This morning we mostly pottered; it’s always slightly odd being in a hosts house on days you are not working. Ed and Carina are incredibly kind and I am sure they are not looking at how many slices of toast we have or how quickly the jar of honey has gone down but I am ever conscious of ravenous appetities in comparison to theirs ;). They all headed out at about 11am which left us alone in the house. We sat in the conservatory and chatted for a while and then Tarly and I sat on the floor in the front room and explored their book collection for a while. Davies came and joined us as we moved onto some silly poetry books and we enjoyed a couple of Dr Seuss for old times sake. Funny how nostalgic I can get about Seuss books, sitting reading a whole pile of them with a child snuggled on on either side of me was something we used to do so often and all loved so much :).
We had something to eat and drink and then decided to head off. Ed and Carina had already left to go to the new house for a while before going to the Smallholders Gathering in the nearby town and we’d said we’d go along too. We were not really sure what to expect and getting our heads around the scale of everything here is taking time – it is such a small population and they have so much happening like film clubs and reading groups and young mothers associations. The Smallholders Gathering however was rather lower key although with a decent turn out. We parked up and walked to the village hall as it was down a narrow and rather bumpy track. The kids bought some honey fudge from the beekeeper stall, I bought some lipbalm from the woman who makes it and Ady bought some traffic light jam from the preserves stall – gooseberry, apricot and strawberry jam all layered in one jar – it looks fab :).
We went outside and Davies and Ady watched a green woodworking demonstration while Tarly and I had a go at felting balls. We really enjoyed that and made two each while chatting to the woman running the activity about felting and other crafts. Davies came over and had a go at making one ball too and in typical Davies fashion decided he wanted to be more creative than anyone else and used blue and green to make a planet earth. It came out quite well too – his plan is to needle felt white top and bottom to be the poles at some point :).
That about wrapped up everything done there – they were also doing massages and haircuts and there was various other produce including local venison and cakes for sale. We drove back to the village and collected something to eat from the Co Op – I was craving meat so had a chicken and bacon sandwich and Ady had a pork pie 🙂 We also bought some emergency sausage rolls to have in our bedroom. We dropped Willow back at the house, had a quick cup of tea and collected the fishing rods and headed down to the pier for an hours fishing.
We didn’t catch anything but we did see the seal again. Scarlett had been less keen to try casting last time despite both Ady and I trying with her but Davies decided to teach her and as with everything else he proved far better at teaching her than anyone else. I love watching him with endless patience and the right amount of encouragement and praise and her, as keen to win his admiration and get it right to please him as she is to actually master the skill :).
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On the walk back to the house we rang my parents and Davies talked to Dad for a bit. The others stayed downstairs with Ed, Carina and Peter but I took the phone upstairs and ended up talking to first Dad and then Mum. The kids came and talked to Mum too and the phonecall was nearly 2 hours. Discussed what we’re doing next and no mention was made of them coming in with us which is a relief, they have clearly decided they are not and having talked for that long about us buying land in North Wales or Scotland and them saying nothing I can happily accept that as the closest we’ll get to them telling us they don’t want to. I feel very sad that it didn’t pan out that way and wish things could be different but we have to follow our hearts and our dreams and maybe we’ll end up somewhere that they slowly fall in love with and move nearer in years to come anyway.
They also probably won’t be visiting us again before we finish our travels which is a shame, particularly as they had planned to come to Scotland close to Davies’ birthday so he is a little disappointed. I did suggest they could fly up at some point in the next two months although I suspect they won’t but we always knew if we saw them this year it would only be if they came to us.
Dinner was a cheery affair including home made pesto and a couple of glasses of wine. After dinner the kids chatted to Carina for ages while we looked at a map of Scotland with Ed and wrote down some of his suggestions of good places to take in while we tour around. We’re really enjoying this planning stage – it’s reminscent of last year when we were first planning the whole adventure with a UK map spread before us only this time it is petrol and food costs that will dictate our route rather than yes replies from potential WWOOF hosts. We’ll likely never again have such freedom to travel for so many weeks so we really want to get the most out of it as it will form such a big part of our memories of this adventure and may well shape our eventual future plans as if we find somewhere we love we will look into settling up here I think. There is ever such a lot of what we are looking for available here – scenery and landscapes, wildlife and dramatic climate, sense of community and lower impact lifestyles, interest in growing and self sufficiency, lack of dependance on big supermarkets, chance to make a real difference to the small part of the world you live in etc. We could very likely afford to buy something small outright so have far less outgoings and look at part time work to pay the smaller bills. We have had a few places this year that have felt right and potentially home but this one ticks more boxes than any other and according to Ed it is very representative of the west coast of Scotland and Hebridean life. More research and time spent here required of course – a week and one location does not a big decision like this make but all four of us are feeling we may have found the next step.