Just as we thought the challenge was over…. on Monday we met the ferry on which there was nothing for us at all, put our veg order in and then I had to go back down in the evening for a run through of the interview questions for the Bunkhouse Project Manager job for the following day.
I felt not right while I was down at Lesley’s doing that and by the time I’d walked home I was feeling really out of breath and just wrong. It was really hot in the static which made me feel worse. Mike came up for dinner which was a lovely curry Ady made but I couldn’t face it and although I kept hinting about needing to be up in the morning Mike took forever to leave and when I did get to bed around midnight I had a restless night tossing and turning and still feeling rough.
By morning I was dashing to the loo and feeling all hot and cold and clammy and distant. I thought it was too short notice to not do the interview which has been a nightmare to organises – they were supposed to be last week but boats got cancelled, the guy from Eigg had come over the day before and stayed the night and was off back to Eigg via another overnight on the mainland, the poor guy from Canna has still not managed to get here and we’re skype interviewing him tomorrow. I just about got through it before staggering (quite literally!) home. If someone had been watching I’m sure they’d have thought I was drunk coming home, it took me about 35 minutes instead of my usual 15 and I just fell into bed.
Scarlett was an absolute angel throughout, bringing me tea, water, constantly checking me and tucking me in. That child has compassion and caring far beyond anything she gets from me, Davies tends to avoid anything germy or yucky so has given me smiles and waves from afar! 😆 Then followed a hideous shadowy 30 hours or so of bolting to the loo, not always making it, wind rattling the walls and roof, nightmare dreams and feeling like death. Poor Ady dealt with all of it so well from sleeping in the lounge (I have to clamber over him to get in and out of bed so it wouldn’t have worked him sleeping in with me even if there had been bedding to use!) and then spent almost all of the next day at the castle processing laundry 🙁 It was awful, dreadful and more than enough to have me seriously questionning what the bloody hell we are doing living in a caravan away from supermarkets, flushing toilets and washing machines!!!
Eventually by yesterday evening I had started to feel a bit more like me and had showered, eaten a little bit and sat with the others being a bit more human again. The bed was made back up and Ady was able to come back to the bedroom. Unfortunately due to being asleep for so much of the previous 24 hours I then couldn’t sleep so was awake til crazy oclock reading anyway.
Today I have felt almost normal, just a bit weak. I chopped some wood, brought it in and stacked it up, made bread and made dinner which was my limit. Made me realise just how physical our lives here are just normally even without carrying sacks of animal feed about or marching up and down the hill. Ady spent the day constructing our laundry – another galvanised sheet add on to the wood store in which we’ll put the washing machine and our second genny. It has a sloping roof with guttering into a water butt which will feed the washing machine. Fingers crossed it will be up and running next week – having spent nearly £20 down at the castle laundrette yesterday it will be very welcome! It’s so breezy and exposed here that we can line dry year round and then just air infront of the log burner so hopefully our carting laundry up and down the hill days are almost over.
Ady and the kids went down to the nativity dress rehearsal which they said was great fun, I stayed home to get dinner on and just not push myself too far. Aside from photo calendars each for my parents and Granny all the christmas shopping is done, just waiting for stuff to arrive and keeping fingers crossed that ferries come as we are waiting on petrol, diesel, wind turbine and most of the kids Christmas presents still to arrive.