One word? When seven would do…

Sunday – In the morning Ady did some scything,  he is planning on getting back to an hour a day like he did last summer. Then he went to meet Big Dave as they were doing car maintenance stuff together. The Rangerover is now fine and running again 🙂 Yay, that will save us lots of time when we have big deliveries of stuff like animal feed, or in the case of this week camping beds, chairs, mini greenhouses and more.

I did some weeding of the herb spiral, which is now finished. Some of the slates I had put around the edge had grass totally grown over so I pulled that up and have placed it on top of some of the bare ground patches around the static, it might take. While I was doing that Neil, Lesley and Baby Dougal appeared so we looked at the peahens and then they came in for cups of tea, chats and to meet Kira cat. Ady and Dave came in while we were chatting and then headed across to the cabin where they were doing some painting. I walked down to the village with Neil & Lesley to check for post and then came back up to have some lunch before finishing the herb spiral.

I spent some time sitting out on the sporran in the sunshine with Kira trying to start getting her used to the outside and all the birds. That went fairly smoothly, I’m hoping to let her out from next week sometime and will carry on working towards that with small exposure steps.

Ady came back and we fed the animals, watered the polytunnel and then discovered that the broody chicken in the woodshed had hatched the first chick from the four eggs she was sitting on. The woodshed was a really bad place for her to go broody so we’d already decided to move her as soon as she hatched the chicks so we knocked up a small house with scrap wood, caught the hen and chick, gathered up the remaining eggs and put them all into the new house in the new pen. Not heard the chick at all today which does not bode well really but at least the hen has returned to the rest of the eggs.

We watched Doctor Who and had a delicious, if very late due to the chicken house making, dinner.

Today – This morning Trudi appeared with her volunteers to start digging out the old community polytunnel which is finally being relocated down to the village. Hurrah! Ady went off to help Dave with some ditch clearing, I walked down to the village to post the mis-ordered mini green house covers. An expensive mistake, that has cost me over a tenner 🙁 I got some milk and some bits from the freezer for dinner tonight and tomorrow and came back meeting Ady along the way. We had lunch and then Dave and Faye came over for a lift to the boat. We chatted to some tourists on the way down who were sitting outside the shed, another £30 taken in there today 🙂 Need to replenish stock of candles and bath fizzers.

We waved them off then collected the post from the car which included my repaired phone, hurrah and yipee! All fixed, now fitted with a new case I bought and all software upgraded too. So pleased to have it back 🙂 Ady and the kids went down to the hall as Rum Cinema was running the new Star Wars while I came home to set up my phone. They arrived back early due to technical issues – as in Trudi couldn’t get the film to project onto the big screen, so Ady and I fed the animals together, watered the polytunnel, decided on a location for the bell tent and marked it, brought in dry washing and hung out the load Ady had got washed while he was down in the village and then had a cider on the sporran before coming in to get dinner on.

Tomorrow is planned to be an entirely on the croft day – priorities this week are the fruit cage which needs the grass cutting inside and the net roof fixing back on, and getting the bell tent area set up. I know it’s only Tuesday tomorrow but this week will run away with us as we have various stuff happening at the end of the week, so it will be good to have a super productive day tomorrow.

Friday – yesterday morning started much like this morning, windy and showery. The rain did break after Popmaster though so while Ady went out to tidy out the Rangerover which we’ve been using as storage prior to Big Dave’s visit I did some more herb spiral weeding. I have some slates around the outside to create a strimming / scything edge which are completely overgrown with moss and rushes which is a long but theraputic task. Ady and I checked the bell tent for leaks (it needs fabsealing which we have ready to do but had been letting it really air as it was smelling musty after a winter in the Pajero before applying it and sealing the mustiness in). We had an early lunch and then headed down to the village. We put a wash on, collected some bits from the freezer, went around to the hall to put some pork ribs in water to start defrosting for later, collected the laundry and went to the pier. Big Dave and Faye were coming off and we were hoping for a delivery of some mini greenhouses. About six weeks ago we decided to buy a second polytunnel to move stuff like chillies, peppers and tomatoes into as I was running out of space in the one Ady built. It didn’t turn up and didn’t turn up so I chased it and finally after several emails the supplier came back to say actually there would be an additional charge for delivering it here. I then had to fight to get my money back as they wanted to wait until it had arrived back with them having told their courier to return it rather than pay the extra charge. It was just really poor communication and service and so I ordered four mini greenhouses instead thinking maybe that would be better. Those have also taken an age to get here and were finally shown as delivered on Tuesday but didn’t turn up on Wednesday or Friday. So I chased them too and it turns out they had arrived yesterday after all, in the post as actually they are not mini greenhouses at all but reinforced replacement covers. Argh! So have now tried a third time to get some from somewhere else and requested a return label for the covers. Having gone back and looked at the listing again it does say covers but it pretty misleading as it says ‘mini greenhouse reinforced cover’ which I took to mean a mini greenhouse with a reinforced cover rather than a reinforced cover for a mini greenhouse… the photo is of a whole greenhouse too rather than the competitors listing for replacement covers which clearly show the cover in a bag rather than the whole thing. Anyway, I am not bothered about arguing over the cost of sending them back and will learn the lesson to read listings really, really carefully in future.

Back home to get changed, feed the animals and then head down to the hall for monthly bring and share meal which was themed as Takeaways this time. I had planned on doing some fried rice while Ady was doing sticky spare ribs but the hall kitchen gas has run out so we called off the rice and Trudi kindly let Ady use her kitchen to make the ribs. It was another good night with nearly £50 raised for the hall, plenty of laughs and fun. Davies and Scarlett left about an hour before us, we were home just before midnight but walked home in the rain.

Saturday Ady was at work this morning so I had my usual lovely Saturday morning but with added loveliness in the shape of Kira snuggled up next to me purring. I read in bed for an hour then got up to crochet, drink tea and listen to Graham Norton on the radio. It was really rainy which made it all the nicer and both Kira and Bonnie were being affectionate (quite possibly in a competitive manner with each other but I’ll take my loving pet behaviour where I can get it!). I finished a couple of scarves which were both half done, labelled them up and later Scarlett put then in the shop. I finished a couple of crochet thistles I had been faffing with and sewed on pins to make them badges / brooches. I need to make a few more of that sort of thing and then I can put them all down in the shop too. I laughed so loudly at Graham Norton that I woke Scarlett up so she sat with me chatting until Ady got home and it was lunchtime. The weather had cheered up by then too. Ady, Scarlett and I fed the animals and then walked down to the village to collect cheese from the freezer for pizza for dinner. Really, really sadly we discovered Mrs Turkey back on our croft with Mr Turkey and no chicks 🙁 She has lost them all. We spent some time looking for even remains but found nothing. So sad. At least we know they are both fertile and she can hatch eggs, next time we will pen her and the chicks as the crows and ravens must have taken them all. Poor Ady is really sad.

Back at home I potted on some lavender which had arrived – cheap on ebay the mis-shapes that are too big or small or have started to flower which can’t be sold as standard 10cm potted herbs to supermarkets and garden centres so they sell as seconds. I watered the polytunnel and got some more sand up for Kira’s litter tray. Back in to make pizza dough.

Dinner watching BGT (guilty Saturday night Goddard Heights pleasure!) and then part 2 of the LOST pilot episode.

 

No Sheerwater for us today. Trudi went and said it was wild, they saw nothing other than an otter next to the pier and she was nearly seasick. So I’m glad we didn’t go, maybe we’ll be fairweather dolphin chasers this year.

Instead we had a productive indoor day. Lots of cat cuddling and Kira & Bonnie integration. Bonnie appears to have decided Kira is not so bad given she comes with a bowl of cat food. Kira is still mostly curious (classic cat trait 😉 ) but wary. She still legs it into our bedroom given half a chance but we’ll not let her in there again until she stops doing the bolting under the bed thing.

I tidied up two areas which were cluttered and bugging me – on top of Bonnie’s crate and a stool which had become a crap magnet. The crate top seems to have been refilled by the stool remains clear… small victories. I did the Rum newsletter and emailed it out, cleared my inbox of volunteer requests, replied to a couple of other emails and set up the bell tent on airbnb. Ady and I ordered camp beds, camping chairs, stove and cooking set and started working on what else we’ll need to set it all up. We listened to several downloaded Desert Island Discs .

Davies and Scarlett caught up on various online things – they are both watching series and eagerly await the next episode being released online of things. They both did some bedroom tidying and Scarlett found £20 in her room she didn’t even know she had, the best sort of tidying! 🙂

When Ady fed the animals he discovered a dead turkey chick 🙁 So we’re down to five. Not sure if it had been strangled or squashed but it was all tangled up in the mother turkey’s feathers still and dangling from her. Ady tried blowing into it’s beak and massaging it’s chest as it was still warm although we suspect that was body heat from the mother rather than it’s own heat. Very sad though 🙁

I made dinner – tacos and tortilla wraps which I made from scratch as none of us felt like walking down to the freezer to get a packet of wraps out. Lengthy and as I don’t eat them anyway not rewarding in any sort of selfish manner but clean plates all round made it worthwhile. We watched the first episode of Lost which we’ve been telling D&S about for ages and felt was an essential part of their ongoing popular culture education 😉

A quiet morning – I was rudely awoken by Ady sitting quite heavily on my legs trying to get phone signal to ring the CoOp to pay for our shopping. Not the nicest way to be roused.

After Popmaster we went down to meet the boat to collect said CoOp shopping. The mini greenhouses I am waiting for and had hoped would come today did not so everything crossed for them for Friday. I am desperate to move the tomatoes into another space in the polytunnel. Back home for lunch and an animal programme for Scarlett and I as she’d been asking for a few days. Then down to Fliss’ for Crafternoon. A nice couple of hours chatting and crocheting down there with Ali, Fliss and Debs before walking back home again.

I watered the polytunnel and had taken down some thinned out tomato plants for Ali who had come up while I was doing the thinning and begged the ones I would have chucked out as she had not sown any yet. The thinned ones are all doing well, as are the herbs which are all ready to be planted out once I finish weeding the herb spiral ready for them…maybe tomorrow. I checked over the raised beds which are all seeming fine, I might give some feed to some of the crops, the broccoli has gone to flower which is not a great sign.

Bonnie and Kira continue to coexist ok, Bonnie is more chilled out about Kira being here although she is wary she no longer appears terrified! Kira is using the litter tray just fine and seems pretty settled. The advice is two weeks inside or until she seems to be relaxed so we’ll just see how that goes.

Scarlett had a shower so it was hairbrushing duty for me. Tomorrow would be sheerwater boat trip but weather is looking very wet so we won’t bother if that is the case. Instead a mammoth tidy up session in the caravan is scheduled if it’s an indoor day.

Thursday – Continued glorious weather. We went off on the Sheerwater boat trip, our first of the year although I think the third of the season so far, we’d just not bothered as the weather had been pants. It was gorgeous, sunny, still, blue skies etc. We went off with our rucksack packed full, suncream applied, sunhats and sunglasses etc but without any real high hopes of seeing much with it so early in the season.

The outward trip was justifiable of our expectations without even a seabird in sight but as soon as we left Soay to head back to Rum it all got very exciting. There were at least two, probably four minke whales, porpoises aplenty, kittiwakes and shearwaters, gulls and gannets and the friendliest bonxie (great skua) we’ve ever met. At various points there was something happening in every single direction you looked in. We chased the whales for a while, the bonxie chased us and it was just heavenly.

Back on dry land we came home, watered the polytunnel, fed the animals and I made pizza dough then we headed down to the shop with Birthday Brownies. A good turn out of folk to celebrate Ady’s birthday with him and plenty of beers bought for him. Davies and Scarlett headed back up a little ahead of us and I think we got home around 930pm.  I made pizza and that was Ady’s birthday celebration really. I went to bed around 1am and Davies and Scarlett were both up and wide awake making birthday cards. Sign of the times…!

Friday – A slightly strange day really – I was off at 4pm on the boat which always means the day is spent in expectant limbo. I packed and Ady and I walked down to the shop to pick up various things Ady needed for later in the day for dinner, back home for lunch and I said goodbye to the kids and Ady and I went down to meet the first boat which had a butchers order coming off for us on. We put that away and then hung around the village until it was time for the second boat. Mike & Deb were on it along with Colin, a long term contractor who is over at least once a month and is always very friendly so we all sat together and Colin bought us all cups of tea and kitkats 🙂 Mike and Deb offered me a lift to Alison’s so after a quick dash into the CoOp we set off. Unfortunately my message to Alison had not got through and Leon had been along to the station to pick me up so we all arrived at the same time. Mike & Deb headed off and I settled in to Durbin-world, the land which Alison and Leon inhabit which is all very slowed down and low key, which despite four years on Rum I still struggle with a little.

A nice meal was already ready (hours and hours before Goddard o’clock obviously!) after which Leon drifted off, the girls went to bed, Alison, Phil (the barefoot beekeeper dude who was leading the course and staying with Alison too) and I had a few drinks before calling it a night. Jenna had very kindly given up her bedroom to me for my stay so I slept pretty well although after the first night I kept the black out blinds open at night – it really freaks me out to wake in complete darkness and try and adjust, I am much better waking in daylight with the sun even if it means waking earlier in the morning and struggling to get back to sleep if you rouse at some ungodly summer daylight hour.

Saturday – Alison made breakfast for people, I just had tea and we headed off to the village hall for the course. It was a really good day with lots of interesting people – about half very local, about half having travelled, some from Inverness and the Black Isle, some up from Glasgow / Edinburgh and me across from Rum. An interesting mix of interesting people and personalities. Lots of chance to chat and get to know others on the course too which is always good. We finished around 5pm and headed back to the house. Alison had put forward the idea of going out for the evening to a local pub for some music – I actually know the people who were playing and it would have been good but everyone was a bit tired (which is the natural state of being at their house!) so once we’d had dinner we decided against it. We did instead decide at around 10pm to start constructing Alison’s new bee hive! So that slightly gin fuelled adventure was embarked upon. I went to bed around midnight and left them to it. I’d had some long and interesting chats with Phil  during the course of the evening but was ready for my book and bed,

Sunday – I was up way before anyone else – Leon had been off on a weekend overnight course doing island survival bushcraft with a group up from Glasgow for the weekend and he is usually the earliest riser. Phil got up shortly after me, then Alison and the girls. We had logistical issues getting all of us plus dog and beehive to the course venue so Alison took Phil and the beehive while the girls and I got ready to go in a second run – the hall is only five minutes from their house. The second day of the course was just as good and offered plenty more chatting opportunities with people. I do love going on learning adventures like that, you really bond with the other attendees and everyone always leaves so enthused regardless of what you’re learning, our cob course was just the same. After the course I drove me, the hive, the girls and the dog back leaving Alison and Phil doing the final tidy up. Leon was already home so he went back to collect them and I unloaded and put away then reloaded the dishwasher, tidied up the kitchen a bit and then did some crocheting waiting for them to come back. The idea to go to the pub for dinner was put forward and voted as a very good one by everyone so we drove the five miles ish to the nearest pub for dinner which was a real treat 🙂

Back at the house Leon went off to bed as did the girls while Alison, Phil and I chatted for a while over some wine. Then I left them to it and went off to bed, I was really, really looking forward to getting home.

Monday – I got the school bus with Jenna into Mallaig which got me in about 830am. I did a modest CoOp shop, small enough to cram into my rucksack and then went across to the Calmac office. When the tea kiosk opened opposite just after 9am I went and got a cup of tea while looking out for my assignation. Sure enough around 930am a van pulled up with Animal Rescue Centre painted on the side and I dashed out to meet them. Fiona and her husband John, plus a pair of peahens for Ady and a little black cat for me!!! This was all rather last minute and I had not really believed it would all happen until it actually did. The added surprise being that Fiona grew up on Rum! Much chatting with them for 20 minutes or so before saying goodbye, leaving the peahens to be loaded onto the car deck and collecting my bags to walk on to the boat with the cat.

I settled myself at a table in the cafe bit as upstairs was totally full and had started chatting to the people at the next table who were heading to Eigg but had been to Rum last year and on a castle tour led by Ady when Niall the farrier got on. So he and I sat and gossiped and drank tea for the entire trip which was lovely, he is such a nice bloke. He helped me off with the peahens and Ady met us to load them all into the car. Davies and Scarlett were off playing with their mates who were over for the weekend (Claire’s new partner Dan has teenage girls who he has on alternate weekends and part school holidays. They get on really well with Davies and Scarlett and spent loads of time with them when they are over visiting . But they all came to meet the boat for hello-I-missed-you cuddles before heading back off again. Ady and I bought cats, peahens and stuff up to the croft and had some lunch before going back to collect the rest from the car. D&S returned having waved their mates off on the second boat.

Bonnie and the cat had their first meeting which went fine. So far they are mostly just scared of each other, the cat is more curious than Bonnie is but there is no aggression and I am confident it will pan out ok over the next few weeks before we let the cat outside.

It was fantastic to be home, I had missed everyone so much.

Today – we decided to come up with a name for the cat. She came called Piper which we decided we would keep if she responded to it, but she does not so we wanted to call her something which meant something to us. We came up with a long list of about 10 names and all chose our top three, any with more than one vote went through and we all chose our favourite from that. That left us with two votes for Kira and two votes for Jinx. As her official human I got casting vote so Kira she is. Ciara is gaelic for ‘wee dark one’ but pronounced kee-ra so we have gone for the phonetic spelling and named her Kira Cat.

It rained pretty much solidly all day long so nothing much got done other than hanging out with the cat, crochet, listening to radio downloads and Ady tidied out a kitchen cupboard. At 5pm it cleared up so I walked down to the village to the shop and freezer before coming home to get dinner sorted. I had a shower and called my parents with my cat news.

I’m being quiet about it on facebook as the woman who I got the cats from last year is my facebook friend and I have never been able to bring myself to explain that we never saw them again after they escaped so I always say they are out and about on the croft but never come in the caravan. I actually don’t think she’d mind but it feels a bit insensitive to be all thrilled about a new cat somehow.

A lovely two days of no village intrusions on Monday and Tuesday… well until 5pm on Tuesday anyway.

I’ve been weeding and sowing and potting on and planting out in the sunshine, singing along to music and just enjoying life, sold nearly £50 worth of stuff from the shop including the first midge. Scarlett’s been playing in the river, Davies has had loads of solar and wind power so been busy online and Ady has been pottering Ady style. We got the bell tent up and decided we will try and rent it out, maybe on airb&b, so we’re working out what we need to do to set that up. For now though it is pitched and looking really lovely near the caravan 🙂

Tuesday afternoon brought Mike up with tales of woe from the village and then Ali with a bottle of fizz and some beers to celebrate Jim finally having his heart op. Jim is Ali’s FIL – Sean’s Dad and one of the various ‘Rum parents’ who is well known to everyone here by virtue of spending lots of time here on the island over the years. We were nearly at the end of the bottle sitting outside in the sunshine when Sean sent her a heart stopping text saying ‘need to talk’. They finally got through to each other and it was bad news, there had been complications and Jim was back in surgery and looking bleak. After debate we opened a second bottle and talked lots. Ali stayed for dinner and finally left about 10pm. Very, very sadly she messaged me in the early hours of this morning to say that Jim had passed away at 130am 🙁

So this morning I went down to be with Ali for a couple of hours. They are all in shock and not really sure where to start making arrangements. It appears there may be some issues to do with the surgeon and maybe an inquest, all of which is just even sadder really. Eve, Sean and Ali’s 7yo was with Sean but Ali’s parents have now collected her and are bringing her home to Rum next week, Sean will stay with his mum and Ali is now covering Sean as full time deer researcher as it is calving season.  All just sad and a reminder to us all of how fragile life is and how very far away from everything we are here.

Ali and I went to the boat and I came home with Ady – we had animal feed and CoOp shopping off the boat and Ali had decided to head off to Kilmory for some headspace. We came home for lunch and then all four went down with a wheelbarrow each to unload the car – two trips for everyone, I think it nearly killed Davies! We also popped to the village for milk, cheese and to collect the post so saw a few people and were re-immersed in the village life once more.

Back up here I did a bit more stuff in the polytunnel, I’ve now been ruthless with the tomatoes and potted them all on and discarded the small ones, which to salve my conscience about just killing the tiny seedlings Ali is taking as she has not sown any tomatoes yet. I still have a couple of raised beds to weed and some more stuff to plant out and the herb spiral needs weeding, netting and the herbs planting out but I suspect that job will roll over into next week now.

Back in the caravan I made dinner – quiche, new potatoes and salad so lots of faffing with pastry making and I decided to make the birthday brownies tonight too while the oven was on along with a batch of mini quiches to take on the Sheerwater trip tomorrow for lunch. I am off on Friday which is Ady’s actual birthday so we’re doing birthday brownies at the shop tomorrow evening instead.

Because that one rambled quite a way from today!

I woke with Ady and he made me a cup of tea but I read for a while with the intention of getting up and then fell back to sleep.

I got up for a cup of tea with Ady when he came in for a teabreak and then went down to the walled garden. Ady was doing stuff with power – fixing up a solar panel to charge the pig battery and doing stuff to the wind turbines to have them both working – one into the caravan and the other to charge up a spare pig battery.

I cut up the pipe which arrived on Friday into hoops to make netting tunnels over the raised beds. I part weeded one of the raised beds, watered the polytunnel and got some peas out ready to plant on. Lesley was walking along the nature trail so I chatted to her for about half an hour. D&S walked down to the village to collect the post, I came up for lunch which Ady had made and we ate out on the sporran.

Then back to the raised beds for me to plant out peas, cabbage and broccoli. I battled with netting and did a little bit more weeding.  I am waiting for a mini polytunnel to arrive to put the tomatoes, chilli and peppers into so I can do some more sowing as I have run out of room really. I have a load of stuff to tidy / sort through which Ady has moved across from dismantling an old shed so that is my next job.

I came up for a glass of wine on the sporran at 7pm just as it was getting midgey. Ady had got dinner on already and it was smelling divine. I had a shower and repainted my nails (all chipped and scuffed from the weeding!) and we watched BGT from last night followed by Doctor Who with and after dinner.

First midges this evening, not biting but definitely there. Tomorrow is supposed to be good weather again  so more outsideness on the cards 🙂

It occurs to me that this blog is no longer really very bloggy. It’s sort of not about HE and not about the kids and not very regularly kept… Given how very secret and select the audience I could probably use it a bit more for more diary style stuff, I’m not even sure who actually even reads it any more – apart from Michelle 😉

So on that basis, where are we at?

Davies – aside from the odd moment of fleeting teendom, perhaps a five second glimpse of it once a month he remains the same person he has always been. He has gotten more private over the years and is definitely still the deep one of the family but seems happy and well adjusted and fine. He does have his moments of taking himself off for a walk, I watched him from afar last weekend in a group and he took some time out every so often to adjust. I do think this is a genuine dealing with his own shit type thing rather than an attention  seeking heading off to get people to follow him. I am not entirely convinced that Rum and our remote lifestyle are great for Davies but he insists he is happy with this. He does have a very wide social circle online and having chatted to other parents of teens back on the mainland / in school / in more conventional settings it would seem that a huge amount of teen socialising is done online regardless of physical proximity to real people anyway so I don’t especially feel he is missing out there. I am always impressed with his being so comfortable in his own skin, he is confident and happy with who he is. I love his sense of fairness and intolerance for racism, sexism, or other isms 😉 We very much let Davies do his thing from time he gets up to what he eats. Very rarely I will lay down the law on things – an example being not accepting him not talking to me if I have pissed him off over something, which always upsets him still, he hates being in trouble. Davies has a real sense of integrity and wi. sll often call Ady or I on something if he thinks we are wrong which I am really proud of. I love that he won’t choose an easy path just because it is easy, I hope he retains that sense of honour. I occasionally have  a rant at both the kids about wasting opportunities and how so many (if not all) of their peers are at school or college or doing exams and they are largely drifting but in the main I am pretty comfortable with that. I am still really confident that our approach is the right one for us and will pan out for the best. Davies is very tactile still with me and I get hugs, strokes, ‘love you’s and other affection countless times every day. It would be really easy to demonise Davies as the least productive, least helpful and least active member of the family but the reality is that he is a quiet calm presence who very much has his place in our dynamic and it is his role as observer, teller of truths and subtle humour which makes him as valuable as any one of the rest of us despite never putting the kettle on or doing the washing up without very direct requests.

Scarlett – remains very young for her age. On the day I learnt that her same age cousin has been self harming Scarlett had spent the afternoon stood in the river catching fish. She does take herself off for alone time moments and is certainly not above having a hormonal rant and days when nothing I can do it right but she is capable, responsible and intuitive. She still flatly refuses to read, despite knowing it would please and relieve Ady and in some ways I am celebratory of that. Secretly I think she can more or less read and is happier clinging on to childhood that letting that final bit of dependence on grown ups melt away. Scarlett still craves attention and would probably have been better with another couple of years or normality before our adventures in some ways as she’s not yet finished playing with toys, pretending and imagining and being a child. As with Davies she is also very happy in her skin, I do firmly believe that this is the greatest gift we have given our children – a confidence to be themselves, able to accept what they can’t do, happy to learn and continue to strive for what they want, making no excuses for what they are not. I love how Scarlett is so totally and utterly herself and so free from inhibitions and the need to conform.

The kids are very much in  a bubble here. A home ed bubble where there is no pressure on them to learn anything, to be tested or measured, or do practise papers or know where they are at compared to anyone else. A real world bubble where they are not living in a world with bills, traffic, working parents or any of the things which pretty much everyone else they know exist within. I have no real idea whether this is sheltering them from things they would be better off being part of or whether this is some sort of eden where they get to grow up without all of that to distract them and can view it from a distance and dip in and out as they see fit, knowing that the’ real world’ is merely one option among various choices and that entering it is fine and has many positives but also comes at a cost. The best we can do it to ensure they are aware of the whole world and all the possibilities offered by all the various choices.

We continue to talk and debate about options for the four of us moving forward and both Davies and Scarlett are very aware of the failings and downsides to this way of life. For now they both want to continue with this reality even though the compromises they make between the perfect life they may wish for (wifi, power, cinema, friends, junk food… the usual teenage trappings) and quite what this life offers are becoming more apparent.

Can’t at all recall what happened last Thursday or Friday. There would have been Crafternooning no doubt, pizzas undoubtedly but over and above that I simply do not recall.

So I will skip ahead to Saturday instead. We were up at a most unGoddardly hour to drop Bonnie dog off at Sean and Ali’s and be at the pier ready for the 850am boat. I will reiterate that once more incase you missed it. A boat BEFORE 9am. This is still the middle of the night usually for Davies, the early hours for Scarlett and pretty darn early for me too. So we were not entirely sunny and cheery ;). Ady and I left the kids to their devices, safely installed in the seats next to the plug sockets and had tea and toast in the cafe on the boat. Pre-Canna we chatted to Martin a bit – he is a bloke who used to come to Rum lots as a volunteer bird surveyor, doing stuff with the eagles and shearwaters but fell out with SNH so no longer comes. Between Canna and Muck we mostly listened to ill informed people talking with authority about things they knew nothing about and getting them wrong as we sailed past the back of Rum which is always entertaining. Between Muck and Eigg we talked about Eigg. After Eigg we chatted at length to some tourists who had been on Eigg for a few nights about island life. Most amused when they told us we should go on that show, the one with the nice man, what was his name? Oh yes Ben Fogle… We later saw them again in Mallaig – they had managed to lose a holdall and speculation was that it had been sent off all around the second tour of the islands on the ferry again. Between Eigg and Mallaig we mostly ate chips and got ready to get off.

We collected the car, popped into the CoOp for some supplies and headed off to Alison and Leon’s. We were going to Leon’s 50th birthday party which was sort of an all weekend affair given they had lots of people staying over but the official party was on the Saturday. Lots of food, drink, music and chatting. It was very lovely but was also the most middle class event I think I have ever been to. There was an actual, non ironic crisis when the balsamic vinegar was found to have run out, there was lots of Kumbaya style guitar strumming, token folk with dreadlocks and even someone called Caspian. I suspect we were the token ‘meet our crazy friends’ contingent and this was confirmed when someone actually said to me ‘Oh you’re Nic! I’ve heard about you’. In the afternoon I seemed to spend a lot of time chatting about Home Education, in the evening a lot of time being generally silly having found a couple of people to be sarcastic with and the following day a lot of time talking about crofting and island life. It was a nice weekend though, the kids had a ball with a gaggle of other teens, Ady had lots of opportunities to tidy and be helpful and I spent lots of time chatting and making crochet midges.

On Monday we headed away, leaving rather later than planned as a local teen had been desperate to come over and hang out with D&S again before we left so we delayed leaving for another couple of hours. We got to Fort William and stopped at Morrisons for some food for lunch, went round Lidl for various bits and then back into Morrisons for microwave food for dinner before heading along to the camping pods just south of Fort William. We overshot the village by about 10 miles somehow, I think we were distracted by the bike track for the six day trials plus Scarlett was in the front as she gets really carsick so I was struggling to navigate / watch out for landmarks from the back. We realised and turned back but it added a good half an hour on to our driving time. We arrived and Corrine  was just home herself. Excellent to see her again – we stayed there the night before we moved to Rum, complete with Pajero, everything in the horse box and tiny puppy Bonnie having just collected her.

We had showers, cooked our microwave food and had a fairly early night after a couple of very late ones. The camping pods are really comfy, warm and cosy, loads of room for all four of us and we were all so tired we slept really well. I woke up at about 430am and dashed across to the byre for a wee but got straight back to sleep when I came back.

Tuesday – Ady and I headed into Fort William first thing for Ady’s X ray – the reason for staying off extra nights. The actual x ray was super quick but we had to wait for the cash office to open to claim back expenses so had a quick look around the charity shops in FW while we waited. We got the ferry and mileage costs for Ady reimbursed and then went back to collect the kids. Off to Oban which we last visited about 3 years ago and I think was one of our first trips off Rum after we arrived. Which probably explains why we remembered it as better than it actually is 😉 We wandered round the charity shops, looked in book shops and watched the boats coming and going. We went to find the CoOp we had been in last time but could only find Tesco. Davies managed to get some of the clothes he was desperate for in there and when I chatted to the cashier she confirmed that CoOp had been there and had closed down two years ago. We got food for lunch and to take in the cinema and then drove back and managed to park right outside.

We went in to the smallest screen room ever, just 20 seats, like being in someones’s lounge, although once the film started you forgot how small it all was. The film was great, really enjoyed it and the cinema experience, it’s high on all our lists of things we miss about the mainland. Back to Tesco for stuff for dinner and then back to the camping pods. I chatted to Corrine again for ages and ages. Her son lives in the same road as my Mum & Dad in Worthing and she has always been a big fan of ours and what we are doing compared to the lifestyle her kids and grandkids are leading. We packed most stuff up and for me at least it was another early night.

Wednesday -the weather forecast had been dire for days and we were not at all sure we’d get home as ferries were on amber alert. We’d booked accommodation in FW just incase but had decided to take the car back and catch the train back to FW if the ferry didn’t run as we didn’t need the car for anything and the return train fare would be much cheaper than two more days car hire. We parked the car up and put the keys back in the safe, did a last minute fruit and veg shop at the CoOp and cancelled the accommodation having been assured the ferry would run to Rum but nowhere else.

It was a choppy crossing but not too dreadful – Scarlett who suffers most with travel sickness slept through it and was ok. It was pissing with rain and pretty bleak when we arrived home which is never a nice welcome back but there were friendly faces to greet us and offers of cups of tea if we wanted to put off going back up the hill in the rain. We didn’t take Fliss up on the offer but it was nice to have made. We drove round to Sean and Ali’s to collect Bonnie and her crate and then home. We managed to get everything in two wheelbarrows and didn’t even get too wet walking up the hill. We unpacked everything, had lunch and made the most of the wind turbine action. I rang my parents for a long overdue catch up chat.

Thursday morning was much the same. I cleared all my backlog of emails and was very productive online. In the afternoon I went to Fliss’ for Crafternoon and met up with Ali, Debs and Fliss. Lots of general chit chat, caught up with Lesley on the way home. Ady rang a contact for possibly getting peacocks. I had also asked about possible black female cats (it’s an animal rescue place Corrine had told me about) and got an email back saying they had a 2 year old black female cat if we were interested. It turned out to be the cat Scarlett and I had been looking at a photo of in a shop window in Oban and cooing over. We had no idea if it would be at all feasible to organise but it turns out the husband of the volunteer loves driving and was happy to drive to Mallaig to meet me, so we’ve organised it! I am beyond excited at this, I have missed having a cat sooo much and have tried twice before – once with the kitten when we first arrived here and again with the feral cats who did a runner (and still get periodically spotted on the island!) but this feels right – a black girl cat who is friendly and desperate for a home after her owner died. Mrs Broody Chicken hatched two chicks!

Friday – In the morning I walked down to the post office to send off my broken phone which is supposed to be being fixed. No idea if it will end up costing me or not but I have sent it off as requested. Ady was building a run for the hen and her chicks – a third had hatched. I helped move that over the chicken house for them and the kids were both up so we all had lunch. We had been planning to go to the boat but there were technical issues and the boat was coming in very late. The kids had showers and I brushed Scarlett’s hair, then Ady and I went down to the village. We collected the post, a delivery of wheelbarrow and hosepipe to male hoops over the raised beds to put netting on, dropped off some eggs to Jinty who has some broody hens but no cockerel to fertilise their eggs, chatted for ages to Lesley, Ali and Ross who were knocking about in the village and then came home for pizza. We watched a film – Now You See Me which was pretty good although I fell asleep before the end so the others had to tell me what had happened this morning.

Today – Ady was working this morning so I enjoyed my usual Saturday morning of lots of tea, Graham Norton on the radio and crocheting before the kids get up. Two of the pigs were out so Scarlett and I rounded them up. Ady came home with clean laundry so I sorted and folded that, we had lunch and he did some pig fence maintenance while I fixed some hooks in the shed to hang scarves from and put a mirror up in the there. We walked down to the car to put together the wheelbarrow and then walked down to the village as Ady had bought milk but left it in the hostel. We fed the animals and came in. Ady cooked dinner and we watched the first few episodes of Yonderland which was very funny.

Ali resigned from the IRCT board a couple of weeks ago so last week she asked me if I was up for doing something together today while the board meeting was happening. Her resignation was not a happy or amicable one and she was feeling she wanted to be distracted and also to do something nice instead. So we decided to go to Canna for lunch. Wednesday summer ferry timetable means you can get to Canna for two hours. We’ve done it a few times but always on the way to the mainland rather than just for the heck of going to Canna.

We confirmed after looking at the weather forecast yesterday and met at the pier this morning. The boat was a tiny bit choppy but we drank tea and chatted and talked to Gena who is the catering manager on board the boat for a while too. Then we walked along to the Canna cafe, being first off the boat and knowing the way meant we beat the rush. We had paninis and a glass of wine. It was gorgeous sunshine and so we sat with our sunglasses on, looking across at Rum, drinking our wine, watching a sea eagle soaring and generally feeling quite decadent and indulgent. So we had a second glass of wine!

We popped in the wee community shop and chatted to Stuart there for a while about fish farms and community stuff before heading back to the ferry. Ali spotted wee bottles of prosecco at the counter so we had one of those each and then a cup of tea while chatting to Gena some more on the way back. We walked along to Fliss’ for a catch up chat with her to find out how the meeting had gone, then all walked round to the shop together. I collected the post, talked to Derek, then talked to Lesley and finally headed for home.

Ady had been busy chopping wood and generally tidying up stuff for the day.

My phone shattered last night – I cracked the touchscreen about a month ago and last night the whole back (which was glass) just suddenly shattered into thousands of tiny pieces. I’ve been reading online that it appears to be quite common, they seem to get too hot and then break, wonder if they are somehow pressurised to keep them waterproof and they then can’t cope with the running system making them too hot. I have emailed them to see if it can be sorted but don’t really expect much, so I have put the sim card in my previous phone which I had passed on to Scarlett but she has never used. It took ages setting it back up again with everything and it’s only half done now but at least I have a working phone while I wait to hear if they will sort it, or consider trying to replace the screen and back panel myself.

Friday – morning we fixed a couple of raised beds which I had cobbled together with reclaimed nails and done a pretty shoddy job of a couple of years ago. They had never actually been filled with soil or used and had fallen apart. So Ady came down with the drill and lots of screws and made them all sturdy and fixed. We decided that we will fill the raised beds with soil from where the pigs have been. It will be a hard task digging it up and barrowing it across so may well make it onto the volunteer list of things we all get stuck into doing 2 barrows each as a team.

We had lunch and then went down to the boat as we had some food shopping coming from the CoOp and to get some sausages out of the freezer ready for the community meal. Back home for a bit more work outside, I did some weeding and watered the polytunnel, then a shower before heading down to the village. We had a smaller turn out but still a good percentage of the community for the meal – which had a Childhood Favourites theme. We took sausages and baked beans, others brought macaroni cheese, jelly, arctic roll, roasted veg, corned beef hash and lashings of ketchup. In honour of the event Jinty and I split a can of cider and a can of lager and had a pint of snakebite and black each 🙂 I then went on to alcoholic ginger beer alcopops stylee 🙂

It was a good night and plenty of being raucous and laughing lots. We wrapped it up earlyish though and were home for midnight.

Saturday – early start as Mairi was coming off the first boat which gets in before 9am. We met her from the boat, then dropped Ady and the car off at the hostel to work while Mairi and I walked back to the croft. We saw outside drinking copious cups of tea and catching up until Ady came home at lunchtime. More sitting in the sunshine and chatting and Ali & Eve came up for a couple of hours in the evening. A really nice evening with Ady cooking a lovely curry and many bottles of fizz being emptied.

Sunday – Mostly more of the same really, sitting on the sporran in the sunshine chatting. We had sausages cooked on the barbecue for late lunch which was delicious and a couple of glasses of wine to wash it down with. Then we walked down to the village to collect some bits from the shop before heading round to the castle to meet up with various islanders to sneak into the castle flat for a surprise birthday party for Doug. Much shushing and muffled giggles had us all installed in the lounge while Doug was in the shower ready to yell SURPRISE! when he came out. It was a really lovely evening with lots of nice food, more fizz and good company. I think Doug was a little overwhelmed but I imagine it will be a birthday he remembers forever. Home for a cup of tea before bed.

Monday – A lazy morning before taking Mairi down to the boat and waving her off. She really is the easiest guest 🙂 Fab to see her and have such amazing weather for the weekend too. We collected some amazon shopping from the village, wheelbarrowed it home and had lunch. The weather had totally changed so it was an indoors afternoon. Doctor Who, pasta bake for dinner and a fairly early night.

Today – like most of the UK we have had crazy weather today – snow all morning but t shirt worthy sunshine all afternoon. I made the most of the wind turbine this morning by getting lots of online stuff done, this afternoon I have mostly crocheted and listened to various Radio 4 downloads – about meat eating, about the Green Children of Wolfpit, about Pitcairn. All really interesting stuff, very thought provoking. I watered the polytunnel and more seeds have germinated that I planted last week.

 

Saturday – Ady worked in the morning. I did midge making stuff and when Scarlett got up her and I made bath bombs. It was one of those evolved as it went along type projects with us initially planning green and blue swirls in star shaped moulds to be sea themed. Except the silicone moulds don’t work for bath bombs as you need to really, really compact the mixture to make them and the silicone just kept bulging out rather than holding it’s shape. So we looked for something different to use as a  mould and came up with some tiny containers we’d got gravy in at KFC when we were staying in Glasgow over new year for Ady’s hospital. I had washed them up and brought them home insisting they would be useful for something, much to everyone else’s scorn. I really hate the amount of waste and packaging we create when we go off island and these just seemed so wasteful to use once then chuck into the already overflowing bin in the Travelodge plus they had lids and were sturdy plastic so they have sat in the drawer all these months. Scarlett used one and we decided it looked like a (green) sandcastle. So we added a load of yellow colouring until the mix was yellow, found some cocktail sticks to make flags with some stickers and created a whole load of sandcastle shaped fizzers. I made the flags and packed them all up and made a sign for them too.

Sunday – I put the fizzers and the sign up in the shop, along with the first few midges which I had finished. Then I spent some time in the walled garden and polytunnel planting, sowing and potting on stuff. In the afternoon Lesley came up, in theory just for a few hours and coffee, but actually by 4pm Ady had opened the first bottle of wine and she ended up staying for dinner and two further bottles of wine, leaving around midnight. We had a lovely afternoon and evening though, it was so nice to catch up properly having not seen each other for weeks.

Monday – I was rather woolly of head as a result but got up and packed. We had lunch and then Ady took Scarlett and I down to the boat, Davies stayed home to manage the power as we had wind and solar producing loads. In the shop we were thrilled to see our first big sale of the year including a scarf and one of the newly put out fizzers :). The boat crossing was pretty choppy, with some quite annoying little kids on there (not actually the little kids fault, more the parents who were ignoring them, telling them off or actually telling them to go and sit somewhere else as they were being annoying to them!!!) Lucy from Eigg got on at Eigg so I chatted to her for a while until she went to lie down as she does not do well with the boat. Scarlett was outside for part of the trip as she was feeling icky too. A quick CoOp stock up and then on to the train. We were staying in a hotel we’ve not stayed in before as it was the cheapest place so checked in there and then went back to Morrisons to get picnic food for dinner, then back to the room for a bath for me. There was no wifi (you could pay £5 a day but I had enough signal on my phone to check emails / facebook and Scarlett insisted she would probably rather watch TV than be on her tablet anyway and could think of better ways to spend the money like a hot chocolate!) so we watched TV and were both asleep fairly early.

Tuesday – we were up early enough to have breakfast which was included in the price. I had a small cooked breakfast, Scarlett had loads of bacon and orange juice. Then we walked along to the dentist. It was a five minute procedure to put the brace back in and that was us. We walked through the high street, checked out the charity shops, then walked along the back past some places we’d not seen before, Scarlett saw rabbits (she loves rabbits and really misses seeing them on Rum), we had a hot chocolate and walked some more, finally getting back to the hotel laden down. We chilled out for a while, then went back out to do the fruit and veg shopping and get some more picnic food for dinner. Back to the room, Scarlett had a bath, I ran across to Morrisons for reduced to clear time getting a load of 5p bread for the freezer and then I had a bath. We chatted to Ady and Davies on the phone, watched some more crap TV and I fell asleep first while Scarlett watched a show about the Caledonian Canal and then did her packing.

Wednesday – up early again, packed up and on to the train. Scarlett slept most of the train ride, I saw watching the view and reminiscing to myself about the trip 4 years earlier on the day we moved here. A quick trip into CoOp for milk and yoghurt, a dash up the hill to post Lovefilm which we’d brought off with us and forgotten about til that morning and then on to the ferry. I chatted to a couple who were off to Canna and the trip went really quick. Ady met us at the boat and we were home by midday. Davies was pleased to see us. We unpacked our rucksacks, put all the bits and pieces away we’d brought back and had lunch.

I did some planting up more seeds, Ady and I sat for ages in the sunshine drinking tea and chatting. In the evening Ady and I finally watched the Ben Fogle show properly, as we’d only watched it as it went out live back last year and had been concentrating on whether it was awful rather than watching it as a TV show. I drank fizz and we toasted four years :). Dinner of pizza and Doctor Who.

Today – more sowing and potting on for me in the morning. Ady emptied the loo and got the animal feed delivery from yesterday up on to the croft. We had lunch (outside in the sunshine) and then Ady came down with me to the village to do the laundry and bring it back up to line dry while I went to Fliss’ for crafternoon. Special guest star of Camille from Eigg who had come across on a yacht with a friend so joined us for cups of tea and catch up chats. Lovely to see her.

Back at home I watered the polytunnel while Ady fed the animals. There is a broody duck who is still coming for mealtimes and I wanted to follow back to her nest but I missed her legging it back. Maybe tomorrow…

Monday – we decided to head off on the first boat on Monday, it was a nice day for the cruise. So we dropped Bonnie off with Ali and headed to the pier. The boat was quiet but got progressively  busier as we called at Canna, then back to Rum, then on to Eigg. Train to Fort William getting us in around 730pm, which somehow does not feel quite so late in the summer when it’s still daylight. On the desk at Premier Inn were the two staff we know well so we were greeted like old friends. Ady and I nipped along to Lidl as we had a faulty jigsaw to return. Scarlett came with us to Morrisons to get food for dinner. We all ate, Ady had a bath, I had a bath, Davies had a bath, we all went to bed. Some of us were asleep rather quicker than others…

Tuesday – we had dentist at 1020am so headed off having dragged the later to sleep among our number from their beds. Ady had his second bath of the trip before the rest of us were even out of bed. Dentist was all fine for check ups. Scarlett’s brace had broken so needed to be sent off for repairs. They are all very understanding of the effort, time and cost involved in a trip to the orthodontist for us but it could not be helped so we arranged for Scarlett to go back next week to have it refitted. The good news is that is is well on track to do what it’s supposed to. This is the palate expander bit of the work. He reckons another 2 months, so hopefully on her next check up it will be on to the next stage.

We left the dentist and went into town for a look around the charity shops. We got lunch in Tescos, Scarlett got an ice cream – she was the only one who wanted one, Davies went back to the room and the rest of us followed. Ady had another bath (#3) which I had a cup of tea and then Ady and I went back out for his opticians appointment and me to hit Superdrug for nail varnish shopping. Ady’s eye test was all fine, the optician also checked over my glasses and said they are close enough to my prescription for him to be happy with them not needing changing for now as I’d forgotten to bring them when last we were off and I had my eye test.

Back to the room – Ady had another bath. We watched more crap TV and then all went out for various shopping, Lidl for olives for Fliss, herbal toothpaste for us and pretend Baileys for me. Morrisons for general shop of taco shells, reduced to clear bread and rolls and pastries for the freezer, fruit and veg for the week, Bombay mix, food colouring, Angel delight and cheap chocolate for the kids sweet stash. Scarlett chose picnic food for her dinner. Ady and Scarlett went back to the room, Davies and I went to get Davies fish and chips. I think Ady had another bath. We packed everything ready to take back and Ady and I went to the Brewers Fayre for a meal as we had a buy one get one free offer. It’s great having everyone old enough to choose their own food and be where they want to eat it. We left the kids and went for our meal, which was nice enough and pretty cheap and still a novelty to be out together in a restaurant (albeit a Brewers Fayre!) for me and Ady.

Back to the room for baths. Ady fell asleep, Davies and I watched Bullseye which I had been telling him about only the other week and was *exactly* as I had been describing. Davies also had one of his now traditional midnight forays to reception. This time he was after tea bags and clean cups. He so enjoys the late night banter with the on duty in the middle of the night reception staff 😉

Wednesday – early start which some people coped with better than others. Ady had a bath obviously. Into Morrisons for last minute supplies of  butter and mozzarella. On to the train, a super quick stop in Co Op and then on to the Calmac. Also on board were a couple from Canna so we chatted to them a bit.

So good to be home. Ali was at the boat so we arranged to collect Bonnie, I had a quick catch up chat with Neil who had come off the boat we got on to so had not seen him for over a week. Collected Bonnie and came home. We had been pretty sensible with what we’d bought so unpacking didn’t take too long. We were all feeling pretty wiped out so didn’t do much but it was good to be back.

Thursday – a gorgeous sunny day. In the morning Ady fixed the chimney while I did some weeding and planting out of peas and beans. We had lunch and the doctor arrived for Ady’s blood test. I got a lift down to the village with the doctor and Dave to go to Crafternoon. A nice couple of hours and then a quick stop at the shop for tonic water before coming home. Ady was cooking dinner so I even had time to go and plant up some more peas and beans and water the polytunnel.

Friday – Ady had a parcel to send so we needed to go to Post Office this morning. Ady was late feeding the animals as it was snowing! When he went down Bob had come quite a way up the croft so he led him the rest of the way and he is now at last in the pen with Blackie next to Barbara and the girls. This is fabulous 🙂

Down to Post Office and to get some beers for Ady for later. Back to the croft for lunch and then out to do shed stuff for Ady – making new display shelves and moving things about. He’s come up with some fab ideas and it’s looking great in there, ready and waiting for midges and bath bombs! I weeded another two raised beds. It had been my plan to do more planting out and sowing but it is very cold at night so I think I may hold fire until things are slightly less at risk of frost.

We had a cup of tea and then walked down to the village with Scarlett to collect post and get our petrol from Ali. I called in for a quick chat with her as she had big news, then home for a very late dinner indeed and Doctor Who. Ady is working in the morning. I am planning a lie in.

Thursday – The kids all headed off down to the village to hang in a gang. So good to have a gaggle of older kids here this last week or so, made me realise how much D&S miss having others to hang out with. Adding Ben to the mix was even better. I have no recollection of what I spent the morning doing at all or even what the weather was like. I was quite possibly making survival bracelets, or equally possibly doing something outside.

Ady and I walked down to the village after lunch for me to go to Crafternoon and him to put the battery of the Jeep on charge as it had struggled to start the last couple of times and we needed it reliable for the early morning Saturday ferry run to get Ben off and the Monday and Wednesday ferries next week to take us off and pick us up, all times you don’t need to be fretting about a car not starting. Crafternoon was good, nice to see Ali, I’ve actually missed her while she’s been off for a couple of weeks, she is less demanding / political company than Fliss. She was sad as her cat had died while she was off (taken off with her and put to sleep as he was very ill) so we talked about that a lot. I miss cats so much 🙁

A late night all round I think, possible even later for the teens…

Friday – The kids headed off out again, I had plans to plant out my peas but had barely started when Ali and Eve appeared so came in for a cup of tea / chat with them for an hour or so. We walked down with them as we had petrol going off on the boat so walked to the ferry to put that on as the car battery was still on charge. We helped with the shop delivery, then walked back, collected the battery, put it on the car, drove back to the village to collect the post and came home. Just as we got in it started raining and didn’t really stop for the rest of the day. So that was the end of planting out peas. Infact it actually snowed on the high peaks through the night. Grr.

Ben’s last night but I don’t think there was much of a nod to that in the time they all went to sleep… I had started to come down with the cold and I think Davies had too by then. They had all gone to the boat to wave off Poppy and Evie and exchanged addresses so they can stay in touch.

Saturday – everyone was awake but not all of us actually got up 😉 Ady was working anyway so he took Ben off to the ferry and saw him safely on, poor Ben had an epic trip with 5 hours on the boat, a couple of hours hanging round Mallaig and then a few more hours on the train south. I think it was about 12 hours after he’d left Rum that Babs texted to say he was safely with her.  Davies stayed up for a while before going back to bed, I was awake but stayed in bed reading for a bit, then got up and made soup for lunch. Scarlett got up after a bit and sat chatting to me.

Fliss and the girls came up to feed the pigs so we chatted briefly, then Ady came home. We had lunch and all decided we were feeling pretty rubbish so would not really attempt much else. I did go down and plant out the rest of the peas as they were sitting out where I had abandoned them the day before but that was plenty of exertion! I cooked dinner which felt like a huge effort and by 10pm we had all called it a day and were in bed! We had watched the final Blackadder Goes Fourth which obviously made me cry before bed too.

Sunday – The down side of going to bed at 10pm is of course waking at 530am! Ady was being really noisy with coughing and snoring due to be all blocked up so I laid there thinking evil thoughts for a while, watched the sunrise (hazy as without contacts!) and then put the light on for about 20 minutes to read until I was dozy enough to fall back to sleep. Whereupon I slept through til gone 10am and woke feeling tentatively much better.

Ady and I did walk down to the village to collect the post, which is only about 3 miles and is usually a 30 minute round trip march but took us well over and hour and felt like some sort of polar expedition! We did meet up with young David and his girlfriend Raquel so chatted to them about their recent trip to Vietnam and Thailand (beautiful but poor and they got very hassled by locals they said) and then bumped into Portia who used to live here before our time and would love to move back so chatted to her for a while too.

Back home for leftovers lunch of the dinner we didn’t really eat much of last night and listening to the radio in the sunshine. Davies got up around 3pm and pretty much his only achievement today was packing his rucksack for tomorrow. Scarlett was feeling much better so she had a shower and I brushed her hair (which was really tangled having been rained on at least 6 times this week) and she made me lots of cups of tea. Inbetween  I have been crocheting (a midge!), coughing, blowing my nose and wishing I had been more diligent with pelvic floor exercises…

Ady cooked roast chicken and we watched Doctor Who. Another generally early night as tomorrow we’re heading off for the mainland for a 48 hour dash taking in dentists, opticians and supermarket shopping!

Yesterday the kids were off out with Poppy and Evie for the day again. Ady was digging a ditch behind the static to help with drainage and I decided to do some outside stuff too. I had initially planned to plant out the asparagus and maybe the peas so started clearing the few weeds which had made it through the seaweed mulch on a couple of the raised beds. I got the asparagus planted and that bed netted over but got really fed up with slipping and sliding about in the mud between the beds as the whole area is really waterlogged and boggy, so I decided to dig a ditch down one side of the walled garden to help it drain. It was ridiculously muddy and I got filthy but I got it running, dug under the fence to join a naturally happening ditch below that area which eventually runs into the river and joined it up with the initial ditch we dug along the top of that area a couple of years ago. It now needs a few diagonal ditches to join up with that one but it should massively help. I mostly weeded another bed ready for planting out peas later in the week. I think I’ll have at least two beds for peas this year, maybe even three as they are by far our most favourite crop so well worth the space. Cabbage and broccoli is all nicely growing in the polytunnel so that will be ready to plant out next and the salad leaves are all sprouting in there too. As soon as I have got the first lot of stuff planted out I can do some more sowing. It’s pretty much time to do some outdoors sowing of various stuff too and I have some old emergency light fixtures which will be perfect mini propogators to sow stuff up with and leave outside too. I also baited the polytunnel as there is loads of rat poo in there which makes it a less than lovely place to hang out in. I’m not up for sharing that space with rodents thankyou!

Some tourists had been along and stood watching me and taking photos for ages, I was quite disappointed that they’d only bought one jar of jam!

Dinner of lasagne and an episode of warehouse 13 before bed. Both Ady and I feeling pretty worn out from all the digging.

Today – Raine Day! Poor Scarlett is suffering with a cold so she stayed home while Ady, Davies and I went down to the pier to meet the Raines who were visiting with an additional French Raine too. Utterly, utterly fabulous to see them all, although far too brief. Ben is staying on for a few nights so we are at least not entirely Raine bereft though. Scarlett, Davies and Ben stayed home this time while the rest of us walked down to the pier to see them off and then Ady and I drove back. Rather appropriately they brought mountains of hot cross buns with them (along with various other food supplies including boxes and boxes of cereal) – the challenge now is to eat them all before Ben goes! Pizza for dinner, and I suspect for Davies and Ben at least it will be a late night.

Yesterday the kids were off away for the day with Poppy and Evie. It rained pretty much all day so I spent it almost entirely baking – I had four wholemeal loaves to make and seven pies for an order. A walking group staying in the bunkhouse who had been in touch about produce. They wanted eggs, jam, bread and pies. I had made the error of offering very specific choices so ended up with 4 different options across the 7 pies including a vegan one. I was really cross with myself having found a recipe for oil pastry and making that batch up separately to realise I had used vegetable fat based spread to make the rest of the pastry anyway having checked the tub so actually it was all vegan pastry! Six of the pies were venison which I had made the basic venison in garlic and wine gravy for last week when Mum & Dad were here and we had pie one night and frozen a batch of, so that got defrosted and the various combinations added to it while I cooked up cubed potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, onion, garlic, mushrooms all in separate pans and a tomato based veggie mix for the vegan pie with plenty of herbs. Finally having used pretty much every pan we own I had seven pies for the order and a further four for us for our dinner today, and four huge loaves of bread. And an apple pie with some leftover pastry and some apple sauce to have with dinner. I washed everything up, let it all cool sufficiently to wrap it up and I was done. It took hours – catering on the small scale simply is not cost effective like that but at least I enjoy doing it and I hope they will enjoy eating it.

Ady was in and out of the caravan between showers. We both went out to feed the animals, if only for some fresh air. My wellies are leaking at only a month old so I emailed the company I got them from and they refunded me. I am waiting for a new pair but am wearing plastic bags over my feet inside them for now until they arrive.It is not entirely effective and is creating more of a surprise ‘the bag has leaked!’ type experience rather than the more expected ‘your feet are wet as soon as you leave the caravan’ feeling I have been used to the last week or so…

Ady cooked dinner, I rang my parents and with lots of effort managed to book them a centerparcs lodge for January. Bad phone line, slightly hard of hearing parents and a general lack of patience did not all collide with glee…

Today – Davies and Scarlett were off for more teen hanging out for the day, they have certainly had a good boost of socialising this last couple of weeks. After Popmaster Ady and I walked down to the village with a wheelbarrow to take the battery from the Rangerover for a charge up and deliver all the produce to the bunkhouse. On the way we saw Jed and Derek, Ross and Dave. On the way back we saw Jed, Bad Neil and Fliss, so plenty of stopping and chatting. Back at home we had a cup of tea on the sporran and had intended to do some outdoors stuff but it started raining again so we came indoors. We ended up having a big brainstorming session about things to sell in the shed and came up with some good ideas which led to some online purchasing of various craft and other materials. I have a book on Cottage Industries which offered some inspiration and Ady looked through some preserves and edible seashore books for ideas too. A good productive ideas afternoon. It finally stopped raining so Ady went out to do some repair work on the log burner chimney which he has been planning for a dry spell when the chimney is cool for about a week but not found the right window before. I spent an hour or so working on the Friends of Rum newsletter which is long overdue and have it almost ready to go.

We walked down to the village to collect the veg, stopping for a bit of a chat with various people at the shop before coming home. Somehow we’d missed the kids who we had tentatively arranged to meet at the shop so they beat us home. Ady finished the chimney while I had a shower and got dinner on.

Ady was off to work this morning. I woke early and laid in bed reading for a while before getting up. I labelled up the midges in resin keyrings and pendants I made yesterday and a scarf I finished yesterday too ready to take down to the shed. The kids got up and we all walked down to the village together, dropping the stuff off in the shed and collecting some eggs to take to Jinty’s shop. The kids were off meeting up with Evie and Poppy and they have mostly spent the day roaming around in a posse of four, they seem to have really clicked which is great as E and P will in theory be visiting Rum fairly frequently. They live local-ish on the east coast but their Dad Dan is with Claire and it seems to be pretty serious so that’s good. Excellent to have more older kids around the place.

I called in to Ady and then walked along to the shop to drop the eggs off and buy a few bits, then back to Ady. I chatted to Fliss for a while outside the shop, nice to catch up with her. Ady and I walked back with various stuff including post from today, dinner for tonight and tomorrow, shopping and laundry and a load of out of date yoghurts from the shop for the pigs. We sat on the sporran with a cup of tea and then opened the post to find the electric fence wire had arrived so we decided to finish off the new pig pen and move Barbara, Waddles and Ben Fogle over onto fresh ground as their current pen was just a mud bath. Ady had already set up all the posts so it only took an hour or so to run the fence around and then get the three pigs into the new area. Then a further hour or two of dismantling the old house and moving that across – made all the trickier due to said mud bath. Then moving the standpipe the tap is on for all the pigs water and setting that up. B, W and BF look so happy and were playing like tiny piglets all frolicking about. It was lovely 🙂

I watered the polytunnel and fixed a small tear in the cloches over the strawberries which was going to start ripping bigger in the winds or encourage a curious chicken to go and investigate if not mended while Ady put the kettle on. Then I decided to walk back down to collect some frozen venison pie filling which I had planned to take out in the morning but changed my mind about and decided to defrost overnight so I can make the pies in the morning instead – they are for an order along with 4 loaves of bread, jam and eggs for some visitors arriving on Monday so that will be my morning’s task tomorrow. I met Davies, Scarlett, Evie and Poppy coming back so they walked back down with me and D&S walked E&P back along to the yurt while I was in the shop, then we all walked home together. I walked with Poppy for a bit, the younger girl, chatting about hair wraps and colours, dreadlocks and stuff as she had noticed Scarlett’s newly done hair wrap. She was really sweet :).

Back home I had a shower while Ady got dinner sorted and we watched some Warehouse 13 which had arrived in the post. We’ve been re-watching Blackadder too although we are already 3 episodes in to Blackadder goes forth so that won’t last much longer.

Amazing sunset tonight, the sky was so stunning, so hopefully a good day again tomorrow.

 

A whole week gone.

Friday – Calmac decided they would run just one boat to Rum so Mum & Dad did the shopping and got to Mallaig. In the end their crossing was OK and they arrived safe. Davies, Scarlett and Bonnie stayed at the croft while Ady and I collected them. It started to rain as we arrived at the fork where we park the car so Dad pretty much legged it from there while Mum walked slower and Ady and I brought up the rear with wheelbarrows. Finally all in, kettle on and deep breaths all round as it had looked as though they may not make it.

A nice first evening. I had made my usual pledge to be nice and stay calm and for once I think I pretty much achieved it for the entire duration of their trip this time.

Saturday – Ady was working in the morning. It was tipping down with rain. Ady had gone off with a list of things to get from the shop but had taken no cash and we’d semi arranged to walk down and meet him when he finished work but with the rain everyone was reluctant. So in the end I headed off down to the shop. Ady arrived just behind me so we collected the bits we needed and came home together. I made hot cross buns and lasagne for dinner.

I think that was the night that it was crazily windy, it finally stopped being mad around 3am. The days rather blur…

Sunday – It had been the plan to have venison for dinner and we’d taken out a haunch to defrost but the very cold weather meant it had not defrosted at all. I walked down to get some sausages and bacon out of the freezer and Mum came with me. Later Mum, Dad and the kids went down to the shop. They did this every evening afterwards on the ‘beer run’. It probably did all four of them good to get some fresh air, exercise and have enforced time to chat. It certainly did me good to have an hour or so each day to sing really loudly and get dinner started all by myself… Oh it was Easter Sunday too, which of course means very little here other than added chocolate. I had been to the car first thing in the morning with Dad to collect the final bag they had brought with them (containing tools and wool) and then along to meet the ferry to put diesel cans off. The changed clocks meant I was the only person on the whole island to meet the ferry, quite surreal. After the storms the night before Ady spent lots of time tidying up all the blown about the place things.

Monday – Ady worked again in the morning. Dad and I walked to the car to start bringing the animal feed delivery which I had collected from the pier the day before back. Dad insisted on carrying a sack of feed on his shoulder, Ady arrived home as I was loading up my wheelbarrow with two more. I made pie filling with some of the venison that Ady was finally able to butcher as it had now defrosted.

Tuesday – The morning was  very showery, no real windows to get outside so I mostly crocheted while chatting to Mum and Dad. I did go out and chop some wood. Later in the day we checked the long term weather forecast and Mum and Dad decided they would leave the following day.

Wednesday – the boat was not until 4pm so we had all day together. Ady made pancakes with goose eggs. Mum and Dad paid for Davies to get a new tablet as his had given up the ghost while they were here after ailing for a while. Mum, Dad and the kids walked to the pier, Ady and I drove with their luggage and an empty gas bottle we needed to bring down and we waved them all off.

Home for a cup of tea and chat out in the sunshine on the decking. Their visits always leave me somewhat empty feeling, Empty that they have gone and I do miss them but also more poignantly empty for what might have been. This was probably their best visit in that no one fell out but it was still really hard. Hard to listen to them both slagging off the other one endlessly the moment they are out of earshot, to listen to them being so very miserable in their lives, so without joy in anything. I find it hard that they come all this was because they say they miss us but actually what they mostly do is make our already challenging lives even harder – we end up sleeping on the floor and carrying even more stuff around, cooking for and clearing up after even more people. Time and time again we suggest meeting up on the mainland explaining it would be easier for them (Mum slipped down the croft hill 3 times this visit) and they spent the whole time huddled infront of the log burner insisting on it being lit for ever waking hour getting through mountains of firewood which we have to cart up the hill and chop up – and not only easier for us but also actually a treat – to have a bath, electricity and access to things like takeaways rather than doing all the cooking for six people. They always ignore the suggestion though… Ah well.

The bed that night felt like a cloud, the caravan so huge and spacious 😉

Thursday – Ady was working. I woke up early enough but stayed in bed reading for hours as I was really enjoying both the book and the novelty of a bed. The kids had arranged to go and meet up with Claire’s boyfriends daughters who are over visiting and aged 11 and 13 so they headed off. Ady and I did various bits and pieces including chopping wood, clearing out under the sofas in the lounge and sorting out all my wool into colours then re-vacuum bag packing it, rfeeding animals and chatting to Bad Neil who came up for a cup of tea and a chat. I made dinner and rang my parents who had arrived home safely.

Today – it has rained and rained and rained. And pretty much nothing else. I crocheted two scarves, made some midge keyrings and watched 4 animal documentaries with Scarlett. Both kids had showers, I brushed Scarlett’s hair and rebraided her rainbow braid which was falling out and manky – I think this version of it was at least 2 years old. I made bread and pizza dough and pizza for dinner. Ady donned waterproofs and fed the animals and walked down to collect shopping and post from the village.

And that’s me back up to date 🙂

Post Office shift for me this morning as Jinty is away for a few days. So that mostly entailed drinking tea with Neil, with brief interludes of Ross, Jed, Ian, Fliss and Sean breaking up the drinking tea with Neil. Some people have not voted at all on the marine harvest fish farm vote about which I utterly despair. Sigh. Have an opinion definitely but please make your voice heard by voting, sometimes this island and some of the people here really make me shake my head. Not feeling very tolerant just now I don’t think…

Ady came to meet me after the boat – some amazon food deliveries and some local fish from the fish seller in Mallaig – locally caught white fish mix, smoked salmon and mackerel. What we don’t manage these days in local, seasonal fruit and veg we certainly manage in local, sustainable protein – all our meat, fish and eggs is either from Rum or a very close radius supporting very small businesses. We were expecting veg but it didn’t  arrive. Billy the castle builder / renovator is back so we called round to say hello to him and collect some firewood he had for us, then home for lunch.

Bob Pig had moved quite a way from where we’d left him so we decided to try and get him on to the croft after lunch. I had a bit of a rant at the kids who galvanised themselves to action very speedily and spent time tidying up while Ady and I moved animal feed around the croft, collected the firewood from the car and brought it up the hill, stacked it under a tarp and chopped some and spent ages with Bob Pig. We didn’t get him on to the croft but he did show he is capable of getting around fairly speedily which is heartening if not good news exactly. We have decided to give him the week that Mum & Dad will be here to improve more or less fully or we will kill him. If he is unable to actually walk around and mate with Barbara then his quality of life is poor and we are not an animal sanctuary or able to sustain the food bill for unproductive animals. We WWOOFed with too many hosts who had allowed the livestock holding to get out of hand to fall into that trap. We’ll have to make a decision about Blackie too really but have some possible thoughts on that to explore further. All unwanted further stress and angst though, I am feeling utterly exhausted by everything this year 🙁

This evening everyone had showers and I brushed Scarlett’s hair, then rang my parents. Mum answered the phone crying after a four hour non moving event on the M8 and then an argument about nearly running out of petrol and having to turn back. They finally got to Fort William at about 1030pm and rang me from the bar to say they had arrived, so not a great journey for them. The boat is on amber alert for tomorrow and I suspect will not run, so further drama to come. I know that separately all of these woes are small and even in combination they are mostly insignificant but I would really like to find my optimism and ‘it’ll be fine’ persona again soon, I’ve almost forgotten what that feels like at the moment.

Yesterday was a productive day – Scarlett finished painting the sporran and kilt around the caravan – it looks really good, a dark green colour which should preserve it for years to come. Davies made the most of the wind turbine giving internet and did stuff online, Ady and I did tidying up around the caravan /croft, gathering rubbish and burning it, pulling up some of the broken pallets and chopping them up for firewood and generally sprucing things up. I watered the polytunnel and we spent some time with Bob Pig. Still not sure whether he will recover but he is doing better each day, feel sorry for Blackie who is up here on the croft without him too.

Today was less productive as the weather was showery so every time I started to think I would head outside it threatened rain again. Ady was outside getting stuff done but I was indoors chatting to Scarlett and crocheting instead. We did move an empty gas bottle halfway to the car, carry up some wood for a fence we’re planning and bring the camping mats out of the Pajero to air on the washing line ready for us to sleep on when Mum & Dad arrive though. After lunch I went down to Crafternoon – no Ali this week as she is off island so it was just Fliss, Deb and me, with the constant company of Joss as there was no Eve for her to play with. Ady came down to meet me and we all walked round to the shop together as we are voting on whether to go ahead with a fish farm off the coast of Rum and votes need to be in by tomorrow. Neil and Lesley were around so I persuaded Lesley to stop for a beer with us while Neil went off to check the power and Steve the Man and Jed came along too so a nice little sociable gathering for a beer before we came back home.

Ady had constructed a mobile shelter for Bob Pig so we carried that over and put it over him to keep the rain off then came in. Davies helped with dinner by getting the pasta on while Scarlett made a white sauce and grated cheese and I made bread dough so a collaborative effort. Some River Cottage and a couple of episodes of Warehouse 13 so we can send the disc back tomorrow as I am working at Post Office.