Dinner last night was interesting – Sue had left us a recipe and ingredients for dinner which I cooked – vegetable lasagne. Oh the irony of being the one cooking something containing beans AND lentils. Oh and cottage cheese too which I have previously never eaten solely based on the fact it looks far too much like a certain male bodily fluid being enough to put me off. It was actually very nice and the flavours merged sufficiently to mask the lentils or beans. I did spill a load of lentils though so retain my dislike for them!
After dinner we headed back to the byre early and were all in bed trying to catch up on sleep by about 10pm. I had a succession of very random dreams which were clearly all sorts of things floating round my head though so although I slept for a decent amount of hours I didn’t really wake feeling rested.
First thing this morning we fed the chickens and ducks and then headed down to the pigs with Neil as we were moving the electric fence to include the old hen house which Ady had pig-proofed last week for them to get shelter from the colder weather and also to be closed into in their last week or so to fatten up. This proved to be an easier job than I think anyone was expecting and we were done fairly speedily. The next job was fencing at which point the kids faded away as they often do once the interesting stuff has been done. They have really enjoyed it here and spent lots of time drawing in the byre when we are not doing something they want to join in with. Having their own space to retreat to has been great.
The fencing basically entailed digging holes – a metre deep and a shovel and a half in width. First we had to clear a load of brambles and then we dug a hole each. Ady is stronger but I probably have more in the way of technique although that was hotly debated ;). We stopped for a cup of tea and then went back to clear more brambles. Neil had gone to the pier as there were boats due in this morning so he was off collecting food, post and shopping. After we’d enthused at the meat based soup for lunch (our only meat so far here) yesterday he’d very kindly bought us all a peppered steak slice for lunch although it was very peppery and the kids just ate the pastry in the end. It was very funny when Tarly took her first slurp of the soup yesterday and exclaimed ‘Mummy! Meat!’ 😆
After lunch we dug two more holes and then carried a gate across to the lower field and that was us done for the day. We decided the kids could do with some outside time after sitting in the byre for most of the day so we took them, Struan and the dog across to the beach for an hour and were joined by one of the girls Scarlett had been playing with on Saturday night and her puppy. The kids and dogs played in the waves, made dams and generally messed about while Ady took literally hundreds of photos of Rum and the setting sun and walked up and down the beach. Walking on beaches is excellent for clearing your mind, I’ve always done it to aid decision making. Fortunately I’ve always lived near a beach ;).
Back at the house we had dinner and then brought the kids across and read them all the paperwork to do with the croft application process, talked stuff through some more and began discussing business plans and application forms and the kids began designing future bedrooms.
We are going to have to leave here early – the only days the boat goes to Rum for a day trip is Tuesday and Thursday. You can only get from Eigg to Rum on a Monday which means unless we spent money we don’t have right now on staying on Rum for a couple of nights we need to go back to Mallaig (mainland) and then come across to Rum. It seems utterly ridiculous when we can see Rum out of the window of the house here that we can’t get across to it and then back in the same day but on the winter ferry timetable you can’t. The doctor who covers all three small isles has a boat that goes between them and would have been willing to take us across for a few hours while she visits Rum (she lives on Eigg) but her boat is currently not running and awaiting a part which has not yet arrived on the ferry here. Also she would not have been able to take the kids so although Neil said they’d be welcome to stay with him while we were gone we are very keen for them to come and see Rum and the croft sites anyway. This means either we leave here as planned on Friday and then have to hang around Mallaig until Tuesday (no campsites, no facilities in Mallaig so issues with water / toilet / showering etc. and it’s cold! There is a hotel but we can’t afford 4 nights hotel bills) or we leave here earlier than planned – Wednesday instead of Friday and do Rum on Thursday. This has caused all sorts of agonising as although it is only 2 days early it means the kids can’t go to a birthday party for one of the island kids they have made friends with and been invited to on Wednesday and everyone likes it here. Theoretically we could stay here til Monday but there is another WWOOFer arriving Monday and as we don’t work weekends anyway that is just stretching Neil and Sue’s hospitality really so we’ll be leaving Wednesday, meaning tomorrow is our last day / evening.
We’ve emailed the Rum trust and the secretary happens to be travelling on the boat from Mallaig to Rum herself on Thursday, so we’ll spend the boat trip with her, finding out about Rum and the crofts. Then we’ll be met from the boat by the Coordinator and possibly one of the directors to show us the croft site and answer any questions. We then have until December 16th to submit our application and business plan for the croft. The fact we are visiting and will meet these people will hopefully stand us in good stead and give our application a boost. The process from there is based on a points system which I think we should score fairly well on and the feasibility of our business plan and our skills, experience both directly related to land and livestock and other skills too. More to follow on all these things later…
Jittery feelings here thinking about it xx
Comment by Michelle — 08 November 2011 @ 11:48 pm
Gosh, how exciting it all is! What’s the deal with the kids and education if you go to Rum? You might have said but I get confused with all these weirdy place names 😉
Good luck with it all!
Comment by Allie — 09 November 2011 @ 2:25 pm
Hope tomorrow has good weather to explore and look around properly. I know winds and rain will feature but will be so much easier if not torrential tomorrow. I’m guessing the lure is that it is financially a good opportunity for you?
Comment by Michelle — 09 November 2011 @ 5:05 pm
Allie – in Scotland (might be the case elsewhere, am not sure) there is a responsibility to ensure that all primary aged children can get home from school every night. Once they reach secondary age (12 plus) they just need to cover the costs of getting them home ‘regularly’ and pay accomodation. This means all the islands have primary schools, sometimes for just the one pupil and then once they reach 12 they go to the mainland for schooling, returning fortnightly for the weekend. The rest of the time the kids board in a dorm of 12-16 year olds.
We have talked to D&S about the possibility of attending a primary school on an island if we end up on one and at the moment they are utterly resistent to the idea which I am supportive of as it doesn’t hugely appeal to me either. While I can see the benefits of a very small school as opposed to a larger one, and I think the Scottish curriculum for excellence has a very good basis for some of it’s thinking with focus on kids driving the learning etc. it is still school, still teacher-led and still curriculum based. But I can see the benefits of being part of the community by attending school and the risk of ostracising ourselves by not sending our kids to primary. As for secondary – unless D&S wanted to – we certainly wouldn’t be packing them off for 2 weeks at a time to the mainland!
For D this would probably be a good enough reason not to use primary school either, for S it would need a little more explaining. Realistically if we lived on one of the smaller islands we would lose our ‘under the radar’ status straight away so would need to be justifying and explaining ourselves both in a more official way and to our neighbours too.
Michelle – I guess it would be financially beneficial – well yes, it would as in we’d be mortgage and debt free but that is not the main lure – the simpler lifestyle and answer to much of what we;ve been looking for this year seems to exist on the islands, certainly on Eigg, so hopefully also on Rum.
Comment by Nic — 09 November 2011 @ 10:17 pm
Ah, right. I wondered how the little schools managed to survive. I guess in rural mainland areas they just bus kids about and so can close local schools.
Can quite understand why you wouldn’t want to send kids away so much of the time at 12! But if all the other teens go then you’ve got 14 days at a time with no other teens to meet up with? Whether or not that would be a problem must depend on the person, I guess. Our 14 year old would end up swimming to the mainland with her texting arm sticking out the water, I reckon!
Comment by Allie — 10 November 2011 @ 8:56 am
I thought the crofts were leased? so you could keep your house maybe and still rent it out – rather than sell it?
Comment by michelle — 10 November 2011 @ 11:32 pm
Allie – I know, long term there is every chance one or both would want to head for the mainland school, although I think there are only 2 or 3 other teens on the island anyway so it would be the lure of many rather than following a big crowd. On the basis that one day they will leave home for good if they were mature enough to want to do it then we’d support them but that;s all in the future.
Michelle – the crofts are leased, as in the land, but if there is a house you generally have to buy that off the previous crofter as you get ‘reimbursed for improvements’ if you pass a tenancy on. In the case of newly created crofts like these they are bare land, so literally just a blank field which means we’d need to build a house. Hence needing to sell to free up money to built one. Plus pay off debts which are ticking over for now but not sustainable long term if mortgage rates go up and the rent stops covering debts and mortgage payments for us.
Comment by Nic — 10 November 2011 @ 11:37 pm
I think it all looks beautiful, sounds like a great opportunity, especially as includes building your own dwelling! I’d also be worrying about the kids and the prospect of them going off for so much of the time would be a struggle. How popular are cofts? Do you think it would be easy to sell on in say 5 years time if the kids feel too isolated?
Comment by Em — 11 November 2011 @ 8:13 am
Hiya, Actually it hadn’t occurred to me that they would want to go and board on the mainland! Your kids are so wonderfully close to you and A that it is hard to imagine. My teen wouldn’t want to do that either – in fact the thought would undoubtedly make her cry. I just meant that she does see and chat with other teens on a daily basis and I think we’d all suffer if she couldn’t do that! Anyway, not wanting to be prophet of doom, just fascinated by all this. Can see your experiences as a Sunday evening BBC programme…
Comment by Allie — 12 November 2011 @ 9:32 am