3rd November
This morning after pig, chicken and duck feeding we were split up. Ady went off with Neil in the pick up to collect wood to take to the pier ready for the bonfire on Saturday night. He also got to meet some of the residents of Eigg, most of whom were already drinking beer at the pier despite it only being about 1030am. There is a bit of a problem with a drink (and drug) culture on the island which is something that we have been told by several people can be an issue everywhere on the west coast of Scotland but certainly in smaller rural communities and some of the islands. From talking to Sue the accepted wisdom is that if you come from a drinking family you are always more likely to drink, the other kids on the island see drinking first hand and are only too aware of the pitfalls, particularly as they know the drinkers well both drunk and sober and are able to use them as examples for not drinking.
Obviously the small islands are pretty lawless – there are no policemen or real laws. Cars are not taxed, insured or MOTd and as everyone is the same there is no need to worry. Accidents are very rare anyway and everyone drives with care and has old bangers that failed MOTs on the mainland anyway. Theft is rarely an issue and gets dealt with between islanders and as communities are tight knit anyone out of order would be dealt with in their own way too. Whether we decide to move to an island or not I am finding the social science study side of this lifestyle absolutely fascinating.
Ady said there was lots of swearing but the people he met seemed nice.
Meanwhile I had been given a fair sized job list to start working through which started with pulling up some fennel which had finished and weeding the bed ready for the next sowing of something. That done I had a choice of jobs but chose to get the nastiest out of the way first which was mucking out the ducks house. Armed with wheelbarrow, shovel, scraper and clean shredded paper to put down I went down to the bottom field which is very boggy and only slipped over once 😉 It was a proper comedy fall though, sliding down a hill with barrow in front of me which I then tried to use to get back up with but failed at least twice before finally getting up and doing a gymnast finish J
It was not too bad a job despite it basically being shit shovelling as duck poo is not that smelly and I’d always rather do such jobs this time of year than in summer. My hair got in my way lots though and I wished I’d tied it back – lesson learnt for tomorrow! I put the scrapings on some rhubarb planted down there for that very purpose, spent some time looking at the pond and the ducks that live down there and then headed back up for the next job and to check on Davies and Scarlett who had slid away while the jobs were being dished out. They have discovered Angry Birds and have been playing that on Ady’s tablet. I am determinedly not discovering it.
Next job was removing some chicken wire off an old ducking run and rolling it back up. Anyone who has ever rolled up chicken wire will know this is rarely a one person job ;). I did get to use my knife to cut it off posts though which made me feel all proper land-worker-y J I am easily pleased.
I had two jobs left on my list – one was weeding a path, the other pruning brambles so I went for the brambles. I made a cup of tea first to take out with me and then got stuck into that job. I quite like pruning, it’s what I imagined hairdressing might be like when I was a little girl, only outside J, I listened to the next door neighbour shrieking and shouting at someone to the point where I decided he must be killing them and perhaps I should go and intervene before hearing ‘come by’ and realising he was either training or using a sheepdog. I waved to the couple of islanders who passed by. I think there are 95 people living here currently which isn’t that many more than have been at youth hostel camps we’ve done.
Ady and Neil arrived home while I was doing that and called tea o’clock so we chatted over tea and then made lunch and called the kids over. We had smoked fish, tomato sauce and rice and it was delicious.
After lunch we all headed along the road to the woods, supposedly to meet another islander with a tractor and trailer to load more wood into. Neil took his neighbour in his pickup and we took their other car along – Ady drove there and I drove back, hurrah I’ve driven J The kids went off into the woods with Rosie the dog and all came back muddy and happy J We gathered huge amounts of wood and pulled it through the mud to one pile easily collectable by tractor and trailer. Except it didn’t turn up. So we came home again.
Ady and I were up for some more pruning but Neil said we’d all done enough and we should have tea and then help prepare dinner instead so we did that. While Ady went off to feed the pigs Neil and I chopped and grated carrots, onions and cabbage and chatted, learning about how we’d met respective partners, why they only have one child, all about Neil’s ex wife and other stuff. Ady is always amazed at the amount of personal information I gather from our hosts. I’m just interested but maybe I do ask too many intimate questions!
Ady and I both had showers which was lovely. I’d washed my hair in the sink at the byre but was close to feeling skanky after duck poo dealings. Then Sue came home and we had dinner. We all chatted and the kids played until 8pm ish when we leave them to it for the night and come back to the Byre for stories and bedtime.