One word? When seven would do…

This morning Scarlett and I walked down to the village to have a look round for the cat and write on the board outside the shop that he is missing from the croft and has been spotted in the village. No sign of him today.

Before we left I made some cheese scone mix as we were out of bread, so when we got home I baked them for lunch. Davies is struggling with his nose the last few days. He has very swollen turbinates in both nostrils which he had looked at by the doctor last year and was prescribed nasal spray and anti histimines. He doesn’t use either and I stopped nagging / reminding him after the first few weeks as he was so resistant and I decided it was down to him. If the swelling, snot and lack of sense of smell bothered him enough he would use them, if not then he would not. Suddenly he is suffering and is clearly finding it tough, I assume due to some sort of seasonal hayfever or similar so has actually used both for the last two days. But the spray tastes nasty when it trickles down the back of his throat and he says it is initially quite burny. He has agreed to try for the next week to see if there is any improvement and if not to see the doctor again.

After lunch the weather had changed and was alternately midgey and raining. I had a rant at everyone – Davies was bored and annoying Scarlett, Scarlett didn’t want to do the washing up and was moaning about that, Ady was being unsupportive of me telling the kids off and trying to make out I was nagging . Grr!

We have ordered some vacuum storage bags to keep spare clothes, bedding etc in the wardrobes to prevent them going moldy this winter and the bedrooms all need some cleaning out but it seem silly to do that until the bags arrive so instead I cleared off the bookshelves in the lounge. If you didn’t know they probably wouldn’t look any different but they are now back in a sort of order of genre and have all been hoovered and cleaned behind. If we’re doing another winter in the caravan we’re hoping to make it a bit nicer and cosier in here, starting with storage, a bit of redecorating and making it warmer. We’ve always maintained each winter would be our last so never really done any improvements to the inside at all but this will be our fourth winter and it is tired and could do with some TLC.

Ady cooked dinner, we watched Doctor Who and everyone has had a pretty early night. Think I might do the same.

Wednesday was meetingtastic. First Fliss & I met Manager Mike to chat about the community polytunnel being put up in the field near the castle. An excellent idea as it will be nice and central for everyone to use. Mike agreed although he later came back and said that there would need to be planning permission which sort of takes the whole thing back to where it all started 3 years ago when it ended up being put on Croft 3. Ah well, not our issue any more…

Ady picked me up on his way passed and we went to the ferry. We had various stuff coming off – we are repainting and repairing the little red footbridge in the castle grounds for the Friends of Kinloch Castle Association so had ordered all the paint, chicken wire and stuff for that which all came off. Ady came back to the croft while I walked back to the village with Steve The Man, our local councillor and IRCT Chair Allan and some visiting folk from Marine Harvest Fish Farms. I walked for a bit with Allan chatting to him, and then got chatting to two of the fish farm people who we’d met when we visited the Muck fish farm earlier in the year. They remembered we’d been about to be filmed by the TV crew so were asking about that.

Then it was Full Board meeting of IRCT – usually we are more speedy as Allan is due off on the ferry but this time he was getting a lift back with Marine Harvest so there was no rush and the meeting dragged on rather. Lots to talk about I guess. There was a split then as some people went down to Jinty’s new barbecue hut for the official opening / hut warming and MH had supplied some salmon. Others went into the hall to have tea and cake with Debs as it was her birthday. To be honest I think we’d have rather gone to the hut but felt obliged to go to Debs so did that. We then couldn’t go along to the hut as we needed to feed the animals and come back down for the official MH presentation at 630pm.

That done pretty much everyone else went along to the hut but I got caught with Claire and Steve to chat about various stuff from the board meeting which I was a bit pissed off about doing on my own really. Sigh. By then we decided that everyone at the hut would have been many, many drinks ahead of us and it was already about 8pm and we were hungry so we came home.

Thursday was a nice day, probably the best this week. And Sheerwater boat trip day. Sadly although the weather was lovely the only thing we saw was a sea eagle. I know, I know, *only* but where are the dolphins?!? Fliss came along with her friend who had been staying all week and her 2 children – 12 year old Scarlet (one T) and 9 year old Logan who Davies and Scarlett got chatting to and really made friends with. To the degree that they hung out with them for the whole of the rest of the day and then met up with again on Friday before they left to go home. Shame they only met at the end of their week here.

Ady and Big Dave did some stuff on the Jeep while I meant to get dinner prepped and organise the storage under the sofa where we keep food. Just as I had weighed out a batch of bread dough and left the yeast to activate and strewn sofa cushions all over the floor so Bonnie started barking and Doug and his wife and son appeared. So I shoved everything away and in they came for tea and chats. Doug was a ghillie here two years running and then got the Estate Workers post but his wife and two sons still live down near Bristol. The boys have a year of A levels left so won’t be moving until at least after that and I wonder about whether Ursula is remotely interested in moving here anyway, it’s her first ever trip here in all that time. She seemed nice and we chatted easily. Ady came home and we all went over to feed the pigs as Doug was keen to show his son them and then we went down to put in veg orders and have a beer.

Friday – it rained and rained and rained all day. Poor Manon decided to leave rather than brave out a day of rain as I’d already said she did not need to work in such weather. So she packed up, I did some baking and some reading. Manon came in for lunch. The kids went off in waterproofs to find their mates for a last hang out before they left and then BD and Faye came over with pig feed from their stay and we all went down to the ferry. We waved off Dave, Faye, Manon, Fliss’ friends, Jinty’s dad and sister, Doug and family… a busy boat for goodbyes!

We called at the shop to collect some bits and Ady spotted the black and white cat down in the middle of the village. We chased it but it legged it. This morning I spoke to a few people and it has been spotted several times this week around the village so I have now come clean and said it seems lost down there and to let us know if it’s spotted so we can try and get it back up to the croft. Hmmm, hopeful I guess.

Back home for pizza and Doctor Who and enjoying just being us for a few days.

Today – work for both Ady and me. It tipped with rain most of the morning, was sunny for bits of this afternoon but still mostly showers. Can’t believe it’s August. This afternoon Ady did a big hoover of the lounge (he bought a hoover recently that runs off the genny and is wet and dry so good for sucking up when the roof has leaked, which currently it seems to not be doing so badly after Ady’s latest fix). I mostly did stuff online and we caught up on Dragons Den.

We’re all really knackered and hoping to have a day all to ourselves tomorrow.

It feels like it should be way past Tuesday already. Not sure why though…

Yesterday I mostly baked I think. I made bread dough in the morning so we would have rolls for lunch. Then some more bread dough for actual bread to cook later, then two women appeared up on the croft asking after bread so I arranged to make them a couple of loaves to deliver down to the campsite for today so had to make two more batches of dough. And we needed cookies (having volunteers is great for keeping us right on providing a balance of good fruit and veg and nice home baked cookies or cakes too).

I had hoped to get outside and actually do some outdoors stuff too but was conspired against – I did relabel my pot pourri, finish reading my book about basket making and reply to some emails. I also cleaned some windows and got the kids to clean some more.

Then it was lunch time, Dave and Faye came over for cups of tea and chats, I showed Manon the fruit cage tasks and then further failed to get back outside. Ah well.

Down the shop for veg collection, a beer and some chit chat and then home to make dinner. The kids had got what they thought was a pack of bacon out of the freezer but turned out to be a pack of pork chops, so Davies went back down to the shop to get some bacon while I got dinner started and we watched Doctor Who and had a later than planned dinner.

Today was a castle shift this morning, with Davies, Scarlett, Dave & Faye and Manon all coming down half an hour before we finished so they could have a look around the castle. Faye has never been round before and we took the opportunity for Manon to have a look too. Then they all left to come back to the crofts – Davies, Scarlett and Manon for lunch, while Ady and I popped along to collect some carpet offcuts from Mike & Deb and have a quick look at Jinty’s new barbecue cabin before coming home for lunch.

It rained all afternoon so I spent time researching new curtains for the caravan online, Ady did some carpet laying and we all chatted about ways to make the caravan more homely / cosy / nice this winter. Showers for Ady and I as we felt all castle grimy, then a nice dinner of the pork chops!

Thursday was Sheerwater day but it was really, really windy and when Ady phoned to check it was running he was told it was but it was choppy out there. After some discussion we decided not to go. A tough one really as we’ve never  missed one before through choice, only because we’ve not been on island or its not been running. But this year we have been on so many where we have seen nothing at all and just paid a tenner to sit feeling cold and at various degrees of feeling seasick. Instead we made the most of the wind turbine for internet power. Manon and I put some strawberries in one of the raised  beds and netted it.

In the evening we went down to say goodbye to Mel & Em. There was a really good turn out with most people on the island coming along for a beer and to wish them well. They both made a touching speech and they headed off home for their last night in the castle around 8pm. Which is probably when we should have headed off too but instead that dangerous third can of cider was cracked open and from there it is a slipperly slope to the kids being given out of date kinder eggs by Jinty to persuade them to stay while we were poured complementary glasses of Baileys (me) and Jura (Ady) to persuade us to stay. And it worked! At 11pm we finally called time on the evening and I think dinner was around 1230am. Oops!

Friday morning I had a meeting in the IRCT office so I went down for that. It was productive and hopefully will be the start of something exciting for Claire and Steve who are looking at housing plots. I had not expected to be home for lunch and had set Manon on weeding the herb spiral but walked in the door just as they were all laying out food in the caravan. Manon carried on with that after lunch and then transplanted some comfrey she had dug out of the herb spiral into the space along the outside north side of the polytunnel, then she carried on weeding. She has not done as comprehensive a job weeding as I would, or as is necessary given the ground elder and rushes but she has cleared the inital grass off the raised beds which leaves the slightly more satisfying job of ferreting out the long roots of the weeds which is the bit I actually enjoy so we make a good team.

We took the kids and Bonnie down to the ferry to wave off Mel & Em. There was a good turn out of most people on island there to say final goodbyes which was nice. We will miss them both – as Bonnie sitters, as friends and Mel as someone who we genuinely liked a lot. Emily had a whole load of crazy about her which frequently meant she was a nightmare in meetings or to the IRCT but she meant well.  We dropped the kids off in the village and came home to feed the animals and make pizza dough. We walked back down and collected the kids them came home. There was a bloke over who has played at the Edinburgh Fringe and is travelling around in a milk float playing music. Usually we would make the effort to attend such things but it had not been advertised, it was starting at 830pm and it turned out tickets were £8 each. Word had it he was not very good anyway so we were glad we had not bothered.

Saturday – work for us both in the morning. A quiet one for me with just Ross, Neil and Steve plus some tourists. Steve brought me a bowl of soup to try which was lovely but reminded me a bit of Norman and his random Saturday morning food offerings… Ady met me and we chatted to Doug for a while before heading up the hill.

We had lunch and then Ady and I walked across to the cabin and Dave and Faye had arrived on the morning boat. We had a cup of tea, caught up on each others news and arranged to meet at 6pm to walk down to the shop for a beer later. Ady and I collected some water pipe that Ady had found to use for cloche hoops and spent some time working out a plan for the raised bed on the south side of the polytunnel where the strawberries have been moved to. It needs a plastic covering both to keep it warm and grow the strawberries but also to protect the fruit and plants from our own birds and wild birds. We made a start and more or less decided how we would do it, the fed the animals and walked down to the shop. We stopped for a couple of beers and then came home for a curry.

Sunday – I had intended a lie in but Ady has a habit of managing to do something noisy outside the bedroom window every morning which wakes me and today was no exception… Although I was awake I did stay in bed and read my book though. That showed him! 😉

Before and after lunch we worked on the cloches and made three frames using a dismantled pallet and the pipe hoops, then covered them with some of the ripped polytunnel plastic. They look great and will work perfectly. Really pleased with them 🙂 The strawberries are looking a bit traumatised by the move and I doubt will fruit any more this season but we now have two beds full and I have sown some strawberry seeds which are just starting to germinate too so next season should be good.

I checked the fruit cage which is desperate for some weeding and we have blackcurrants ready to start harvesting. I also made a mini rockery of all the lavender which had been getting water logged in pots and was looking quite sad. Some has flowered, some has just gone woody so it may not all come back (it was a bargain ebay purchase last year, 10 ‘seconds’ from a nursery where the plants were healthy but didn’t meet the size spec, plus a very old pot from Osborne Drive). This should give it all a better chance. Ady did some scything too.

Ady cooked dinner and I had a long catch up phone call with my parents. I was hit today while we were messing about dismantling a pallet by a wave of really missing my Dad 🙁 It doesn’t happen very often like that but when it does I could just sit and cry, or pack a bag for the next ferry, so talking to him tonight really helped.

 

Teashop shift for me today, working with Ali as Fliss is on holiday. It was not as busy as last week but we still took over £200 so over £100 even after we’d paid the community hall our 10%. Davies sold another four postcards too. Yay! I had some nice chats with tourists and Ady came along after helping load Mel & Em’s stuff into the removal van which was here between boats.  We didn’t get the second flurry rush which was what killed us last Wednesday so instead the three of us (me, Ali & Ady) sat down with tea and cake instead. Far nicer even if meant about £40 each less in our pockets!

Inbetween I had frustrating and irritating chats with Clare and Steve about housing and IRCT stuff. Sooo tedious. Not even worth recounting as if I am bored of it and I live here and am in the very middle of it all then it will definitely not be interesting for anyone else to read about or me to record for future reading back on.  Lots of emails back and forth between directors this evening too.

Manon the volunteer has been doing great work weeding and working in the walled garden. Am hoping to get in there myself maybe tomorrow although weather is looking dreadful again. At least she is replacing me in doing something on the croft this week while I’ve been busy elsewhere.

I had a really funny email from Davies this afternoon saying ‘OMG how much power? Sun tick, wind tick. All well, had lunch, volunteer fine. Loads of love from D&S xxxx’ He is totally my favourite teenager 🙂

Monday – rained and rained and rained and rained. Oh and was quite windy too. Sigh. It’s JULY! I expect, anticipate and accept this in November but July is supposed to be the trade off period, the time to be cursing midges… I’ve said before and will say again if this had been our first year here I think we would have left. There was not even really a spring to speak of, let alone a summer.

We had no bread so I took Manon, our WWOOFer down to the site of the old polytunnel and got her digging up strawberries to move across and came back to the caravan to make some wraps for lunch, some bread dough for later and then as it carried on raining I decided to do some cooking for teashop on Wednesday. Ady was doing compost loo maintenance, infact he did stuff on both the static loo and the horse box compost loo. Reason 2167 for loving Ady 🙂

I made two batches of cookies – peanut butter & choc chip, and ginger, plus wraps. I was short tempered with Scarlett for no real reason which came to a head later in the day after I made her cry, realised I was being a complete cow and apologised. What is that about? Isn’t it supposed to be her getting all arsey with me not the other way round?!! The kids were doing bedroom tidying although Davies came to my rescue and helped me with the wraps for lunch when I was struggling. Manon came in for lunch, we all ate together and then she carried on transplanting the strawberries into their new home. It started raining even heavier so when she came in to say she had finished that after just an hour or so I got her to come in for  a cup of tea and chatted to her for awhile.

At 5pm it was raining harder than ever so I decided not to go down to the village for the cinema night and to stay home instead. Ady and the kids went while I got dinner on, finished baking (I made some cupcakes and baked the loaf), read some of a book, did all the washing up, did some stuff online and just hung out with Bonnie. It was really nice 🙂

The others came home around 730pm with post and veg box and we had dinner and watched a couple of episodes of Eureka.

Tuesday = castle shift for Ady and I first thing. I’d already told Manon to get on with weeding and then to meet us at the castle as we had misunderstood the timings for the helping Mel & Em and thought it was starting earlier. So we took Manon back with us to the croft for lunch and then she did some more weeding. I made my flatbreads for teashop tomorrow and then Ady and I went back down to the village to the castle. Mel & Em were wanting a team of folk to help them move all their boxes and furniture downstairs into the Great Hall of the castle ready for the van to collect from the front door tomorrow. I think there were 8 of us there altogether and we did it in under an hour. First in relays moving stuff and then as a human chain all the way down the corridor and down the stairs passing boxes. It was heavy, hot and tiring! We did it all and then retired back to the flat for fizz and some food. Ady and I didn’t eat much ( I literally had a piece of bread and fancy balsamic, Ady ate rather more!) as we were coming home for dinner. We stayed a while to chat before coming home to cook dinner which we did together with me getting it all started and Ady finishing it off. An episode of Eureka and then bed all round as everyone was tired.

Overshadowed by the utter calamity which was Ady going to check on the cats first thing on Saturday to discover they had escaped!!!! I can’t even talk about it yet as bird lovers on Rum will be horrified at the prospect of wild cats on the island trashing the birds (they are a pair of neutered males so not likely to do any real lasting damage to the wildlife population but it is still frowned upon) and being facebook friends with Ann who sent them over to me and was so impressed with how much time I was planning to put into taming them. It was a wild, wild night of wind and rain on Friday and they must have been so scared they managed to squeeze through the tiniest gap in the crate which they had already explored several times in the 36 hours previously and decided against attempting.

Lots of online research suggests they will be likely still very close by here on the croft and if we continue putting out food we will probably recover them. I have a human cat trap on  order which should hopefully arrive this week to try and catch them or we may just suddenly see them appear around the croft. In terms of their own welfare there is probably sufficient rats and mice and birds to sustain them, in terms of the impact on Rum wildlife two cats will do very little, in terms of my own feelings I am devastated 🙁 I was so, so thrilled to have them here, so up for spending days and weeks slowly taming them and I can’t even share this current sadness or hopefully eventual victory. It sucks 🙁

In other news Ady and I worked yesterday morning – me at Post Office and Ady at hostel / White House cleaning. Ady finished really early and came to meet me from work rather than the usual other way around. The wind was so bad that all of the Saturday boats were cancelled, apparently the first time in 5 years that a July Calmac was cancelled due to the weather, crazy! Cat scaring crazy 🙁

Back at home we spent ages looking for the cats, reading online about displaced cats, looking for the cats some more… all to no avail.

Today has been some more looking for cats. We went to the boat to meet our latest WWOOFer, Manon a 24 year old Frenchwoman who lives in Belgium and is in Scotland for 2 months combining WWOOFing with holidaying / hiking / exploring. She seems really nice and is here for 2 weeks. I am not sure she will be much use for digging but will certainly be able to do some weeding, general helping around the croft etc. She had lunch with us today and then went off exploring.

I did some weeding and sowing and transplanting in the walled garden / polytunnel. Ady did some more waterproof painting on the caravan roof, we appear to have once again fixed the roof leak but as every time we say that we are proved wrong this is a tentative victory only… and then some scything. In between there was more cat searching.

Then we all went down to the castle for Davies and Scarlett to have a last go on the Xbox before bringing it home, Ady and I to help dismantle their bed and roll up their rugs (Mel and Em are both quite small) and have a last dinner / goodbye with them as they leave on Friday 🙁 I have not always loved Em’s company but will miss them both lots, as will Bonnie. It was a really nice evening with quite a lot of wine and loads of laughter.

We had a walk up the tower to the top of the castle which was cool – Ady and I have been up there before but Davies and Scarlett never have so that was fun. Then home for bed before another day of cat searching tomorrow.

A reminder of the winter ahead, bummer after a couple of nice days of actual summer. Ah well.

I checked on the cats first thing, they had eaten all their food and drunk all their water so I topped that up and then came back in for Popmaster. Ady and I walked down to the village to collect some bits from the shop and some stuff from the freezer and then came home for lunch.

I had another half an hour in with the cats – I have set up a chair next to their crates so I can just sit there, talk to them and read or whatever and get them used to me being around. Fairly easy to do on a day like today when it was tipping with rain and I had nothing else particularly to be getting on with, less easy on sunny days when I could be out on the croft or days when I have commitments down in the village but hearteningly they both ate and drank infront of me, sniffed my hand and seemed fairly calm with me there. Not sure if they have been to the loo yet despite me putting a litter tray in there – Ginger spent some time just sitting in it! I even got to touch Comfrey who is timid but not aggressive.

Ady and I went down to the pier to collect our diesel which came off and then Ady spent some time de-molding in the bedroom while I spent another couple of hours with the cats. Not really hard work, particularly when armed with my kindle and a bag of humbugs ;). Davies and Scarlett made bread and pizza dough and took advantage of the wind to have lots of internet time. Scarlett had a shower and hair wash, poor thing has her period again and it’s lasted a week this time.

I came in just before 6pm and warmed up before making pizzas for dinner. We watched Doctor Who and a couple of episodes of Friends. Hoping the weather is better tomorrow.

This morning we took Emmanuel down to the Sheerwater with us as he was heading off on the later boat. Steve Dev O was heading off today and happy to take him as far south as Perth where Steve lives so that worked perfectly. Emmanuel was planning a day in Edinburgh tomorrow before heading back to France on the Eurostar over the weekend. He was a nice enough lad but not much cop as a WWOOFer really. He left a nice comment in our WWOOFing book though. We may have another French WWOOFer arriving at the weekend.

Coming off the boat were our two newest Croft 3 creatures, a pair of cats. 2 boys, brothers. One ginger and one black and white. I advertised in our local newsletter for a cat last year and Ann, the editor got in touch to tell me about the ginger one who she had rehomed but had never settled with her. She was debating whether or not to keep the black and white one and then decided she would. The ginger one is very scared and I didn’t really think that was the right cat for us here. She got back in touch a couple of weeks ago to say she still wanted to rehome him and actually, would let the black and white one go too. After much debate (as in the kids and I really wanted them, Ady really didn’t) we agreed they could come and she sent them over today on the boat with her son.

We popped them in the car with all the windows and boot open  to recover from their journey and headed off on the Sheerwater. It was a gorgeous day, I even got a bit sunburned. The water was super calm with excellent visibility and on the way over to Soay we saw porpoises and lots of seabirds, on the way back we saw a minke whale 🙂 So lovely to see one again after such a crappy start to the wildlife year. Let’s hope it heralds the beginning of some good spots for the coming weeks, probably only about 6 or 7 left I guess.

Back to Rum and we said goodbye to Emmanuel, dropped Trudi in the village and popped to the shop for some catfood, then brought the cats home. Ann has been calling the ginger one Ginger anyway, which was the name Scarlett was determined a ginger cat should have. The black and white one will be called Comfrey which is the name we chose for our hypothetical cat while we were WWOOFing and planning the list of animals we would have. Ann called him Bertie but I don’t think he’ll mind the name change too much.

I have fixed together two large dog crates for them to be in, inside our really good chicken shed. They are scared and edgy and it will take quite some time to win them round but I am fairly sure we can do it. Comfrey will be fine and would probably even already be a lap cat so I will work with him first and build Ginger’s confidence by spending lots of time in with them. I can take a chair and sit in the shed talking to them and reading or just being there so they get used to me. It will definitely be quite a project but I love cats so much and have really missed having them around all these last few years since we lost Candle. These two are used to living with a dog so they should be fine with Bonnie although she will take some getting used to them. The idea is that they are mostly outside cats anyway although I secretly plan to have them on my lap of an evening, putting them out before I go to bed. We’ll see how long that takes to pan out…

It was really midgey this afternoon so my planned weeding didn’t happen but Ady and I fed the animals together and I made a really nice dinner with sausages and roasted root veg. The forecast rain for the next 24 hours has already started so tomorrow may well be mostly sitting in the cat shed reading and knitting I suspect.

Saturday – post office in the morning for me. I couldn’t find my keys in the morning and had a sudden flash of realisation that they were probably in the back pocket of my posh mainland jeans which I would have been wearing the previous Saturday having worn them home on the Friday and knew they were in the back of the Jeep in a white sack ready to go in the laundry. I hoped this was the case and dashed down to find Ady, rummaged in the washing machine in the castle and sure enough, there they were! Phew.

A quiet morning shift at Post Office and then along to the hostel to meet Ady. Not sure what we did in the afternoon but we had a really early dinner and then headed down the hill in the pouring rain to see Elsa Jean McTaggart. She first came to Rum just after we arrived in the summer of 2012 and we loved her then. This time she was even better and hugely excitingly sang with me when I was trying to persuade Dave to play The Gambler. Most starstruck! Even more so now she is my facebook friend and we have had some facebook chats 🙂 Also on the bill were the Boathouse Blues Band (Rum’s Jed, Sean the Rat and Chainsaw Dave) and Danny (Clare’s boyfriend). It was a cracking night 🙂 Ady got probably the most drunk I have ever (in 22 years!) seen him, drinking most of a bottle of whisky. Davies and Scarlett left to come home around 11ish and me and Ady got home at 2am. How we got home in the dark without torches and Ady in the state he was I am not altogether sure but we did…

Sunday morning the kids and I laid in. Ady was up to feed the animals and go to the pier to send diesel cans off. I did some stuff in the walled garden / polytunnel and we had an early, very delicious, hangover soaking up roast dinner and an early night all round.

Monday – Ady and I walked down to the village in the morning, stuff to post, things to buy, food to get from the freezer. We stayed awhile as various folk were out and we quite like the morning chatter at the shop. Home for lunch of wraps and the new series of Dragons Den on iplayer, then lots of stuff on the croft in the walled garden for me. More beds weeded, netted and with seedlings transplanted, sweetcorn potted on, leeks planted out. Dinner of venison bolognaise.

Tuesday – castle shift in the morning for Ady and I. I was incredibly bored as we were dusting and hoovering the castle. We entertained ourselves for a while but four hours is a long time to kill… eventually it was home time though so back to the croft for lunch. I had a whole afternoon of baking – flatbreads, bread and cookies for Market Day / Teashop and steak pie for an early dinner. We then walked down to the village for the Hawaiian shirt ceilidh which some visiting musicians were laying on. Another excellent evening of dancing, music and craic. The kids left at 10 ish, we were home just after midnight. Ady made toast all round. I remember taking a 4 month old Davies to the 24 hour Tesco on Christmas Eve to do our Christmas food shopping at 430am because that was when he’d woken us up for a feed so I’d fed him and then we’d taken advantage of being up anyway to do our sprout purchasing without crowds. Nearly 15 years later it’s nice to be reaping the rewards the other end of having kids old enough to sit up and eat toast and talk nonsense with you in the early hours (their nonsense is down to being teens and therefore fairly random, not being inebriated I hasten to add….).

Wednesday – I was Mrs Post from 10 til midday as Jinty was off for a quick mainland visit. To my (and her) horror her Dad Pete has taken away the kettle. Yes it leaked water everywhere when it boiled and was therefore probably a huge peril of death to us but I can’t possibly function at post office without my tea. Bad Neil says if it is not back for Saturday then he and I will go on strike like the Calmac workers. Bad Neil does not actually work on a Saturday morning but he does drink at least 2 cups of tea with me so has a very important role….

Fortunately my next role of the day was Mrs Teashop with Ali. It was bedlam! We had queues and queues of folk, sold out of everything and had to turn the last few folk away. Made over £100 each 🙂 Hurrah for that. The early customers and the aftermath customers were really chatty and I love that side of life here 🙂

We finally cleared up, moved our stuff back to the craft shop and were ready to finish by 4pm. Davies was a star this afternoon, he and Scarlett came down, he chatted to tourists about the weather forecast, sorted out the hall PC which had been unplugged, took Eve round to our freezer and gave her an ice lolly and was generally awesome. Love that boy 🙂 The kids and I walked home but I had agreed to check my emails expecting to be called back for a brief meeting at 5pm. So I was home long enough to move two dog crates up the hill in readiness for tomorrow’s arrivals before going back to the village for a meeting at Ali’s with Dev O Steve and some housing blokes who are over doing audits on the housing stock.

Back home to water the polytunnel and have dinner.

Tomorrow is Sheerwater day and the cats arrive 🙂 🙂

Tuesday was work. Only Ady and I this time which was far better, no being cornered by Clare talking. We had two final bunk beds to dismantle and the rooms to hoover clean afterwards so I did the beds while Ady did the hoovering. Then we went through the two kitchens and reduced the crockery, cutlery, pots and pans and utensils down to smaller numbers to reflect the reduced bed numbers.

I had plans for weeding in the afternoon but never got there as I was busy baking an army of flatbreads ready for market day the following day.

Wednesday was said Market Day. Fliss, Ali and I have agreed to take on the Wednesday teashop between us too as we are there anyway for the market day. This week all three of us were there, usually it will probably be just two of us but I am there for all of them… ah well. We took a fair bit of cash, Fliss bought soup and rolls and scones, Ali bought cakes and I bought the flat breads. We shared the tea and coffee takings. I think I made about £40. I also managed to sell 4 of Davies’ postcards by chatting to someone about them. Ali sold loads of jam and I probably would have done too except I have sold out of jam already this season despite making loads and loads last year. It has been flying out of the honesty larder at the croft gate and now I am desperately checking bramble bushes for progress despite it being a full six weeks at least away before there will be anything to pick.

Then Ali and I went off to a meeting with SNH bods. Sandy was here on Rum for a few days, it didn’t go well apparently 🙁 I didn’t actually see him but Ady did and was glad to have done. The SNH meeting went well. Got home about 6pm and was knackered from a long day.

Thursday – Sheerwater trip. We saw a few porpoises and there are slightly more seabirds around. We saw a sea eagle being mobbed by a smaller birds just off the coast of Rum but it was still far from the exciting cetacean encounters we have enjoyed in previous Julys.

When we got back to the croft I tried to do some weeding but it was too midgey really. We went down to the shop for a beer or two as various folk are over visiting (Jinty’s sister, Bad Neil’s brother) so it was nice and sociable.

Friday – Another meeting, this time the first drafting of the IRCT business plan for the coming 5 years as the current one ends at the end of 2015. A good morning thrashing stuff out and some real positive stuff came from it. Slightly tarnished later today when an email has gone round requesting an emergency meeting about housing next week. In that zone of spending too much time and energy on trust stuff again just now, need to balance it against the good crofting stuff but it’s rained non stop all day today which never helps.

Pizza and Doctor Who tonight. Despite still raining heavily (and being cold and damp enough to light the fire for an hour or so this evening) the sky is really bright and glowing above the clouds.

Tuesday morning Ady and I went off to work at the hostel. We were dismantling bunk beds. I think everyone else thought I got the raw deal as I was a dab hand with the allen key and dismantled four while Ady loaded them into the trailer and moved them across to the castle and Clare drew pictures to label the various parts but I was happy with that. I love flatpacks, even in reverse 🙂 I did get caught in the really hot hostel talking to Clare about housing though which I’d rather have avoided. Never mind.

In the afternoon and evening we packed up ready for the trip to MainlandLand the following day.

Wednesday – a lovely day of weather so we went for the long boat trip to Canna. The school were on the boat too to visit Canna so we snuck upstairs to avoid sitting with them. Mean I know but the kids get fed up with the littler kids demanding their attention. Ady and I spent most of the ride out on the front of the boat and saw some dolphins , mother and calf splashing around. When we got to Canna we decided not to get off; we’d only been there two weeks ago and there is not actually much to do. The kids were watching a dvd, I was reading my kindle and Ady was watching something he’d downloaded on his phone and then having a snooze – all simple pleasures that we probably could not have justified taking time out in the middle of the day to do if we were at home. The Calmac staff are on a two week on, two week off rota and the mean skipper was on who insists on you having tickets to get off at Canna but we had not realised. Fliss and Deb came running back on the boat to offer to pay for our tickets as they thought we were not getting off for that reason… we assured them that was not the case. On the way back to Rum we sat with Fliss and had some chips. Eve & Joss presented us with a thank you card for letting them come and feed the croft animals as we’d be missing the school prizegiving end of term day the following day (which in truth we would probably not have attended even if we were on the island anyway…) which was sweet but a bit embarrassing in the middle of the busy boat.

The school got off back at Rum and Neil & Lesley and a few others got on. I sat with them for a bit on the way to Mallaig chatting about some Rum politics stuff. When we got to the office the car keys were not there as expected so Ady rang the garage and they were running late. It was with us in about 10 minutes though and we set off to Inverness. A slightly stressy journey as Scarlett felt carsick so swapped with me to sit in the front. I then felt pretty rough in the back as the drive from Mallaig to Inverness is very twisty turny. Scarlett wanted to pull over alongside Loch Ness in the layby where we first wild camped in Willow but I was feeling rubbish and just wanted to get to the hotel so refused. I regretted it later and wished we’d stopped and taken a photo. I am not often petulant these days and almost always regret it afterwards…

We got to Inverness and struggled at the end as Ady’s phone which we were using for sat nav was out of power and I was struggling to navigate from the back. I had in my head where I thought the Premier Inn we were staying was and I was right but needed help to find it. We eventually got there, stopped at Morrisons for some breakfast for the morning, some beers and some bubble bath and then got to the Premier Inn and checked in. There is a KFC just a five minute walk away which we’d already planned to eat at so we walked there and after some fresh air, food and cooling down a bit (it was crazily hot and still as anything, we were all struggling with the heat) we all felt better. So much so that we decided at 10pm to find the nearby Tesco and do that bit of our planned shopping then rather than wait til the morning. We got back to the hotel around 11ish, I had a bath and I think we all fell asleep around midnight.

Thursday – It was just as well we’d ticked Tescos off already as we all slept in til 10am the following day! Not unheard of for me and the kids but a complete miracle for Ady. The room was north facing with a tiny window facing a wall and with heavy curtain it was pitch dark in the room so we’d just slept. That scuppered our plans to do Screwfix / B&Q in the morning so instead Davies had a bath and we watched crap tv. Then Ady and Scarlett dropped Davies and I at the hospital and they went off to do Screwfix and B&Q. We had a bit of a wait and had gotten there early anyway but we sat in the paediatric waiting room watching the cbeebies channel that the TV was set to and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves 🙂 I was quite sobered by being in there actually, it made me realise how fortunate we are to have two healthy children and how different life can be for parents who don’t… That has stayed with me all week, quite haunting.

All well with Davies. The doctor was lovely, weighed and measured him, chatted at length, explained puberty for boys, then examined him and pronounced him well into puberty and anticipating a growth spurt pretty much now. For a belt and braces approach he took blood to test for thyroid function and pituitary glands doing their thing, sent us along to xray to have Davies’ wrist xrayed to give a bone age and predicted adult height and will see him again in a few months to follow up. He can also see us in Fort William next time which is fantastic, will be far less hassle / expense and can probably be tied in with a dentist appointment too. Yay. We left fully reassured which was great. We managed to claim back part of the expenses too – all of the ferry for Davies & I, £35 each night towards accommodation and petrol mileage from Mallaig. Every little helps towards the huge expense of a mainland trip.

Met back up with Ady and Scarlett and then parked the car and went into the city centre. I quite like Inverness, it feels pretty familiar as we have spent a fair bit of time there over the last five years (although only one previous visit  since moving to Rum). We did the charity shops, Primark, Game and HMV, poundstretcher etc and stocked up on all the sorts of things we had on our lists to buy. We had lunch in McDonalds just to complete the fast food jaunt of the trip and then got in the car and came back to Fort William. We came via Aldi which was the last shop on our Inverness list and I managed to ride the whole way in the front thanks to a new dvd purchase which the kids watched on the drive :).

In FW we went to Poundstretcher for various things including a memory foam mattress topper and Morrisons for picnic tea and the food shop to bring home (stuff like bombay mix, chocolates, marshmallows, own label whisky, gin and baileys, all of which cost a fortune here buying proper branded stuff through Jinty and are nice to have in the cupboard for treats) then finally to the Travelodge. We sat on the floor and watched Masterchef while eating our tea and then Scarlett had her bath (with Lush stuff from Inverness), as did I. The combination of 2 baths in 24 hours and extreme heat has bought all of my eczema on though so I have really itchy elbows and ankles now 🙁

Friday – we were all up and awake much earlier and out of the hotel by 830am. A quick stop at Lidl and then off to Mallaig. As we pulled into Morar and got our first glimpse of the Rum skyline I actually got butterflies of excitement about going home. We do live in such a very beautiful part of the world :). We detoured to Loch Morar and took some photos as I realised recently we don’t take as many pictures of the four of us any more, just lots of the croft, the animals and the landscape and I don’t want to miss photo documenting the kids teen years. We had the car back well before the arranged time and the girl ran us along to Mallaig. We left all our stuff in the Calmac office and went to CoOp for various items. Back in the Calmac office we rejggled some of the packing so we had as many bags as we had hands between us and then Davies and I ran back to the CoOp for ice lollies. We saw Big Dave and Faye on the way so bought some for them too and all sat in the office eating them.

We stayed outside the whole boat trip back and it was a glorious crossing with flat calm sea and lovely sunshine, a fab welcome back to Rum 🙂 We managed to drive all the way up the croft, stopping at the freezer to drop stuff off and then spent time unpacking and putting stuff away. Bonnie was glad to have us home and be back on the croft and all was well here. I was working at the shop and Scarlett came down with me while Ady and Davies fixed a bike and got dinner on. Davies appeared before I closed the shop to say Ady was in a flap about missing onions and rice for dinner so I sent him and Scarlett back up with them. Dave and Faye came down for a beer and we walked back to the croft together as they were coming for dinner.

Saturday – work in the morning, a very productive afternoon of planting, transplanting and weeding in the afternoon. Ady and I fixed a shelf in the polytunnel too. He and Emmanuel managed to move some more stuff which had been cluttering up and looking messy at the croft gate too. Pizza for dinner and Doctor Who plus an earlier night all round.

Sunday – more weeding for me, I got loads done 🙂 One more small bed to weed and two of the really big ones and that is all of the walled garden weeded. I actually think I might get stuff planted out in every single bed this year which is fantastic 🙂 I’m really proud of that little area including the fruit cage and the polytunnel, it looks good and is on track to be productive. Ady, Dave and Faye took down the community polytunnel which had been an eyesore and was really grating on Ady and I. The croft looks so much  better with it gone 🙂 Then we all went to the cabin and put up four of the ceiling panels to finish all of the ones above the mezzanine. It looks fab. It was unbearably hot in there but worth doing.

Ady cooked dinner – roast venison and I made eton mess for pudding with freshly picked strawberries from the croft. We had a lovely evening with them, lots of laughs, too much to drink…

Monday – Ady and I don’t have any phone signal. We noticed on Friday when we got home but it wasn’t a problem until last night when I wanted to ring my parents as it’s my Mum’s birthday. I managed to hook up via TuGo using wifi but our internet is so slow that it was a really poor line. So frustrating 🙁 I had a livechat with o2 this morning about it and it is a mast with problems in Arisaig. They are aware but can’t give me a time / date when it will be fixed. Hope it does’t take too long.

I spent much of the day doing more weeding. Ady and Emmanuel did some digging on the house plot, Ady did some scything too. We took Dave and Faye to the boat to say goodbye and then it rained and was midgey so we called it a day and watched a film with the kids. I cooked dinner and we watched some Dr Who.

 

And that’s me all caught up again 🙂

Work for me this morning. I’d tried to get hold of Jinty as I had heard she was back and wondered whether she wanted me to do post office or whether she would do it. I went down anyway as Neil & I needed to do various Rum Venison paperwork tidying and posting off. Jinty was already there but very happy for me to do post office although she ended up hanging around too anyway, doing orders and catching up with stuff. Jed & Neil were around for most of the morning for tea and chat too, it was all nice and sociable. Good to see Jinty back.

Ady came down to collect me and loads of us ended up at the pier early for the boat so stood around chatting. We were not sure if our latest WWOOFer Emmanuel from France would come off or not but Calmac (who are being arses at the moment in the post strike days, Rum appears to have lost loads of parcels including about £100 worth of Amazon subscribe and save grocery deliveries for us. I know we can sort it out with Amazon if we have to but it’s stuff like flour and loo roll that we actually just really need!) had been mean to Jinty about her delivery and tried to send it back to the supplier this morning so loads of us were there to help unload it. In the end it was on a van after all and they left the van on island between boats so it was all a fuss over nothing. Emmanuel did come off the boat – hurrah!

We came home for lunch, chats and the tour of the croft for Emmanuel. Then the weather changed to rain so we came back in for another cup of tea and he ended up sat on the floor with Davies and Scarlett playing with lego. So he will be one we don’t lose to the craziness down at the shop! 🙂 He is happy to feed the animals while we’re off this week too which is great.

 

The rain showed no signs of stopping so we walked down to the shop, showed E the hall and village centre and stopped for a beer and some chat at the shop. Jinty’s dad had managed to duplicate most of the orders and got random extra selections of some things including 48 packs of bananas (he thought he was ordering 4 bags, it was actually 4 outers of 12!) so Jinty was doing bargain 2 for a £1 sales on them which had us all competing to see who could sell the most to all the customers who came along. Very funny 🙂 These are the sort of in jokes that I would miss forever if we ever left here I think.

Emmanuel is tasked with bring wood up the hill tomorrow morning while we’re at work, Ady and I are at the hostel I believe dismantling bunk beds. We seem to have worked a lot this last couple of weeks but it does mean we tend to be super productive in the afternoons on the croft, so no bad thing.

Friday morning was a stressy one. I’d left the post office open and asked Ali to come and give me a hand doing the end of week process from Wednesday. It took us most of the two hours to do so and while I was fairly que cera cera about the whole business Ali was very stressed and shouty at everyone who came in. We did it though (I think!) and I came home for lunch.

I spent some time in the afternoon doing directorly emails and then made pizza dough and spend some time down on the plot / in the polytunnel. Friday night is pizza and Doctor Who night and we watched both of a double parter. The kids are really into Doctor Who and have rewatched all of Primeval on netflix.

Saturday was post office again but back into my comfort zone with it. Neil and Jed came for tea and chats and then just as I was about to close Fliss appeared so she came in and I shut the door but made her a cup of tea and chatted too. It meant I was later leaving post office but that was fine as I was meeting Ady at the end of his hostel shift anyway. We got various stuff up the hill including loads of clean and dry laundry which I sorted and folded while Ady made lunch.

The weather was odd, really low cloud which looked like threatening rain and not very warm but actually not raining so I went to do some weeding. It was pretty midgey so I kept stopping and waiting for the breeze to lift again but it was not particularly relaxing down there. I finished weeding a bed though, so that is now ready to be netted and have stuff transplanted from the polytunnel in the next few weeks. I fed the animals with Ady and collected some wildflowers from the croft.

We had a really nice curry for dinner.

Sunday – Ady and I had both slept really badly. I woke at about 530am and got up to go to the loo finding Ady asleep in the lounge and the bed soaking wet as the ceiling was leaking and it was pouring with rain. I assumed Ady had been woken by that too and gone into the lounge but he said that actually he’d been really fidgeting and I’d sleepily shouted at him twice that he was disturbing me so he’d come into the lounge. I don’t remember! I covered the duvet with a sleeping bag, read for a while and then found a dry bit of bed and went back to sleep. This does not bode well for winter….

The weather today has been dry (although as I type it is tipping down with rain again) but the same as yesterday threatening rain all day. It has been windy though so the kids have had access to the internet all day as the wind turbine was whizzing round with loads of power. They went to the village to collect the post after lunch and drop off a thank you card and gift to Sean and Nicola who looked after the ducklings while we were away. I did lots of knitting – I have another three scarves all ready to be labelled up and taken down to the craft shop and am part way through another – tunisian crochet is super quick! Then I went and did some more weeding for an hour or so. I would have stayed down there longer as I was very happy singing and weeding with my two favourite chicken helpers who I pass worms to but Scarlett came down to say Neil had come to visit. He needed some bank stuff for the venison company as Neil and I are standing down and Steve is taking it on but there are some final admin bits to sort out. He stopped for a cup of tea and chat by which time it was late so Ady went to feed the animals and I carried on with my scarf. Ady cooked dinner and we watched a Doctor Who and then the latest dvd of Eureka which had arrived. Very disappointingly it only had 2 episodes on it plus a longer length version of one of the episodes which we only realised after we’d watched the short version. Grrr.

Sheerwater boat trip today. We saw quite a few porpoises which is actually the best we’ve had in weeks and weeks. Pretty poor generally though. It’s so cold here still that there are not even sea birds really let alone cetaceans. We’ll keep going but it’s definitely been the worst year so far for spotting stuff.

When we got home I went straight to the polytunnel to do some more seed sowing. I got loads more in, moved some stuff about, watered and pottered. I love it 🙂

Then off to an on island directors meeting – the usual debating, chit chatting and back and forthing. All very tedious and boring. I keep debating with myself whether to stand down and part of me would love to as it would remove a burden of stuff which I dwell on and get frustrated by but the other part of me knows how lucky we are to have the ability to shape decisions and be involved and I know I would miss that. I can’t imagine being here and not being involved really…

Back home just after 930pm. Ady had got dinner ready and we watched some Modern Family and some Friends. Ferry strike tomorrow and post office duty for me again.

I worked this morning. Jinty left Rum on Sunday with various things the matter with her and was admitted to hospital. She is okay and is hoping to be back on Friday but as the ferry is looking cancelled due to strike action it will probably be Saturday instead. So I did post office. I’ve not done a Wednesday before as it is the end of week and I am not sure how to do that; it involves various stocktaking, reports and stuff which I have not got my head round.

I had a nice catch up chat with Bad Neil though before Ady came down to meet me and I got all stressed about the post office. Loads of post had come for us on the ferry so we got all of that home and had lunch. It was ridiculously midgey so although Ady had had a productive morning strimming, scything and trimming I didn’t get outside this afternoon. Instead I did some crochet and then Ady came in and we all watched a film.

I made dinner, had a shower and we watched back to back Modern Family which arrived today from Lovefilm. A relaxed, if not particularly productive day.

We all slept in a bit this morning – 8am for Ady, 9am for me, 11am for Scarlett and midday for Davies when I woke him up.

We listened to Popmaster and debated tasks for the week and the day ahead. We had planned to do stuff in the fruit cage and walled garden but today was Midge Hell with no wind and no sun so we decided working close to the ground close to the trees would be foolish. Instead we took the car battery and some stuff to be frozen down to the workshop to put the battery on charge / food in the freezer. Back to the croft via Dave’s cabin as the door had blown open on the porch. When we got there we realised the door had actually blown off so we rehung it before coming home.

There was enough of a breeze to sit out for fifteen minutes and chat before lunch about whether we were glad to be home or missing the mainland. We decided we were glad to be home and made some plans for winter prepping to help preserve that feeling.

Then in for lunch. Scarlett was already up, we woke Davies and ate some of our mainland food. We watched Horrible Histories and then the kids headed down to the village for a walk. I made some comfrey tea and Ady did some scything. It seemed a little less midgey so I decided to bite the bullet and do some seed sowing in the polytunnel. All in containers for now and just starting off seeds to transplant anyway. I managed 10 different seed trays with assistance from midges and chickens, got it all watered and then had to give up as it was too midgey.

By then Davies and Scarlett were back so Scarlett and I did some egg collecting, moved the fake eggs (which encourage the birds to lay in certain places, they like to lay their eggs in with other eggs) around to different places, picked some wild flowers from the croft to bring into the caravan and gathered a bagful of assorted feathers as Scarlett and I have a plan to do something crafty with the various bird feathers to sell having seen various cool feather things at the show including painted feathers and feather brooches and hat pins. We also harvested some more strawberries.

I decreed it too midgey to go back out so made some cookies and got dinner sorted. Ady did a bit of strimming around the wind turbine where there are too many cables for scything and fed the animals.

Tiredness has caught up with me now. Off to bed.

Thursday – we were up and out, Ady woke everyone, enthusiastic about the novelty of a toaster making breakfast for everyone. We were out of the flat by 9am and at the show by 930am. We did the big machines first so weighed ourselves down with all the free stuff early. We did the food halls and caught the last of the sheepdog show which is Davies’ best bit of whole show. We had loads and loads of free food and at about 4pm decided to call it a day early as we had planned to head to Ikea after the show and were all pretty tired.

We sat in traffic before getting to Ikea and then spent a good couple of hours in there. We didn’t buy that much, tealights obviously. A new tin opener, some new wooden spoons all stuff we had planned. The only unplanned purchase was a solar lantern reduced to £9 which is really good and was worth buying. Ady and I dashed into Asda next door for a few bits and then we came back to the flat.

Some of us had baths, we had dinner which Dave had cooked for us and left in the fridge of bolognaise. It was a later night than we planned.

Friday – we all struggled to get out of bed – well Ady didn’t, but the rest of us did. Then Scarlett called me into the bathroom because she had started her period. Wow. I knew it was fairly imminent but not quite this soon and annoyingly didn’t bring off any of the cloth pads we ordered and have had ready at home for months. We used loads of loo roll and headed out to the pharmacy in the village. It took ages to find it and we’d actually given up and were heading back to the flat when we spotted it. They had a very poor selection so we grabbed what they had and decided to find a supermarket later to stock up. It did give us the chance to walk around chatting a fair bit about it all though which was good. So far she has been fine with it all, coped incredibly well and aside from a few early tears about the whole thing has been typically stoic. I adore that girl, she is going to be the most amazing woman. There is almost nothing in her personality that I don’t admire, respect and feel proud to have played a part in shaping. She has dealt with the whole thing so well, being away from home, asking for help positioning the first few pads til she got the hang of it, taking me with her to the loo to clarify whether it needed changing or not and then dealing with it all herself. She is utterly non plused by it, not embarrassed, not taking the opportunity to grab attention or act disabled but also aware of the rite of passage that it marks. I have told her that I would like to buy her some sort of gift to mark it and she loves that idea so we will choose something together for her to keep.

Anyway, off to the show. Another good day, this time punctuated with lots of trips to the loo for Tarly and I. More free food samples, looking at demonstrations, watching the falconry and this time we spent the afternoon walking around all of the animals to look at the cows, horses and sheep on show. We finally left and then headed to Tesco for various bits including pjs for Scarlett (which didn’t actually fit so we took them back the next day), proper supplies of sanpro and various other bits and pieces. Then to KFC for our fast food fix, followed by a quick visit to Krispy Kreme donuts because it was next door to KFC. They had a really cool window on the behind the scenes bit where you could watch the donuts cooking, being flipped and cooking the other side, being QC’d and then decorated. Which was genius because despite being stuffed full of nasty processed chicken products watching donuts cruise past your face for ten minutes means you are never going to leave the premises without purchasing them. 🙂

Back to the flat for baths, crap telly and bed.

Saturday – We were meeting Dave and Faye at the show. The day before we had realised that if we parked just outside the showground on a little side street we would have to walk another half a mile or so but would not have to pay £8 a day to park so went with that option, saving the price of our KFC and donuts over the three days 🙂 Kerching! And also probably walking them off too! We were actually starting to tire of the show a little. I think knowing the rough layout from the year before meant there was less wonder in walking around discovering things plus we had arranged to meet people on two out of the four days and we were all pretty knackered too. Four days actually felt a bit too much this year and we have decided to probably give the show a miss next year in favour of maybe something smaller and more specific to our interests. We really like the sheepdog and falconry displays, the gundogs and the rural cratfs. The smallholder stands are of interest and we like the cooking demos, poultry and crafty stuff. We are less interested in the big farm machines, horses (showjumping, dressage and stuff) and shopping for tweed clothing and countryside brand names like Hunter and Joules.

We finally caught up with Dave and Faye and had a couple of hours sitting in the sunshine with them before we parted ways – them to head back to Faye’s and us to head back to Dave’s flat via Tesco for food supplies. We tried to be clever and buy ready meals and frozen pizzas but all four of us have ended up just desperate for ‘normal’ food. The annual junk food assault!

Sunday – was meeting up with Mairi day. She sent me a text to say they were running late and it would likely be midday so we watched some falconry and then headed to the food hall. We finally caught up with Mairi and Patrick and they bought us lunch. There was really no need given the amount of free food on offer but they were keen to sit in proper chairs and chat and we were happy to oblige! Davies and Scarlett got restless so they headed off and we arranged to meet up with them later. One of the benefits of spending so much time at the show I guess, feeling able to let them go off and knowing they would fine their way to our meeting place no problem. We moved from the cafe to the countryside area and Mairi bought everyone ice creams while we watched the gun dogs, the fox hounds and the Drakes of Hazard (Davies’ absolute favourite part of both years shows – a sheepdog farmer and some of his dogs rounding a flock of runner ducks around a duck assault course with hilarious commentary). It was nearly 6pm by then so we kissed M&P goodbye and headed off back to the car and then onward to the flat. I had a voucher for a free bottle of fizz from CoOp and some vouchers for money off too and knew that we’d not be able to collect that this morning as you can’t buy alcohol til 10am by which time we’d be on the boat so needed to collect it that evening. There is no Sunday trading restrictions in Scotland so most supermarkets are open til 10pm and we found the nearest CoOp. Thanks to all the vouchers we got a bottle of fizz, a 9 pack of loo roll, a thank you card, a huge bar of chocolate and some soap for £1.19 🙂 Then on to Tesco to fill up with diesel and return the pjs which Scarlett didn’t like. I had a money off coupon from Tesco from the day before so bought some pretend Baileys and another bar of chocolate (thank you gifts for Dave for the flat and Mel& Em for Bonnie sitting) and then finally home to the flat.

Davies, Ady and Scarlett had baths, I talked to my Dad on the phone, we all had pizza and I think were mostly asleep by midnight. I didn’t have the final bath. The three I had had had not been as special as I’d hoped so I passed in favour of bed and book.

Monday – today – I woke up at 330am and lay for a while semi dozing and half watching the Forth Bridge out of the bedroom window and listening to the trains. Ady’s alarm went off at 4am and so we dashed around packing up, loading the car, clearing the rubbish, chivvying the kids and finally getting out the flat. We drove along to Lesley’s hotel to collect her and were on our way by 5am. It was a straight clear run of 183 miles which took exactly four hours. I sat in the front for the first 2 hours and swapped with Scarlett who does not travel well for the second two hours, Davies slept a lot of the way and Scarlett slept once she was in the front. Lesley, Ady and I chatted.

At Mallaig Ady dropped us and all our stuff off at the Calmac office then took the car back to Morar Motors, the kids stayed in the office with all the bags while Les and I went to the CoOp, Ady came back and we all boarded the very busy boat. We sat and chatted for the 2.5 hours on the boat, finally getting home to Rum at 1245. Em met us at the pier with Bonnie who was very delighted indeed to see us 🙂 We collected the ducklings from Nicola and finally headed up to the croft. It was dry enough to drive all the way up to the caravan  – the first time this year!

While Ady cleared up the chicken in the caravan debris Scarlett and I walked round to spot all the croft creatures and check they were all OK. Goslings, ducklings and piglets all grown loads and doing really well. A bantam chick had hatched but by the time we went egg collecting a couple of hours later it had already been taken by  a crow 🙁

We brought everything in and slowly unpacked with the aid of several cups of tea – we always call it the Chris French style of unpacking, much admiring as we do his method of setting up and striking camp which involves stages of setting up or taking down and then stopping for a while to take stock 🙂 Chris – you taught us well! 🙂

Once everything had had homes found for it Davies was lost to a new SD card for his tablet and transferring things across to it while Scarlett came out with Ady and I to check for eggs, feed the animals and check the crops . All doing well, plenty to get stuck into this week which is great.  Scarlett and Bonnie went in while Ady and I went to the village to collect veg and the duckling run.

Ady cooked dinner, we watched some Modern Family and are all very tired but very pleased to be home. The midges are properly here now but we must have missed Rum because we’re almost glad to see them!

Wednesday was a crazy long day. We were all up early and ready to go well on time. Except at the last minute I realised Scarlett was wearing a pair of trousers that had tea stains on them on the front and mud stains on the back. All her decent trousers were already packed, the only other pair she dug out were too small. So I quickly stitched up a hole in a clean but ripped pair just as we were supposed to be leaving the caravan. Which meant it was me who left last and locked the door behind me. We never used to lock the door and still don’t if we’re on the island but when we are away we tend to these days. The theft of stuff from the wee shop on Canna at the weekend has made everyone a bit cautious, not that I expect for one second that anyone would bother walking two miles inland to rob our caravan, but a quick lock of the door means we won’t even fret about it being a possibility. We leave the keys in a boot inside the horsebox so I dropped them in there and Scarlett and I caught the others up.

We met Mel & Em at the pier to hand Bonnie over. Scarlett did her now traditional falling over at the pier (I think this is the third time she has managed it as we wait for the ferry to leave the island :rolls: ) She was fine aside from a scraped thigh, knee, elbow and ego… We got on board the calmac and headed off to Canna. When we go off on a Wednesday it always seems a good idea to head to Canna as the boat stays there for just over 2 hours before going back to Rum and then on to the mainland. We always spend the morning of a day when we are going off all stressed about going off so leaving on the first boat and then relaxing seems a good idea.

On the way to Canna we chatted a bit to Steve who I had arranged to have a bit of a catch up meeting with and were joined by Alistair the film making man too which was all very sociable.  We handed over 6 duck eggs to Gina who works in the kitchen as we’d been promising them for months. The boat was filled with OAPs doing the non landing cruise and reporters and papparazzi there to interview folk on Canna about the theft. We wandered along the shore road, said hello to a few folk we know there, chatted to Julie in the shop between TV interviews, bought some lip balm from the new Hebridean Beauty shop there and then went back on board the Calmac. Steve rejoined us for a bit more chatting and we may catch up with him tomorrow as he is bringing his in laws to the show. At Rum Steve got off and Lesley got on, along with various other Rum folk. We chatted to Josephine for a while – she is the deer project leader and before we knew it we were pulling in to Mallaig.

A quick pop to the CoOp for various things and then we were off. Scarlett, Davies and I all took it in turns to sit in the front as both of them feel car sick. I don’t travel super well in the back either and poor Lesley at 7 months pregnant was just wedged into her seat! We stopped just once at the Green Welly Stop where I turned my phone on and got a voice mail from Mel to say that they had gone to feed the croft animals and realised there was a chicken trapped in the caravan! After we’d all stopped laughing – that must surely be the funniest voicemail ever – I rang her back to tell her where the key was hidden. She safely evicted the chicken later that evening…

We got to Edinburgh by 10 which was good time, and dropped Lesley off at her Travelodge, then stopped for a quick McDonalds as we were all hungry before getting to Dave’s. He showed us round the flat and then headed off leaving us to it.

I had a failed bath as the water was not hot enough but I had already got my hair wet so had a shower instead. We were all knackered after 12 hours boat and driving so were in bed not long after we arrived.

Weather has been poor today, windy and rainy with short breaks of midgey inbetween. Makes it easier to head away tomorrow though.

I did manage to get down to the walled garden and plant out the peas though so that is all I had wanted to achieve before we go off done 🙂 Yay. I have ordered some more netting which should hopefully be here when we get back or soon afterwards and the polytunnel is now ready to start working in so plenty to get busy with once we come back. I think we have a WWOOFer due the week after we get home, then we are off for a couple of nights and I am pondering taking the kids down to see Mum & Dad, Frazer, Kat & Robin and my granny for a few nights, maybe in late July or August. Scarlett has never flown and so I am thinking maybe we could book some super cheap flights to and fro, stay with Mairi or Dave in Edinburgh / Glasgow and catch up with family in a slightly more normal environment than them visiting us. Not sure yet, will chat to my Dad and see what he thinks about the idea.

The rest of the day was spent making some cookies, baking bread, making dinner, Ady made some meringues with the separated egg white leftover from yesterdays quiches which we had with some harvested strawberries – if only self sufficiency always tasted so good ;). We packed ready for tomorrow which meant the usual fussing over which clothes to take.  I trimmed Davies’ hair, everyone had showers, I finished the monthly community newsletter and emailed that to the school to print.

Scarlett and Ady took the pet ducklings down to Sean and Nicola who are duckling sitting for us, along with dropping off Bonnie’s food with Mel & Em who are Bonnie sitting so that we don’t have to do anything in the morning other than get up, do last minute packing and get ourselves and Bonnie to the boat – Mel & Em will meet us there to take Bonnie from us as they think she settles faster with them if she sees the ferry taking us away and then bringing us back. I’m not at all sure I believe it but they are happy with that arrangement so we run with it. Not at all sure what will happen about Bonnie sitting once they go next month as in theory there is no one here who would take her for us. I guess we have to start taking her off with us and finding suitable accommodation. I know the wigwam camping place we stay at south of Fort William is happy to have her there and some Travelodges take dogs for a surcharge too.

I’m bringing my chromebook off with me so there may be updates while we’re away but certainly not tomorrow. I think we will arrive at Dave’s at about midnight and will then be up fairly early to be at day one of the show on Thursday.