This week the weather was supposed to be really bad on Thursday, we anticipated cancelled ferry, static blown down the hill, general Rum apocalypse etc so I didn’t place the CoOp order we were rather desperate for on Wednesday. But you know what, the boat came anyway! True it only came once instead of the scheduled twice and it didn’t go to Canna at all but it did come to Rum and I cursed not having placed the CoOp order.
So I placed it yesterday instead to arrived today. I went off to work, Ady went off to meet the boat to collect our petrol and our very large CoOp order – some Christmas goodies to stash, some alcohol supplies, lots of meat for the freezer, stuff like butter, cheese and some half price Ben & Jerrys icecream just because.
Except that today the boat was cancelled 🙁
I had a nice morning at work, for the first hour no one came in at all so I spent the time reading the latest issue of Scottish Islands Explorer in which I was a guest columnist last issue. Then I had a bit of a flurry with lots of people all coming in to chat, get cash out of the post office, buy stamps, buy groceries or just hang out at the shop. I ended up kicking out the stragglers at nearly 1230 and walked home in the rain. Ady had been in after realising the boat was cancelled and taken home the bits and pieces of shopping I’d done so at least I wasn’t carrying anything. I watered the polytunnel on my way up and laughed at the turkeys who had left the croft, crossed the footbridge (I knew they’d done this as there was turkey poo on the bridge) and returned to the river on the wrong side. I wondered whether they would be clever enough to realise to get back to the croft they would need to walk away from it to get back to the bridge but decided that even if they didn’t we could find them tomorrow, it’s not like they can go anywhere…
Ady had taken out venison steaks for dinner but left them in the car and then we realised we didn’t have any oil to cook chips in (also on the CoOp delivery) so we’d need to go back to the village later to buy some. It rained pretty much all afternoon but the kids had a nice phone chat with Alex Bart, I knitted and listened to the radio and Ady dodged the showers to do various things outside. At 430 we fed the animals and walked down to buy oil, then back. We watched another few episodes of Friends which the kids are taking to a little more but we probably won’t bother getting the next series yet, I think we’ll stick to Will & Grace.
The kids and I made a list of all the people who live on Rum and one thing they would like to learn off each of them which is our project for the next year or so I think. I want to reassure all of us that lack of mainland opportunities to learn and discover do not mean lack of general opportunities and that closer relationships with the 40 odd people who live here with their diverse backgrounds, knowledge, ideas and skills could offer even more than access to libraries, museums, workshops etc in our old lives. Ady and I have also decided that if we don’t sort out some form of alternative accommodation next year then we will have to seriously consider what we’re doing. If we manage that then the static becomes somewhere for friends to stay meaning we can invite more guests, WWOOFers to stay meaning more help on the croft and more interesting people coming to visit and a revenue source too.