The wild weather meant an amended timetable for the ferry today but there ended up being technical problems with our big boat so it got cancelled altogether. They were hoping to get it fixed though so we were getting hourly updates all morning until they finally cancelled at lunchtime. Poor Big Dave and Faye were in Mallaig waiting to get across 🙁 They were only coming til Monday so not worth it, especially when the forecast for Monday is pretty grim so may well be cancelled anyway. Tomorrow is looking iffy, weather still wild and Loch Nevis still out of action, so it will be passenger boat only if the weather allows. Sigh, so winter begins!
I had a very quiet morning at post office. The screen is not working so there is no post office and now the phone line has stopped working so there is no card machine either, meaning it’s cash only. Which is a problem because everyone here gets their cash from the post office, which isn’t working… I just about justified my wages as I spent £40 and sold two lots of cigarettes to Ross & Jed, otherwise I’d have felt guilty about being paid to sit and drink tea and chat to Neil, Ross and Jed which is basically what I spent two hours doing.
I walked along to Ady with Jed. He was still working so I did half an hours bramble picking, finding a new spot behind the castle with some amazing big blackberries, so I got nearly 2kg in a really short time. Yay! Another 14 jars made this afternoon. I think we’re at 146 jars now, easily on target to reach 200 in stock. Home for lunch, bringing up a full wheelbarrow and a box of jam jars with us – shopping, deliveries and clean dry washing. All of that put away, lunch consumed and decision time as to whether to head outside or find indoor stuff to do instead. The rain and hail made the decision for me – I’d wanted to either paint the shed or do some weeding in the polytunnel but neither would have worked – too wet to paint, too windy to have the door of the polytunnel off.
So instead I made jam and made this years mincemeat as we had a load of apples that had started to go wrinkly. Christmas cake to be made next week, I’m waiting on a delivery of cherries before we make it, cherries can be added later to mincemeat though. Ady brought some wood in, fed the animals, made dinner.
We watched Warehouse 13 and the new series of Modern Family which Jed’s lent us. Hoping my friend Clare gets across tomorrow, really looking forward to seeing her.