Last night Ady said ‘I hope the water isn’t frozen in the morning’ as we listed to the ‘coldest night of winter so far predicted’ report on the radio. So we agreed it would be wise to at least fill the kettle up ready for the morning just in case.
He forgot. It was indeed frozen this morning. Grr. I managed to brush my teeth with the half a cupful of water that was kicking around from someone’s bedtime glass of water. There was a washing up MOUNTAIN too from roast dinner last night. Ady went off to feed the animals and came back with a 5l container from the river but then the gas wouldn’t work properly as it was also frozen.
Eventually the sun warmed everything up sufficiently and we could do washing up and tea drinking and stuff.
We walked down to the village to collect the Jeep and had a quick chat with various folk who were around. We took the Rangerover down to the fork in the road and left the Jeep there too then came back home for lunch. Then it was ferry o’clock so we headed down. We had petrol jerry cans going off today and wanted to collect a new gas bottle too. Then to the shop to collect a couple of bits – stuff that had come off today (bulk buy of cheese and chorizo) and collect the post.
Back to the croft – swap over cars at the fork, move gas bottle from Jeep to Rangerover, fill rest of available space in Rangerover with firewood left at the fork by Billy, drive over the river and get as far up the croft as we could with the heavy load. We got about half way up the hill. I then took the food shopping and bits up, Ady brought up the first of the firewood in a wheelbarrow and I started chopping it up while he brought up the rest (two further wheelbarrows), then the has bottle. Scarlett brought us out a cup of tea each (wonderful, wonderful child 🙂 ). Then the whole car thing in reverse – Rangerover back down the croft, across the river, to the bridge. I fed the birds to get them all out of the way, we shut Bonnie in the Rangerover to stop her following us to the village, walk to the Jeep, drive that back to the village via the freezer, walk back home again, feed pigs, get it just before it was torch-dark.
I rang my parents and have spent the evening booking their PremierInn for their next trip up here and trying (and failing) to get the cheap train ticket website to work on paypal so will have to do that tomorrow instead.
Car stuff sounds complicated and sort of is:
The Rangerover is not so great at starting cos it’s petrol but is much higher ground clearance so gets across the ford when the Jeep definitely would not. Also it has better off road tyres than the Jeep. But it is a petrol and is 4l so is very, very thirsty also we disconnected the back brakes so it doesn’t really stop very well. So we keep it at the bridge and basically use it for going along the rough track, through the river and moving stuff like firewood about. The Jeep is diesel so much more economical, is a much nicer car but has road tyres and is much lower to the ground so we don’t take it on the rough track cos of punctures or across the river unless it is really low. We were leaving it at the fork and using it as the car to drive down to and around the village / to the pier to meet the boat etc. But we had a rat living in it there, getting into the main car by coming up through the gear lever box thingy. So have been parking it down in the village instead where the rats have a choice of several cars to break into and don’t seem to select ours. All of which means anything going from croft to pier or pier to croft will probably spend some time in both cars with us walking around inbetween. We don’t use either car as people transport really – we tend to use feet for that!