One word? When seven would do…

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.

Saturday – Ady was off ghillieing again in the morning although he didn’t do any dead deer collecting, they just walked the horses back to the village from Harris. I was Mrs Post Office. It was pretty quiet with my two most regular Saturday morning visitors off island – Fliss & Neil. No news yet from Neil & Lesley, due date was Saturday. Jed & Stevie kept me company and we drank tea and chatted. I’d had a letter from the tax credits saying they’d not had our return back but I’d done it online so I rang them from the post office. For the first time ever I got through pretty much straight away. The woman said that she could see an attempt to do it online had been made but it had not gone through because the website doesn’t work properly!! She did it all online and hopefully that’s all sorted out now. Then I loaded the car up with various shopping and two pallets and drove back to the croft.

I’d read a really lovely blog post from a sort of friend = Corinne, the day before. Corinne is an old uni friend of Mike the previous Rum Ranger and came to visit Rum just after we moved here. We really hit it off and she loved Davies & Scarlett – then she just had their two little boys with them, having left her older teen back with his dad. She has since got married and had two more boys, one just last week. I probably won’t do justice to the blogpost properly so go and read it  but it had stayed with me and when I parked the Rangerover I just stopped for about ten minutes and sat in the car. The sun was shining, the skies were blue, I had both front windows open and a lovely breeze was tickling my neck. I could not hear or see another soul and after what has been a fairly chaotic week it was a moment of pure bliss to sit there with no one wanting anything at all from me.  Moment over I loaded myself up (a bottle of gin, 2 bottles of soda water, a box of wine, 4 pints of milk, 2 packs of butter and 2 of Flora, 10 cans of beer, a block of cheese, a frozen chicken, a large bar of chocolate and various post. None of it essentials really ;). Lovely Scarlett saw me walking along the path and ran down the croft to meet me and take one of the bags from me, Davies met me halfway to take another bag. They asked why I’d been so long and I told them about This Moment.

We had lunch and Ady arrived home soon after. I messed about with some string art for a while and then tried to do some stuff outside like water the polytunnel and look at the strawberries but it was crazy midgey so I retreated back indoors.

Today – Ady and I walked down to the village in the morning to do a load of washing as Ady had a few blood stained clothes to get cleaned off. We chatted to Ross & Doug for a while and then went off picking some of the last raspberries while the washing was on. Back up to the croft for hanging washing out and having lunch. Scarlett has been desperate to go swimming all summer and today seemed like the best day so far so we all headed down to the peat pools just below the croft. Davies was in wetsuit, Scarlett in t shirt and pants. I semi thought about going in and latterly wished I had done but didn’t in the end. We sat for a good hour chucking crocs in the water for the kids to race to get and throw back, much hilarity! Bonnie was most bemused by the whole business, the kids were exhausted by the end of it. They went a really long way down the shallows of the river like the rapids at Centerparcs, it looked like so much fun. Home for showers for the kids and finally my hour down in the polytunnel watering, transplanting a few things, harvesting some peas and purple spouting broccoli for dinner and some lavender for baking.

Ady made dinner, I brushed Scarlett’s hair, had a shower and rang my parents to check all was well with them after the airshow crash. Mum had been at the show and said it was really awful. Brought back all the memories of us seeing a plane go down in the field behind us at the 2007 show. So, so sad 🙁

Dinner and Doctor Who, lots of emailing back and forth with an entrepreneur who has made contact with us after the Fogle show and has some interesting ideas to chat over. Not sure if anything will come of it all but exciting to talk about possibilities.

Tomorrow a friend from my library days is visiting for a couple of days, staying in the village but hopefully spending some time with us. I’m looking forward to catching up with all her life changes over the last 4 years.

Monday – TV day. Having heard we would not be getting a disc of the show in advance we, well I, spent most of the day in a state of heightened anticipation. I was worried about the general reaction, worried about what the show would actually contain and most worried that everyone else would see it and we would not.

In the morning Ady and I went down to the shop to send some post and get various bits. We had lunch and then because I had a bit of an inkling that it all might get a bit mad after the show aired we went for a walk out into the island. The idea was to get some perspective, to be able to walk far enough inland to look back at the croft and see the sum of our years here, to see it all in perspective to the rest of the island, to see how small the village really is and that what often feels like our whole world is small even by Rum standards, let alone the world. I also felt it would help to be away from phones and internet and the obsessive need to keep checking both.

It was a lovely couple of hours. We talked and laughed and teased and were just us five (Bonnie was with us obviously). We took our perspective photos, walked past a couple of visitors (one going and one coming), had a moment looking at the croft discussing whether it had all been worth it, walked in various configurations of twos, threes and fours and enjoyed just being us.

Back at the croft the kids and I gathered rucksacks and headed down to collect the veg while Ady fed the animals. Except our veg order had not been put in – Jinty found it today actually, lost in the pet food section of the shop :rolls: So all that walk down for nothing. And no veg or fruit this week. Poor children will have rickets along with no friends 😉

So home, for an early dinner ready to be sitting down at 9pm. Renegade TV had refused to send us a disc but agreed to send a link pre the show actually being aired, it came through about half eight but I didn’t check emails til just before 9pm. So we ended up watching at pretty much the same time as everyone else. We didn’t have adverts on our link but it buffered several times due to super slow internet which meant we actually finished watching around 10pm too, the same as on TV. Within 20 minutes my email had gone crazy with loads of messages from people who had found a way to email us including friends from school days. Facebook was mad with load of messages and tags and comments, about 8 friend requests and loads of messages in the others folder.  We rang my parents and then everyone else went to bed. I stupidly checked twitter after someone had mentioned the hashtag for the show and so slept badly mentally composing retorts in 140 characters to the handful of people who had said mean things.

Tuesday – woke to more emails and friend requests but ignored it all and went off to work. We were doing the final move of the SNH office but a boss from the mainland was over so it was far more efficient that usual :). Lots of chatter about the TV show as everyone had seen it and then home for lunch. I spent the afternoon baking, the kids played outside and Ady did loads of outdoors stuff to sort out the pig fence for a pig enclosure expansion we are waiting on some fence components for.  In the evening I replied to all the messages and emails and friend requests.

Wednesday – Teashop – My penultimate one and financially my best so far with over £100 taken. Woohoo! It’s not massively lucrative given the amount of hours of baking the day before and being in the teashop on the day, not to mention ingredients and gas usages at the caravan but it’s cash nonetheless. Ady went and did some work on the bridge and then went home, the kids came down to hang out in the hall. We had a mini tea party afterwards with leftover cake before heading for home. In the rain.

Our new caravan curtains had arrived so once we were dried off we took down all the old curtains, organised the pelmets and while Ady cleaned and bleached away all the mould Scarlett and I cleaned up the curtain hooks and threaded them on all the new curtains. Davies sort of helped but mostly played on his tablet. He did organise the music though, which is a pretty key role to such things ;). It all looks so much nicer and more homely now 🙂 And less moldy.

I ended up starting dinner prep while Ady fed the animals and we watched lots of Eureka. Final disc still to come and that’s us done with that series – an excellent recommendation.

Thursday – debate on whether to Sheerwater or not, there are only about 4 left I think. Stuff has been seen, a basking shark just last weekend, pods of whales and dolphins, just never on a Thursday afternoon it seems. Ah well. This week was no different although there were lots of rafting shearwaters and diving gannets which are always a delight to see, particularly when that’s all there is. Ronnie didn’t charge us either, so a free ride at least. Ady and I had been playing mechanics before and after trying to fix the terminals on the battery of the Jeep which were worn and corroded away. It’s not entirely sorted but neither did we break it irrepairably ether which felt like a victory.

Today – Adys first day of being a ghillie. He’s doing it tomorrow too and then will be again in the coming weeks. He wanted to do it if only to say he’s done it as it seems to be a bit of a Rum rite of passage. I’d have a go myself if I were not scared of the ponies. He headed off, leaving the kids and I home alone. This happens so infrequently it felt quite retro and old skool and we almost fell into old dynamics which was sort of nice if just for one day. I made some flapjacks and cheese scones and we had lunch together, then I headed off to meet the boat. When I got up the littlest piglet, Wattles, had beenout roaming and I’d woken Scarlett to help round her up but she’d gone back in to the pen by herself. She is slowly winning me over to the idea that we may not kill her for meat, which is what everyone else on Rum – and Croft 3 – is campaigning for. She does a fine line in Wilbur-ing 😉

The Jeep didnt start so I took the Rangerover and collected the meat from the ferry, dropped that off in the freezer and then went to the shop to collect animal feed from the van as it had been driven round there. I stayed and helped unload the van too and Derek & Jinty helped load the animal feed into the car for me. I drove back, across the river and unloaded it all, loaded some of the delivery of loo rolls into the Pajero and then took the car back across the river. I left two sacks of pig feed out to bring up to the feed bin next to the pigs (over 50kg in weight- a harsh barrow-load to get up the croft hill) and brought the other stuff up the hill. The kids helped put stuff away and then got the kettle on while I went to take the wheelbarrow down to load up. When I got back to the top of the hill it was to discover that Barbara Pig was now out. Argh!

The kids managed to sneak down to the pig pen and rattle the feed bin and she legged it back in. I bought the feed over and put it in the bin while they checked the fence for damage. Then back to the caravan for my cup of tea. I unwrapped the post which was new crocs for Scarlett, new wellies and trousers for Ady and some hanging shelves for the kids wardrobes. Then Barbara got out again. I was fed up by then and just wanted to make pizza dough for dinner and have my cup of tea so Scarlett, wonderful girl, went and dealt with Barbara while I did that. I love that girl 🙂 And it worked, she didn’t come out again this evening.

I spent some time organising another trip off for a check up for Davies which is on a Wednesday so annoyingly means four nights off! One of them we can stay at friends but 3 will need to be in a hotel in FW, we should get some of the costs back though.

Finally Ady came home, covered in blood and knackered but having had a really good day. So glad he enjoyed it 🙂 Pizza and Doctor Who to round off the ‘working week’.

Thursday – Ady went down before us to watch the ponies being tacked up. He is doing some ghillieing next week and Good Neil the Farrier was over so the ponies were being shod. The kids and I packed up a picnic and followed him down. We walked along to the pier with Trudi and Debs walked part way with us for a chat too.

There were high hopes for a good Sheerwater trip but to no avail. We sailed all the way around Soay but Ronnie the usual skipper was off and the skipper was not chasing anything even if it was there. On Saturday they saw a basking shark so they are out there, just not on our watch it seems. Plenty of manx shearwaters though and lots of diving gannets, a couple of porpoises doing their thing and one of our fellow passengers on board being seasick…

On the walk back we collected enough raspberries to make a single sacred jar of raspberry jam. Ady went home to feed the animals, get dinner on and give Bonnie some time outside, the kids and I went along to Sean & Ali’s for Eve’s 7th birthday party. The kids spent the time playing mostly outside. Ali is so funny, she always makes such a point of how well they all get on and is utterly oblivious to the fact that Davies and Scarlett are playing babysitters – they more or less enjoy doing so and have fun but it’s not as though they are getting their teenage social needs met by the two little girls… Fliss stayed too and we chatted to Sean & Ali and updated them on all they’d missed while they’d been away (they’d been off for two weeks, getting back the day before). They told us tales of the mainland and also having been at Kilmory meeting Dermot O’Leary and Gordon Buchanan  who were on Rum for a night filming over on the other side of the island. Various folk met them, I’d have quite liked to meet Gordon, we really enjoyed his polar bear and wolf documentaries.

Ady joined us and loads of other folk down at the shop for a very late night. Most of the village was out I think at some point but the die hards were us and The Neils, Jed, Sean and Nicola. It was a really good evening and I think we finally made it home just about by midnight having had emotional goodbyes with Good Neil and Bad Neil, who were both heading off the next day.

Friday – morning the potential new family came up at 11ish and stayed til about 130pm. They were nice and asked lots of sensible questions. They are also interested in Home Ed and we talked a lot about that. I always forget how big a part of our lives that is, it feels so much an incidental but is one of the biggest things about us (well maybe not since we moved here I guess). Ady and I had a quick something to eat and then headed off down to the pier. The boat was running a half an hour late according to Calmac but the Friday boat is often late anyway and it was actually a full hour late coming in. Fortunately our petrol came off after the walk all the way down and the wait. And it was sunny and not midgey! We waited with a father, son and son’s friend who had been here for a few days. The boys were the same age as Scarlett, attached to their phones and ranting about lack of signal and wifi – a good reminder to Ady that our simple life and unconnected from social media kids is no bad thing. Calmac left the van so we drove Jinty’s van back to the village and Jinty drove that, we helped unload the van, took Bad Neil’s chicken food along to him which had arrived and chatted for a while to folk before coming home. Jinty had had some cream doughnuts come on the delivery so we’d bought them as a Friday treat and enjoyed them with a cup of tea back at the croft with the kids.

Davies & Scarlett had emptied out their wardrobes and made piles of storage / outgrown / wearing now so I helped them fold stuff up, put stuff in vacuum bags and tidily back in their wardrobes. I also ordered some hanging shelves for them both to tidy them even more. Davies made pizza dough and then it was time to head down to the shop again, this time for Nicola’s leaving party. There were jugs of cocktails and it would have been very easy to stay longer and later (several people did!) but we were all pretty tired from the night before so headed home by 9ish for pizza and Doctor Who.

Saturday – work for both Ady & I. Post office first for me. It was fairly quiet with no Neil and not many other people in. Ady was cleaning the White House so I walked along to meet him. As he had the place entirely to himself he had taken the liberty of having a bath which seemed like such a good idea that I did the same! Luxury! It probably won’t happen again as next Saturday we’re not working and after that the work on converting it back into 2 houses should have started so it seemed like too good an opportunity to miss. Then along to the castle to do a tour. We had four people on the tour, two were constantly watching the clock and were actually quite rude and annoying, the other two were charming and really enjoyed it so we chatted to them awhile longer. Ady told them that there was a show about Rum on TV on Monday, neglecting to mention it was actually about us – will be funny if they watch it! 😀

Back home for late lunch and catch up with the kids. I did the last of the vacuum packing up my wool under the sofas and Ady cooked a lovely curry. A couple of episodes of Eureka and then a fairly early night all round.

Today – I had planned a lie in but woke just after 8 and read for an hour or so instead of sleeping later. Ady is starting to fret a tiny bit about his ghillieing so went on a long walk around the village and crofts with Bonnie. We realised that Scarlett’s duckling was missing so spent ages searching for it only to find it swimming on the river. Both lovely to see and amazing to realise we could have lost it as it is a rubbish walker so may well have struggled to get back up to the croft. Scarlett came down to help get it out and return it for some much needed food after it’s adventure.

We had lunch, I made some brownies, we ate some brownies… I did some weeding and sorting out in the polytunnel, a tiny bit of weeding in the walled garden and then had a walk all around the croft picking flowers, taking photos and stopping to sit and just enjoy the view for a while. Ady scythed the next line for extending the pig fence (now waiting for more electric fence wire to arrive, should be here within the week) and put in some posts. The kids had showers. I brushed Scarlett’s hair and we watched the first of a two parter of Doctor Who, then the second part with roast dinner.

Tuesday – work in the morning for SNH. Still on the office move and still not remotely organised or properly planned so lots of standing around waiting and a small amount of moving boxes and dismantling furniture. All a bit of a joke really. We went to the shop after work for some snack food for lunch and I begged a cup of tea off Jinty too, there were a few of us round there so we hung out chatting before heading back to the castle for the next installment of our work on the Japanese bridge. We planned to strip the old chicken wire off the bridge and had gone armed with tin snips and thick gloves. We should have also gone armed with midge nets and spray! It was very midgey and not very pleasant work but we got it all done and then headed for home.

It was a lovely afternoon so after a cup of tea, chocolate brownie and catch up with the kids I turned the music up loud and did my Teashop baking and made dinner, Ady went outside to water the polytunnel and strim the pig fenceline as the grass was touching the electric fence and earthing it and the kids went out to play outside. I made 30 flatbreads, some banana and choc chip muffins, a loaf of bread and a steak pie for our dinner, finally getting everything on the table just after 9pm – four solid hours of baking! The sunshine and music helped 🙂

Today was Teashop for me and Deb was working with me today. She had made soup and cakes and we did a good solid trade taking nearly £200 between us. Ady went along to meet the boat as we were expecting petrol off but it got bumped as there were more than 100 foot passengers (random maritime law which states no dangerous goods can be transported if there are more than 100 foot passengers meaning that gas, petrol and diesel will all get bumped in favour of people despite Calmac in theory offering a lifeline service rather than a tourist line plus it being acceptable to put 99 people’s lives in danger but not 100!?). Our next stash of vacuum bags arrived though so that is the plan for Friday 🙂

We have a family here this week who are interested in moving here so they called in for a chat and arranged to come up to the croft on Friday to meet and talk properly. Am slightly fatigued by Rum politics just now but will try hard to be positive and continue doing a good PR job 😉 We learnt last week that Gav & Laura (croft 2) have split up which was quite a shock and found out today that Stuart & Julie (retired headmaster and his wife who was the nursery and clerical assistant, they left Rum a few month ago) have also split up after 30 odd years marriage. Am slightly reeling from hearing about both those couples. The Locks are wanting to come and stay on the croft in our tent in a couple of weeks too and I am just exhausted at the prospect of it. It’s like meeting new Home Educators All The Time and knowing that it’s really important to help and answer their questions and assist and help spread the word and swell HE numbers and give something back to the community that helped you so much when you first started out, but also just wishing that everyone could bugger off so you could just get on with HEing you own children and living your lives too!

I caught up with Dev Officer Steve who is over and we chatted for ages and ended up going next door to the shop for Beer O’clock, then Bad Neil bought me a beer, then the IRN security guys who manage all the fire alarms on the island and come over every 6 months to service and check them and Ady and I get on really well with arrived and Kenny bought me a beer. Then Good Neil the Farrier arrived and offered beers but it was suddenly nearly 7pm and despite emailing and voicemailing Ady I had not got hold of him so I headed off with the kids home for dinner having arranged to go back down for beers with them all tomorrow and bring Ady too. It’s Bad Neil’s last night before he goes off to meet Lesley to have the baby and his life changes forever… who will I chat to on Saturday mornings?!

I rang my parents when I got home to tell them we’ve been scheduled. I had an email from Kate today so say she will hopefully have a disc on the way to us tomorrow so fingers crossed it arrives over the weekend and we get to see it at least at the same time as the rest of the country. We’ve been invited down to various houses in the village to watch it go out but would quite like to watch it just the four of us first and see what we think before watching it with other people. Hoping there are enough cringey bits to make fun of but enough good bits to have us not look like complete crazies!

 

has whizzed by…

Wednesday – Market Day for me – it was Fliss & I and we were medium busy with a few flurries of busyness but no real rushed off our feet moments. Ady went along to meet the boat and collected exciting parcels for us – new phones. Our monthly contracts were both available for upgrades so we’ve spent the last few weeks researching and had both chosen new phones. Ady went for the Samsung Galaxy s5 – he’d previously had the S3 and I’d had the S3mini so a literal upgrade for him with more or less a better, slightly bigger version of the same phone. He is really pleased with it. I prefer a smaller phone so had been reading up on the mini and compact models on the market and chose the Sony xperia z3 compact. My favourite phones of the past have been Sonys (I think I had about four in a row going back when we used to be on annual upgrades). This had the best reviews for battery life, music sound and small-ness which were the things most important to me. I also went up a tariff as I have gone over my allotted minutes a fair few times in the last year so decided to upgrade to unlimited minutes which was an extra £3 a month but meant I got a ‘free’ gift (and yes, I know, none of it is free but we justify our phones as we use them as cameras, music players and our only actual communication method with the world outside of Rum. Internet is so patchy here that being able to access phone signal and data on our phones is sometimes our only way of reaching people) of a kindle fire tablet. I’d not have bought one and have not played with it much yet but it will come in useful when we go off as I can take it instead of my kindle and be able to use it as a tablet too. Need to fiddle with it more to get used to it but have been consumed by playing with my new phone!

Davies and Scarlett came down to sit in the hall while I was doing teashop and were really helpful with a couple who were trying to use the computer in the hall but couldn’t get it to work. Such a cliche having teens understand tech better than adults but also so totally true 🙂

We came back home together and the rest of the afternoon and evening was spent fiddling with phones and getting them set up. Davies and Scarlett have now got our previous phones so I was setting them up with giffgaff cards and trying to get everyone’s email accounts, playstore accounts to download their apps and so on sorted. I had a real headache by about 9pm and had to give up.

Thursday – Also in Wednesday’s post was a delivery of vacuum storage bags. We have accepted another winter (maybe more!) in the caravan so are looking at ways to improve things and decided to declutter / make more space / ease up on the mould gathering stuff by getting some vacuum bags to keep clothes, bedding etc in. Massively more room under our bed and in our wardrobes now. Kids rooms and storage under the sofas next on the list.

The weather was pish so we had a vote as to whether or not to go on the Sheerwater. The vote was 3/4 in favour so we headed off leaving the caravan in a semi tidied state. Another one of those not really worth it Sheerwater trips but two basking sharks had been spotted that morning just off the coast of Rum so they are about and we’d have been devastated to miss them if they’d been spotted from that trip, so always worth the gamble. There were loads of shearwaters and gannets out feeding so it was not entirely uneventful. Back at home we finished the tidying and vacuum bagging then I went down to a meeting while Ady stayed to get dinner sorted.

The meeting kicked off and various people walked out. Including me! Having utterly lost my temper, shouted and sworn. So hacked off with various stuff here to do with IRCT things and certain people. Never mind, it will either blow over or I can just walk away from that side of life here. The upside is, as always, Rum quickly forgets and the same people who were all really really pissed off with each other in the meeting in the hall were all sitting having a beer together afterwards at the shop, me included, once I’d calmed down.

Friday – Can’t even really remember what we did in the morning, probably tidying of some description. Then off to meet the ferry as friends were coming to visit. Jenna, the girl Davies and Scarlett met at Outward Bound, along with her little sister Iona and parents Alison and Leon. We stayed with them at their’s in Glen Uig (about half an hour from Mallaig) for Jenna’s birthday back in April and this was the much talked about but not organised return visit. They brought two wee tents to pitch to sleep in outside on the croft and borrowed camping mats etc. The kids all walked back to the croft while we drove back with Alison and Leon, drank tea, got their tents up etc. Then the kids walked back down to the village while we gave them the tour of the croft and then Alison retired for a nap (she’s not been well), while we took Leon for a beer at the shop. Back at home I made pizzas all round and we all stayed up chatting and drinking rather too much.

Saturday – work. Post Office for me and then along to the castle for my first tour in months and months. We’d invited everyone down so we had the four of them, plus Davies and Scarlett, a family of four and a special guest family of three which included the daughter of Peter Wormall, the very first Ranger / Warden on Rum. She grew up here in the 70s, went to school and both her parents did PhDs here, as did she. She told us all about how she used to play hide and seek in the castle and when I talked about the wildlife and the reintroduction of sea eagles here she was able to share the story of how her Dad dragged her and her sister up the road to Harris to see the bedraggled birds in their cages all the way from Norway looking most reluctant to be released into the horizontal rain and howling wind that was the Rum weather that day. She told us about how her Dad made a speech about it being monumental and of great historic importance but they just wanted to go home and watch telly! 🙂 Really lovely to have her on the tour, plus she was really complimentary about our tour too 🙂 A lovely Rum moment. I quite like doing the tours, particularly as you always end up chatting by the end when it’s a smallish group.

The others all returned to the croft but Ady and I spent some time faffing as the power had gone off in the workshop meaning our freezer was off. Lots of wandering from one end of the village to the other in search of Ross had us finally buying some electric cards off Jinty. That didn’t work either but then Fliss appeared with another card and it eventually all worked and we were able to go home.

I cooked ‘wedding reception food’ for dinner – hot and cold buffet style spread of sausages, cold meats, new potatoes, freshly baked bread, cheese board, crisps, nuts etc. which went down really well. We just can’t sit 8 people down for a proper knife and fork meal so this was perfect and fairly stress free. Another nice evening.

Sunday morning was an early-ish start with them needing to pack up as the ferry was at 1050am. We were all on target and the kids walked down to the pier with us driving with their stuff. We were there in loads of time and I chatted for a bit to a bloke who is over doing some research on circular economy. He was really interesting and he and I had been aware of each other but not managed to properly chat before – a shame he was off on the boat… Goodbyes all round with all four kids quite sad it had not been a longer visit. We have invited the girls back any time, they can even come for the long Saturday stay on the summer timetable and I think we may go over to visit them again for their Bonfire / Halloween stuff in Glen Uig. They are all nice easy company and it’s great to have such local friends.

Back at home we were all pretty exhausted and Scarlett has a cold so we had lunch, then watched some DvDs and ate popcorn before having a nice roast dinner. Early nights all round the order of the day!

Monday – yay, caught up! Ady and I walked down to the village this morning to post a couple of things, get some shopping bits and collect something from the freezer for dinner. Back home for lunch and then I did some baking. It rained and rained all afternoon scuppering any plans of outsideyness so we mostly listened to music, drew, played with lego and read.

I made three dinners – lasagna for Ady & I, spaghetti and meatballs for Davies, Spaghetti Bolognaise for Scarlett, baked some bread and some garlic bread and made cookies and brownies. Ady walked down to the village to collect the veg delivery and check for post.

I had an email from Kate the TV Producer to say that she had heard this afternoon that they have scheduled our show for next week, bumping it to the current series rather than the first episode of the next series as originally planned. Slightly in shock! We had planned to go off island and be on the mainland to watch it in comfort, somewhere slightly anonymous with an actual TV, instead we’ll be hoping to have decent enough internet next Monday night to watch it up here. I have asked Kate if there is any chance of an advance copy on dvd so we can see it but suspect the answer will be no.

Castle shift for Ady and I this morning. Instead of the dusting in the castle we were helping with the office move though. The White House (current SNH office) is being turned back into housing and the office is moving to the Big Green Shed agricultural building outside of the village. With Lesley on maternity leave, Doug on holiday and Mel gone SNH have very depleted staffing levels these days, so Ady, Claire and I were on helping the Reserve Team this morning. This basically entailed moving some stuff around in the old common room / bar space in the castle courtyard and then loading the trailer a few times at the White House, then walking back to the castle to unload it again. In four hours we did very little as Manager Mike is very flappy and panicked by everything.

Ady and I went and looked at the bridge we are repainting for the Friends and started to pull off the wire which needs removing  but it was tipping with rain and we’d not brought gloves with us which we’ll need for that task. So we came home. We half planned to go back down if the weather improved like it did yesterday but it never did.

Scarlett was doing room tidying, after I gave her grief about the state of her bedroom yesterday. She is such a hoarder and in a cupboard sized room that really is a problem. She took it on board though and was doing an excellent job of decluttering and properly cleaning stuff up. Davies had tidied his room too.

We had some food and I got stuck into baking for Teashop / Market Day tomorrow making 30 flat breads, 4 loaves and some more cookies. Then I made dinner, so a whole afternoon in the kitchen. Having lived in a very open plan space for all this time now (camper van and now caravan totals 4 and a half years!) I could not imagine going back to a living space where the kitchen was separate to where everyone else hung out. Sectioning off the kitchen from the living space seems such a mad idea.  It was really sociable chatting, listening to music, Scarlett bobbing in and out with her stuff, me cooking, Davies making some mad film on his tablet, Ady doing some online research and then Ady and Davies playing a game of scrabble. A lovely afternoon 🙂

We watched the second part of Doctor Who and a couple of episodes of Friends. We’re on the last series of Eureka and hopefully the latest disc of that will come from LoveFilm in the post tomorrow 🙂

This morning it was tipping with rain. Ady went to feed the animals and I made some bread (I had sold a Croft 3 ‘hamper’ of bread, eggs and jam to someone coming off the boat) and some cookies ready for Market Day / Teashop on Wednesday. The weather cheered up so Ady did some sorting out the pig pen – he’d put a load of cut grass in for them as bedding but the random weather we’ve been having had meant instead of drying out to make nice bedding it had started composting instead, so was stinky and very wet but giving off steam! He raked all that out and put (bought in) straw in instead. Good compost fodder to go down to the raised beds area though…

We had planned to do some work down on the bridge this afternoon but the weather was still looking pretty changeable so instead we went to the boat and then came back for a later lunch. The men collecting the hamper were delighted. Nothing came off the boat for us but we helped Jinty take some of her stuff along to the shop and had a quick look round for the cat. No sign, but other people are now looking out too so that’s good.

Back to the croft for lunch. The kids washed up and then headed down to play on their tablets in the hall for a bit. Ady and I spent some time in the fruit cage as yesterday he spotted lots of problems with the fruit tree leaves – caterpillar and aphid damage and some rust on some of the apple trees 🙁 We did some sorting out of that, sprayed them with washing up liquid and I picked all the currants and the very first Croft 3 raspberry :). We watered the polytunnel and then Ady headed off to meet the kids for Film Night. I was avoiding the village and the weather remained nice so I did half an hours weeding before coming back up and getting dinner started.

The others all watched the Minion Movie – mixed reviews with the kids saying it was ‘Good, well ok’ but Ady saying it was ‘excellent’. 🙂 We watched en episode of Friends (we’re re-watching it before selling on the discs) and then one of Doctor Who.