Where did I get to? Tuesday was a late one for Ady, I think he got home around 830pm bless him. He had a good day and really enjoyed it but I don’t think he’d easily manage more than one day a week.
Wednesday we went down to the village planning to pick brambles, collect some stuff from the freezer, get some firewood from the castle (Billy the roofer is over and creating a pile of firewood for us again). We nipped to the shop and while I chatted with Jinty and then walked around the back of the hall to pick some brambles Ady headed off to collect wood. He came back to say our animal feed had come on the boat so he dashed back to the fork to drop off the wood then came to collect me to go to the pier and get the animal feed. I chatted to Sean the rat, Bad Neil and Chainsaw Dave (yes, I know we all sound like characters from a dodgy childrens book) and then we got the feed, came back, swapped all the stuff from one car to the next, brought the other car across the river and on to the croft and finally had a late lunch. After lunch Ady emptied the car and then did some loo maintenance while I walked all over croft 2 and 3 looking for ripe brambles and finding a broody duck. I gathered enough brambles to add to the ones from earlier and turn into 3 jars of jam using chillies from Norman that I had found in the freezer last week. Quite poignant as bramble and chilli was his favourite and I always made him a jar each year, odd to think that not only would he not taste this batch but that the chillies which went in to it were from him.
Davies was heading down to check for post so I walked with him and we collected some more brambles. The post was some birthday cards for him and a couple of parcels for Ady. I made dinner and baked bread.
Thursday – Last Sheerwater of 2015. We started with high hopes as it looked like perfect weather with flat calm sea and overcast skies but as we pulled out of the loch it began to rain and the sea got all choppy. Then I spotted a pod of porpoises so we chased and watched them for a bit before heading to Soay. Last wave at Anne and her dog rowing out to collect the post. It’s an odd relationship – we wave at each other every single week from April to September and have done for the last four years but I have no idea if she knows who we actually are or anything about us other than that we appear each week on the boat that brings the post… even here in this life we have people who are fixtures in our lives without knowing anything about each other.
Ronnie went searching for some minke whales he had spotted on the way over from Eigg on the way back and sure enough we found them and had easily the best encounter with whales (or dolphins for that matter) this year with the whale going under the boat and seeming to play with us for quite a while. Totally magical 🙂
Back home we watched the Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel which had come from Lovefilm but Davies and Scarlett were very unenthusiastic about. They both sat and watched with us in the end and I thought it was every bit as lovely as the first one. Gentle, excellent cast, funny and poignant and just a pleasure to watch. What I love most about both of them is the idea that you don’t need to be young, beautiful, fit, rich or perfect to still be alive and living, to have adventures and learn new things, to make mistakes and do your thing. Very inspiring, particularly to those of us who sometimes wonder whether we are far too old for starry notions…
Today we thought we were meeting Mairi so after an early lunch of tortilla wraps which Ady and I cooked together in proper Chuckle Brother style with smoke alarms going off and everything, we headed down to the boats. The Orion was in early, the Brushda was in late, she was on neither… we did all our laundry, Ady did a castle tour, we caught up with Lesley, the baby and Lesley’s Mum, collected the post and came home. Turns out Mairi is coming tomorrrow… which means my head, liver and most of the rest of me should probably be in bed sleeping right now in preparation!
We loved the second best marigold hotel :-). Better than the first. I think. Will have to watch both again.
I’m a bit of a Bill Nighy fan though. Pretty much enjoy watching him in anything.
Have you tried “About Time”? It’s one of my favourites. Also recently watched “The Boat that Rocked” which I wasn’t sure about during it but afterwards loved! I like feel good movies :-).
Comment by Mich — 19 September 2015 @ 12:09 pm
Should warn i blub when watching About Time. It is a love story of father and son. And brother and sister. And all other relationships of family, extended family and friends.
Comment by Mich — 19 September 2015 @ 12:12 pm