Off to Eigg on Friday. Before we left Scarlett and I had a row about her clothes, she had been arsey with me a couple of times during the week and I’d let it go each time but on Friday morning she just kept arguing with me until I lost my temper and shouted at her and she cried. It cleared the air though and we chatted about it, she apologised and order was restored. At least our fallings out are over and done with very quickly. After that we had a really nice day.
We were the only people on the boat – the Orion, which is the boat we very first went to Eigg on when we went there to WWOOF. This time though we know the owner, Pete, really well so spent the journey gossiping with him, drinking tea and he got Scarlett to steer the boat for a while, while he made the drinks.
Eigg was, well Eigg really. There is much I like about the island and much more I don’t. Of the four Small Isles if we had chosen to actually live on an island, rather than choosing a croft which just happened to be on an island, we would probably have chosen Muck. That is far more Katie Morag and while it is not without it’s community tensions it does seem more ordered and charming. Canna is similar to Rum with the issues surrounding joint land ownership – in Canna’s case with National Trust Scotland, in Rum’s case with Scottish Natural Heritage. There are some fab people on Eigg making really interesting things happen, but equally there is a hardcore of drop outs making it an uncomfortable place to be at times too.
We got a lift along to the health centre and were very warmly welcomed. We chatted to all sorts of people, caught up with Neil & Sue (our WWOOF hosts there) and various other folk, put a couple of faces to names of people I am facebook friends with but had not actually met before in real life, chatted to lots of the NHS people who were there and attended a really interesting talk by two doctors from Alaska on the NUKAÂ Â system of care. Really fascinating stuff.
We bimbled around chatting to folk until it was time to head back to the pier to get a ride back to Rum. Pete was doing the school run so we were getting a ride back with the school kids and going to Muck first, so Neil was down there to pick up Struan who was home on the boat for the weekend so we chatted to him a bit more. He’s a really good bloke, nice to catch up and hear some of the same issues happen on Eigg as on Rum.
The boat ride home was much the same, via Muck so a bit longer and a bit colder as the sun had gone in. Home to let Bonnie out for a bit to run around after most of the day in the caravan and make pizza dough for dinner. Loads of deliveries had come on the Friday boat so we loaded them into the Rangerover and drove that back home. It was mad midgey so we just dashed around unloading what was necessary and left the rest. On the way we were met by a couple who had been looking at the croft and were really interested in learning more about life on Rum and what crofting might entail. We chatted for a while and then they said they would email with then rest of their questions.
Saturday morning is generally my favourite of the week, having never lived alone and for the last 15 years almost never having been home alone I really cherish the space of Ady being at work and the kids still being fast asleep for a couple of hours. It’s just me, Bonnie, two cups of tea, Graham Norton on the radio and a crochet hook and now I have Kira too 🙂 Lovely. I did the washing up naked, because I can! Made lots of rainbow bunting and observed the amusing antics of cat and dog working out how to share a space. Ady came home earlier than usual bringing with him a bag of laundry, some wet, some dry to be sorted and hung out on the line and chatter from the village which rather shattered my final half an hour to be honest ;). He went off to do some pig pen maintenance while I set up the campbeds in the bell tent. We paced out the length of hose required to plumb the sink in and got that ordered and then I made up the mini greenhouses. Ady had finished his pig pen stuff by then so he made us both a cup of tea and we sat and chatted down by the polytunnel while drinking that, sat on a pile of bags of compost, one of those perfect moments. Then Ady scythed the inside of the fruit cage while I worked through the polytunnel bringing out the herbs ready to plant on in the herb spiral, replanting some of the tomatoes, planting out the peas which had germinated and discarding the ones which hadn’t. Still much to do down there but definitely feeling about right progress for the end of May in terms of what is growing and where.
I closed the shed up and organised the jams and eggs a bit, we could actually do with a couple of nasty weather days to get on with restocking things in there – we need some more candles, some more bath bombs and some midges – both the in-resin type and the crochet type as I have sold another two crochet midges today – yay! 🙂
Davies had not realised the power was running low during the day and had managed to all but kill the solar battery so there was not enough charge to use the internet in the evening. I was pretty cross about that but Ady and Scarlett went off to bed and Davies and I sat up til midnight having a really good chat instead so it was all ok.
Today – I made bread rolls and pizza dough and finished getting the herb spiral sorted – got the slates all put back and some wood cut to create a fence around it. Then Ady and I did sausage making with our new mincer, really impressed with it :). I finished the herb spiral and got it planted up with the herbs and then Neil, Lesley and Dougal arrived. Ady had got the barbecue lit and the pizza oven fired up and we had a feast – our sausages, a lump of pork rib roast, burgers they had brought up, bread rolls and onions, salad and a load of pizzas. All really nice 🙂 We had some wine and beer and sat outside chatting for hours. We moved indoors around 9pm and had a last cup of tea before they headed home. It was a lovely afternoon with perfect non-midgey weather and just really nice to do something like that.
Kira has been outside loads, she likes going under the caravan but that is excellent for mice and rat prevention anyway and she always comes back out. She is pretty good at coming when I call her and is slowly exploring but dashes back to the caravan every time. I am so glad we got her, she is just exactly the sort of cat I was missing having in our home. Ady and the kids love her too and Bonnie is being very tolerant and accepting.
Lots on this week, waiting on stuff arriving, friends visiting…