It was tipping down with rain this morning so we stayed in. Ady and I spent some time looking at our original croft business plan and talking about what needs to be brought up to date, what has stayed the same and brainstorming a few money making ideas. The kids drifted in and joined in with this and between the four of us we came up with some excellent new ideas for things. More research needed but everyone was buzzing with enthusiasm for something they could be getting on with. We had loads of wind power too so had the internet on all day and being able to fire off an email or google something quickly makes all the difference to being inspired and answering those ‘I wonder if….’ questions. I conversed with Calmac about getting the ferry manifest (the list of freight on board) emailed to us in advance of the boat arriving so that we know whether we need to go down and collect stuff, so have been collating email addresses of everyone on island who wants to be included in that too. I also spent some time researching events funding but have put that aside as a bigger project for another day. I did bookmark some pages to refer back to though.
We had lunch while we were doing all that, sort of in shifts as everyone was having something different. Then it finally stopped raining so Ady and I headed down to the village while Scarlett had a shower. We had left the wheelbarrow down at the workshop so we could bring a battery we were charging down there back up in it along with the veg box. Jinty was open so we also collected some milk, cheese, orange juice (Scarlett is on a real calcium and vitamin C kick at the moment, we’ve all been talking about healthier eating) and got sucked in by out of date bargains too so ended up with a very full wheelbarrow. We checked the car for post and discovered our new battery had arrived – in a box marked ‘HEAVY BATTERY, CONTAINS ACID!!!!!’ quite how that got passed by Calmac without the need for a dangerous goods note I don’t know! They like us at Calmac though, when we came home last week they said they had been holding all our parcels back for us as they knew we were off and didn’t want them to just hang around at the pier 🙂 That proved too much for one wheelbarrow so we left the barrow there and walked back up to collect the car. Back down to load everything in the car and shove the wheelbarrow on the roof rack, chat with Bad Neil who drove by while we were doing so and then drive back up the hill. While reloading the wheelbarrow we realised we’d left the post down in the village still so walked back down to collect that. There is still a battery and a slab of tinned pasta in the car but we can collect that next time we’re passing with the wheelbarrow, or bringing a car across the river…
So, much longer than we planned we got home, feeding the animals and bringing in firewood as we came. Davies put away all the shopping and veg while Ady got the fire going and I brushed Scarlett’s hair. Then we played Quirkle which had arrived in the post. I had been looking at the price on amazon and ebay and bought it off ebay but it arrived in an amazon box which had me really fretting that I had duplicate ordered and got it from both. I guess the seller sells though both and just used an amazon box but it really freaked me out and I had to check all my orders on both to reassure myself I was not going mad.
That took us to genny o”clock, dinner and Warehouse 13 which arrived in the post.