, haloumi cheese and eggs all fried up in one pan and served with toasted pitta breads. Due to lack of furniture or crockery we all ate straight from the pan sitting in a circle on the floor 🙂 After that we went along to Vikki’s house as we had various lent items to retrieve from her and Dave was collecting a few bits for the cabin – Vikki is leaving, not sure I have mentioned that on here. She’s off back to the mainland, which is a little sad as it’s someone who has been part of Rum for all the time we’ve been here but also exciting because it frees up a house for movement on the island and means changes are afoot which is always good in my opinion (for Rum and for Vikki).
I went to the shop with BD and Mairi for a beer and to put in my veg order – we stayed for a couple and it was good fun down there. Ady got a roast pork dinner on (I had made an apple pie earlier) then we all came back here. Another late one with me starting to come down with the cold too.
Tuesday – Ady went over to Harris first thing with Manager Mike as he is being trained to feed the cattle and ponies over there on his zero hour castle contract while SNH are short staffed. In the end I don’t think he will do it because the landrover is not running and he’s not covered to use the polaris (covered quad bike vehicle type thing) so can’t get there anyway but he had a nice ride out to Harris. I made some cheese scones and had a failed attempt at some honeycomb which didn’t set (not boiled long enough I think but I used too small a pan really so couldn’t let it boil up, will try again another time). It was Vikki’s work leaving do which had been combined with the postponed work Christmas party. It was Vikki, Em and Mel, Nicola, Ross, us four, BD and Mairi and we’d all taken various food contributions so ate and drank tea and then Mel had done one of her famous quizzes. We split into four teams of two and answered the 30 questions and amazingly Ady and I won 🙂 The prize was a bottle of fizz which we rather unsportingly took away with us rather than opening to share 😉
BD and Ady went back to Vikki’s to help carry some heavy things down the stairs, Mairi and I went along to Fliss’ for Crafternoon, tea, cakes and chat with Fliss, Ali and Deb. We called at the shop on the way back for ice cream and came home. I made venison pie for dinner which was very lovely but the gravy had not thickened so the pastry was a bit soggy bottomed. A slightly earlier night all round. Mairi and BD had been hoping to go off but the boat was cancelled – an amended timetable was due for the next day though.
Wednesday – The cold has fully kicked in 🙁 I made bread dough and flatbread dough this morning, then Mairi and BD came over for final Popmaster and tea. We went down to Vikki’s for the men to help carry her bed downstairs and then along to the pier. Loads of Rum folk were heading off – Sylvia, Andrew, Sean, Vikki, Mike, Deb along with BD and Mairi plus Jinty’s Dad and Dave’s Mum so it was a busy boat with lots of folk there to leave or wave off those who were leaving. Our animal feed arrived which was good as we were running low – people always over feed the animals when they are croft creature sitting for us and then the delivery we expected last week was delayed. Back home for a late lunch, showers for the kids and hairbrushing for Scarlett who may finally be accepting that doing it twice a week means it takes five minutes whereas doing it fortnightly can mean well over an hour. Mostly I sat infront of the fire and dreamed of home made soup though which is what I think I may plan to do tomorrow morning.
Am now feeling grumpy and intolerant of the world in general so probably need to come off the internet, have dinner and go to bed early!