Not sure how that happened.
Erm. Well. Estelle the volunteer has been lovely, she leaves tomorrow. She has worked hard ; planted seeds, dug in about 200 potatoes, weeded several raised beds, dug out some misplaced comfrey and moved it, sewn the remainder of the netting on the fruit cage, picked currants. She’s had some really crappy weather but has remained cheery and smiley throughout. We’ve had some truly dreadful nights of high winds and torrential rain but she has a really good sleeping bag  and liner, a good camping mat above the campbeds, earplugs to drown out the noise and is a seasoned camper. She didn’t bring wellies and her coat got soaked through fairly early in the week so she’s been wearing one of mine but she has gotten on with it and made the absolute most of being here. She’s had a castle tour, come down for a gig on Saturday and had a few drinks, been out walking and got to Harris and Kilmory. She’s taken loads of photos and copied out the recipe for my WWOOFers cookies which so far every single volunteer has asked to take with them. I hope she has had a good experience overall despite the weather and the trickiness of camping here.
In other news the kids have been mostly hanging out with Poppy and Evie although Davies gets a bit fed up with too much time with them and today ended up coming home early on his own. I ranted a bit at Scarlett about it as she nags him to come down with her when he is not really bothered about hanging out with them and then he gets grief from them. D&S have a friend coming tomorrow for a few days so I’m hoping they’ll have  a bit of a break from P&E which might mean week three of them here next week goes smoother. We’ll see. Such a small pool to cast one’s net in…
Scarlett has a cold caught from Poppy & Evie, which Ady and I now have too. Feeling not dreadful but not right either. Planning on taking it easy this week to see it off. Â I have a few smallish tasks to do around the croft but will be just as happy sitting on the sofa crocheting.
We’ve been busy making more animal pens and houses, hatching continues to go well. We moved the pigs, I’ve made jam, I had a big order of baking for yesterday which I did on Sunday and delivered to the village yesterday. More good sales in the shed the last week or so, a real run on paracord bracelets which seems to happen whenever there is a big student group over.
A 15 year old lad from Norway visiting with his parents and aunt went missing on Sunday night so we’ve had helicopters, coastguard and mountain rescue all over the island. He was found safe yesterday morning thankfully. He’d managed to get a long way around the coast with no sensible footwear, layers of clothing, supplies or shelter. The family and he were quite blase about it which has angered people a fair bit. We rely heavily on these expensive, largely voluntary services for our day to day lives and emergency care so to have them used with so little gratitude or actual regard for the time, cost and inconvenience is pretty annoying. Obviously we are all hugely relieved he was found safe and well but to have so little feeling of responsibility for your own health, safety and welfare is just bloody stupid when it impacts so much on others.
Elsa Jean McTaggart, one of our favourite regular visiting musicians was here for a few nights Friday and Saturday, doing a gig on Saturday night. We did food and ran the door and we made a decent amount of cash for Elsa and for the hall fund. which was great. The evening was a good one and I ended up on stage singing for quite a while after hours with Dave and Gary (Elsa’s husband) which I always really enjoy. Delicate heads all round on Sunday though.
I think that’s me caught up. I’m taking my sore throat and snotty nose to bed early and planning on changing the rather disturbing kindle book I had been reading which had been creeping into my dreams and giving me horrid nights sleep the last few nights for something more cheery and frothy instead.