Up early this morning to get everything sorted ready to leave Rum. We had parcels and post to send so left the static by 10am, called into the post office and were at the pier by about half past. We took Bonnie for a walk along to the otter hide, aware that she’ll be cooped up for a few days now.
We got on the 1135 ferry to go to Canna. We’ve been wanting to go for ages but it’s expensive at about £40 round trip for the four of us so going today meant only needing to pay one way as we were not going back to Rum and it’s only a few quid more expensive back to Mallaig from Canna than from Rum. It’s just over 2 hours on Canna on a Wednesday and the Calmac just sits in the harbour there.
It takes an hour to get to Canna and means hugging the Rum coastline past Kilmory and the shipwreck just past there that we’d heard of and seen pictures but not seen ourselves before. Canna is pretty flat, quite bare in terms of woodland but lush and dry in comparison to Rum. It is teaming with rabbits and has sheep and cattle but no rats or deer. It is linked to Sanday by a bridge. There is no shop and I think the population is currently 11 with rumours of another 2 people about to leave and the restaurant to close. We went expecting to love it and left feeling that it simply didn’t have the same feel as Rum at all. It feels more like Wales than Scotland landscape wise and although there are loads of buildings, probably more houses than on Rum and a better road system we are definitely in the right place.
Back to Rum where we felt like we were coming home just pulling into Loch Scresort and approaching the pier. We waved to Chainsaw Dave and settled back in for the journey to Mallaig.
Once arrived it was fairly chaotic – Lynda and Stuart met us from the boat which was lovely, Bonnie was overwhelmed by mainland cars, people and so on and we had to pay for our tickets, chase up our diesel that had not arrived and find our carclub car. The lovely staff in the office only charged us from Rum so our Canna trip was free 🙂 Love them 🙂 We booked our diesel on the Saturday boat and then tracked down the car after finding the keysafe and getting the key out. We loaded ourselves into the Ford Focus and headed off with Lynda and Stuart arranging to meet us back at the cottage.
The road is long, with many a winding turn 😉 from Mallaig to FW so although it is only 40 miles it takes a whole hour really. I enjoyed the drive once I’d gotten used to seatbelts, other drivers, NOT waving at every passing car because I would know the driver and driving a manual car after the automatic Pajero. We found the vets and dashed in, an hour later than planned but they had waited thanks to a couple of phonecalls.
Unfortunately in checking Bonnie over the vet discovered she has come into season, today! We have a few possibly options here which will rely on the operating vet’s opinion tomorrow but include the op going ahead as planned but with increased risk of hormones playing up / blood loss, delaying it til Friday and us going home Saturday instead or one or all of us coming back next month. He gave her an injection to suppress the season so she will not get pregnant at least even if we have to delay and come back.
We said goodbye and she was led off to a cage for the night, we’ll go and see her tomorrow regardless. Feels very odd not to have her with us, hope she is coping okay.
Lynda sent me a text to say would we like to have dinner out instead – her treat? To which the obvious answer is yes 🙂 So we met them at the restuarant and had a meal there before coming back to the holiday cottage.
It’s really nice, very modern, clean and quite Ikea in decor. The kids watched some TV before bed, Ady and I had baths (very nice :)) and now we’re in bed enjoying phone signal and electricity. I don’t miss all these things day to day but they are nice treats every so often :).
Tomorrow Davies has his eye appointment, we’ll find out what’s happening with Bonnie and do our stocking up food shop and wander round FW. Determined to make the most of being here even if it doesn;t all go according to best laid plans.