One word? When seven would do…

It rained and was windy and was windy and rained pretty much all morning. I had half a plan to get outside between showers to start Operation Clear Up in the polytunnel – the various failed crops need to be fed to the pigs (sweetcorn that was stunted, tomatoes which never flowered, that sort of thing) before they rot and spread disease. The things which can over winter or may even still have a chance need to be spread out and maybe given some feed. The seeds should probably be brought into the caravan for the winter and I can pour over them and plan a spring planting schedule, plus top up with ordering any new ones to fill the gaps. There is a crate of tools, pots, plastic and stuff adjacent to the polytunnel which needs sorting out, some is probably rubbish, all needs stacking tidily so it doesn’t get trashed or blown away over winter. The raised beds need the netting removed and the birds encouraged to feed on them (easily done, we just chuck a handful of their corn on each bed and they’ll scratch down to earth level) and then they need a mulch put on to protect and enhance the soil. prevent weed growth and keep it warmer ready for spring. We’re planning seaweed so need to get gathering that at low tide. The fruit trees and bushes also all need a mulch although that can wait a couple of months yet and be a turn of the year project. We also had a plan to clear out some of the stores of wood and tools and stuff and burn any rubbish and get a better idea of what we actually have taking up space, use the galvanised sheets to start building a compost loo and camp kitchen / shelter for next years volunteers. But suddenly it’s nearly the end of October and winter has arrived! And we still have three pigs to deal with. Hmmm.

This was scuppered by the kids getting up and requesting croissants for late breakfast / early lunch and then us getting into a really interesting conversation about venn diagrams. So Ady left is to it and went and did some work on the shed /shop.

At 2 we all went out together, Scarlett on her bike, the rest of us on foot. We posted Lovefilm back, collected some food from the freezer and the kids came back home to have showers and light the fire while Ady and I went round to Fliss & Sandy’s. Sandy has been back for a week long visit and is heading off tomorrow so Ady went to have a catch up chat with him, while Fliss and I drank tea, crocheted and chatted. It was very pleasant 🙂

We left and came home, picking brambles along the way. I brushed Scarlett’s hair and got dinner sorted while Ady fed the animals and brought in some firewood. A good early dinner with two episodes of Warehouse 13 which we’re really enjoying. It’s much stiller than it was last night but there is the odd huge gust of wind which keep making me jump.

Winter is back.

 

Winds rocking the roof, turbine tied up. Coat on weather today.

Post office frustrating as screen not working again, mood in the village tense, got wet walking down and back.

It carried on raining all afternoon, we watched Naked Choir, Ady volunteered to don waterproofs and collect shopping, get post, feed animals, bring in firewood. I found a recipe online for soft rolls, made those and bread, peeled and crinkle cut potatoes for chips, made another 6 jars of jam from brambles picked on the way to and from the shop earlier, labelled them up.

It was getting dark by 6pm, properly dark by 630pm, in a couple of days that will be an hour earlier. Don’t quite feel ready for hibernation and sleepless nights due to wobbling walls just yet, another month would be nice.

My nice rigger boots that I bought planning to see me through all winter are not as waterproof as I hoped, so will need to buy some wellies after all. Poo!

Post office this morning, it was lightly raining as I walked down, pissing down when I walked back. Hmm, coats a necessity again I think.

I had a good morning although no actual post office due to the lack of screen / post office counter working. I had various customers in for chats and then the TV & Radio folk arrived. They filmed a bit, recorded a bit and then had a technical breakdown so had to dash back to the boat to collect more kit, arranging to see me again later at the ferry.

Home, having gotten very soggy indeed, for lunch. We sent some emails trying to unravel a wind turbine conundrum we are having with the new kit we have on long term loan from Peter Who Wants to Save Rum and then went down to the boat, dropping off two hams in the freezer on the way. We were at the boat to send off a jerry can of diesel to be refilled, but chatted some more to the TV & radio folk before heading back to the croft to felt the shed.

It looks good – all done now other than the hasp on the door, but the one that came with it was rubbish, really little and flimsy, so we have ordered a decent one, along with a padlock (not for security, but so we can choose when the weather is unsuitable for having it open and lock it accordingly. Have also ordered a drop latch as I am concerned the birds will hang out in there given half a chance and some cabin hooks to secure the doors open if we decide we do want to do that. Options good to have I think. Really pleased to have got the felt on given the rain this evening. The shed is now watertight, tomorrow we’ll strap over the roof and do some more securing to the window to make it windproof (or at least attempt to). Then it is sorting out the interior to turn it from a shed into a shop, looking forward to that bit.

Internet died last night while I was in the middle of this… erm trying to regain my thread. That might have been about it for yesterday actually.

 

Today, Ady and I put the straps on over the shed roof and he did some stuff to the windows to make them less rattly. Scarlett and I got all the jam from the static and horsebox and did a big stock take of all the flavours (10 different ones this year!), then packed then all but except for two of each which are in the fridge, labelled the boxes and stashed them in the shed. Then lunch and downloaded Apprentice to watch 🙂 Love it.

After lunch I headed off for some bramble picking – I got 2kg which added to the kg from yesterday / Sunday meant another 21 jars of jam made this evening. We’re up to 126 now, still on track for our 200 if I can keep up.  Ady and the kids made up their bikes which had arrived and then rode down to the village to test them out. They are delighted with them and actually they look really good. I am almost envious of them. I met them all coming down and we stopped at the shop to get a few bits and have a chat with the various folk there, along with waiting hoping the rain would pass over. It didn’t so we braved it and walked home.

Back home Ady got dinner sorted, I turned all the brambles into jam and then rang my parents.

An outside all day day today which has been lovely. Ady and I spent the morning dismantling two huge pallets to get the wood to make reinforcement battens for the shed floor. Then we cut them to size, fixed them together and fixed them to the shed base. One super strong floor done.
That took us to lunch time so we came back up to eat and charge the drill battery back up.
After lunch we got the four sides up and the roof on, the workload of which is not remotely covered in this one sentence… 😉 I had researched sheds online a lot and found that there was little difference in the spec and reviews of sheds from the budget £229 one we went for right up to the mid range £800 plus sheds so we were probably better getting the cheap one and upgrading the hardware and modifying it, so that’s what we have done. Using our own, much better screws in far greater numbers than were supplied with the shed and putting a frame around it to support it, trying down the roof and super strengthening the floor.
Tomorrow we will felt the roof and do some other modifications to it, I have ordered the green wood preserver and we have lots of cool ideas to make the inside all quirky and interesting.
We finally stopped at 630pm as we were losing the light and I was losing my patience with the windows – either a crap design, or really poor instructions, or perhaps both… I boiled, glazed and roasted a couple of the smaller ham joints which I had been wet curing in brine since Monday for dinner, delicious 🙂
We watched Doctor Who – a two parter – and suddenly the whole week has gone.

Another glorious day. People on Rum are starting to doubt our own memories of wind, rain and miserable weather.

Ady was at the castle – a tour and some hostel cleaning. I was as Post Office. A fun couple of hours with Jed, Trudi, David and Doug – we laughed lots, I like that coffee shop feel to Post Office in the mornings, so different to the pub feel of the shop in the evening. On the walk down to PO I stopped to take photos, it was such a beautiful morning with dew drop spider webs draped over all the trees, mist clinging in the low areas and a cloudless deep blue sky above. So gorgeous.

I picked brambles as I walked along to meet Ady, I reckon we’re on the last week of brambling really, although I have ordered a final 60 jars from amazon. If I fill all of those it will be 240 jars of jam made this autumn! Some has already sold but it would be great to have such a good stash to start the new shop off with. Ady has his first postcards here already, Scarlett has plans for candle making and Davies is thinking on designs for more of his postcards / greetings cards too. Scarlett has also been making little clay models with the croft 3 clay to paint and sell, so far she’s made a couple of pigs. I think they would be winning. I have my scarves, my midge in resin stuff, my pot pourri and hopefully by the spring some baskets too. As soon as the daily bramble forage comes to an end I’ll be on a daily basketry materials forage instead.

Home for lunch and as the bacon from Monday’s pig was ready and only a fairly small amount we cut that up and fried it for bacon sandwiches. Delicious. I think I finally have the salt ratio right, now we need to work on the cut of meat as this had bones still in and it would definitely be easier to de-bone before curing. Tomorrow I’ll be taking out the hams I have had in brine all week, one I will boil, then glaze and bake for dinner tomorrow, the largest is for a Christmas ham and we have two smaller ones either for midweek meals or to cook and eat as cold ham for sandwiches.

After lunch Ady and I took the rangerover down the hill and across the river and collected the shed and the kids bikes from the fork. It was very loaded up and creatively tied on the roof and hanging off the tailgate with string but we got it all back across the river and to the bottom of the croft. Now all unloaded and ready to go. The floor of the shed is very flimsy so we’re going to work on reinforcing that a bit before we put the shed together. I researched sheds loads, reading all the customer reviews on all the various sheds available from this budget one at £230 right up to ones closer to £1000 (too much £1000, I guess that’s what sheds cost these days!) and all the reviews state they are flimsy, arrive damaged, need work so we decided to buy the cheapest shed we could find and then spend time and a bit more money on making it better.

We fed the pigs and planned the next pig kill, pleased to see Tom had been mating Barbara which means she is hopefully not pregnant from when he mated her before. She would have been due a litter in November if she had been which would have been all but impossible to deal with. If she is in season now that would be an early March litter which would be perfect.

We had a last cup of tea sat on the sporran just as the sun dropped below the hills and it got cold. I swapped over our duvet for our sleeping bag, I’ve been too cold the last couple of nights and woken with a damp duvet and ceiling dripping with condensation so it was time. I vacuum bagged the duvet and extra pillows from Mum & Dad being here and we’ve stashed them in the horse box for now. Ady made a lovely curry with loads of ginger, garlic and chilli to help see the last of my cold off and assist with his which is just coming out. Everyone else went off to bed early, still tired from their mini break or coming down with colds.

Wednesday was a long and stressy day for me. I had already agreed to do Post Office in the morning as Jinty is off island and had a board meeting (hopefully my last) between boats, then Davies and Scarlett were heading off. Ady was ghillie-ing so my day was going to consist of dashing from one place to the next, changing hats as I went. I headed off down to work and had a fairly quiet morning, closing the post office early to allow me to do end of week stuff. I was so efficient that I was finished and the first person at the board meeting. That went well and it is with mixed feelings I am stepping down in some ways as there are aspects of the role of directors which I enjoy, but sadly too many more that I don’t and I think my time has come to re-focus elsewhere.  I made that point quite forcefully in the meeting by which point my cold was catching up with me and then came home. In between the post office and the meeting I had seen Ian who told me our shed had arrived which was unexpected and not really good news as there was nothing I could do about it and I had been expecting a phonecall from the courier to arrange a delivery day and an email from Calmac to let me know when it was being sent over, neither of which had happened.

It meant that our planned leisurely walk down to the pier, collecting brambles as we went after an hour home together before they went didn’t happen for me and the children as I felt I needed to take the car down and see what was happening with the shed. We picked Steve up along the way to give him a lift and fortunately he was able to help me get it off the van, into the boat shed and part of it stacked on top of the car. By now I was really flagging with my cold and feeling all edgy about the children going off too. I waved them off and stood until they were out of sight before half heartedly picking some brambles and then deciding to drive to the village to meet Ady as we had semi-planned. On the way down the hill from the pier all of the panels I had put on the car roof slid off onto the road. I was not strong enough to lift them back over my head and on to the roof by myself so had to get them off the road and stacked them by the side. There was no one around to ask for help and no one I could think of to ask the favour really as I knew most of the people I would usually ask were out on the hill or would be busy with other things so I just hoped Ady would be home early enough to help me go back for them.

I drove to the village and picked brambles for a bit but then started to worry about the croft animals needing feeding, Bonnie being shut in the caravan and it only being an hour til dark so decided to try and lift the panels onto the car myself again. When I drove back though they had gone! At which point I decided I had had enough and came home. Only to find Ady was already home. I came and ranted at him for a while, we fed the animals and then went down to try and find the panels. It turned out Dave had seen them and picked them up and brought them into the village so we got them back on top of the car, tied on this time and as it was almost dark by then we were persuaded to stay at the shop for a beer. We came home and discussed in a rather heated fashion the knock on effect on the rest of us of Ady doing the ghillie work when he was not really loving it anyway. We talked it over and it was fine but both felt odd without the kids here and not properly able to relax and enjoy the evening.

Thursday – Ady headed off to ghillie – it turned out his last time as he had paid attention to what I had been saying and said he would not do the last two days as we had too much else happening on the croft and he wanted to be at the boat to meet the kids instead of out on the hill until late. I think he is also coming down with the cold and was very aware that another 10 hour day outside leading a pony was not a sensible way to fight that off. I had a lie in and read my book in bed, then spent some time putting together the Rum residents newsletter and emailing that round everyone. Bonnie was utterly confused about where everyone keeps going – me and the kids last week, Ady three early mornings til late evenings running and now the kids off again so she refused to go outside as normal and spent all morning sitting at my feet despite me trying to chuck her outside. Which meant that when I was due to head down to Fliss’ for Crafternoon I felt she needed some exercise and outside time and also not to be left while I disappeared too. So I took her with me and she sat in the garden watching me in Fliss’ conservatory while we drank tea, chatted and crocheted. It was a nice couple of hours, good to chat. `

Bonnie and I came home, fed the animals, brought in firewood, got the genny on, lit a fire and got dinner sorted and then Ady came home. We watched downloaded Apprentice from last week, chatted to the kids on facebook phonecall and felt much more relaxed than the night before.

Today – Post office for me again this morning, another quiet one. Jinty rang to ask if I can do Monday and Wednesday next week aswell. Ady met me having collected the shed from the pier and got it part way home. We parked at the pier and picked brambles for an hour before the boat came in bring the children back and their new bikes too 🙂 Fantastic to see them and have them home. They had a great time, are really knackered having had very little sleep and pleased to be home with our food and our set up apparently.

We had a late lunch as we were all hungry and watched The Naked Choir. Then I made pizza dough and jar labels while Scarlett made jam and Davies washed up and Ady put new bedding in for the pigs. Then it was Doctor Who and pizza time.

The next few days will be filled with shed erection, wind turbine installation, bike construction and hopefully riding and then some more pig processing.

I woke in the early hours of Sunday morning with the tell tale ‘thick’ throat that means a cold is on it’s way. Back in Sussex colds were an almost constant feature of life but after a chest infection requiring antibiotics and a nebuliser plus I’m fairly sure a cracked rib from coughing in our first autumn here I am really quite paranoid about them now. A cold damp caravan and a steep hill to walk up each day means my asthma is already a potential issue for me so I am super cautious, particularly at this time of year. The last cold the kids had I managed to avoid somehow but this time it’s me who has the germ, I must have picked it up on the mainland.

So I am being really kind to myself, lots of garlic and ginger, plenty of veg packed into dinners, soup for lunch etc, honey, lemon, ginger and whisky drinks and lots of rest, plenty of water and some gentle getting outside in the sunshine and fresh air each day without knocking myself out will hopefully mean I see it off in the traditional 9 days (3 days to come, 3 days here, 3 days to go – maybe an old wives tale but I find it about accurate mostly unless the cold develops into something more).

So on Sunday Ady and I went out in the sunshine bramble picking and chatting together, we picked an impressive 3kg between us which I split into 3 batches for jam making and Scarlett mostly made – bramble & apple, bramble & rose and bramble & vanilla. She did the jam making and jar filling while I made the labels. Ady cooked dinner – a rather salty piece of gammon from last years pigs – I think it was the last remaining joint of our pork in the freezer. Doctor Who and an early night.

Monday – A post office shift for me. Before I left for work I went down to the pigs with Ady and fed / distracted them while he killed the first of this years piglets. He dragged it out of the pen to bleed it and I left him to it to head to work. While I was gone he skinned it, cut off the head and took out all the insides, halved the carcase and then quartered each half into joints.

I had a nice morning at work chatting mostly to Neil who I have not properly caught up with in weeks. Two people came in (Debs and Stevie) both of whom I thought were not on island, one after the other which rather threw me. I finished PO and headed for home. Ady was doing really well with the pig so I did some rolling up and tying joints and then bagged and labelled the various cuts while he diced up some and separated the rest for mincing. We loaded it all into bags, I weighed it and kept back the stuff for wet and dry curing for bacon and hams. We had some lunch and then walked down to put the joints in the freezer. Scarlett came with us and we met up with Fliss at the croft gate so walked down to the village with her and the girls too.

We called at the shop to collect veg and Ady stayed chatting to Pete (Jinty’s dad) who is over while Jinty is off for a week. Scarlett and I got bored so went and picked some more brambles around the village, when we got back Ady had already left for home so we followed him back. He disposed of the pig waste, fed the animals and brought in firewood while I sorted out dinner – pork stir fry, naturally.

Peter (who wants to be the new saviour of Rum) brought us a signed copy of Hugh FW’s Cook on the Wild Side book which accompanied a really old TV series so we got that on DVD and have been watching an episode each evening.

Today – Ady was ghillie-ing so he was off and out just after 8am. He woke me leaving but I stayed in bed reading for another hour or so. Scarlett persuaded me to make soup for lunch and she made the dough for bread rolls, then took over the soup while I went out in the sunshine for a couple of hours bramble picking. I got back to soup ready for whizzing and rolls ready to go in the oven. We turned the brambles from yesterday and today into mulled spice jam while was delicious with added spices and orange, like Christmas in a jar!

After lunch I made pheasant and partridge pies for dinner and we all had showers, brought in firewood and fed the animals. Ady got home around 630 after a long but lovely day with the ponies. His party had not shot anything so it was effectively just a very long scenic walk but he had been much entertained by them all wanting their photos taken with him as ‘that chap off the telly’ (very posh toffs here stalking this week).

Delicious dinner, long day tomorrow including Davies and Scarlett heading off for a couple of nights for their first solo mainland trip – eek!

Off for adventures on the mainland for Davies, Scarlett and me, while Ady stayed home with Bonnie dog and the various croft 3 creatures. He had a nice time he tells me, setting up the wind turbine, scything, a bit of bramble picking, lots of eating early dinners of chilli and watching films that the rest of us would not want to watch.

Meanwhile we had a lovely four days off too, recapturing some of our old dynamic from Home Ed days of the past and ticking off loads of things to do that we never seem to make happen these days.

We were actually off for Davies’ appointment with the paed consultant who only did a Wednesday surgery at the FW hospital which meant Monday to Friday off Rum for us. I decided if we had to be off for four nights then we might as well pack in as much as possible so booked  a Premier Inn room for the first 3 nights and arranged to stay with Glen Uig friends (that D&S met at Outward Bound earlier this year) last night.

Monday was the boat off, there was lots of uncertainty about the crossing happening, to the extent that we had booked a room for the night before and been ready to dash off Rum early if needed. In the end we decided to get on the first boat as there were warnings of disruption and I didn’t want to risk it not making the return call to Rum. The disruption ended up being an hour delay in it coming due to it cancelling the second call to Eigg and staying there longer to load up a livestock truck filled with sheep. So we had a trip to Canna, back to Rum and then to the mainland. The trip to Canna was obviously superfluous to us but we did see a pod of dolphins playing around the ferry for about 20 minutes so well worth the extra ferry time. I chatted to Gina in the cafe and then some of the Kinloch Castle Friends Association got on when we came back to Rum so I chatted to and was talked at by them for the second part of the trip. We were offered lifts by a couple of people to FW but declined as Scarlett hates being in cars.

So to the train and the kids’ friend Jenna got on just before we left Mallaig and stayed on til Lochailort chatting which was lovely. Darkness fell during the journey so by the time we reached FW just before 8pm it was dark. We booked in to our room, dumped our stuff, nipped to Morrisons and then to McDonalds and took food and drink back to our room. Davies and I had baths, we watched TV, talked to my parents and Ady on the phone and all settled down well before midnight.

Which probably explains us all waking early on Tuesday! Scarlett and I were awake around 7am so she got into bed with me and we watched TV for a bit. We checked weather forecasts for the next couple of days and decided to do the FW shopping that day and go to Ben Nevis the following day as the weather looked better. We woke Davies and while he got up and dressed we nipped to Lidl for food for breakfast and a few bits, called back to eat and collect Davies and then went into the town. FW is a funny town, existing almost entirely off the back of being at the foot of Ben Nevis and therefore very firmly on the tourist trail. There are 3 ice cream shops, 5 outdoors clothing stores, 4 chemists / drugstores, about 10 coffee shops / bakeries and not a lot else. There is only one other clothes store – Mackays and a tiny branch of Fat Face so all of the clothes in the charity shop are from Macakays and Fat Face and almost all of the books are about Scotland and walking and the highlands and islands. We had a small shopping list, most of which we ticked off and we called into the opticians in town to try and get appointments. They only had 2 left while we were in town so Davies took a 5pm the next day one and Scarlett a 930am for the day after. I will have to go back next time we’re on the mainland but I wanted to have their eyes tested as we’ve not done that since we left Sussex, so it must be nearly 4 years.

Our favourite charity shop was closing down, fill a carrier bag for£2, anything too big for a carrier bag £1 so we got £2 worth of bits and then spotted a wheelie trolley like old ladies use. For just £1 it was a total bargain and so incredibly useful for our trip. For reasons which seemed utterly clear at the time but we have since forgotten we named it Margaret. She has now taken on a personality all of her own and even has a minor following on facebook. I feel a spin off blog coming on (Joyce, do you remember the days? Coughalot and Gee wasn’t it?!) . Davies claimed to have trying pistachio ice cream on some sort of bucket list so we ticked that off (along with lemon sorbet for Scarlett and turkish delight for me). I had an afternoon bath and then we walked across to Morrisons to select picnic tea (actually I nipped to Lidl first with Margaret and then the kids went across to Morrisons and I met them in there). Back at the room we had tea, Scarlett had a very long bath and face pack and we all watched the Naked Choir before ringing Ady to say goodnight.

Wednesday was Davies’ hospital appointment. It was supposed to be at 950am but we were kept an hour waiting, which was not too bad except the waiting room was really hot and they had radio 2 on so I heard Popmaster without Ady. Davies has grown 3.5cm in the 3 months since his last appointment, his test results had all come back fine (they tested pituitary gland function, thyroid function, testosterone levels, took an x ray to get bone age) and he needs to come back in 6 months to ensure he is still doing ok before getting signed off. Reassuring, but frustrating to come all that way for four nights, wait for an hour and be in there for all of 5 minutes to be told what we already know and still not signed off. Sigh. Better time and money wasted for no news being good news of course. We were able to claim back all of our expenses for travel and accommodation as we were well under the cut off threshold having taken cheap train rather than mileage, and booking super cheap Premier Inn rooms when there is up to £35 per person per night allowed and as Davies’ escort I would also have been eligible.

We’d missed the bus we’d been intending catching so decided to get a taxi to the Nevis range instead. I had researched online and found it was likely to be around £15 for a cab but the driver recognised us from the Fogle show, chatted all the way and turned the meter off at a tenner :). We got our tickets for the gondola and headed into a cable car for the ride up. It takes you to 650m and although is stays parallel to the ground so at no one point do you feel you are terribly high so it is not much of a thrill seeking ride it was stunning. We had definitely picked the best day, it was really clear and sunny and the views were spectacular. We did lots of jumping around to make the car swing about which we thought was fab but Ady would have hated 😉

At the end of the ride we walked to one of the nearer viewpoints, took lots of photos and sat and had our sandwiches. Then we walked back to the cafe for hot chocolates. Davies and Scarlett had whipped cream and marshmallows, I had Baileys 🙂 We drank them out on the balcony looking at the view and realised we could see the very top of Rum’s highest peak – Askival. We went into the gift shop and the ‘Mountain Discovery Centre’ – a room with some feely boxes, lots of posters and a TV with a dvd on loop showing mountain bike challenges on Ben Nevis, then looked at the snow grooming machines before heading back down again in a cable car to the bottom. We had just missed a bus so had a 30 minute wait but the sun was shining and we sat people watching.

Back in FW Davies stayed in the room watching TV while Scarlett and I nipped to a couple of shops to take things back and then Scarlett went back to collect Davies for his eye appointment at the opticians. In the waiting room we read a science magazine which talked about time travelling paradoxes, myths or facts from the Back to the Future films given we are now in 2015, the year they travelled into the future to and other such highbrow topics. There was only room for one extra person to sit in on the eye test so Scarlett went in with Davies and I heard them all chattering away. She came out to report to me that all was well and he doesn’t need testing again for 2 years.

Davies wanted fish and chips for dinner so we collected that and then he took his food back to the room with Scarlett while I nipped to Morrisons to get bits for Scarlett and I. Everyone had baths and for novelty we all dried our hair with the hairdryer. We packed up more or less and watched a couple of things all snuggled up together in the big bed before I kicked them both out and called bedtime.

Thursday – Scarlett had her eye test so we left Davies in the room and went along to that. Then back to the room to make up some sandwiches for lunch and finish packing up. Across to the station for the very packed train and then an hour or so to Mallaig. We had loads of stuff so I had packed all the stuff we didn’t need over night in one holdall and one rucksack so we went to the Calmac office and asked for it to be put on the boat the next day and paid the £3 for freight charge – bargain! We bummed around Mallaig for the afternoon, walking round a couple of times in various combinations, sitting on the beach, sitting on a bench, eating ice lollies and finally walking along to the car park to meet Alison. Davies and Scarlett waited in her van while Alison and I went to the CoOp for some bits and then we went back to their house. Jenna was already there and Iona arrived shortly afterwards. The kids bounced on the trampoline, took the dog for a walk on the beach and then came in when it was dark for dinner with Alison and I who were drinking G&Ts and chatting. We had a lovely few hours, the kids set up their beds and hung out until 1030pm when we called bedtime as everyone had an early start. Alison and I chatted a while longer and then we both went to bed too.

Friday – we were all up for 7am, still dark and crazily early for Davies, Scarlett and I. We had breakfast and then we set off with Jenna to the top of their road to catch the bus. I was mostly being in awe of the pink and green clouds which were still showing up the northern lights which have been putting on a show all week. We said goodbye to Jenna and then got off at the next stop in the village in Mallaig. A last Co Op shop, we dropped our bags off at the Calmac office and then set off to find the new bakery in Mallaig which we’d heard loads about. Sure enough it was lovely 🙂 We had pastries and took them to sit and eat while watching Mallaig come to life – I love sitting watching a town wake up, it reminds me of my high street retail days when there was a particular sort of feel and smell to a morning unlocking shop doors and setting out signs, turning on lights and welcoming in the first customers of the day. I think by the time I was a manager at Bhs I had started to hate the job but certainly when I was a manager of my little Clinton Cards shop in Bognor I was really proud of setting out the post card spinners, calling Good Morning across to the other shop managers opening up their shops (we had a Burtons opposite which was staffed by a load of lads who used to pull pranks on us, a Superdrug next door who were mostly friendly and a snooty department store a few doors down who used to look down their noses at all of the rest of us 🙂 ) All final tasks done we went back to Calmac, I got a cup of tea from the sandwich van and we all settled down with books / tablets to wait the couple of hours until it was time to board. Davies and I nipped back out to the bakery for some rolls and cakes for lunch and then finally it was 1230 and we were on the boat.

Fab to be home – I’d missed Ady and Rum loads. Bonnie was thrilled to have all her pack back in one place. We unpacked and put away all our stuff and haul from the mainland. Davies was desperate to watch the Naked Choir with Ady so we put that on and then I made pizza dough while Ady and Scarlett fed the animals. A lovely Friday evening of pizza, Doctor Who, own bed and familiar sounds of deer roaring.

Today – Post Office this morning for me, hostel and castle tour for Ady. I had no customers at all for the whole first hour, then four all more or less at once who stayed til the end. Ross, Jed, Fliss & Debs. Jed stayed even later chatting with me for a further hour as we sort of hung on waiting for Ady who didn’t appear. So we walked along to the hostel together to meet him. Weird how my closest friends here on Rum are Fliss and then two blokes in their 20s.

Ady and I picked a load of brambles as we walked home, had a late lunch and then I went back out to pick more brambles, Ady moved animal feed around the croft into various feed bins, Scarlett played with some modelling balloons she bought while we were off and Davies did something with his tablet / DS. Ady and I had a cup of tea on the sporran and then I came in to make jam and dinner. We watched Paddington which the kids had started watching while we were off and we all thought was really good.

Looking forward to a lie in followed by more bramble picking tomorrow.

A bit of a lie in this morning which was nice, novelty of my own bed won’t get the chance to wear off before I’m off sleeping in a Premier Inn!

The weather for tomorrow has died down so I cancelled the room for tonight and let the kids sleep in. At 11ish Ady and I woke them and then headed down to the village for some bramble picking and to collect the birds that arrived from Muck for us last night and Dave & Sylvia took in for us. We checked the car for post and annoyingly the big amazon parcel which I reported missing on Friday and have a replacement on the way for was in there, opened but repaired and with a letter from Royal Mail to say it had been intercepted and searched for dangerous goods, found to be safe so sent on it’s way. It contained cooking oil. cashew nuts, gravy and a six pack of squeezy marmite… This is the third time our deliveries have been checked, last time it was shampoo and conditioner (in 5l containers), so I guess anything heavy and clearly liquid is open to being seized and inspected. Amazon have already sent the replacements having told me to refuse delivery if the original turns up so it can be returned to them. Clearly I can’t refuse delivery as it just comes on the ferry, Calmac won’t refuse delivery on our behalf (can you imagine me trying to give them tracking numbers to do that when they are accepting freight, post and deliveries for 200 plus islanders?!) and last time I had a delivery arrive late which had already been replaced I got in touch to explain and they told me to send it back. I explained that would be challenging to do – too large for post office, no courier will collect from here – and said I was happy to pay for it as I would use the duplicate order. They said the billing department would be in touch to arrange payment and they never did… cashew nuts all round then!

Anyway… we caught up with a couple of people in the village then picked some brambles around the larder. Not that many so we have frozen them to make jam with when I get back. Ady says he will try and do some picking while we’re away but I suspect he won’t find much time for that. Then to Dave & Sylvia’s. I had ordered a brace each of duck, partridge and pheasant from Toby on Muck and they had arrived on last night’s boat so Dave had taken them for us and bunged them in his fridge. We stopped for a cup of tea and a chat and Dave gave us a big bag of prawns too, which Davies and Ady had as a starter for dinner tonight.

Home for lunch and an impromptu decision to drive across to Kilmory and watch the deer rut. We made flasks and took sweets, got in the car and drove across. It was a really smooth drive, less than 20 minutes thanks to the super smooth new track 🙂 We parked up and walked down to the hide, got comfy and watched. Ali soon came across to tell us who was who and then left us as she was meeting the camera men from Autumnwatch who are here filming this week. Not sure when it’s going out. Shortly afterwards there was a fight, with antler clashing and everything, the first we’ve ever seen 🙂 Very exciting! Later there was a second one. By far the best deer stuff we’ve seen. We might even go back over next Sunday if the weather is nice but this was awesome.

We stayed for a good couple of hours then drove back home, fed the animals and I had a cup of tea on the sporran and rang my parents who had arrived home safely. Ady got dinner on. Tonight was a double parter of Doctor Who – the last in the David Tenant series so Scarlett is pleased as Matt Smith is her favourite. I think I only watched one or two of the Matt Smith ones when they were on TV.

Tomorrow is packing and then heading off for me and the kids. Best go and make the most of that bed…

Not at all sure what happened on which days so an overview post.

On Friday Mum & Dad arrived, along with Peter – the man who made contact with us after the Fogle Show and has been in almost constant contact ever since. Mum had been ill on the boat over so took some getting off, meanwhile Peter and Steve the Man were also hanging about. In the end Ady and Dad drove along to the cabins with everyone’s stuff, while Peter, Mum, Steve and I walked along to there. We dropped off their stuff and then carried on for the croft. Mum & Dad didn’t have too much stuff, enough to fit in two wheelbarrows which Ady and I pushed up to the croft. By the time we finally got home Mum was feeling better so after a restorative cup of tea and chat we left Mum & Dad here with the kids and went down to meet the second boat which our new wind turbine (courtesy of Peter) was coming off on. Various other deliveries came off too so it was another wheelbarrow job back to the croft.

Fortunately an earlyish night as everyone was tired.

Saturday morning was really stressy for me – I had a shop full of people = Peter, Steve, my parents, Fliss, all coming in and out ranting about each other and being generally full on. I went off in the afternoon to do bramble picking, I think Dad came with me.

The rest of the week merges rather but there was lots and lots of bramble picking – I think I have made about 30 jars of jam this week, various people have come with me at various times, including at least two big bramble picking walks and chats with Dad which I really enjoyed. I also really enjoyed a solo bramble walk this afternoon after everyone had gone.

I had a directors meeting which included Peter on Monday morning, that was actually quite productive. I am looking forward to stepping down though. Peter and Steve and Fliss came up for lunch on Tuesday – that was mostly interesting but a little drawn out. There is probably more to say about Peter at some point but I’m still processing it all just now.

I was on the radio again, this time about my midge jewellery. Our shed finally got properly ordered and is on it’s way. Yay! We also ordered a charge controller thingie for the wind turbine, coming from America.

I did a *lot* of cooking, infact 6 out of the 7 nights that Mum & Dad were here. For 6 people, in stressy conditions. It bought out the Christmas Camp Nic in me 😉

 

The stags have been roaring like mad, it’s so atmospheric. Looking forward to getting across to Kilmory next weekend maybe. Me and the kids are heading off, either tomorrow or Monday (weather is looking iffy for Monday so have booked a precautionary Premier Inn room for tomorrow night incase we have to dash off early although it is looking less dreadful as it gets closer so fingers crossed we’ll be off Monday), Ady is staying home with Bonnie to eat chilli every day and watch war films! We’re planning on doing some touristy stuff in FW like the cable car, maybe bowling and lots of staying in the room watching TV, using wifi and having baths. Davies has his hospital appointment which will hopefully mean him signed off on Wednesday and we have a night with our friends before coming home on Friday.

Saturday morning – Ady met Mairi from the boat and I got down to post office nice and early to meet her walking round from there. A nice morning with various people popping in for chats and catching up with Mairi there too for plenty of tea drinking and gossip. We walked along to meet Ady from work when he was finished and then came home for lunch – nice bread, chorizo, olives and crisps from us and lots of nice cheeses brought up from Mairi, was lovely 🙂

As usual Mairi had brought gifts – birthday art stuff for Davies, a little magnet from her recent Italy trip for Scarlett, a card which reads ‘I meant to behave but there were too many other options’ and some flower bulbs for me and plenty of chocolate for Ady. Along with croissants for Sunday breakfast and a bottle of the award winning local gin her friend makes. She also brought a load of seafood to make dinner for that evening and chocolate to melt and dip strawberries in to. I love Mairi 🙂

We had a nice afternoon chatting and catching up and then went down to the shop for a few drinks. It was one of those evenings down there when there were a handful of people around and everyone was in a really good happy mood. Chain brought a guitar out and he and Jed both played a few songs we could all sing to, we spent about an hour playing I Spy – which is actually hilarious after a few drinks, and telling really silly jokes. We walked home in the dark having bought a cheap headtorch and batteries from Jinty which she sold us saying ‘these are pretty crap!’ and they were – the torch dimmed about 20 paces from the shop! A lovely meal, another bottle or two of fizz, some pop quizzes, some arm wrestling and a late night proper chat for me and Mairi after the others had all gone to bed (the chat, not the arm wrestling!).

Sunday – Ady and Mairi had lots of chats and then we all had croissants – the kids and I getting up rather later than Ady and Mairi. We fed the animals, drank lots of tea, Mairi had a wander with her ipad to take some autumnal photos and then she and I walked down to the village to call for Lesley and for Mairi to have a peep at baby Dougal. We called in to the Tattie House craft shop on the way and Mairi bought a couple of bits from Kate and we chatted to Ian. As we went past Trudi’s we called for Trudi and collected the bag of snacks and drinks Mairi had bought at the shop and left at Trudi’s the night before to take round to Fliss’. We were having a Womens Afternoon which had moved venue and day but was no worse for having done either. We had Trudi who was in need of sisterhood and solidarity, Lesley in need of a couple of hours sitting and chatting out of the house and a reason to do her hair and put mascara on, Fliss, Debs, Mairi and I. It was a really lovely afternoon with lots of nice food, a couple of bottles of fizz, juice and chat and laughter.

We walked home and Ady had made a really good curry for dinner. An earlier night as we were all pretty tired.

Monday – Mairi and I had a gentle bramble picking stroll down to the village, calling in to the shop for her to say goodbye and the craft shop to buy some more bits as presents for friends then home for lunch. Ady managed to block the sink with some rice so he did some plumbing! Then we took Mairi down to the pier to wave her off. It was a really nice visit, she is such an easy guest.

Home via the shop to collect veg. Davies had made a popmaster quiz for Ady and I with lyrics rounds, clips rounds and everything including a 3 in 10. We did it – I won, AND got 3 in 10. He had also recorded us doing it which we listened back to and it was very funny. Mad memories like these will be the story of their childhood!

I made jam and loads of bread, for us, for dinner and for taking down to Sean’s birthday celebration the following day and everyone was pretty early to bed as we were all tired from the mad weekend.

Tuesday – I made birthday brownies for Sean, Davies made an excellent rat in a party hat card. I tidied up the kitchen and the shelves above the cupboards and windows in the lounge, the kids tidied up their bedrooms, Ady sorted out the compost loo in the horsebox. I spent some time online trying to sort out the shed order, I tried to organise accommodation for a trip off in November but couldn’t because my debit card runs out at the end of October and the new one has not arrived yet but it wouldn’t let me pay with a car which will have expired before the trip.. argh! Ady rang Halifax to find out when the next card will come it it should be here by Friday. Phew.

We walked down to the shop. had a couple of beers and then all went into the hall for Sean’s birthday meal. It was a collaborative effort with various people bringing various contributions – we’d taken two sorts of bread and the brownies. There were a couple of soups, veggie and venison chillies, pasta, a big birthday cake and brownies. I also bought some ice cream and Deb bought some bramble liqueur. It was a really nice evening with great company. Davies and Scarlett left around 930pm with Ady and I promising to be home by midnight which we just about were. Another night of over indulgence though…

Today – was a much needed slower start. I slept in really late which I needed and the weather was pants this morning anyway. Ady did some cleaning while the rest of us slept. We had lunch and then he and I went down to the village to collect post, food from the freezer and some fish we’d bartered yesterday with Rhys for eggs and jam and the others had alongside their dinner tonight. Back at home Ady and I watched the Gareth Malone choir thing that Ady had downloaded and I’d wanted to watch after having heard him on the radio the day after we’d been talking about starting up a choir here on Rum. Then Ady and Scarlett played Top Trumps while Davies and I played Big Brain Academy on Davies’ DSs. He beat me two games to one.

We tried watching a new TV series from Lovefilm – Suburgatory but it was pretty pants so after two episodes we decided to give up on that and went back to rewatching How I Met Your Mother. Annoyingly I then got an email from amazon to say the next disc of the show it on it’s way. Poo! Everyone else is in bed and I am about to head off too. Only one night before Mum & Dad arrive and  I lose my bed!

Where did I get to? Tuesday was a late one for Ady, I think he got home around 830pm bless him. He had a good day and really enjoyed it but I don’t think he’d easily manage more than one day a week.

Wednesday we went down to the village planning to pick brambles, collect some stuff from the freezer, get some firewood from the castle (Billy the roofer is over and creating a pile of firewood for us again). We nipped to the shop and while I chatted with Jinty and then walked around the back of the hall to pick some brambles Ady headed off to collect wood. He came back to say our animal feed had come on the boat so he dashed back to the fork to drop off the wood then came to collect me to go to the pier and get the animal feed. I chatted to Sean the rat, Bad Neil and Chainsaw Dave (yes, I know we all sound like characters from a dodgy childrens book) and then we got the feed, came back, swapped all the stuff from one car to the next, brought the other car across the river and on to the croft and finally had a late lunch. After lunch Ady emptied the car and then did some loo maintenance while I walked all over croft 2 and 3 looking for ripe brambles and finding a broody duck. I gathered enough brambles to add to the ones from earlier and turn into 3 jars of jam using chillies from Norman that I had found in the freezer last week. Quite poignant as bramble and chilli was his favourite and I always made him a jar each year, odd to think that not only would he not taste this batch but that the chillies which went in to it were from him.

Davies was heading down to check for post so I walked with him and we collected some more brambles. The post was some birthday cards for him and a couple of parcels for Ady. I made dinner and baked bread.

Thursday – Last Sheerwater of 2015. We started with high hopes as it looked like perfect weather with flat calm sea and overcast skies but as we pulled out of the loch it began to rain and the sea got all choppy. Then I spotted a pod of porpoises so we chased and watched them for a bit before heading to Soay. Last wave at Anne and her dog rowing out to collect the post. It’s an odd relationship – we wave at each other every single week from April to September and have done for the last four years but I have no idea if she knows who we actually are or anything about us other than that we appear each week on the boat that brings the post… even here in this life we have people who are fixtures in our lives without knowing anything about each other.

Ronnie went searching for some minke whales he had spotted on the way over from Eigg on the way back and sure enough we found them and had easily the best encounter with whales (or dolphins for that matter) this year with the whale going under the boat and seeming to play with us for quite a while. Totally magical 🙂

Back home we watched the Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel which had come from Lovefilm but Davies and Scarlett were very unenthusiastic about. They both sat and watched with us in the end and I thought it was every bit as lovely as the first one. Gentle, excellent cast, funny and poignant and just a pleasure to watch. What I love most about both of them is the idea that you don’t need to be young, beautiful, fit, rich or perfect to still be alive and living, to have adventures and learn new things, to make mistakes and do your thing. Very inspiring, particularly to those of us who sometimes wonder whether we are far too old for starry notions…

Today we thought we were meeting Mairi so after an early lunch of tortilla wraps which Ady and I cooked together in proper Chuckle Brother style with smoke alarms going off and everything, we headed down to the boats. The Orion was in early, the Brushda was in late, she was on neither… we did all our laundry, Ady did a castle tour, we caught up with Lesley, the baby and Lesley’s Mum, collected the post and came home. Turns out Mairi is coming tomorrrow… which means my head, liver and most of the rest of me should probably be in bed sleeping right now in preparation!

Sunday – I did indeed sleep much better and even stayed in bed reading for a while after I woke so got up feeling much more rested. It was a real sunshine and showers day but I had to collect a few bits from the freezer for the following day so spotted a break in the weather and headed down to the village. I also checked the car for post (there was – the last couple of birthday bits, yay!) and picked 500g of brambles. The rest of Rum is starting to catch up, I reckon a fortnight from now and we’ll be struggling to keep up with them ripening but for now it is an hour of scratching around for them. Another four jars of jam made though. I made the dough for Davies’ cinnamon rolls for birthday breakfast, made the jam and Ady and I brought back a wheelbarrow load each of wood up from the Jeep. Some really good bits for making shelves in our planned shed / shop.

Dave and Faye came over to look at the Rangerover which had been playing up a bit so Ady went to do that with them while I wrapped up Davies’ presents and Scarlett made him a card. We had dinner and a fairly early night all round again in anticipation of an early start on Monday.

Monday – Davies ‘ birthday. For a boy who struggles to get out bed in the morning, literally, he is rarely if ever up before midday, he certainly can still manage on Christmas and birthdays. 730am start. Living here makes gift choosing even harder. I think all teens are probably quite hard to buy for, but living here with such limited space for acquiring more ‘stuff’ means we are all really sensible about what we ask for as presents. Davies had gone for a new 3ds having researched it quite a bit. He also wanted a couple of games and books, all of which are not actually released yet so has a couple of to follow items anyway. He got his 3ds and some pens and was delighted with that, along with a voucher to get some apps / games / music / whatever online.

Ady and I walked down to the shop in the morning to get some biscuits for birthday tiffin but other than that we were all home all day. I did various baking / cooking – brownies to take to the shop to share, tiffin, pizza for lunch. Dave and Faye came over for lunch and then we waved them off. Davies and I played some brain training game on DSs, he thrashed me. Not sure if that is an indication of an acceptable education or my gaming ineptitude but it was fun anyway :).

Then down to the shop for singing and brownies. Lots of folk came along to wish him Happy birthday and he had several cards and gifts from people. Davies rang my parents and then I chatted to them both for a bit while Ady cooked dinner – venison steak and chips. Thanks to having processed a beast ourselves we were fairly affluent in venison steak and all had about four each. I reckon there was about £80 worth of meat on the table! Delicious though and it was a celebration meal. Davies wanted to watch Doctor Who so we watched two episodes and then it was bedtime.

Today Ady is off ghillieing – they have gone on one of the most challenging routes, so not sure when to expect him home and fairly sure he’ll be wiped out by the day. The weather is not particularly kind either.

I was being interviewed for the radio – BBC Scotland Out of Doors show. In theory it was supposed to be about the Community Land Use Plan which has been in the news lately  but while I was chatting to one of the team as we were putting our boots on the presenter decided that was more interesting so it mostly was about our family, crofting and just a touch about Rum and future development. I fear I have become perfect media fodder… 😉

I walked by Fliss’ after that and she called out to come in for a cup of tea so I did which was nice. Then I walked round to the village with the radio presenter again who wanted to check a couple of facts and then I went along to visit Lesley and meet new baby Dougal. Lovely to see her after such a long time away from Rum – they got back late Saturday. We caught up, she shared birth story details, I reiterated that I’m around if she needs / wants anything and then came home for lunch.

Friday – I had a meeting at 10am so headed down the hill for that. Ady was off working at the hostel and we both anticipated being home for midday for lunch before heading down to meet the 2pm ferry. In the end my meeting went on til 115pm and Ady carried on working. I walked all but back to the croft (infact Davies and Scarlett saw me out of the window and got the kettle on before they realised I had double backed and gone away again) having realised that Ady would never cut it that fine so I must have missed him.

I caught him up just before we got to the pier as he’d stopped to chat to Chain. We got a lift the rest of the way and then waited for the boat to arrive, it was running slightly late as it often does on a Friday.

Big Dave and Faye came off, along with a new car battery for the Jeep. We had a lift for all their stuff and the four of us walked along to the croft. We swapped the battery into the Jeep and it started straight away! 🙂 It has since started several more times and appears to have been the problem. Can’t believe how chuffed we both are that a combination of a new battery and our amateur mechanics in putting new terminals on has fixed it. Yay!

We came home (finally) for lunch and doughnuts, made pizza dough and caught up with the kids. Then we walked along the top track to the cabin and called for Dave and Faye while the kids went the bottom track and we all met down at the shop for a few beers. It was a nice evening down there with a handful of folk all on good form so we stated for a couple and came home just before it got dark for pizza and Doctor Who followed by the last two in the series of Modern Family.

I put some feta cheese on Ady and my pizzas which with both cheddar and mozarella made for super cheesey pizzas. Which is what I am blaming our dreadful nights’ sleep on. I woke at 4am and after going to the loo and getting a drink of water could not get back to sleep, so I read for a while. That woke Ady who then could not get back to sleep even when I was tired again so he got up. I think I fell asleep again about 530, not sure if he went back to sleep in the lounge or not. I felt really exhausted all day today though as a result.

We were supposed to be going to Canna for the day today for the Small Isles games but Calmac put out an amber warning for the boats this afternoon due to the weather forecast so all of us planning to go decided against it yesterday. It meant I was able to do post office today after all so I went to the village for that. Ady came down a while later and stayed for Saturday morning coffee and chats at post office having brought the car down and collected all the various things we had  in the village (slab of tinned pasta, beers, box of jam jars, food from the freezer etc). We bought all that up, had lunch, called over to the cabin for a cup of tea and chat with Dave and Faye and were back home just before the forecast weather did indeed come in.

Ady made curry and everyone has headed to bed super early, I am about to follow. Hoping for a better nights sleep despite the howling wind.

because we didn’t really get a Scottish one… so far this week has been glorious. Almost midge free, sunny to the point of mild sunburn yesterday and without a spot of rain.

Monday – Ady worked in the morning. I walked down to the village for a cup of tea and chat with Fliss. I forgot to take the freezer key with me so came back to the croft to collect it and met Ady heading down to meet the ferry as our petrol was coming off. So I went with him. We got a lift down to the boat and a lift back for our 2 jerry cans of petrol, while we walked back in the sunshine. We came back up to the croft for a late lunch and then headed down for Tai Chi. We stopped for a beer afterwards at the shop before coming home for dinner.

Tuesday – Ady did various things out on the croft while I baked brownies for Trudi’s birthday and got dinner all prepped and ready to go in the oven. We went down for Trudi’s birthday and the first meeting of Whisky Club – an idea Ady had for tasting the expensive whiskys that Jinty sometimes gets in. However many people who want to join in split the cost of the bottle between them and all get their share. This means some of the pricey £35-40  bottles she gets in turn into a fiver each and they all still get several healthy measures. Predictably it was a very late night with three bottles of whisky sampled…. Jinty utterly ran with the idea dusting off a notebook to create Whisky Club, nominating Ady as Mr Presidento – Forever! and insisting on everyone giving each whisky a star rating out of five and commenting on it in the book. It was a hilarious and very fun evening. I don’t drink whisky, well in theory I don’t so I was given free Baileys as an honorary non whisky drinking member, although I know for a fact it was being regularly topped up with whisky anyway.

Trudi had a great birthday, ending up sobbing at the end about being drunk on whisky and nearly 50, as is right and proper on anyone’s birthday. Davies and Scarlett came home, cooked their dinner, got ours heated up ready and were very tolerant about us being late 😉

 

Wednesday was our wedding anniversary – Ady went off to work for a couple of hours in the morning (hostel cleaning for Billy the roofer, quite our favourite of all the contractors that do work for SNH – he was here when we came for our interview and moved here and has been back every winter since. It was his mats which helped get the caravan up the hill to the croft and last year he gave us enough old wood from the White House roof to keep us in firewood for the whole winter. We heart him lots) while I slept off the whisky club hangover and the kids slept off the late night. He came home with a bottle of fizz 🙂

Scarlett and I went down to do an hours bramble picking and walked all the way along to the campsite and old pier to check the ripeness of the bushes there – a few weeks away yet. We walked back along the beach which was very lovely. We collected the post and some shopping on our way home.

Today has been super windy but still sunny. We voted on the Sheerwater and decided it would be too choppy so not to go, the kids have spent too many two hour trips to Soay this year feeling sick and not seeing anything anyway. Next Thursday is the last trip of the year and at the moment the forecast is good for that day. After lunch Ady and I headed down to do some work on the bridge for the Kinloch Castle Friends Association and then called in to the workshop to organise our freezer. We needed to do a stocktake, scrape off some of the ice which has built up so much it was hard to close it and clear out some of the stuff which has been in there ages and probably won’t get eaten now, meaning Bonnie and the pigs all had feasts of food for dinner tonight. It now closes and locks, we know what’s in it and there is space for the first stash of pork which should be done in the next couple of weeks.

The birds are doing a great job in the fruit cage of clearing weeds and grass around all the trees and bushes and should also be eating any caterpillars and slugs. Now all the fruiting is over they should not do any damage to the trees and bushes and are far more efficient than us at weeding and trimming the grass down. We will probably get them to do the same in the walled garden around the raised beds. All we have to do is throw a couple of handfuls of feed where we want cleared and they scratch around for it and do all the ground clearing at the same time. Genius 🙂 We walked the croft planning our next project which is the creation of a volunteer base camp for next year – we need to construct a compost loo, camp kitchen / hang out spot, firepit and places to pitch a tent including our bell tent. The plan is to attract groups of volunteers who we just pass food to do organise themselves and to be able to offer camping pitches too. Our next task towards that is a bonfire for some of the clutter we have built up, a sort out of a couple of shed spaces and dismantling of two then moving the posts and corrugated sheeting over to the base camp area ready to construct it.  If we have more weather like this it will be a pleasure to be outside working on all that.

 

 

Wednesday – it was mostly lovely to not be doing teashop 🙂 We walked down to the village to collect the charged battery with intentions of sorting the car out. As we were walking back up the hill with a wheelbarrow talking about getting some straw bales to make a compost loo for volunteers we walked past  a young couple coming the other way.  We smiled and said hello and they said hello too and went to keep walking, then double backed and blurted out ‘we saw you on telly and came to Rum because of it!’ so we chatted for a while. Turns out they had seen the show and were coming to Skye on holiday so changed their plans slightly to include a day trip to Rum. We must have completely lived up to their expectations walking along talking about stuff like that 🙂

In the evening we went to watch a couple of plays  which were both really good. The first, Mallory was a single hander of a man standing talking, Mallory had he not died in his third Everest attempt, but had done it instead and returned home to his wife and children victorious. It was really good and very captivating. The second was a farce style play about Heslop Harrison’s story of finding rare plant species on Rum and was good, if a little patronising in it’s oh-so-clever -Oxbridge-uni-types manner. All a bit Stephen Fry and Rowan Atkinson. I warmed to the actors a lot more when  there was a power cut – classic Rum, meaning they had to continue without sound or lighting. Ady lent them a headtorch and they spotlit each other in turn depending on who was speaking and threw in lots of impromptu one liners about the dark, electricity and so on. It was hilarious.

Thursday – we decided against the full Shearwater experience of the Soay trip too so spent the morning packing, tidying and generally doing stuff in the caravan. Ady made pancakes for lunch as we were out of bread and then we headed off. The Sheerwater trip was very rocky indeed – no one was actually ill but there were lots of rough looking people. I sat outside with Ady and Bonnie, in a heightened state of everything because of having Bonnie, being aware that several of the people on the boat had seen us on TV and worrying about the kids who were inside feeling ill and failing to get past the packed boat of people to get to the side should they actually be ill. It was all fine but a very big boxer dog sitting next to us was pushing all of my dog fearing buttons and I was very pleased to get off the boat when we finally arrived at Arisaig.

We’ve never been to Arisaig before and didn’t really know where the hire car car park was so roamed around a bit with Bonnie jumping up at every car we passed, being anxious and finally being sick, all of us carrying stuff and trying to look for the car park and being a bit stressed and me needing  a wee! Finally we asked in the Spar shop, took a wrong turning and asked someone else and then actually spotted the car. The hall where the keysafe was was not marked but I took a guess that it was too big to be a residential property in the middle of normal sized houses and sure enough the keysafe was there. So finally in the car and on our way. We stopped at Poundstretcher for a stock up on various stuff then to the hotel. We booked in, got Bonnie and the kids settled, dealt with wifi sign up stuff and then left them in the room while we went to do Morrisons food shop and get McDonalds for dinner. We were back in the room for 9pm, went to move the car as we’d left it in a  loading bay and fortunately some cars were leaving the carpark so we were able to park there rather than the other end of the town and walk back as we’d planned. Then back for baths, telly and bed.

In the morning we had a 8am dentist appointment. I was first, followed by both children, then Ady. All fine with no need for anything other than x rays for Scarlett and Ady and a clean up for me. Both kids will get referrals for orthadentist which will mean another trip off at some point soon. Ah well. We were back in the car for 845am so went to Lidl for various shopping there, then parked up for a quick look in the high street, a stock up on medical supplies at Superdrug and then back in the car to head to Mallaig. We had time there to load stuff onto the van (so much better than carrying it all on), a quick CoOp shop and then on to the ferry. Friends of Big Dave were over using his cabin for the weekend so they introduced themselves and we chatted to them, a Dutch mother and daughter visiting Canna and a couple who visit Arisaig every year and come across on a day trip to Rum. Also to Gina, the catering manager on the Calmac who was delighted to see me and tell me how she’d seen the Fogle show and that the four of us ‘are bloody mental!’ 😀

The home  bit was so smooth – we managed to drive all the way up the croft which meant unloading the shopping was so easy, we all helped put stuff away, ate some of the junk food we’d brought home and had pizza for dinner. We had half thought about going to the shop but it was a bit grey and drizzly so we stayed in instead.

Saturday – work for both me and Ady – shop / PO for me followed by castle tour, castle tour and cleaning followed by another castle tour for Ady. Home for 330pm with time to put dinner on low, feed the animals and then head down for a beer and catch up with Rum folk at the shop. I had heard through the grapevine that Lesley had had the baby so that was talked about and we had a nice couple of hours down there with various folk before coming home for curry. Later I had a text and photo from Lesley 🙂 Exchanged a few texts with her over the night / today. She is hoping to be back to Rum for next weekend 🙂

Today – Scarlett and I went bramble picking this morning as she had spotted some last night infront of the hall that were ready. We got enough for 3 jars of jam 🙂 Of the 8 I made last week I have already sold 6 so it was good to get more done. I finally bought jam jars this year after recycling them usually. It is so nice to use brand new ones 🙂 Nice to have an hour with just Scarlett too.

After lunch (more mainland junk food) we all went back outside – Davies and Scarlett to play / hang out with the animals and me and Ady to gather up the pieces of a shed base which we acquired and have been using all around the croft on boggy bits of ground but now intend using as a shed base! We’re going to put a shed at the croft gate to act as a shop for next season. We did that and it started to rain so that meant the end of outside time although I did manage to water the polytunnel and take some seeds I got while we were off down there.

Back indoors Davies did a birthday card for Ranger Trudi, Scarlett had a shower, I made popcorn and then we all sat down to watch Jurassic Park together which we’d bought while we were off. I think Davies has seen the first one before but Scarlett had not. We have 2 and 3 also and will then get 4 when it comes out on dvd.

Roast dinner, Doctor Who and bed.

Monday – We had arranged to go and see Steve & co so wandered down there after lunch. We had a coffee with them, were donated all their leftover food (mostly milk, cream and apples) and said our goodbyes, then walked back to put some of the stuff in the freezer. We had planned to call in for a cup of tea with Fliss but she was not home – realised afterwards she’d have been collecting Joss from school. So we walked round to the hall where Davies and Scarlett already were.

We had post in the car from Saturday evening, a big box of jam jars from Amazon and a few other bits. We did our hour of tai chi (which Ady insists on calling chai tea) and staff twirling – this week there were 8 of us. We stopped for a beer at the shop – Bad Neil’s brother John-Alex was over for stalking so chatted to him a bit before heading for home, animal feeding and dinner. We had the last 2 episodes of Eureka to watch.

Today – Ady and I planned to do try and fix the Jeep. We did some stuff to it but now need to fully ascertain whether it is the battery has had it, whether the car is doing something that is draining the battery or whether we need to do a better job on the battery terminals. We took off the second battery from the dead Pajero and got that on charge so will see how that fares tomorrow.

We came back up for lunch just as Davies and Scarlett were coming down to meet us with travel mugs of tea and coffee 🙂 We had lunch and then all walked down to the village to mess about on the beach for a couple of hours. We wanted a walk but the kids wanted to wear shoes not wellies so it was the best option for not going on one of the sodden pony tracks. Back home again for dinner and dvds.

I’ve spent ages today sorting out our car hire for Thursday / Friday as we’ve gone back to the local car club membership again suspecting we may have a few localish trips this coming year. Finally got it all organised so tomorrow will just be trying to sort the car out a bit more and then packing ready to head off on Thursday. Bonnie is coming with us on this trip due to lack of dog sitters on island and it just being a one night dash.

Not the Marti Pellow variety.

Friday morning I was Mrs Post Office. I got about halfway down to the village and it utterly poured down with rain. It was torrential, I would probably not have gotten so wet so quickly if I’d been standing in the shower! I debated running, turning back, heading for the trees and in the end just laughed and walked in it. By the time I reached the shop I was sodden right through. It was warm in the shop though and I had just about dried out by midday when it was time to head back up the hill. About half way home the exact same thing happened and I got drenched again! At least this time I could get changed. I was still not feeling brilliant so other than make pizza dough and then pizzas for dinner I mostly sat on the sofa and crocheted.

Davies and Scarlett headed down to check for post and came back with a fair bit. Doctor Who and a pretty early night all round.

Saturday morning I was Mrs Post Office again, this time Ady had been at the castle for the morning tour (no takers) and came around to chat with me while I cashed up. Various people were in and out including a load of friends of Steve Dev Officer who was over with a huge group of friends, and had invited us down to the barbecue hut to eat with them that evening. Some of the friends were also mutual friends of other friends (it seems to be a very incestuous world all these sort of Dev Officer type posts with lots of people knowing other people I know) plus a family who we have been emailing with for nearly a year were over for a day trip. They are traveling in a converted mobile library doing WWOOFing and other volunteering and actually spent Christmas in Worthing.  They had planned to spend some time volunteering with us but their schedule didn’t pan out that way and actually neither did our volunteering opportunities. It was great to meet them though and they may come back either soonish this year or perhaps next year.

Then back to the castle for the afternoon tour which was actually just some of Steve’s friends and the family so a nice tour. While waiting for people to come I had a tinkle on  the Steinway, wish I could play the piano properly, I can only remember about three songs using both hands. It would definitely be the skill I would most like to have. (And by have I mean just be able to do, not actually have to properly learn or practice!)  Then home. We’d got all the laundry done so that was all put away and then we headed back down to the barbecue via the shop to collect some beers. We had a really nice couple of hours down there chatting with various people. Davies and Scarlett left about an hour before Ady and I but we were all home by about 11pm.

Today Ady and I finished the pig move which Ady had done most of over the course of this week. The pigs are really happy now with all the fresh grass and stuff to eat. I did some more crocheting while Ady did various stuff outside and then Steve & Mel came up with a few of their friends and assorted kids to see the animals. We fed the pigs and all the birds and chatted, I guess they were all here for about an hour and a half. There were too many of them to invite in really, plus Davies and Scarlett were having showers so we said our goodbyes to them and then came in for hair brushing and dinner cooking.

And seeing next to nothing 🙁

The flushing loo required maintenance today so poor Ady donned waterproofs and did it. It meant he didn’t come on the Sheerwater boat trip with us which was a shame but actually we saw nothing other than a couple of distant porpoises just as we left Rum.  It was a pretty rough crossing and although no one was actually ill there were a lot of very green faces aboard.

The kids and I walked down to the pier chatting about all manner of things. They mostly sat inside as they often do when it is choppy and I stayed outside. Then we walked home again via the freezer for stuff for dinner, the hall to collect milk I had left in the fridge yesterday and the postbox to send a letter off to my Granny.

When we got home it was quite windy so we had the internet on, Ady watched a film on netflix and the rest of us lazed around a bit doing various things online. Ady fed the animals, the kids went off for a walk and I got dinner started.

A bit of a non day really, but some nice time spent with Davies and Scarlett and some good chats about next stages of life stuff.

Monday – The morning utterly eludes me… At midday I set off down the hill to meet the ferry. It came in early and I would never have made it to the boat if I’d not got a lift for the last wee bit of the way from Ali & Eve. Abi, my friend from library days had already got off the boat so a big hug and kiss and welcome to Rum and she introduced me to her new partner – Gary! Gary is worthy of an exclamation mark because Abi’s previous partners were called Juliet and then Alexa… I helped them carry their stuff along to the camping cabins where they were staying, had a quick catch up on Abi’s news (went to work for East Sussex county council library service in a very high powered job, became a Buddhist, got a job at a live in Buddhist retreat in the Scottish Highlands and moved here, finished with Alexa, got together with Gary!) and her with mine (went traveling, heard about a croft on Rum applied for croft, got it, moved here, did all sorts of mad stuff for 3 years, met Ben Fogle, that sort of thing… although she knew most of it because I had not one but two leaving parties with library friends – one when we went WWOOFing and then another when we came back to Sussex before we moved here to Rum. It was the week of many leaving parties and walking in inappropriate shoes when the car broke down after I had dinner with Ali in Brighton and walked part way home, then walked into Worthing the following night for another dinner with friends. I still had the blisters on my feet when we arrived on Rum weeks later… I’d quite forgotten all that until I started typing this.) Anyway, I showed them the showers and loos and the camping cabin and then headed back into the village to the shop, walking most of the way with Ranger Trudi.

I caught up with Jinty for a while as she was heading off and wanted me to do a couple of hours of sorting out veg and working the shop. I did that and had further chats with Abi & Gary who came along for some food shopping and then headed back up to the croft. We had arranged with Stevie to do a first session of staff training and tai chi so Ady and I went back down to meet up with Stevie & Claire and the kids who were already down there. It was actually quite good fun despite Ady and I struggling to take it seriously. We finished that and then came back home to feed animals and have dinner. I had a go at a recipe for happy bread which I’d seen the day before on facebook and it turned out amazingly.

Tuesday – Ady went down to collect some cheese and some mince from the freezer for me in the morning and I spent much of the day baking for Teashop. I made brownies, ginger and oat cookies, peanut butter and choc chip cookies and then Davies helped me make the 3 different flavour flatbreads. Ady was having a mammoth tidy up in the horsebox. Davies and Scarlett went off for a wander down to the beach and back and Abi and Gary came up for a cup of tea and tour of the croft. It was pretty midgey so we didn’t linger anywhere but it was fab to show them round.

I made dinner and tried a twist on the happy bread from the night before by adding herbs to the dough and then rolling mozzarella and roasted garlic in the layers. It was delicious 🙂

Wednesday – The Last Teashop for me, well certainly for now. I was also doing Post Office so Ady came down with me and he helped Ali with the first bits of Teashop. He also hung out with me in the shop along with Ross and Jed and Ian. We had a really funny ten minutes of all gathering a food order from Steve Dev Officer which had come through, it was like Supermarket Sweep in the shop! I finished up in there and then went next door to Teashop. Because it rained all day and because it was actually quite a nice atmosphere Ady stayed too so it was a pretty relaxed day all round. We had loads of locals in too which was nice and I got to chat to Ali a bit about resigning as a director which made me feel better as I was feeling bad for not talking to her about it first.

Back home and I wrote a letter to my Granny, did various emaily things, had a shower and did some crochet. Ady cooked dinner and everyone appears to have had a fairly early night, so I may follow suit.