Tuesday morning Ady and I went off to work at the hostel. We were dismantling bunk beds. I think everyone else thought I got the raw deal as I was a dab hand with the allen key and dismantled four while Ady loaded them into the trailer and moved them across to the castle and Clare drew pictures to label the various parts but I was happy with that. I love flatpacks, even in reverse 🙂 I did get caught in the really hot hostel talking to Clare about housing though which I’d rather have avoided. Never mind.
In the afternoon and evening we packed up ready for the trip to MainlandLand the following day.
Wednesday – a lovely day of weather so we went for the long boat trip to Canna. The school were on the boat too to visit Canna so we snuck upstairs to avoid sitting with them. Mean I know but the kids get fed up with the littler kids demanding their attention. Ady and I spent most of the ride out on the front of the boat and saw some dolphins , mother and calf splashing around. When we got to Canna we decided not to get off; we’d only been there two weeks ago and there is not actually much to do. The kids were watching a dvd, I was reading my kindle and Ady was watching something he’d downloaded on his phone and then having a snooze – all simple pleasures that we probably could not have justified taking time out in the middle of the day to do if we were at home. The Calmac staff are on a two week on, two week off rota and the mean skipper was on who insists on you having tickets to get off at Canna but we had not realised. Fliss and Deb came running back on the boat to offer to pay for our tickets as they thought we were not getting off for that reason… we assured them that was not the case. On the way back to Rum we sat with Fliss and had some chips. Eve & Joss presented us with a thank you card for letting them come and feed the croft animals as we’d be missing the school prizegiving end of term day the following day (which in truth we would probably not have attended even if we were on the island anyway…) which was sweet but a bit embarrassing in the middle of the busy boat.
The school got off back at Rum and Neil & Lesley and a few others got on. I sat with them for a bit on the way to Mallaig chatting about some Rum politics stuff. When we got to the office the car keys were not there as expected so Ady rang the garage and they were running late. It was with us in about 10 minutes though and we set off to Inverness. A slightly stressy journey as Scarlett felt carsick so swapped with me to sit in the front. I then felt pretty rough in the back as the drive from Mallaig to Inverness is very twisty turny. Scarlett wanted to pull over alongside Loch Ness in the layby where we first wild camped in Willow but I was feeling rubbish and just wanted to get to the hotel so refused. I regretted it later and wished we’d stopped and taken a photo. I am not often petulant these days and almost always regret it afterwards…
We got to Inverness and struggled at the end as Ady’s phone which we were using for sat nav was out of power and I was struggling to navigate from the back. I had in my head where I thought the Premier Inn we were staying was and I was right but needed help to find it. We eventually got there, stopped at Morrisons for some breakfast for the morning, some beers and some bubble bath and then got to the Premier Inn and checked in. There is a KFC just a five minute walk away which we’d already planned to eat at so we walked there and after some fresh air, food and cooling down a bit (it was crazily hot and still as anything, we were all struggling with the heat) we all felt better. So much so that we decided at 10pm to find the nearby Tesco and do that bit of our planned shopping then rather than wait til the morning. We got back to the hotel around 11ish, I had a bath and I think we all fell asleep around midnight.
Thursday – It was just as well we’d ticked Tescos off already as we all slept in til 10am the following day! Not unheard of for me and the kids but a complete miracle for Ady. The room was north facing with a tiny window facing a wall and with heavy curtain it was pitch dark in the room so we’d just slept. That scuppered our plans to do Screwfix / B&Q in the morning so instead Davies had a bath and we watched crap tv. Then Ady and Scarlett dropped Davies and I at the hospital and they went off to do Screwfix and B&Q. We had a bit of a wait and had gotten there early anyway but we sat in the paediatric waiting room watching the cbeebies channel that the TV was set to and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves 🙂 I was quite sobered by being in there actually, it made me realise how fortunate we are to have two healthy children and how different life can be for parents who don’t… That has stayed with me all week, quite haunting.
All well with Davies. The doctor was lovely, weighed and measured him, chatted at length, explained puberty for boys, then examined him and pronounced him well into puberty and anticipating a growth spurt pretty much now. For a belt and braces approach he took blood to test for thyroid function and pituitary glands doing their thing, sent us along to xray to have Davies’ wrist xrayed to give a bone age and predicted adult height and will see him again in a few months to follow up. He can also see us in Fort William next time which is fantastic, will be far less hassle / expense and can probably be tied in with a dentist appointment too. Yay. We left fully reassured which was great. We managed to claim back part of the expenses too – all of the ferry for Davies & I, £35 each night towards accommodation and petrol mileage from Mallaig. Every little helps towards the huge expense of a mainland trip.
Met back up with Ady and Scarlett and then parked the car and went into the city centre. I quite like Inverness, it feels pretty familiar as we have spent a fair bit of time there over the last five years (although only one previous visit  since moving to Rum). We did the charity shops, Primark, Game and HMV, poundstretcher etc and stocked up on all the sorts of things we had on our lists to buy. We had lunch in McDonalds just to complete the fast food jaunt of the trip and then got in the car and came back to Fort William. We came via Aldi which was the last shop on our Inverness list and I managed to ride the whole way in the front thanks to a new dvd purchase which the kids watched on the drive :).
In FW we went to Poundstretcher for various things including a memory foam mattress topper and Morrisons for picnic tea and the food shop to bring home (stuff like bombay mix, chocolates, marshmallows, own label whisky, gin and baileys, all of which cost a fortune here buying proper branded stuff through Jinty and are nice to have in the cupboard for treats) then finally to the Travelodge. We sat on the floor and watched Masterchef while eating our tea and then Scarlett had her bath (with Lush stuff from Inverness), as did I. The combination of 2 baths in 24 hours and extreme heat has bought all of my eczema on though so I have really itchy elbows and ankles now 🙁
Friday – we were all up and awake much earlier and out of the hotel by 830am. A quick stop at Lidl and then off to Mallaig. As we pulled into Morar and got our first glimpse of the Rum skyline I actually got butterflies of excitement about going home. We do live in such a very beautiful part of the world :). We detoured to Loch Morar and took some photos as I realised recently we don’t take as many pictures of the four of us any more, just lots of the croft, the animals and the landscape and I don’t want to miss photo documenting the kids teen years. We had the car back well before the arranged time and the girl ran us along to Mallaig. We left all our stuff in the Calmac office and went to CoOp for various items. Back in the Calmac office we rejggled some of the packing so we had as many bags as we had hands between us and then Davies and I ran back to the CoOp for ice lollies. We saw Big Dave and Faye on the way so bought some for them too and all sat in the office eating them.
We stayed outside the whole boat trip back and it was a glorious crossing with flat calm sea and lovely sunshine, a fab welcome back to Rum 🙂 We managed to drive all the way up the croft, stopping at the freezer to drop stuff off and then spent time unpacking and putting stuff away. Bonnie was glad to have us home and be back on the croft and all was well here. I was working at the shop and Scarlett came down with me while Ady and Davies fixed a bike and got dinner on. Davies appeared before I closed the shop to say Ady was in a flap about missing onions and rice for dinner so I sent him and Scarlett back up with them. Dave and Faye came down for a beer and we walked back to the croft together as they were coming for dinner.
Saturday – work in the morning, a very productive afternoon of planting, transplanting and weeding in the afternoon. Ady and I fixed a shelf in the polytunnel too. He and Emmanuel managed to move some more stuff which had been cluttering up and looking messy at the croft gate too. Pizza for dinner and Doctor Who plus an earlier night all round.
Sunday – more weeding for me, I got loads done 🙂 One more small bed to weed and two of the really big ones and that is all of the walled garden weeded. I actually think I might get stuff planted out in every single bed this year which is fantastic 🙂 I’m really proud of that little area including the fruit cage and the polytunnel, it looks good and is on track to be productive. Ady, Dave and Faye took down the community polytunnel which had been an eyesore and was really grating on Ady and I. The croft looks so much  better with it gone 🙂 Then we all went to the cabin and put up four of the ceiling panels to finish all of the ones above the mezzanine. It looks fab. It was unbearably hot in there but worth doing.
Ady cooked dinner – roast venison and I made eton mess for pudding with freshly picked strawberries from the croft. We had a lovely evening with them, lots of laughs, too much to drink…
Monday – Ady and I don’t have any phone signal. We noticed on Friday when we got home but it wasn’t a problem until last night when I wanted to ring my parents as it’s my Mum’s birthday. I managed to hook up via TuGo using wifi but our internet is so slow that it was a really poor line. So frustrating 🙁 I had a livechat with o2 this morning about it and it is a mast with problems in Arisaig. They are aware but can’t give me a time / date when it will be fixed. Hope it does’t take too long.
I spent much of the day doing more weeding. Ady and Emmanuel did some digging on the house plot, Ady did some scything too. We took Dave and Faye to the boat to say goodbye and then it rained and was midgey so we called it a day and watched a film with the kids. I cooked dinner and we watched some Dr Who.
And that’s me all caught up again 🙂