The irony was not at all lost on us…. 😉
Yesterday morning I made brownies, we had all gotten bored of the oat cookies I had been making for TV crew and WWOOFers in great numbers so having made a tray of brownies for Fliss as a birthday present on Saturday which we had snaffled a few of the request was made for more of them. Â We had lunch and then Scarlett and I went down to the village as she had the doctors. We were a bit early so sat on the castle steps chatting to Ross watching the Sheerwater and the doctors boat come in from opposite sides of the bay and race to the pier. The doctor boat won! Sean & Nicola walked past so we chatted to them for a while too and arranged for Nicola to duckling sit while we’re off in a couple of weeks. Then Dave brought the doctor and a buggy full of tourists along for the castle tour so Ross did that while we went round the back of the castle to the room used as the doctors surgery.
We have finally got a better set up for the doctor I think. After losing the resident doctor on Eigg just after we arrived here the surgery there was staffed by a series of locums for about a year and then there was a plan to merge the Small Isles practise (does the four islands) with the Mallaig surgery and operate from there. Except they never managed to recruit any doctors and we had a further series of locums some of whom were really poor, none of whom every seemed to have read the notes before they arrived or demonstrated any sort of continuity of care. We don’t go to the doctors often (Davies has been once, this was Scarlett’s third visit, I have been once and Ady has been a few times but mostly because he tops up our medicine cabinet with painkillers and ibuprofen gel for his tennis elbow and archilles tendon issues) and have largely been lucky when we have needed to see a doctor to see a good one but others here have had poor experiences. The surgery is now based on Skye and they have recruited two GPs to work two weeks on and two weeks off on rotation to cover the islands, coming across to Eigg weekly, Muck, Canna and Rum fortnightly. The doctor we saw yesterday was lovely, an older man from Hampshire who moved up to Skye to take the job for the last 10 years or so before he retires. We chatted lots about settling into the Highlands and Islands from the south coast of England.
Scarlett’s ailment is a hurty knee. She jarred it when we were off in Edinburgh and it has never fully recovered, is swollen and tender and cramps up or gets stiff when she rests it. Mairi had felt it a bit and manipulated it when she was up visiting and said it would be worth getting checked out so we did about 6 weeks ago. The doctor then said if it was not improved after another month then it may require physio so we went back as it was still playing up. This doctor reckoned it was more growing pains – or OSDÂ which had probably coincided with the injury by chance and made it more painful in that knee. Scarlett seems happy enough with that so we will keep an eye on it for the next few months and see what happens. I know when I fell on my knee a year or so ago it took about 8 months or so before it was fully better and not waking me at night, particularly when it was cold or damp.
Back at home it was time for another cookery lesson. We decided last week that the kids need to learn more about cooking – for two reasons: one so that they can actually look after themselves more particularly their favourite foods when they are older and two so that they can help out generally more. The idea being that twice a week they will cook, either one meal a week each on their own or two joint effort meals (their current intention). So every night Ady or I have been showing them or supervising them cook whatever we’d be cooking. Last night was venison pie, mashed potatoes or roasted potatoes. So they made pastry, peeled potatoes, chopped garlic, seared the meat coated in seasoned flour, made stock to make gravy, constructed the pie and egg washed it, par boiled the roast potatoes and got them oven ready with oil, garlic and herbs and chopped up the potatoes ready for boiling for mash. They did  a great job and really enjoyed it. Scarlett is very capable in the kitchen generally with Davies less interested usually but he said he had really enjoyed it and they both talked me through how to do it again, what they’d learnt etc. We have previously done more elaborate Come Dine With Me style three course meals which was fun but I think them knowing how to make the sort of food we eat all the time will be far more useful.
Today we had a visit from the school. Eve (7), Joss (6) and Andrew (3) from Rum along with Debs and Nicola and then the four kids from Canna (aged 11, 9, 7 and 3) and their teacher and Mum. Deb had asked if Davies and Scarlett could mostly lead it which they did although Ady was not so good at not talking to all the children instead, he does love children. We showed them all the birds, looked at the broody goose on the nest, watched the geese with the 2 goslings, Scarlett brought over the other gosling, showed them all a variety of different eggs, let them feed the birds and hold some of the tamer chickens and ducks, showed them Scarlett’s pet ducklings and the ones still penned with their mother duck and then went over to the pigs. It was good, D&S were fab, particularly Scarlett who is just so confident and knowledgeable about all the animals – she should definitely do something like that when she is older – outdoor education or ranger or something similar. She is really patient and calm, I love how unfazed she was by such a huge audience.
After lunch Ady and I walked down to the village to get steak from the freezer and check for post. We got caught up chatting to various people along the way. Back at the croft we finished building a pen for the ducklings to be in during the day with some reclaimed wood and part roll of chicken wire my Dad had given us. The kids went back to the village as the post had not been put in the car when we went down and we needed more milk. It was gone 7pm by the time we were all back indoors. The upside of the cold is it being 3rd June and still no midges!