This morning we went down to the post office to get Ady’s faulty spade sent back. This has been slightly epic in that a spade from Amazon didn’t last very long at all so I emailed them and they sent out a replacement but asked for the faulty one to be sent back. Which is not as straightforward as it may sound… the replacement was delayed, which meant we had no packaging to send back the faulty one, when it finally did come the link to the return label had expired. Then boats were cancelled. It may have been easier just to pay for a new spade really… anyway, it has finally gone off Rum.
We had a couple of other things to do in the village, nip in to Sean and Ali’s to put the dead jack snipe in their freezer as Sean is sending it to the British Museum, collect food from our freezer for dinner, buy some milk, that sort of thing 😉
Back home we got changed into working clothes and then gathered all relevant tools for putting in apple trees; mattock and spade for breaking ground and digging holes, stakes to support trees, string to tie stakes to trees, knife to cut string to tie stakes to trees, sledgehammer and post banger for choices in ways to bang in stakes to tie to trees, compost to add to the soil put back in the holes, actual trees. First though Ady fixed up the stakes which support the netting and keep it taut while I did some work ‘sewing’ up’ some of the wind blown netting joins. I need to get some decent rope / twine for such tasks. We dug in the first four trees and then broke for lunch.
After lunch Ady and I went off to meet the boat – we were hoping the logburner for Dave’s cabin would come but in the event it didn’t and the boat was really delayed so we wasted well over an hour on that 🙁 We parked the car back in the village as the rat had not been in overnight so clearly lives up near us rather than in the car. Derek gave us post – not much but did include a couple of copies of the latest Scottish Islands Explorer which I have an article in so that was nice.
Back home we had all but lost the light so Ady went to feed the animals and gather more string while I dug in another two trees, then he came and dug the holes for the last two while I tied them all to stakes. We got more firewood in and then the kids had showers so I was on hairbrushing duty. We watched Nigella Christmas while doing that – I may be alone in my love for upper class women and their Christmas ego shows but I love her and Kirstie no matter what anyone else says! 😉
Ady cooked – our own sausages, we’re getting through them very fast. We watched one episode of HIMYM and then several Christmas special dvds = Dibley, Madagascar and Ice Age, which are never as satisfyingly festive as an actual film I don’t think.
Tomorrow we have wet or dry weather options of houseplot digging or festive baking. Either will be enjoyable 🙂