Saturday – Ady worked in the morning. I did midge making stuff and when Scarlett got up her and I made bath bombs. It was one of those evolved as it went along type projects with us initially planning green and blue swirls in star shaped moulds to be sea themed. Except the silicone moulds don’t work for bath bombs as you need to really, really compact the mixture to make them and the silicone just kept bulging out rather than holding it’s shape. So we looked for something different to use as a  mould and came up with some tiny containers we’d got gravy in at KFC when we were staying in Glasgow over new year for Ady’s hospital. I had washed them up and brought them home insisting they would be useful for something, much to everyone else’s scorn. I really hate the amount of waste and packaging we create when we go off island and these just seemed so wasteful to use once then chuck into the already overflowing bin in the Travelodge plus they had lids and were sturdy plastic so they have sat in the drawer all these months. Scarlett used one and we decided it looked like a (green) sandcastle. So we added a load of yellow colouring until the mix was yellow, found some cocktail sticks to make flags with some stickers and created a whole load of sandcastle shaped fizzers. I made the flags and packed them all up and made a sign for them too.
Sunday – I put the fizzers and the sign up in the shop, along with the first few midges which I had finished. Then I spent some time in the walled garden and polytunnel planting, sowing and potting on stuff. In the afternoon Lesley came up, in theory just for a few hours and coffee, but actually by 4pm Ady had opened the first bottle of wine and she ended up staying for dinner and two further bottles of wine, leaving around midnight. We had a lovely afternoon and evening though, it was so nice to catch up properly having not seen each other for weeks.
Monday – I was rather woolly of head as a result but got up and packed. We had lunch and then Ady took Scarlett and I down to the boat, Davies stayed home to manage the power as we had wind and solar producing loads. In the shop we were thrilled to see our first big sale of the year including a scarf and one of the newly put out fizzers :). The boat crossing was pretty choppy, with some quite annoying little kids on there (not actually the little kids fault, more the parents who were ignoring them, telling them off or actually telling them to go and sit somewhere else as they were being annoying to them!!!) Lucy from Eigg got on at Eigg so I chatted to her for a while until she went to lie down as she does not do well with the boat. Scarlett was outside for part of the trip as she was feeling icky too. A quick CoOp stock up and then on to the train. We were staying in a hotel we’ve not stayed in before as it was the cheapest place so checked in there and then went back to Morrisons to get picnic food for dinner, then back to the room for a bath for me. There was no wifi (you could pay £5 a day but I had enough signal on my phone to check emails / facebook and Scarlett insisted she would probably rather watch TV than be on her tablet anyway and could think of better ways to spend the money like a hot chocolate!) so we watched TV and were both asleep fairly early.
Tuesday – we were up early enough to have breakfast which was included in the price. I had a small cooked breakfast, Scarlett had loads of bacon and orange juice. Then we walked along to the dentist. It was a five minute procedure to put the brace back in and that was us. We walked through the high street, checked out the charity shops, then walked along the back past some places we’d not seen before, Scarlett saw rabbits (she loves rabbits and really misses seeing them on Rum), we had a hot chocolate and walked some more, finally getting back to the hotel laden down. We chilled out for a while, then went back out to do the fruit and veg shopping and get some more picnic food for dinner. Back to the room, Scarlett had a bath, I ran across to Morrisons for reduced to clear time getting a load of 5p bread for the freezer and then I had a bath. We chatted to Ady and Davies on the phone, watched some more crap TV and I fell asleep first while Scarlett watched a show about the Caledonian Canal and then did her packing.
Wednesday – up early again, packed up and on to the train. Scarlett slept most of the train ride, I saw watching the view and reminiscing to myself about the trip 4 years earlier on the day we moved here. A quick trip into CoOp for milk and yoghurt, a dash up the hill to post Lovefilm which we’d brought off with us and forgotten about til that morning and then on to the ferry. I chatted to a couple who were off to Canna and the trip went really quick. Ady met us at the boat and we were home by midday. Davies was pleased to see us. We unpacked our rucksacks, put all the bits and pieces away we’d brought back and had lunch.
I did some planting up more seeds, Ady and I sat for ages in the sunshine drinking tea and chatting. In the evening Ady and I finally watched the Ben Fogle show properly, as we’d only watched it as it went out live back last year and had been concentrating on whether it was awful rather than watching it as a TV show. I drank fizz and we toasted four years :). Dinner of pizza and Doctor Who.
Today – more sowing and potting on for me in the morning. Ady emptied the loo and got the animal feed delivery from yesterday up on to the croft. We had lunch (outside in the sunshine) and then Ady came down with me to the village to do the laundry and bring it back up to line dry while I went to Fliss’ for crafternoon. Special guest star of Camille from Eigg who had come across on a yacht with a friend so joined us for cups of tea and catch up chats. Lovely to see her.
Back at home I watered the polytunnel while Ady fed the animals. There is a broody duck who is still coming for mealtimes and I wanted to follow back to her nest but I missed her legging it back. Maybe tomorrow…