One word? When seven would do…

I think I got to Thursday… when we didn’t get a ferry. I confess to holding out hope of a ferry pretty much up until the last minute on Christmas Eve even though everyone else had been doom-mongering all week and Calmac were promising nothing.

I think I made the chocolate log (which was not actually that nice in the end, but the pigs enjoyed it) and Scarlett iced and decorated the Christmas cake.

Friday – Ady and I went over to Harris to feed the cattle and ponies. It was mad windy and we got out to take photos at the lodge. I managed to drop our freezer key at the deer gate and didn’t realise until we went to the freezer. I’d only got out at the deer gate and at the lodge but we thought we might have to drive all the way back over again and were worried it could have just been blown away but it was still there. Phew.

Saturday – Christmas Eve – we popped down to the village in the afternoon and had a quick beer at the shop with some islanders, dropped off gifts to Fliss and fed Ali’s chickens. We had intended to go down again on Christmas Day but decided against it. First time we’ve not done so but there are so few people here for Christmas it felt a bit desperate and bomb shelter in the blitz-esque.

We had a lovely curry for dinner, a throwback to the days we always used to get a takeaway delivered on Christmas Eve, watched Nativity 3 (which was really, really crap) and all stayed up very late to see in Christmas. The kids went to bed about 1230, Ady and I got the presents under the tree and in stockings and then had a last dram while listening to carols before heading to bed around 2am.

Christmas Day – we were missing a fair bit of stuff – Davies’ main present, plus another two smaller gifts for him and three gifts for Scarlett. Plus quite a lot of food and drink supplies although we had got more or less everything from Jinty’s shop and we are pretty philosophical about ferries not coming and what that means. I did feel sorry for Davies but we’d said all along that it might not arrive once ferries got cancelled so he already knew, he had several other things to open and use (headphones with mic, new 3ds game) plus loads of silly things. The kids had threatened a 7am start but in the end Ady woke them about 830. A really nice day of nice food, nice drink, lovely presents and the promise of more on the next boat, good stuff to listen to on the radio and iplayer. We played a hilarious game of charades from a pack Scarlett had got in her stocking and just about saw the day out before bed.

Boxing Day – we all four went over to Harris for pony and cattle feeding, heading over after lunch. Ady and I had popped to the village to feed Ali’s chickens, take some rubbish to the skip and put a load of laundry on and the kids had walked down to meet us at the fork. It was a nice drive across the island and on the higher ground there was quite a lot of snow. It took ages for both the ponies and the cattle to come for feeding, they had all been tucked down on lower, sheltered ground so it was getting dark when we came back scuppering plans to get out and play in the snow for a while. The usual loads of food but nothing to make a dinner with festive dilemma in the evening.

Tuesday – at last a ferry!!! It came early on an amended timetable so Ady and I went and collected everything, waited in the village for the post to be sorted and brought it all up to the caravan and sorted it /put it away before waking the kids. It was definitely like a second Christmas with Davies’ tablet plus his other gifts of a t shirt and some new boots, two cake decorating books and mini muffin tin plus cases for Scarlett, my secret santa from online friends, a box of goodies from Mairi, a joint birthday and Christmas present from Scarlett’s friend, loads of cards including one filled with new from friends in Berlin, 18  bottles of wine, an order from the CoOp including fresh fruit and vegetables and our monthly amazon order with things like cat food, sugar, tea and coffee (which we had fortunately not run out of already!) plus an animal feed delivery.

I made bagels for dinner which had been our Boxing day planned meal. The CoOp had sent a tiny pack of smoked salmon though so it was stretched very thinly between us.

Today – A wet and windy day. This morning I did some crochet while Ady was outside repairing a fenced area. We don’t have anything in it at the moment – it was the first sheep pen – but might need it so it’s good to keep it as a safe and secure area just incase. I woke Scarlett as she had asked to make cakes today but then we realised there were no eggs. So we rejigged the day and Ady and I went to the village to collect the laundry, feed Ali’s chickens (and collect some eggs) and grab some stuff from the freezer before coming home for lunch and cupcake making. Scarlett also made some rose and violet creams as part of a present she is sending to a friend.

Sunday – Completely escapes me. I’m pretty sure there was hairbrushing for Scarlett and a visit from Bad Neil. There was a roast dinner and a festive film.

Monday – Ady and I went down to  the village for some shopping, some post office business, some getting stuff from the freezer, collecting the SNH car and animal feed for Ady to do the run across to Harris to feed the cattle and ponies the next day as he is covering while main SNH staff are off island. We saw Neil at the shop so he came up with us to collect his sheep who we had got penned.

We managed to catch it to treat it as he had bought up some meds to do so while it was captured. He also checked to see whether it was intact and as I was already fairly sure would be the case it is. So very likely lambs in the spring. Bollocks.  We caught up on The Apprentice.

Tuesday – Ady went off to feed the animals. I had planned to go with him but it was very windy so I thought it would be better to stay with the kids in the caravan. I finished a crochet midge for Jen, if we get another boat before Christmas I’ll get it posted to her.

In the evening Ady and I went down to Fliss’ for her Christmas party. Last year it was a real highlight of the year, this year there are so few of us around generally and on island just now specifically it was very quiet – Fliss and Sorcha (who came home on Monday for Christmas), us two (Davies and Scarlett elected to stay home despite being invited), Bad Neil and Jed. Mr Rhys came along for a short while too. We had a nice few hours getting home just before 12.

Today – Ady’s been dodging the rain and hail showers building a bigger pen for the pigs. I spent the morning wrapping Christmas presents. Then we headed down to the village to collect laundry, load the SNH car up with animal feed for the next feed on Friday and go to Sean & Ali’s to check and feed their chickens and wild birds. On the way home we got caught in a hailstorm.

That was me in for the rest of the day, I stared sewing a duck toy that Scarlett wants me to make. Ady chopped up some wood and then he was in too.

Everything crossed for a ferry tomorrow, particularly one bringing the last few things we are waiting for…

Tuesday – I slept badly as I was convinced we would oversleep so every time I stirred I woke enough to check what time it was on my phone. At least three times. The room was stuffy and I woke from a really vivid dream about discovering a house underground on the croft. It was so clear that I can still remember it now and for a while I lay there seriously considering ringing Ady to tell him exactly where to start digging to find it.

We got up and headed to the radio station which is on an industrial estate just outside the town. We struggled to park so had to walk a short way to it. I had emailed the studio manager thinking he would be the best person to arrange a behind the scenes tour but had not realised that in a station so tiny no one is employed like that and infact he was there presenting the breakfast show. The station is largely music and ads with a minimal amount of talking between tracks really so he was able to chat to us loads with just three instances of turning the mike and the red light on and broadcasting while we stood there.

Davies did a good job of leading it, having thought about some questions to ask and with fairly minimal prompting from me. David LOVED him, really liked the idea of a Small Isles station or show, told Davies he was really interesting, liked the whole Home Ed thing, loved our story and lifestyle, offered help with all sorts of things from a Young Presenters course to a SVQ in broadcasting, to come and help set stuff up, assist with finding funding and so on. He was ridiculously effusive but if even half the things he said he could help with actually happen then he will be a massively useful contact.

We left there and headed to the secret charity shops (a local precinct of about 10 shops just outside the town where there are two charity shops), then back to the Premier Inn where we left the car and walked into the town. I needed stuff like Christmas cards, wrapping paper, Superdrug shopping while the kids wanted to look for presents for me, so we looked at the charity shops together and then split up for half an hour or so before meeting back up and going back to the room for lunch and telly.

Scarlett and I went round to the dentist, getting there about 15 minutes early on the off chance as Gregor is always so efficient he never seems to have a backlog of waiting patients. Sure enough we were in, Scarlett was seen, had some elastic bands between top and bottom jaw fitted and we were back in the hotel room before her appointment time! It meant we were there for Ady arriving as he had got a lift with Sean and Ali rather than catching the train so was nearly an hour earlier than expected too.

Ady and I went along to Poundstretcher and the supermarket for various bits and pieces and picnic tea to eat in the room. Baths all round and then sleeping.

Another bad nights sleep for me, it was so hot and I had opened the window but Davies (who was sleeping in the bed closest to the window) had shut it again. It was 25 degrees in the room, at this time of year our bedroom is regularly around the 8 degrees mark so very different.

Wednesday – zoo day! We were up and out by 830am on our way to the Highland Wildlife Park, Scarlett’s belated birthday treat. It’s a small zoo by normal UK zoo standards but important for having the only UK female polar bear and the first polar bear the kids had seen in real life. There could only have been about 20 people in the whole zoo and the keeper talks were pretty limited – Japanese snow monkeys, polar bears, Scottish wildcats and Amur tigers. But we went to all of them, drove round the safari reserve bit twice, saw the snow leopards and the wolves and had a really good day. Scarlett loved it 🙂

We debated heading on to Inverness for dinner and food shopping but decided to go back to FW instead. We had a discussion about the best place to get dinner and in the end decided to go for picnic food again with fish and chips for Davies. So Ady and I did the Morrisons christmas food shopping, Ady dashed along to the chip shop and we were back for food and baths. We mostly packed up ready for another early start.

Thursday – home day! All packed up and on the road just after 830am again. I drove back to Mallaig as the kids secretly prefer my driving plus I was feeling pretty ropey travelling in the back the day before. We arrived, Ady dashed across to the Coop for some milk to bring home, I reversed onto the ferry and we were on our way home. The crossing was pretty choppy but we managed. Home, collected Bonnie, gathered up the Jeep, bunged stuff in the freezer and then came back to the croft with wheelbarrows. The day disappeared in a haze of unpacking and putting away and a lovely venison steak dinner by Ady. Good to be home.

Friday – Ady worked in the morning. I made mince pies, the kids slept in. In the evening Ady and I went down to Debs for a pre Christmas meal with Debs, Fliss and Jed. It was a really nice, if slightly strange evening. We were home just before midnight.

Today – I spent the morning almost finishing the puzzle and listening to the radio, Ady spent it doing loo maintenance. In the afternoon Scarlett actually finished the puzzle while Ady and I walked down to the village to get stuff from the freezer and collect the post. Pizza for dinner delayed from last night.

We still have additional livestock…

Saturday – in the morning I listened to the radio and did the festive puzzle while Ady went down to post a parcel for me and pick Dave up from the boat.  He had forgotten to collect some stuff from the freezer so we walked down together to get it and collected the post from the car too. We fed the animals and then popped over to Dave’s cabin for a cup of tea and a blether before coming in for curry and Polar Express.

Sunday – We fed the animals then took the laundry down to the cars. We wanted to take the Chevy down to the pier and it needed a jump start to get going. We put the washing on and took both the Jeep and the Chevy to the pier, replaced one of the headlamp bulbs in the Chevy as it was really dim and we’d got the spare when we were off but not had a spanner to swap it over and kept forgetting until we needed to use it again. We left the Chevy there ready for today and drove back to the castle where the washing was. It was still in the washing machine so we walked round to Fliss’ to feed her cats and fish but Debs was already there doing so, so we chatted to her for a bit (which was quite good as I suspect she would have come up to ours otherwise that afternoon) before going back to swap it over into the tumble drier. Then we walked around to Ali’s so she could show us where all the feed was for their chickens and wild birds as we are looking after them while they are away over Christmas. We hung around a bit waiting for the stuff to dry then came back to the croft for a late lunch. We fed the animals, then Ady chainsawed up some wood and I split it by which time it was pretty much dark and time to come in.

Ady cooked a lovely roast beef dinner and we ate the last of the mince pies (for now, will make more when we get home) and watched Arthur Christmas.

Today – we spent the morning packing up and getting ready to come off. It was a rough-ish crossing but not dreadful. I chatted to Dave who was coming off too after the weekend on Rum. We smuggled off a couple of jerry cans for Dave to fill up and smuggle back on again when he comes back up for Christmas so I gave him a lift to his car, we put two huge bags of clothes from the big sort out a while back into the clothes banks in the car park and then we were on our way to Fort William. The dash clock had not been put back so was an hour fast but it being already dark I believed it was 530pm because that seemed quite reasonable… so bonus extra hour when I finally realised! I collected something Ady had reserved for me at Argos, we popped into Morrisons for bubble bath, chocolate, stuff for breakfast and a bottle of wine (foolishly picked a really cheap one and it’s very disappointingly nasty, will get something nicer tomorrow!) . We checked in at the Premier Inn which was been done up since our last visit – very recently, the corridors still smell of fresh paint and watched some crap Tv while eating monster munch – living the dream!

We went across to McDonalds for food, then back for baths, more junk TV and a phonecall with Ady who is joining us tomorrow.

We’ve a busy couple of days – off to the local radio station tomorrow for Davies to have a chat about local and community radio which is something he’s interested in, a bit of shopping, then dentist for Scarlett in the afternoon. Ady’s arriving on the train late afternoon and then zoo park on Wednesday before home on Thursday.

Thursday – Ady was ghillying for SNH. The original plan had been for them to be out all day but he was actually home by lunchtime. I had some email conversations with Calmac about whether or not they were sending our animal feed delivery and once they had confirmed they were I headed down to the pier to collect it. I was in a bad mood – Croft 1 sheep had arrived on our croft again the day before so Ady had managed to pen them in our sheep catching pen but they had butted their way out of there and we’re just hanging around our sheep on the croft.

There was loads of rat shit in the car so I swept that out and headed to the pier. Dave had as usual commandeered the parking space right next to the Calmac van even though there was not actually anything coming off for him so I parked next to it and opened all the boot and back doors on our car but was seething. 13 bags of animal feed for us that I’d rather not carry any further than I have to. I started loading it and once the rest of the Rum deliveries were off the van Derek and the Calmac man started helping me. Dave then loaded three sacks onto a sack truck – the balancing act required took longer than actually just carrying three sacks individually would have done and inevitably one of the sacks split. I know he was only trying to help but I’d really rather he just didn’t help at all or helped like a normal person rather than trying to always over engineer and be clever. I drove back past Fliss’ and popped in to feed her cats and fish, then to the shop to grab some bacon for dinner and some more milk. Jinty pissed me off in there so by the time I had marched back up to the croft knowing that I could either spend the whole afternoon wheelbarrowing 13 bags of feed up to the croft 2 sacks at a time or leave it in the car to be rat feed I was already a woman on the edge.

When I’d gone down I’d noticed one of the ducks in the fruit cage and assumed Ady had put it in there for a reason. I could hear it quacking from the foot bridge so decided there was nothing wrong with it after all, it must have flown in there by mistake at feeding time. So I shooed Neil’s sheep away as one of them was trying to mate with our sheep and then went into the fruit cage to free the duck. Which I spent about ten minutes chasing around the fruit cage with it passing the wide open gate at least 20 times and running past it rather that through it. It kept getting into the really muddy corner where I was not prepared to do the necessary dash to grab it and catch it knowing I was guaranteed to fall over in the mud so eventually I decided it could just stay in there.

One of the sheep had indeed buggered off but the other one was very determined so I decided to herd our girls into the pen and shut them away. I got them in no problem but I then realised that the catching pen had been trashed by them when Ady had shut them in the day before and it would be really mean to trap all three of ours in there. Neil’s sheep kept coming back and coming back and I just lost it and starting yelling at it to fuck off. At which  point I burst into tears. I don’t remember the last time I properly cried but I was feeling incredibly sorry for myself, hormonal and utterly fed up. So I sat in the sheep pen next to the sheep house and had a good old cry. I decided to sit it out for a bit before going back in to the kids, also to stay and ensure our sheep stayed in and Neil’s sheep stayed out.

In theory Neil’s sheep (two boys) have been castrated by him however I am fairly certain it was not done properly and everything I have been reading about sheep breeding suggests this to be the case. Our girls would only come into season if the males are giving off hormones and the boys would only be interested if they were intact. And they are very interested. In all likelihood they have already mated with them and our girls may be pregnant. This is not the end of the world however, we very specifically were not planning to lamb next year, I would have waited until they were a year older, I knew they were in good condition and able to cope with a Rum winter, I would definitely not have chosen Soay tups to breed with them either. I’m just so fed up that we are doing everything we can to make things work with careful planning and it may all go wrong because of someone else’s crapness. I think of all the lessons I have found so hard to learn and live with here on Rum it is that I cannot control everything…

I had also spent the day before reading up online about the avian flu stuff and in consultation with the other chicken keepers on the island we have initially decided to not pen any of the birds but to be extra vigilant and adhere to the bio security measures. Even if a case were found here on Rum the cull zone would only be our island. This time of year there are no visiting tourists, livestock transfers, no vehicles etc so the risk is so low that the welfare impact on the birds by housing them would by far outweigh the other risks. All of this is in line with the advice from Scottish government and DEFRA. It’s still crap and seeing the fallings out online on facebook poultry and smallholding groups has been shite.

So there I was sobbing away saw on the floor next to the sheep pen when suddenly Ady appeared back early and looking very concerned!

I told him all of the small things that had totted up into one big thing and tipped me over the edge, he chased the lurking sheep away and then spent the afternoon getting all the animal feed up the hill while I recovered myself drinking tea and doing the Christmas puzzle and making bagels.

Today – Loads of wind power all day so more of the same really. Ady feels the need to be busy and outdoors regardless of the weather. I like the indoors time at this time of year. The kids are with me – particularly if there is power for the internet and tablets!

We watched The Apprentice with lunch.

I’ve been reading back over the two blogs to compose a round up of the year. It’s been a very unsettling one which I suspect is contributing to my state of mind. Re-reading about Ady’s op, Tom dying the stress of Bob and Blackie arriving, looking at the bad, good and learnt stuff we talked about at the end of last year and realising that the bad stuff is all still bad, along with various emails floating around to do with community stuff (nothing personal – stuff like what the fish farm would like to do and whether we get a mobile phone mast put up in the village) are all really unsettling.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Monday – Ady went off to work in the morning. I wrapped Scarlett’s birthday presents and then started the Christmas puzzle. I love puzzles 🙂 The kids have both a bit of  a go at it but it’s been mostly me. We had lunch and then I prepped dinner as we were heading down for the school nativity play in the early evening so I wanted dinner ready to shove in the oven when we got back.

We got down and back crunchy through the frosty ground, it was so beautiful and twinkly. The play was actually really good fun. The four school kids had mostly written it themselves and it had them pondering various questions about Christmas traditions and visiting various islanders to find out the answers as we sat in the audience. So why do we have Christmas trees answered by Mr Rhys who chops firewood, why were the nativity animals kept in a stable when ours are kept out in the fields by me, why a baby was born in the stable rather than a house or bunkhouse answered by Ady in the absence of Bunkhouse managed Jed, why babies are special anyway answered by Lesley, why there was a star in the sky answered by Fliss, why we send cards answered by Trudi who does some post office shifts and why we give presents answered by Ali. We sang Away in a manger and it was all very festive. Mulled wine and mince pies and then home for dinner and A very merry Muppet Christmas movie.

Tuesday – Scarlett’s birthday 🙂 I’ll do a page for that later. She had threatened to be up at 7am but my Mum woke me ringing at 8am and we finally got the kids up just before 930am as I’d put a dedication on the breakfast show (which they didn’t read) so wanted Scarlett up for it! She had a fair few presents; mostly baking stuff as she’s really into cake decorating just now, so a load of tools, a mixer, loads of sprinkles, some playmobil, a jar of marmite with her name on it, some lights with her name. Her main gift is a zoo trip next week so she was thrilled with what she got. Pancakes for breakfast and then mostly over to me for food. Scarlett and I made some cupcakes and she spent ages and ages decorating them, I made bread rolls and soup for lunch, venison pie for dinner and birthday brownies.

Ady went to the ferry as we had some amazon coming but otherwise we were all home all day and it was a nice day. We spoke to my parents, watched Nativity 2 and drank fizz. I did the photo calendars for us and for my Mum & Dad’s Christmas presents.

Today – Ady worked this morning. It’s been really windy so I spent the day catching up with various online stuff – monthly residents newsletter, friends of Rum newsletter and reading up on the avian flu stuff. And some puzzle.

Thursday – Ady went to work in the morning. He and Ross used the ATV (all terrain vehicle) and trailer to bring up a load of wood. I was in the shed getting some jam and it really made me jump! I packed up loads of stuff including two secret santas which I have posted very early but were ready and we don’t have much space, plus there are limited posting opportunities really with only about 9 ferries left before Christmas. I also posted Mairi’s ten crochet midges and her birthday present as she was supposed to be coming up this weekend but had been in touch to say she wasn’t going to make it. I posted a little bottle of home made liqueur to a friend who was having a shit week as a surprise and some jam I had sold. I also took down the midge with a tam o shanter hat for Trudi. So a very productive post office trip. Davies and I then both saw the doctor – Davies had a slightly dodgy tick bite that was fine but worth getting checked. I had an asthma check up. It turns out I have been using my inhalers wrong as I’d not been told how they actually work and that I should be using the brown one twice daily all the time as a preventer and the blue one if and when I feel wheezy. I’ve now started doing just that and while it may well be psychological I already feel the hill is a bit less challenging to walk up on my lungs…

We came home and Ady followed not long behind. We had lunch and then I headed back down to Crafternoon for chat and crochet. Then round to the hall for the monthly community meeting. I stopped behind to gossip with Lesley as I’d not seen her for a while and got home just before 8pm for a shower and dinner, then the first festive film of the year – Rudolph. An animated one we had loved when the kids were small and watched over and over again.

Friday – Ady to work again in the morning. I made bread dough, pizza dough and cheese scones and put the sheep in.  In the afternoon we chopped wood and faffed around with the sheep a bit trying to keep them in.

Saturday – I slept in way later than I meant to, got up and made mince pies as Ady had already left to go to the boat and put a deer on for Eigg – a long running favour back for someone there who helped us when we very first arrived. So glad it is finally sorted although it continued to be hassle-y right to the end. We decided to start letting the sheep roam grazing on the croft which is after all what we have them for. Bonnie is mostly unfussed about them and was actually quite helpful at rounding them up and herding them into the pen at bedtime. We did some firewood processing and then decided we would bring the Christmas tree in. We have always waited until after Scarlett’s birthday not wanting it to be overshadowed by Christmas but actually we’re doing the advent calendars, festive films and Christmas music anyway so it made sense to have the tree in too. Scarlett was the most supportive of this idea! So in it came and we decorated it.

Today – Tree planting this morning as that has been the thing which got pushed back all week in favour of all the other things. We made a start, bringing the speaker out with us so we could listen to Christmas songs. Sean, Ali and Eve appeared while we were working and stopped for a chat, then they went on their way. I woke Davies – Scarlett was already up and they both came out and worked with us for an hour or so until we had finished the run behind the caravan. We now have about 20 willow and 15 hazel left which we’re going to plant in the fruit and veg cages so they are definitely safe from marauding deer. That should take less than an hour one afternoon this week and we’re done. 420 trees in all, which with the trees we have already planted since we’ve been here means a legacy of about 500 trees we’ll have planted on the croft.

We came in for lunch, watched a Dangerous Earth episode about lightning and then the kids washed up and tidied up a bit while we went back out to do some firewood, put the remaining trees down in the fruit cage ready to plant and feed the animals. I was just sitting on the sporran having a last of the daylight appreciation of the view moment when Lesley arrived for mulled wine and mince pies. Which morphed into white wine and a very long catch up gossipy couple of hours before she finally left around 9pm having got here about 4! We did offer her dinner but she headed off and messaged to say Dougal was still up when she got home!

We had dinner, watched Four Christmases and now I’m all caught up on this blog at least.

Well yesterdays post was a bit bleaty wasn’t it. It came after a crappy couple of hours of low level bickering with Ady and a thorny conversation with everyone else about what we’d do next if and when we leave Rum. Unfortunately that is quite an emotive chat to have and so after everyone had gotten upset we agreed to shelve it for a few weeks, probably until after Christmas and to all ponder on it a bit.

Anyway… not a great night’s sleep.

This morning Ady’s alarm woke me which it almost never does and then the front door slammed when he let the cat and dog out, then I needed a wee and then I couldn’t get back to sleep so I laid in bed and read. I had to have the light on for quite a while as it didn’t get light for ages. I finished the book, read it in two days – the latest Jodi Picoult about racism. I really like her books and this was a good one. I also read all her authors notes at the end. It was really thought provoking.

I got up, woke the kids and then headed off, putting the sheep away as I went passed – sigh. I got to Fliss’ just before 10am and she had already collected the first skinned and quartered deer that Ady and Neil had done. She and I started working on butchering it and then she went along again an hour or so later to collect the final two and was followed back by Neil and Ady. All four of us got through the first beast and then  Neil headed off. The rest of us got most of the way through the second one before stopping for lunch and then doing the third. We listened to the radio, to music and then chatted about all sorts of things as we worked. It was quite nice. We did two for Fliss and made a good start on the third one which was for Deb getting all of the fancier butchery done before Ady and I headed away at 330pm to get home and feed our animals before dark. That left Fliss with some final getting meat for mincing off the last two front legs and between the ribs and the actual mincing and bagging up to do. Debs would have arrived shortly after we left to help her finish.

As we arrived home we saw Neil up at the caravan come to find his sheep who have been hanging around our croft. He came in for a cup of tea before heading off with a bag of feed to try and lure them home. I am quite worried that Neil has probably not effectively castrated his sheep and they may mate with our ewes who also keep getting out. Argh!

We watched Gareth’s Choir and I made dinner – pork chops, brandy sauce and potato gratin – yum. Watched a couple of Supernaturals and as of tomorrow we’ll be on the festive films.

 

It’s all been a bit samey really. Ady’s been working down in the village on the SNH hostel in the mornings which means he doesn’t get back until a very late lunch o’clock. By the time that is finished we only have 2 hours at most of daylight left. We have been using them for stuff like chopping firewood, chasing sheep about, putting in some trees. I’m a bit fed up generally, must be my November funk. I’ve done lots of gift making, on the final Secret Santa / birthday gifts / Christmas presents / commissions for various things just now. Pretty good going for not even December yet. I’ve also made a good start on the kids blankets which is a nice project.

On Saturday we went up the opposite hill to the croft and chose Christmas trees. We found two suitable ones so on Sunday Ady, Scarlett and I went and cut them down and brought them back to the croft. Still not sure which one we’ll use – we’ll find another use for the second one, either give it to someone here, donate it to the village hall or bunkhouse or just stick it in the sheep pen or pig pen for festive animals! We could almost do a live nativity here this year!

That’s about it. Not much to say really. Blah.

No idea what happened on Friday – it wasn’t a boat day, we would have eaten pizza, other than that anything could have happened. Well not anything, obviously there was no alien invasion, zombie apocalypse, no extreme weather or other such memorable events, so quite probably some indoors stuff like crochet.

On Saturday I know we went down to the village in the afternoon to take a couple of the ailing Muscovy ducks down to Lesley. They have just been dying almost daily. I think we took five adults and 11 ducklings from Muck so 16 birds in all. We lost a couple of ducklings just after we let them out of their pens so re-penned them, a couple of the adults died when Jen was croftsitting and then they have just been struggling ever since. I think they just can’t cope with the mud and wet on the croft despite us offering houses and plenty of food. We have one left who seems to be coping and has got in with the other ducks but two of the others were looking really sad so we boxed them up and took them down to the village to live in Neil and Lesley’s garden where there is more grass and less mud. So far they are doing OK.

We also put on the jacket potatoes for later in the village hall and *thought* we’d put on the heating and hot water although it turned out later than we hadn’t and Trudi managed to sort that out later in the evening as it needed resetting.

We came home to feed animals and get changed and then went down for the community meal. The theme was American Diner which was fairly loosely interpreted by everyone I think but we managed a really good collective effort between us – there was sticky pork and loaded cheese and bacon potato skins from us, spaghetti and meal balls from Fliss, bagels, cream cheese and a collection of pretend cold meats (as in quorn versions) from Trudi, nachos from Young David, onion rings and chicken bites from Lesley & Bad Neil then to follow we had some crumble, some cookies and some cookie dough. A decent turn out of about 14 of us too including a couple of volunteers who are here just now. It was one of the rowdier nights with lots of drinking, laughing, silliness and sore heads the following day. I fell over several times on the way home and was in a high state of hysteria when we finally got back to the caravan a few hours after the kids 🙂

I need a night like that here once a month or so, I find it really affirming to have fun and remember what I love about living in a community. It’s obviously very drink fuelled fun but it is also about a shared space, about in jokes and knowing each other so very well, laughter, the post mortem-ing the next time we see each other. It’s about bringing food and sharing and eating together, it’s about the working the table and everyone ending up chatting to all sorts of people as we all sit down in different places and move around over the course of an evening.

Sunday – a necessary quiet day. None of us were up very early and I was feeling particularly delicate. We did get out and do some tree planting in the afternoon though, a small start but a start nonetheless.

It was a freezing cold evening / night and the gas valve / pipe froze which meant the hob and the hot water weren’t working. Ady managed a tepid water bottle rather than a hot one for me but I was asleep pretty early regardless…

Monday – the most gorgeous morning probably ever seen here. Ady was off to work at the hostel and he woke me up leaving to feed the animals. I looked out of the window and without contact lenses it looked amazing in the sunrise. Later after I’d put my eyes in it was still fantastic as the sun was higher and catching all the ice but not melted it yet. I walked down to the post office to send a parcel and get some shopping, finish tidying the hall up from Saturday night and take some photos along the way. I had a chat with Ady and then came home. He was pretty late home so by the time we’d had lunch there was not a lot of daylight left. We went out and relagged the gas bottle, valve and pipes, ensured the water pipes were all covered, put extra straw in the animal houses and chopped up more firewood before it got too dark though. I rang my parents from the Baltic bedroom.

I made dinner and we watched Sherlock.

Today – Ady went off to work again this morning. I made a tam o shanter for a midge for Trudi who is giving it as a leaving gift to a volunteer / visitor who has been here a couple of months, made the mincemeat and cranberry sauce for Christmas, made bread dough and made a start on a blanket for Scarlett. Ady came home with the Co Op which had been delivered, we had lunch and then he went back outside while I watched nature programmes with Scarlett and brushed her hair after she had a shower. We all watched Planet Earth 2 once Ady had come back in. We watched the last Sherlock – we’ve been rewatching the whole thing in preparation for the new episode due in January. Some of them Ady and I have seen three times now, some just twice and this last episode was only our second watching. They really are very good. Hopefully the next Supernatural will arrive (we’re on season 2) from LoveFilm tomorrow and we only have a few days before Christmas film watching begins 🙂

 

 

 

Ady was working at the hostel again this morning. The sun was shining and I needed to collect some midges and bags from the shed so I decided to make a start on removing the netting from the fruit cage until the sun stopped shining and then come back inside. I found a duck in the ditch, barely alive, so hoiked it out and thought it might be ok, another one was looking iffy but moving around quite well. I went into the fruit cage and made a start unstitching the netting from three sides of the cage and then rolling it all back to one side and tying it on. In the end I managed to do the whole thing, which was good as it’s one of those jobs you don’t really want to leave half done anyway. It took a couple of hours and it briefly rained once and hailed twice but nothing too dire. It was mostly sunny and very still. I thought about putting music on but actually the peace and the sound of the river was lovelier than any music so I didn’t. Sadly I discovered one dead duck just outside the cage in the corner. Then I saw a duck madly flapping which I know from experience birds sometimes do just before they die so I thought that was probably the case – it was not the one I expected to find dead though, it was the other one, lying next to the one I had expected to be dead, also dead. So three dead ducks, two of them dying while I was actually there. They simply cannot cope with Rum I think. It’s our second try with Muscovy ducks and I think the cold, wet and mud just is too much for them. They have a river along the bottom of the croft, various houses they can go into and plenty of places they could shelter around the place but they seem to just sit there and die. It’s very sad 🙁

I finished that off and Bonnie had gone down to the fork after Ady so I decided to walk along and get her, not realising it was time for Ady to get back anyway so I met him and we walked back together with me collecting the bags and midges on the way.

We all had lunch and watched some Junior Bake Off and then Ady went to move firewood around while I created a mini set of crochet bagpipes to add to a spangly gold midge for someone who had been in touch to order one with a santa hat and a Scottish twist. I’ve also listed all my bags on etsy as I’ve not sold any through the shed but have managed to sell two online from putting them on facebook so there is clearly a market. I know I’m not selling the online stuff for enough really but it’s good to be getting some custom, particularly on things I actually really like making. Several friends have made blankets for their kids and I have a plan to do similar for Davies and Scarlett – real work in progress labour of love type things. I tried to create a Welcome to Nightvale square tonight but it didn’t really work, I can see how it would though and have this idea of one for Davies with loads of squares and motifs of all the things he’s been into over the years – so TV and film stuff I guess. And then one for Scarlett with loads of animals, a sort of blanket of their childhood type thing… Need to work on that a bit more but I want them to be very much my design rather then something I find patterns for I think. Sadly no chance of them being a surprise living like we do! I love the idea of having a next big project like that though.

Ady cooked dinner, venison steak – yum. We watched Sherlock.

It’s been really windy so loads of wind turbine power which makes for lots of internet. I am almost looking forward to winter if it means lots of inside time with radio / internet / plenty of artificial light and time to craft and read. I realised this evening that I probably haven’t properly read about half the books on our bookshelf so now I really want to.

Yesterday morning we went to the shop for some bits, then to the pier to meet the boat as we had an animal feed delivery come off. Rat invasion in the Rangerover and the Jeep 🙁 Bastards! This means not only is there a risk of them chewing electrics and causing damage plus it’s really not nice having rat urine and shit in the cars but also we can’t use them to store anything this time of year like animal feed deliveries as we (I mean Ady mostly) wheelbarrow them up to the croft from the car. Arses.

Home for lunch and Ady did the wheelbarrowing while I sorted out the last of the stuff in the bedroom. All wool stash is now in vacuum bags either under the sofa or under the bed and our bedroom floor is now clear and the wardrobes shut properly 🙂

I emailed the TV researcher to say no to the show.

The kids had showers and I brushed Scarlett’s hair while we watched a wildlife documentary narrated by David Tenant (being Scottish).

Today Ady was working in the morning down at the hostel which is rapidly being dismantled – the first unit leaves the island tomorrow with the others following over the coming weeks. Scarlett made chocolate orange cupcakes while I supervised and then she iced and decorated them. I spent some time online ordering various bits and pieces for her birthday. Ady came home and we had lunch and watched Gareth’s choir then Ady went to do some rat deterring in the cars while I went down to Fliss’ for Crafternoon. A nice couple of hours down there and then home for dinner. It was my turn and I made potato gratin and pork chops with a ginger wine sauce – the kids are both suddenly showing an interest in how their dinners are made at the moment – nothing more than a passing ‘what are you doing to make that sauce then?’ or ‘why are you adding that?’ but it’s good to know they are curious. Open plan living is something I would not want to move away from even if we left here and went back to a more conventional house set up.

Having finished my ten crochet midges for Mairi and made the first of three secret santa gifts this afternoon I had a facebook message ordering a festive midge with a Scottish twist (she suggested mini bagpipes or something tartan – Ady reckons a miniature bottle of whisky, Davies suggested a kilt!) so that is on the agenda for tomorrow morning as Ady is off to work at the hostel again.

It’s pretty much rained for 48 hours straight. The trees are still sat in their packaging waiting to be planted, the sheep are still at the bottom of the croft waiting to be moved up. Ady’s been out, togged up in orange waterproofs to do twice daily animal feed / welfare checks and he did a dash to the village yesterday for various bits and pieces but the rest of us have not left the caravan. There has been plenty of wind power which has meant all day internet though which is a handy distraction. I have finished my ten midges for Mairi and started thinking about the three different secret santa gifts I need to make. I also made a tiny santa hat to fit on the midges and might try and sell some festive midges too.

In other news I decluttered one of the lounge cupboards which has held Flora and Philadelphia tubs for pretty much the whole time we’ve lived here. It is obviously commendable to wash plastic lidded containers out and reuse them for all sorts of reasons. In a cramped for space set up like we have it is not sensible to take up a whole cupboard with them, particularly when you can’t actually remember the last time you used one… so they’ve gone. I’ve also gone through our wardrobes and under the bed and sorted out two huge bags to go to the charity shop of clothes. Some are too big, some are too small, some I simply will never have occasion to wear in this life on Rum. If I lose loads of weight I can celebrate with new jeans, if I put on loads of weight I can console myself by buying new jeans, if we leave here and I need new clothes for a new lifestyle then that will be part of the new lifestyle preparation… in the meantime there is very little room to spare for ‘maybe one day’ type things. The last thing to sort out is a stash of wool which should all fit into vacuum bags and fit under the sofas. Hurrah!

The Fogle show aired again in Australia – I had an email from a woman who watched it saying how much she had enjoyed it and asking what we are up to now. Someone on a UK Home Ed facebook group was also asking for an update having seen the show. A journalist from an economics journal has been in touch, via my friend Miranda with a list of questions about the financial feasibility of self sufficiency. Then a TV researcher got in touch about a channel four documentary which has been doing the rounds on social media looking for home ed, particularly unschoolers to feature. I had a phone chat with her this afternoon. I would probably be up for it, despite the disruption and possible back lash from these things I am really proud of what we’ve done and would love to think we may help others to consider doing something a bit different. Ady and Davies are up for it but Scarlett is against it so we are unlikely to go any further with it. It was funny talking to the woman on the phone – she had a set list of questions she was asking having read the blog and seen some of the Fogle show and she asked whether I was happy with the way Home Ed and our parenting choices had panned out and whether I would change anything if I went back and did it again. I monologued for a bit saying about how I felt it had been the greatest joy and privilege to have shared these precious years with two amazing individuals. That I could not claim to be proud of them as such because that would be taking credit and I felt they were their own, rather than my success stories but that I felt I was leaving behind a legacy and had done something fulfilling, worthwhile and amazing. She listened and then said ‘wow, that was amazing, you are so inspirational, you should… you should….tell people about it’ before realising that was exactly why I was talking to her, because she was trying to persuade me to go on telly! 😀

Watched the latest Attenborough, listened to lots of Desert Island Discs, watched lots of Supernatural.

Yesterday was a continuation of Davies’ bedroom, shelving units and wardrobe. We got rid of about three bin bags full of stuff, a further bin bag full of clothes for the charity shop (previously not a valid choice for getting rid of things living here but now we have the car it’s feasible), Ady de-moulded and Davies put stuff back in again. Predictably by the end we were getting bored so it became a game of lobbing balled up socks from one end of the caravan to the other but the job got done 🙂 Earlier in the day Ady had gone down to the village and done laundry, he and I walked back down after Popmaster to collect stuff from the freezer for the next few days of dinner. In summer we struggle to keep food fresh as the fridge doesn’t really work and it gets so hot in the caravan. This time of year we struggle to get stuff to defrost and go from taking stuff out on the morning of the day we want things for dinner to the day before in autumn and are edging close to two days before now winter is approaching, certainly for lumps of meat like roast dinners. I did much crochet. Midges bodies all complete.

With dinner we watched The Apprentice from Thursday night and a couple of silly short things about The Apprentice off iplayer which were quite funny.

Saturday – I got most of my treasured Saturday morning with Graham Norton and peace 😉 Ady went to meet the boat to send a cheque to Muck for Toby for some venison and game birds we’d bought off him. I did all the midge’s eyes, drank tea and enjoyed the sunshine shining through the winters and the view of the snowtopped hills. I woke Davies and he finished the final cupboard. Our bedroom is next…

After lunch Ady and I went down to the village to join in with the hall kitchen clear up. Quite a few people came along and we were done pretty quickly, empying all the cupboards, washing out defrosted fridges and freezers, washing all the manky stuff up and reorganising to create more space. Next is a hall clean up. We had planned to be down there til the shop opened as we needed a few bits but we were done by 330 and the shop doesn’t open til 5 so we came home. We’d been invited to both Ali and Fliss’ to wait but decided to come back and feed the animals in daylight instead. Then we went back down to get the few bits. LoveFilm had arrived with the final two discs of series 1 of Supernatural so we watched that tonight.

Tomorrow is sheep moving day, maybe some tree planting and wings on midges.

Monday – after some time away and some time back I’ve began to edge back into Rum again. Not the full on politics but the stuff which first attracted me here – the chance to be in on the start of exciting projects, in making a difference, in being the change. I’ve also been trying to retain focus on what we want to achieve here on the Croft but confess to being less inclined to outside tasks for a while. I’m enjoying the bread baking, cake making, crocheting side of autumn. Ady remains focussed on outsideyness though and is working on sheep and pig moves.

Ady was working at the hostel in the morning, while I did some crochet at home. I walked down to meet him from work, we swapped over Debs car battery for her on our way to the pier to meet the boat as we had a game order coming from Muck (duck, pheasant – yum!) Ady headed for home while I walked along to the bunkhouse with Development Officer Steve who had come off the boat and Margaret, a rep from Voluntary Action Lochaber come to do some training with IRCT directors. I had a meeting with Steve after the training so hung around for it, it was quite interesting actually. Also there were Jed, Bad Neil and Fliss. Then Lesley came along and she, Steve and I had a meeting about trying to set the ball rolling for getting a cafe / shop / village hub project off the ground. Loads to do, that will be a years in the making type project but really good to feel like we’re working on something really positive.

Home for dinner – venison burgers and chips.

Tuesday – I decided that the kids bedrooms were totally out of hand so had declared this week every single item had to be taken out of their rooms, all rubbish chucked, all unused stuff donated to charity and everywhere totally cleaned and de-moulded ready for winter. Scarlett’s was first and it took two days to work all through it – wardrobe, cupboard, floor space, desk space, storage under the bed. We got rid of loads and it is so, so much nicer in there now. While I was supervising that I also made soup for lunch and pheasant pies for dinner for Wednesday. Ady and I also nipped down to the boat to collect our butchers order, move the venison company mincing machine from the hostel into the workshop and Ady’s 400 trees he got from the Woodland Trust arrived too so we collected them. Ady has been desperate to made hassleback potatoes for ages having seen them in a potato recipe feature in a magazine so he did those for dinner.

Wednesday – Scarlett and I finished her room in the morning and then I went down to Fliss’ for Crafternoon in the afternoon. Ali and Deb were also there. Initially conversation was pretty tedious centering around Ali’s kitten (seriously, it is ALL she ever talks about!) and school stuff (Debs is the teacher, Fliss and Ali both have a daughter in school there) but after Ali left we had an interesting conversation about politics. Home to find Ady had made hassleback potatoes again to go with the pheasant pie. I had a salt mishap (as in I unscrewed the lid and about a fifth of the pot went in rather than screwing the grinder) into the sweetcorn which rendered that part of dinner inedible but it was otherwise well received. Apparently venison pie is nicer though…

Thursday – Davies’ room. We cleared his floor, under his bed storage and the first corner of one wall, probably about a third of the way through. I carried on midge making while helping him, both kids had showers and I brushed Scarlett’s hair, made lasagne for Ady and I, bologanise for Scarlett and meatballs for Davies. I guess we all had venison mince and pasta and at least I didn’t do the washing up! We had planned to go to the village but rain and Davies’ bedroom meant we never got there. Ady did some outside stuff though.

Friday was spent recovering. Sleeping, catching up with the animals, settling back into stuff. I can’t actually remember what we did beyond having tacos / fajitas for dinner. I know it was really good to be home.

Saturday – Clare, James and Elinor, friends from N.Ireland arrived on the ferry. It’s their third visit to Rum and the first time they have actually got here when they were supposed to! The first year the weather had been iffy and Calmac had been on amber alert, Clare has listened to some random bloke in Mallaig the night before who assured her the ferry probably wouldn’t run so had not bothered getting up to try and meet it.  Ady had gone to meet the boat and accosted some other visitor to the island who had the right colour hair and had agreed she was called Clare when he asked her (she was, just not the Clare he was looking for…). The second time, last year, the ferry actually had been cancelled due to bad weather despite this time Clare firmly believing it would not be. This time the ferry ran, they got on it and it brought them to Rum for the whole of their planned trip. Yay! Ady took their stuff along to the bunkhouse while the rest of us walked and we settled in for tea, chats and the rest of the afternoon really. Ady came home as he had arranged with Bad Neil to catch and dose the sheep for the various things they needed dosing for pre-winter (ticks, fluke, flystrike etc.). I came back up a bit later to have a shower and get changed and then we went back down for dinner with Clare at the bunkhouse. There was a Halloween disco happening at the hall so about 9ish we all wandered along there. Clare and Elinor left around 11, Davies and Scarlett headed home but Ady and I stayed as it was a good evening finally getting home around 130am ish, but the new 130am having had the first 130am still down in the hall dancing.

Sunday – The kids and I headed down to the bunkhouse after lunch while Ady stayed behind on the croft to get on with a couple of hours work and feed the animals before coming to join us. Another nice dinner with Clare and the kids, chatting to the other bunkhouse guests (Dr Kev the worm guy and a couple of his research assistants). Then Chainsaw Dave and two of his visiting mates – Rum regulars Dougie and Spraytan Paul along with Bad Neil’s brother Ewan came along with guitars and shakers to do some singing with Clare and I. It was fab. Another late night home.

Monday – we’d arranged for Clare and the kids to come up to us to see the croft but they managed to miss the bottom gate, attempt to negotiate the previous thigh deep pig pen mud and then retreated to the trail again before Scarlett rescued them and guided them in from the top gate. Poor James had a bit of a sense of humour failure about the whole business particularly as the rest of it found it rather hilarious. He recovered though… Elinor stayed up at the croft carving pumpkins with Scarlett while Clare and I went to meet the ferry as we’d ordered steaks from the CoOp for dinner.  We got our box and offered a lift to the bunkhouse to new arrival Roller Clare – a woman who had come with stacks of rollerboots for a few days to run roller discos in the hall (it was pre arranged, she didn’t just randomly arrive, although we do get a lot of Clares…) but I couldn’t get the car started again as the immobiliser had triggered itself so we walked back and left the car there (Ady went back later and collected it). We chatted to Roller Clare for ages and then the kids came back with their pumpkin, Ady arrived with the car and we had dinner. The girls were really keen to visit the roller disco so the adults and girls went along leaving Davies and James at the bunkhouse as they were not fussed. Scarlett, Elinor and I all had a go at rollerbooting, some folk already there were really good – funny what skills you didn’t know fellow Rum folk already have… I did a bit of roller discoing when I was very young and am not bad but not amazing either, Frazer was really good and had proper inline blades and other gear. We walked back through the starry starry night with some aurora showing and I sang nursery rhymes really slowly to freak the girls out as it was Halloween and apparently that is really creepy… It was Clare’s last night so Ady, Clare and I played cards and Roller Clare joined us when she arrived back after the disco had finished. Another late one…

Tuesday – We’d arranged to do a castle tour for Clare and the kids and when we arrived to collect them Clare had told Dr Kev, his assistants and the family of one of the assistants who had arrived on the first boat about it so they all came along too. We’d found a really old photo of the first time the four kids had met at our friend Cally’s in about 2008. None of them remember each other but I have a couple of pictures of them all sitting on a swing seat together so we got them to line up in the same order and took some more photos. No swing seat available as a prop. We walked along to the pier with them and waved them off and then came home. It was a very early night in comparison!

Wednesday – felt like my first real day home and after three weeks away or entertaining I was knackered and in dire need of a day of not much. Ady was working for a couple of hours in the morning so I made some pumpkin soup, bread rolls, bread, toasted pumpkin seeds and made venison pies for dinner. Scarlett and I watched a nice relaxing downloaded programme about the Lost Gardens of Heligan and I crocheted while the cat sat near me and purred. It was blissful.

Thursday – Ady and I went to the shop in the morning and bought ingredients for Christmas cake. We watched The Apprentice and I did some more crochet in the afternoon watching stuff with Scarlett and brushing her hair after she had a shower.

Friday – In the morning Ady and I went to the campsite to help build the bonfire. In the afternoon I made the Christmas cake and helped Scarlett make some pumpkin cupcakes. We had pizza for dinner in what felt like the first time in months! Nothing is as good as home made pizza – fact.

Saturday – Ady and I spent the morning in the old hostel mincing up 19kg of venison from the beast we processed a few weeks ago and had frozen. You can re-freeze it after having minced it as it changes the structure of it. We chopped, minced, weighed and bagged it all – another for 30 dinners, that’ll keep us going for a while. Debs and Bad Neil both called in while we were there and stayed for chats. It was not quite the Saturday morning I was planning, usually I listen to the radio on a Saturday morning and enjoy the peace, we did have the radio on but the mincer and people talking meant I didn’t hear any of it! Good to get it all done though.

Home for a late lunch, pumpkin cake decorating for Scarlett and then we all headed down to the campsite for the bonfire and fireworks. We’d taken mulled wine, hot chocolate and the cakes as our contribution. There was a barbecue of venison burgers and sausages, venison steaks and various other nice stuff, the bonfire roared and the fireworks whizzed and banged! It was a good couple of hours despite showers of rain. We went back to the bunkhouse for a cup of tea afterwards and were home around 930pm. It was really, really cold, 5 degrees in our bedroom and freezing. I had to keep swapping which had I was holding my book outside of the covers with to warm them up.

Today – a lazy Sunday. I stayed in bed reading for hours as it was finally warm and cosy under the covers after a nights sleep! The first snow had fallen on Hallival – the peak we see from the croft. Hallival is the second tallest peak on Rum with the tallest, Askival just behind it and snow had fallen on that yesterday but now Hallival has some too. Winter is coming! More crochet for me and Ady and I walked down to the freezer at dusk which was nice, getting back just before we couldn’t see any more. I do love that time of day to be outside in. A lovely roast dinner – our own pork – followed by some mainland ice cream brought back last week and stashed in the freezer – hurrah for a car meaning a trip to the frozen food store in Fort William is feasible in winter on the ferry directly back to Rum as it’s less than 3 hours from there to our freezer in an insulated bag in the boot.

I’m just getting cold so I’m hoping the electric blanket will have helped prewarm the bed even if the genny did go off 3 hours ago…

Two weeks ago today I was feeling about as knackered as I am right now. Tuesdays seem to be a day for that….

Tuesday – that one, two weeks ago, we were up and out of the holiday cottage just after 5am on the road to Stornoway to catch the ferry. We’d been told by Calmac to be there for 6am for the 7am sailing and based on our regular but admittedly limited sailing experience from just the one port (well two if you count both Mallaig and Rum I guess..) that seemed ridiculous. But sure enough, on their flagship boat taking well over 100 vehicles and carrying hundreds of passengers that was essential to get everyone on ready to sail on time.

We thought we’d bagged good east facing seats but then the ferry swung round once it had started sailing so we were west facing. We moved around the (huge) boat a bit and finally decided outside on the top deck was the answer. Davies was a little reluctant and Ady went to get he and I a cup of tea each so it was just Scarlett and I who spotted a pod of dolphins splashing way below us bow riding as the sky just began to lighten with the sunrise. It was special 🙂

The drive south to Fort William felt really long, still not entirely sure we shouldn’t have taken a different route but we’d allowed plenty of time so it was tedious rather than concerning. We’d decided to have a McDonalds for lunch so that none of us would need hot food later in the day so we did that and then walked across to the station to get Ady’s train ticket. We realised there was an earlier train which he could actually make if the dentist was running appointments on time and Ady went first so decided to head to the dentists early and see if that meant we could be seen earlier. It did indeed. I was actually a bit cross with Ady as both Davies and Scarlett wanted a parent in with them at their appointments – Scarlett had her dentist check up first and then went in to the orthodentist while Ady then Davies went in for their dental check ups. Ady was panicky about not getting his train so left Davies despite him being nervous, and actually ending up having some treatment. It was only some sealant paste on his back teeth but is the first treatment he has ever had at the dentist and I was in with Scarlett. As it happened we were all out of the dentist, me included and I had had a scale and polish and Scarlett had had her palate expander taken out and her train tracks tightened and rewired with time to get Ady to the station but he was already on the train so we didn’t bother going along to wave him off. Probably for the best actually, I might have been wobbly as it was the longest he and I have ever been apart. Maybe that’s why he legged it…

All that done the kids and I headed south. We had a room booked in Glasgow for the night, having changed our original plans to all stay in Fort William for the night and part the following morning. We arrived around 7ish I think, pretty tired and ready for a bath, our picnic food bought earlier in Morrisons in FW and some crap TV. As we arrived and sorted out the car a bit so we registered an alarm going off but didn’t realise until the manager met us at the door and told us to go into the car park and assemble with all the other evacuated guests that it was the fire alarm for the Premier Inn. So a very unwelcome half an hour standing around with our rucksacks and about 50 other guests in various states of dress, sobriety and disgruntlement. This included a couple of very righteously indignant men who were quite possibly the culprits for the alarm going off in the first place. Two fire engines duly arrived, checked over the building and finally we were allowed in. The alarm did go off a further twice during the evening but not for any length of time so we didn’t bother to prepare for evacuation. I had a lovely bath, caught up on The Apprentice and the kids plugged themselves into the wifi which was way better than the holiday cottage’s rather patchy offering.

Wednesday – a rather stressy day, despite plans for it not to be so. We had been on a shoestring budget for the previous week waiting for the rent to come in which it always does without fail on the 19th of the month. I had checked the bank account in the morning to ensure I was ok to fill up with petrol on the drive only to find the bank account balance at £4…Ady rang to say his planned trip to the CoOp for food supplies to take home for his week alone had not happened either. My phone kept crashing on the banking app so I had to unpack my rucksack and get my laptop out to connect to the wifi and reset my password for internet banking and take a phonecall from the bank to confirm that I was really me. Then I got an email from Calmac to say that they were moving to winter timetable so my booking for a vehicle returning to Rum the following Wednesday wasn’t possible – would I rather come back on Tuesday, Thursday or go somewhere else on the Wednesday instead?! Argh…. I made the decision to drive until I had half a tank of fuel and then check the bank or make a new plan, Ady got on the ferry as we had cash at home for him to spend at Jinty’s instead.

The drive down continued in that manner. I borrowed the last of the family cash which was £20 belonging to Scarlett to put more fuel in when we arrived in England and then rang my parents as the rent was still not in. Mum then set off trying to track Dad down – not sure why, I did explain that she could just go to a branch of our bank and pay in some cash… Dad rang back to say he had paid in some money by the time we reached Lancaster so we were able to stop, buy some lunch and fill up with fuel again and that got us all the way back to Sussex. The car may be a snug fit for four people and all our stuff, even more so once we’ve been shopping but it is super economical. Some really good chats with the kids on the drive, I do miss the days of the three of us, off on daily adventures and talking about all manner of things, somehow that just doesn’t happen so much any more.

We got to Mum & Dad’s about 8ish I think. I can never quite get my head around the idea that for 15 years that house was my home, it just doesn’t feel like it. Frazer had my bedroom after I had left, I think for possibly longer than I ever did actually so although it’s the room I’ve slept in when we’ve stayed the last c0uple of times and I am sleeping in the bed that Ady and I bought I still feel like a guest rather than someone coming home. I did sleep very well though, despite Mum putting Scarlett in with me as one of their spare rooms has no curtains and a street lamp outside the window and the other is completely unfurnished and a huge and cavernous space which would be like sleeping in a village hall! Scarlett is usually my least favourite bed partner as she is really hot and wriggles a lot but actually the bed is so big she didn’t bother me at all. On the plus side once we arrived I checked the bank again and the rent was in. Ady was home safe on the croft, I’d had a lovely message from Croftsitter Jen and all was well at home.

Thursday – Dad and I went up to Halfords in the morning to try and sort out the fan belt for the car which was squealing and check the price of roof bars and boxes. The roof bars were too pricey and they don’t do fanbelts at that branch. I rang a couple of local garages back at Mum & Dad’s but failed to find anywhere that fitted in with my plans. I also failed to get Davies an appointment for a haircut but did learn that it was a turn up and wait and that Saturday mornings (my planned window for it) was their very busiest time so we re thought that plan. So we drove into town and went into Kwik fit. That worked out perfectly as they kept the car to look at which meant we only had a 10 minute walk into town and no parking issues or costs. We had a failed shopping excursion mind you as we had a list of various clothing items required for the kids. Instead we bought a load of tat in the two pound shops as it turns out there sort of aren’t many clothes shops in Worthing any more… Kwik fit rang to say they could order the part and we arranged for the car to be booked in on Saturday.

We had enough time to whizz along to a Tescos on the way to meeting Julie so got some lunch and ticked a couple of the more banal shopping items off our list. We arrived about 15 minutes before Julie which pretty much was always what happened when we met there for years and years so felt very comfortable. That was probably where the comfort ended as the rest of the afternoon was a bit odd really. Julie is now calling herself Jay and if she didn’t look quite a bit like a (much slimmer, wearing make up and very different clothing) version of the Julie I have always known I may well not have recognised her. Her speech patterns, language, behaviour and what she had to say were fairly unrecognisable from the Julie I’ve been so close to for nearly 20 years. We had a nice walk, saw the pumpkins at Slindon, walked Jay’s two dogs very comprehensively and the kids / teens / cousins all got to hang out and catch up while Jay and I chatted.

Back to Mum & Dad’s where drama continued apace with some insight into the world of Frazer and Kat and Robin followed by some nonsense about what to have for dinner. Ah, how things never change with my family. Infact, I think I may well not even bother typing out all the nonsense with both sides of the family – Davies snr, Davies jnr and Goddard south…. it rather shaped the Sussex part of the trip suffice to say.

Friday – in the morning Davies and I walked up the road and got his hair cut. He’d found some pictures of the sort of thing he wanted online so we showed them to the barber and he did his barber-y thing. It looks great, Davies is really pleased with it and despite him insisting that I talk to the barber and show the photos which probably marked me out as rather controlling to the pair of very camp and slightly fabulous barbers running the shop I think it was a good all round experience. Hopefully when he needs a trim or further hairdressy attention he will feel happy to do that himself.

Then off to Katie’s – a local (Sussex) HE or who I first met about 11 years ago when she arrived at one of the groups I ran with her 8 month old daughter in a car carrier and her mum, on maternity leave from her high powered economist career debating whether actually she might not go back to work at all and might even keep her daughter at home rather than sending her to school. Katie is now a mum of three and an unschooler, a million miles away from where she thought she might be all those years ago. It was great to catch up with her for an hour or so, despite me having always been convinced that she lived in the next door village to the one she actually lives in so arriving about half an hour late as I tried to make sense of her directions in a location about five miles away from where she actually lives…

From there we headed across to Lewes via some posh charity shops (as in a posh area so a better class of clothing donated) and spent a couple of hours with Ali and Freya. Really lovely and so great to discover that while the children may have become teenagers and gotten taller than us actually none of the five of us were much changed…

We left Lewes and drove into Brighton. It had been my intention, having been admiring Brighton beach at sunset pictures and starling murmuration pictures from Brighton friends on facebook for the last few weeks to head for the coast, park up and enjoy sunset at the beach but a diversion to Asda and a later leaving Lewes time than planned meant we arrived after darkness had fallen and a queue for the Welcome to Nightvale show had already formed outside the venue despite being a full hour before the doors opened and two hours before the show actually started. We drove round several blocks several times peering at the various signs declaring what parking options and resrictions there were – all very confusing with residents permits, payable parking and all for different times and days. Finally we found a space in a location where you could park at the time we were there. I then rummaged around for ages in the car trying to find change to pay at the machine, couldn’t find enough so had to pay on my phone. This entailed setting up an account and giving my card number so there I was, in the dark, standing in the street with my phone in one hand and my debit card in the other ringing the number, dealing with an automated switchboard and working all that out. Finally sorted we headed to the church which was the venue and the queue had only doubled in size since we’d last driven by. We joined the queue – various of the folk were in cosplay. Then Davies casually said ‘Look, there is Kat and Granny’ and sure enough there they were. Please take as read drama and nonsense from Davies families junior and senior along with a slightly inappropriate sense of what might constitute a surprise.

The show was great – watching Davies and Scarlett’s faces as their  podcast heroes strutted onto the stage and began talking was excellent. The music performed was haunting, the venue of a church was amazing – beautiful, amazing acoustics, very appropriate for the surreal nature of the show. I had a vague notion of what it was all about and Davies had assured me the live show would be fine as a stand alone and indeed it was.

The kids and I then had an epic 25 mile round trip excursion to find a fast food joint open and selling what we wanted to eat with parking and not so many drunken Friday night folk around as to make us feel uncomfortable. Sort of like geocaching but with a car…

Saturday – Dad and I took the car to Kwik fit to have the fan belt replaced, call into the tip to get rid of some garden waste and have a good chat as we waited for the tip to open. Then the kids and I walked into the nearby village to my parents where we used to go fairly regularly and visit the old fashioned sweet shop run  by a bloke I went to school with. I’m not sure he remembered us but we chatted for ages about Scotland and sweets before walking back to Mum & Dad’s. We also walked along to the Pet store and Boots. Scarlett wanted to look at the hamsters and rabbits, Davies wanted some hair product. We saw two people I knew – one from the library and one from Home Ed groups. Very odd to be recognised still over five years after I left.

Kwik fit rang to say the car was ready so the kids went back to Mum and Dad’s and Mum ran me down to collect the car on her way to pick up Kat and Robin.

Family friends – I’ve known them since I was about 8 – he built both my parents loft conversion when I was 13, but then Ady and my loft conversion when we had Davies – came over and it was lovely to see them. She is recovering from breast cancer operations and treatment and is doing well but looked very haggard by the whole experience. He looks just the same. Kat and Robin, then Frazer, then Ady’s brother Chris all came over and suffice to say family drama from all quarters. I was exhausted by the end of the evening. There were tears, strops, walking out and all sorts. Davies and Scarlett had previously been oblivious to all of that so it was quite an eye opener for them to witness it all going on.

It was our last night with Mum and Dad and despite no one really feeling like it we decided to go out for a meal. The taxi driver recognised us from the TV when we said where we lived so that was nice chatting to him. Predictably Mum’s food was not to her liking so that added to the ‘everything bad happens to me’ vibe but it was more or less a good evening nonetheless.

Sunday – A final dose of family nonsense meant we left slightly later than I’d wanted but it was probably only appropriate and customary 😉 A straightforward drive to Babs house arriving just after Kirsty & James, and Jonathan, Catie and Jasper. So very lovely to see so many people – Babs and co obviously, Merry and some girls, Michelle, Helen and Chris with girls and niece and nephew. The following day LovelyEm came too with Os.

As over the years we fell straight back in and although we all had lots of catching up on detail of each others lives it was so comfortable to fall into the same in jokes, topics of chat, laughter and support. I’ve always known how very lucky we are to be part of this particular circle of friends but I’ve physically been absent for such a while it was lovely to be reminded anew.

Monday – more of the same 🙂

Tuesday – we left Babs and headed to try and finish off the very last of our shopping. We did just that in an out of town retail park and would have been feeling really smug about our successes had Davies not managed to leave his phone in the changing room while trying stuff on. He realised half an hour later and ran back but it had already gone. The security footage was checked showing just one person entering after Davies. It was really upsetting but we decided there was nothing to be done and headed off for our next stop.

This time Northampton train station for Davies to meet up with K, a 17 year old girl he has been chatting with online for nearly 2 years. They met on a Doctor Who forum but have since become facebook friends and speak pretty much daily. They headed off while Scarlett and I got some food, some ice cream and wandered round the shops before all meeting back up again. It was so fab for Davies to manage the meet up – the real win of the whole extra day off Rum being sprung on us by Calmac.

We left there and sadly hit masses of traffic. We finally reached our travelodge in Carlisle around 9pm when I’d been hoping it would be more like 7pm. I was so exhausted I didn’t feel safe to drive any further so we bought dinner from whatever was in the garage shop attached to the hotel (no services) which was cup of soup and bread for Scarlett, microwaved paninis for Davies and I. We ate, I had a bath and then I slept. A deep and blissful Sussex and most of the driving now behind me type of sleep with Ady just one more sleep away.

Wednesday – a slightly later start as I woke at 9am rather than the 8am I had been getting up at and then we had a really good sort out of the car before we hit the road again. We’d decided to do the hot lunch picnic dinner thing again and the kids had requested one last KFC before we left the mainland. I thought the last motorway services had a KFC but it wasn’t so I remembered the way to the one we used near the hospital in Glasgow when Ady was there in January and managed to get us there instead. Really proud of my remembered navigation and really weird to be sitting in there without Ady again all these months later. We had lunch, hit the road and were in FW by about 230pm. We checked in to the hotel, did our Lidl, Morrisons, Poundstretcher etc shops, got picnic food for dinner and then went back to the room for last baths and crap TV and wifi for the kids. It was another early start ahead so we were asleep fairly early.

Thursday – up and away, a quick diversion to the frozen food store on the way out of town and then arriving in Mallaig in plenty of time to reverse onto the ferry. There were various Rum folk and friends of Rum type folk on the boat. It was a really rough crossing – I can’t believe Scarlett wasn’t sick, but she was fine plugged into watching a film. I chatted to Ali and willed the time away.

Amazing to be home, back on Rum. The kid got into the Jeep with Ady while I brought the wee car home to the fork then Ady and I wheelbarrowed everything up. It took two trips each, both of them in the drizzle and wind. A proper Rum welcome home…

while is where, as I am knackered and still have a whole weekend and visiting friends chapter to write up I will leave it for now.

 

Monday – Ady was off ghillying. The kids and I spent the morning tidying and getting stuff ready for the holiday. After lunch Lesley came up with Dougal. He has never really been left before and is very, very upset whenever Lesley leaves his sight. He calms down for Neil (his dad) after a while, but even with Lesley’s brother Ross who he sees daily (also lives on Rum) and her Mum who he sees a lot he never really settles apparently. Fortunately Lesley didn’t really tell me this until later that day…

He cried when she first left so I took him outside and we walked around the croft looking at the animals, playing 1, 2, 3 wheee and generally distracting him. He cheered up fairly quickly and then I showed him the trampoline and he spent about 20 minutes on that loving it. He crawled across chasing a ball and really enjoyed being on there. At one point he also got up and walked across, I am not sure who was more surprised – me or him! He has taken first steps already (just as well, I was really worried that Lesley had missed them!) but is still mostly crawling or cruising round the furniture.  I eventually managed to persuade him back into the caravan and he settled down after another short bout of being sad, ate loads, played lots, decided he adored Scarlett and stood for ages watching her drawing which even let me do some washing up and start dinner prep.

Lesley came up for for a cup of tea to collect him and the kids did the animal feeding round while I sorted out dinner. Ady was pretty late home but had had a good day.

Tuesday – I was on Dougal duty again in the morning and Ady was off ghillying again so we were both down in the village before 9am. I’d arranged to go and have a cup of tea at Fliss’ both because it meant not having Lesley have to bring Dougal up to the croft (earlier start for her and noise for Davies and Scarlett way earlier than they would normally be up) or me having to be in their house (they have two dogs, one of which I am terrified of!) but also because she was having Dougal the following day so it seemed like a good idea to get him a bit settled in her house. This time he cried when we said goodbye to Lesley but I pushed him along in his pushchair telling him a story really quietly and within a few minutes he’d worked out that his crying was meaning he couldn’t hear the story (about a little boy called Dougal who was very cross!). Then we played 1,2,3 whee with the pushchair like the day before on the croft, this time stopping on 3 to pick something interesting up as we walked along the shore road – a feather, a pebble, a stick, various leaves, a flower… most of them he grabbed and then lobbed over the side of the pushchair, then we picked a bramble and he ate that which totally stopped the crying 🙂 . Fliss was still in the shower when we arrived at hers so we left the pushchair and walked back a little way along the shore playing again and exploring – I had forgotten how slowly you can walk with a toddler and how much to explore there is, it was lovely in the sunshine leaning over a little person holding both their hands as they toddled along. We listened to the birds on the sea, the crunching sound of our footsteps, looked at more leaves, feathers, picked more brambles… then Steve came along so we chatted to him – he has just had a baby (7 weeks old) girl and is equally filled with wonder at the world through a child’s eyes so we got all sentimental together for a bit and then he joined me at Fliss’ for a cup of tea while Dougal and Joss played and we all sat on their hall floor.

Around midday Dougal was getting tired and started pointing at his pushchair through the window so we headed off and he was asleep in moments. I walked up to the fork where we park our cars and sat in the sunshine next to the pushchair for the last half an hour until Lesley finished work then walked back to meet her.

In the afternoon we packed all our rucksacks, made lists of last minute things to do, checked I had all our bookings and arrangements written down, along with directions and postcodes and double checked ferry times and travel distances.  Scarlett and I did the evening feed and it was so gorgeous with a pink sky, pale moon and a feeling of real peacefulness that we stayed outside for ages as it grew gloomy chatting about the couple of weeks ahead and soaking up enough Rum-ness to bring with us until we came home.

Ady had had another long but enjoyable day. That’s all the ghillying for this year over with as the last stalking guests are this week while we’re away.

Wednesday – Ady and I took rucksacks down to start loading into the Matiz (mainland car) with the intention of taking both the Jeep and the Matiz to the pier and leaving the Matiz there. Except it wouldn’t start. So we left it parked and went to collect Jen from the first ferry. Back at the cars we tried to push the Matiz out so we could jump start it from the Jeep (it was parked facing the wrong way for that) but it’s automatic and we couldn’t get it out of Park so it wouldn’t move. A random tourist walking by stopped to join in too so there were four of us stood around the three cars. We then decided to use the Rangerover to jump it as that was parked close-ish but would need rolling forward and has unreliable brakes. It was all fine and we got it going, then drove the Jeep and the Matiz to the pier, leaving the Matiz there as per the original plan. Jen came with me so we had a catch up chat which was good.

Then to the croft for some lunch, a tour to introduce Jen to Kira, the new pigs, the new birds and the sheep and go over feeding and watering everyone. All of that done we left her to it and headed down to the pier to sit in the sunshine for an hour or so before the ferry came in. It was just a bit odd all hanging around watching the clock at the croft. Steve arrived pretty early for the boat too, followed by Lesley and Dougal and then a couple of SNH staff who had been over visiting so it was all quite sociable down there. Ady and I sat with Steve and Lesley on the boat for a smooth crossing and a straightforward drive to Fort William. A quick Morrisons shop, dinner in McDs and baths and an early night all round.

 

Thursday – which meant we were all awake early! I woke at 7 and Ady had already been awake for a while, the kids were awake by 730am so we decided to head away earlier than originally planned – I’d been allowing us to be on the road for 1030am and had booked us on the late ferry from Uig to Tarbert. I’d anticipated a slow drive across Skye with stops for lunch and food shopping and hadn’t wanted us to feel rushed. As it went we were in Portree before midday and at the ferry port before 230pm, having only really just missed the 2pm boat (not that we were booked on that anyway) with various faffing about stops and a long lunch in the CoOp carpark that we could easily have hurried through.

We looked in the various shops at the port – pottery, brewery etc. and then sat in the car chatting and playing Top Trumps that we’d found in a charity shop for 20p. The ferry was also running 35 minutes late which added even longer to both the wait and the arrival time the other end. Never mind.

I’d been hoping we’d be heading west to Harris for sunset on the way out and east to the mainland for sunrise on the way back but it was already dark by the time we boarded in the end – hoping we’ll get that sunrise experience tomorrow still though. Too dark for wildlife spotting but the ferry on that run is so much bigger than the LochNevis calmac we are used to at home that it kept the kids entertained going off exploring. Ady sat with his phone near a plug point charging it up. The drive across the island to the cottage was straightforward and we found it ok. It was nearly 10pm, we were hungry and tired and the cottage was pretty cold with the heating long since gone off for the evening (its on a timer for an hour morning and evening and can be topped up again if needs be), the oven was unfamiliar and took ages to heat up, then burnt our pizza and the wifi is very patchy. It wasn’t a great start despite Ady’s usual running around trying to please everyone but an early night and a good sleep for everyone meant we were fine again by the next day.

Friday – We have four full days here and my plan was for being back at the cottage before dark each evening to allow for plenty of time vegging out watching TV, having long baths and not too late dinners but to get out and see something every day too. I wanted to go to the very bottom or Harris, the very top of Lewis, visit Stornoway, see the Butt of Lewis lighthouse (which I had not realised was the same as the very top of Lewis), some of the famous Harris beaches, go to the Callanish standing stones and have a hot chocolate as when I’d been before I remember loving the hot chocolate I had there. Friday we decided to go to Stornoway as it would mean we could stock up on food for the stay aswell. We listened to Popmaster and then headed off. We couldn’t get signal on the phone for satnav so just headed north, as it goes we took the two sides of a triangle rather than the one, slightly adding to the drive but that was fine as it meant we got our bearing better for the rest of the time. Stornoway was way smaller than I was expecting. About a third of the island population live there – around 7500 people so I was anticipating a fair sized town. What struck me most was the balance between high street shops (Boots, Superdrug, CoOp, Tesco, Argos, M&Co) and all the independent shops – butchers, bakers, fishmongers, DIY store, newsagents, pharmacy and gift shop which I really liked and made me realise how much high streets in the UK generally have changed in just the 30 odd years since my childhood when that was a normal mix. There were a fair few charity shops and so we picked up various things – a pair of jeans for me, a butter dish, some soft toys for Scarlett, a cd to listen to in the car.  We popped into the Calmac office to collect our tickets for Tuesday and then went to Tescos for a food shop. I really kicked myself afterwards for not going to the CoOp instead – there is a large store just outside the town and I would rather support CoOp than Tesco plus we have a members card for there. We had done our previous days shop for lunch, breakfast and first dinner in the CoOp on Skye at least.

Back to the cottage for baths and telly. We’d accidentally left the lounge heater on but it did mean it was toasty warm in there all evening.

Saturday – Off to Harris. Quite a long day of driving but we got out lots. To take photos of us at the border signs for Harris and Lewis, to visit a little Harris tweed shop and buy some wool, to get a picture at the very southern tip, to visit a small shop and buy some syrup for pancakes in the morning, to visit the bigger tweed shop I’d been to before and buy some more wool, to go into the Harris distillery and try the gin. It was delicious but at £35 I thought it too frivilous really so walked away. Ady pretended to need the loo and double backed in and bought me a bottle with his ghilly tips money. Bless him 🙂

Back to the cottage for more baths, telly and food. Started to feel really properly relaxed and holidayish.

Sunday – We’d been told everything, but everything closes on the islands on the sabbath and I can confirm that is true. We’d decided to do the Butt of Lewis lighthouse having realised they were one and the same place. I remember seeing a poster with a photo of the lighthouse in a storm somewhere as a kid and the image staying with me so I was really keen to see it. It was quite a drive, through some fairly uninteresting (sorry Lewis lovers!) landscapes. We stopped on the way at Carloway Broch – which was really interesting. Even though it was a nice, fairly still by Hebridean standards day it was still very blowy by the lighthouse. The sky was very lovely, all pink and yellow streaked so we overshot the cottage to go to the Callanish standing stones for some photos just incase it was not as nice on Monday.

Baths, telly, food…. it would get boring but four nights is still a novelty!

Monday – our last full day. We went back to the Broch to go inside the wee visitor centre which has some interpretation and a few gifts for sale, then to the Blackhouse village  at Gearrnnan, which was only partially open as they are hosting the Mod (gaelic choir) soon so they were preparing the space for that. So we got in to look around a couple of the houses for free which was good.  Then to the standing stones again. On the way we pulled into the Hebridean Soap Company as it was the turn off next to ours (and infact is at the end of our road as it’s a loop), got to watch some soap being made and had the process explained to us and then bought a few bits. Then to the stones visitor centre. We bought a card and tea towel as a thank you gift for Jen and had a hot chocolate in the cafe there as I’d been bigging them up to the others. Davies had a white chocolate one and said it was lovely, the others had normal with cream and marshmallows and declared them nice but not amazing, I had a spiced one which was really nice. It’s been showery today so we didn’t go back up to the stones, they seemed pretty busy anyway.  We drove to the nearest petrol station and wee shop to fill up with fuel and get some sliced bread as we’d discovered a toasted sandwich maker in the cottage kitchen and Ady and I were craving one.

Which takes me to where I am now. A few really long days ahead – tomorrow we’re on the 7am ferry from Stornoway to Ullapool, still hoping for that sunrise and maybe some wildlife spotting… then a drive down to Fort William for the dentist, then Ady leaves us to hang around for the late train to Mallaig and a night in the fishermans mission before the ferry home on Wednesday. Meanwhile the kids and I are heading for Glasgow to shave a few hours off the drive the following day before heading all the way south on Wednesday. Scarlett is in the bath, Ady and I are enjoying last real day of the holiday early drinks and we’re psyching ourselves up to packing the car up now so we don’t have too much to do at 5 oclock tomorrow morning which is a time that none of us are used to, except perhaps Davies, still awake from the other side!

We’ve enjoyed the trip. My take home with me memories of Harris and Lewis will be the smell of peat on the evening air, the overwhelming lack of much at all as you drive mile after mile with nothing. The complete absence of pubs which I’ve never noticed anywhere else. We had a sneaky feeling we might fall in love with Harris & Lewis, it is after all something we seem to do… but we have not at all. I don’t like the bleakness without beauty which is how it feels to me. The landscape feels flat and endless without the jagged hills and trees. I don’t like the human touch every single place you look – endless pylons and electric lines, proper roads, streetlights, scruffy townships of grey houses and rusting tractors without the charm and vitality that lots of people bring. I like the lack of chain stores, fast food, everything closed on a Sunday, I like the tangible feeling of history and groundedness and connection, the remoteness and the beaches… I think it has all of the good bits of Rum while Rum has none of the bad bits of here. Hmmm.

Of the week offered:

Friday – I walked down to see Lesley on Friday morning. I had planned to be an hour but was closer to two, arriving home for lunch after Ady had already left to go and collect animal feed arriving on the ferry. Les and I did have a good old chat though, which was good. I spent the afternoon in the sunshine weeding and mulching. I’m getting there although it won’t get finished in October given I am away from 12th to 26th of the month…

I made pizza dough and then Ady and I went down to the shop for a couple of beers in the evening.

Saturday – My usual peaceful Saturday morning date with Graham Norton didn’t quite happen as Scarlett was up at the same time as me. I had a shower and then supervised her making cupcakes while trying to listen and crochet. The recipe which had worked so well last week for eggless sponge failed this week as we used bicarb rather than baking powder and they came out really bitter and bicarb-y. A shame as they look beautiful… Scarlett has definitely been inspired by watching Junior Bake off.

In the afternoon I cleared the polytunnel and generally tidied up in the growing area. It still needs a little work but looks so much better now. Petrol was due off so we met the second boat, fortunately it did arrive.

Today – more weeding and mulching, a quick trip to the village for post and collecting pig feed. It was overcast this morning but gorgeously sunny again this afternoon.

Ady has been doing lots of tidying up type jobs, cleaning the oven, checking the loo, de-molding the door. He is ghillying for the next 2 days, I have Baby Dougal tomorrow afternoon and Tuesday morning. We just have a bit of last minute tidying up and then packing to do. Weather is still looking good for ferries and everything remains crossed for smooth arrangements.

Monday – we met the boat, dropping off a load of baking at the bunkhouse for a group arriving on the ferry. We had co-op delivery . We got home for a late lunch and then I did some weeding while Ady did some raking up cut stuff.

Tuesday – Ady went ghillying. I spent the morning crocheting and the afternoon weeding. I made some loaves for a baking order and caught up with a load of online stuff.

Wednesday – In the morning we walked down to deliver the baking and put a load of washing on. Bumped into various people in the villages so stayed longer than we planned to. Ady and I did the pig move and the walked back down to collect the post and the washing.

Today – more weeding for me and some covering up the weeded beds with a mulch of the cut stuff. More raking for Ady. Scarlett and I walked down to the village as there was some free veg up for grabs at the SNH office but we mis-timed our trip as Lesley was with Dougal having injections as the doc was over. So more weeding.

 

That doesn’t sound very exciting, but it’s been very sunshiney and lovely and the stags are roaring so it’s been a really nice week 🙂