Bloody blimey the real world is a crazy full on place! And that was just Oban!
Last Monday morning had me at a skype meeting with the architect design team for the community bunkhouse, then home for lunch and last minute packing. In the middle of all that I had an email from the car club to say the car we’d booked was not available so would a smaller one be ok? Not really and for a brief while I thought we had no car booked at all but we made do.
Ady and I went to the pier to meet the ferry as some people were coming off. I had an email from them about 6 weeks ago to say they had been reading our blog for ages (since we were WWOOFing) and were coming to Scotland so thought they’d visit Rum and meet us. I’d said they could wild camp on the croft and use the compost loo and to get in touch when they had dates in mind. I then got an email to say they were arriving on Monday 19th for 6 days. This was not ideal as we were leaving on Monday 19th for two days plus we were coming home on the Wednesday with The Barts. Not really knowing how to put them off I’d explained we would not be here and would then have other guests but that it would be good to meet them anyway and we’d spend what time we could with them.
I walked back with Naomi and Dave while their kids took a ride with Ady up to the croft. We had a cup of tea with them, showed them where things were and then headed off to the pier. It was possibly the oddest feeling I’ve ever had waving off four total strangers stood on our croft as we drove away. I felt very uneasy and just wrong about the whole business.
The mainland was as it has always been on our trips off so far – stressy, busy, expensive and filled with too many logistics, schedules, appointments and duties. One day I’d like to go and not actually have anything specific to do. This was not that time though. Car collecting, drive to Fort William, dash to Lidl before it closed, dash to Morrisons for some food shopping for the morning, to McDonalds for dinner which was considered a treat by the other three, a sufferance by me 😉 then to the wigwam for the night. It was the one we had stayed in the night before we moved to Rum 18 months ago, the day we’d collected Bonnie and the last day of our old life. We were not expecting Corinne, the owner to remember us at all but she greeted us like old friends, had seen me on the telly the other week, exclaimed at Bonnie’s size, asked about our Pajero (she has one too) and was just so lovely and welcomming. It felt really nice to be made so at home there. 🙂
We unloaded everything from the car and had a fairly early night for us. Bonnie was not happy without her crate and was pretty restless and I had a really bad nights sleep on a single pillow, really struggling to wake up the next morning.
Into Fort William for a quick dash to Morrisons (we’d bought a really cheap little tent the night before reduced to a tenner which will be perfect for the odd camping trip here on island plus be emergency accommodation in the summer on the croft and then kicked ourselves for only buying one. We also picked up some lunch to eat in the car later), then a quick look around the charity shops in the town before going to the dentist which was the real reason for the trip.
Davies is fine, Ady is more or less fine, I have some issues with potential gum disease which I was aware of and is hereditary with my Mum having all sorts of dental problems, Scarlett has an issue with her bottom back teeth which have very little enamel. The dentist is considering extraction in the hopes the adult teeth around them grow to fill the gaps but is consulting with the orthodentist there ready for our next appointment.
That done we piled back in the car and drove to Oban. We’d heard it was bigger than Fort Bill which it is and had more shops which it does. It was really, really tourist busy and crowded and smelly and expensive and we hated it, not even lasting our paid 2 hours parking before we gave up. We did Tescos there and Aldi and then drove back to the wigwam to have dinner and a very early night. I repacked all the bags ready and Ady loaded the car up and the alarm was set for super early again for the next morning. Lovely Corinne gave us a huge discount, barely charging us for two nights what it should have cost for one 🙂 We left our email address as she may have some contacts for us for peacocks and a few other crofting things Ady and her were talking about.
We left slightly later than hoped and diverted off to Farm Foods on the way to get some frozen food. The ferry times meant that we didn’t manage to buy any fresh food at all and were very conscious of having The Barts with us for at least 3 dinners so copped out and went for frozen pizzas and sausages! The smaller car meant we had to have the last things on our laps so by Corpach I could no longer feel my thighs thanks to the block of heavy frozen food on my lap!
At Mallaig there was the usual fretting about getting all our freight on the ferry, getting the car swept out and returned to the parking space, the key back in the keysafe on the other side of the pier and then finding tickets to get back on the boat. Kirsty and I had spotted each other but the kids had not seen each other and we got on the boat last so they were all already installed when we got on. Our friend Izzy was also getting on the boat (she worked at the castle last year) as was Abby (castle staff member) and it was a really busy boat. I love feeling so at home on the ferry, chatting to the staff, knowing people getting on. As we were about to get off so Billy appeared – the builder who was so good to us last year lending us his mats to get the static up on to the croft so hugs all round there too.
As always the best part about going off is coming home and as the boat pulled in to Rum pier and Rum friends were waving and greeting us it just always feels so right :). Ady and James headed off in the car with all the stuff, the kids went off together and Kirsty and I walked up to the croft with Bonnie. We learnt that the Lock family had decamped to one of the Kabins after two very wet and windy nights camping in the croft.
A fab time as ever with The Barts. So enjoy their easy company and so proud of them for their fab adventures and travels this year. Very excited at the prospect of return visits and maybe even settling somewhere more northern than most of our other friends who all seem to migrating south these days 😉
Davies and Scarlett got on well with the Lock children and are hoping they may see them again. They left on Saturday morning having spent their daughters birthday here on Rum on the Friday. Off to Eigg to have a comparing the islands adventure over there.
The Barts stayed a bonus extra night til Sunday which was lovely, we did the Sheerwater trip which they’d missed last time they were here as it was cancelled due to bad weather and we saw many porpoises. It was a gorgeous day and the scenery was stunning. The kids managed some fishing and plenty of exploring along with lots of minecraft, dvd watching and a bit of lego-ing I think. Kirsty joined me and some other Rum folk for Crafternoon Friday at Fliss’ and we all got midged a fair bit.
We waved them off yesterday morning and went to Sunday Community Teashop to catch our breath a bit. I’d arranged to meet Emily (newest Rum resident, wife to Mel the castle manager) for coffee so hung on for that and had a lovely hour or so in the sunshine with Mel, Em, Vikki, Casey, Abby and Laura. Lots of laughter 🙂
Back home I started doing some stuff with the herb spiral but it suddenly got midgey and then Claire and her boyfriend Danny came up for a cup of tea so I stopped. I did have about an hour of dirt under my fingernails reconnecting with growing things though and did manage to pick a load of herbs to dry.
Dinner, film and some catching up online made for a later night than I’d planned.
Today has been equally full on and has me deciding to work out all the various things I have committed to do, what I want to do and divide up my time more efficiently so that I am not doing headless chicken impressions, achieving nothing and not doing any of the things I actually want to do like spend time with Davies and Scarlett and get an updated croft plan in place. Lots of venison stuff all done though which is good and I see my article as guest columnist has made it to the Scottish Islands Explorer 🙂
This week I am hoping to knock some of my heavy weighing job list on the head, spend some time bramble picking and actually get to enjoy some of that slower pace of life stuff I bang on about having moved here for!