Hadn’t realised I was not quite so far behind with blogging actually 🙂
Yesterday was our last day – I spent some time in the morning topping up bottles of cleaning stuff, handwash etc from giant containers and then half an hour doing a real rush job on placing a wholefood order before the deadline. I was given a £200 budget and instructed to ‘surprise me!’ by Jill 😆
I made some logo labels for the egg boxes that had arrived to sell the Middlewick hens eggs in and Scarlett came and joined Leyah and I in our production line of cutting them out and sticking them on. We know how to live 😉
We had lunch, Ady and Davies were busy carrying firewood about on the quad trailer and lighting fires, Scarlett and I went and helped Leyah with some stable cleaning and then we went to visit Tucker who makes e dens – the Glastonbury take on a camping pod. There is a plan being hatched for us to have 2 or 3 of these on our croft, funded externally. Jill is interested in the idea of crowd funding which is something I’d not heard of previously and does feel in line with our ideals but is not necessarily what I think the concept is about. I need to ponder further on the whole idea but I do love the e dens and would love to work with Tucker and Jill so something may come of it.
A very complicated and over arranged evening was finally executed after many changes of plan and renegotiation of arrangements – none of them to do with us. Leyah came and spent the evening in our cottage with Davies and Scarlett – who she loves and love her just as much back 🙂 while we went into town with Jill, Johnny and Tucker and partook of many beverages, talked in ever increasing volume of ever increasing nonsense! A grand time was had by all :). A complete lack of taxi availability meant we ended up cadging a lift for 3 of us from someone else in the last pub we were in (we did pay!) which included me, while the other two, which included Ady, walked home. Jill and I snaffled chocolate from the shop and had heart to heart chats about stuff and then the blokes came home, they went back to their house and after a chat with Leyah it was the end of the evening. A fitting last night in Glastonbury and this time it really is the last time for quite a while.
Today was a late start all round. I had a bath and so my goodbye to Johnny was from one side of a closed bathroom door as he came to say goodbye, bringing a very nice bottle of fizz which we promised to crack open on our first night in the static and toast them with when we arrive properly on Rum. We stripped beds, emptied bins and loaded the car up before having a last cup of tea with Jill, a last cuddle with puppies and a last goodbye to everyone else there. Having been four times now in the last year and stumbled upon the people and place by accident I do feel we are leaving something of ourselves there forever really. It is not where I would want to live or be long term but there is a feeling of home about the place and we have made some lifelong friends there who will definitely walk alongside us for part of the next adventure, wherever that takes us.
We got some food and fuel from Morrisons before heading across country to Marcus and Michelle’s.
There is of course a sadness in saying goodbye and having all these lasts. It is tinged with a real sense of excitement that we are now only 2 weeks away from leaving the mainland. I had an email today from IRCT with the community business plan for the next 3 years asking for our input and comments. We are now on the mailing list for all community emails and although we have yet to arrive or even put faces to all the names it is starting to feel a lot like that is ‘home’. I’m looking forward to going home.
Had a little *sniff* at your last sentence x
Comment by Alison — 06 April 2012 @ 12:14 pm