One word? When seven would do…

Not your normal Monday to Friday…. not even our normal Monday to Friday. Hmmm, normal.

Monday was supposed to be a fairly relaxing day with all of the pre- Rum exiting stuff taken care of. But of course life doesn’t pan out like that. Firstly we had a minor crisis of ringing the car hire company to see what car had been booked and discovered that none had. Argh! Cue frantic trying to get hold of Sarah at Eden to find out what was happening and being unable to reach her. That threw the whole thing into chaos as without a car at the other end there was no way we were getting on the ferry and leaving Rum.

Then Tom Pig started mating with his smallest son. Understandably his smallest son was not only a bit upset by this he was also rather injured and his back was covered in blood. It was disturbing Barbara who had some sort of primal reaction to her offspring screaming and we felt there was no way we could leave that sort of situation for nine days and expect other people to come and feed them and deal with it. So Ady rang Marcel and he came up to assess the situation for us. Googling turned up nothing even slightly helpful about male pigs having sex with other male pigs – plenty of suggested websites and youtube videos but nothing of the sort of helpful advice I was looking for I can assure you 🙁 😯 Marcel said that while no serious damage had been done to the young pig there was a high risk of infection to the damaged area which would not only be unpleasant for the pig but would also mean it was no good as meat either, so a plan was hatched for the pig to be killed that evening.

In the middle of all this Vikki came up for lunch and then, as Vikki does, she stayed until about 4pm seemingly oblivious to all the stress and trying to sort things out going on around her. Finally we got confirmation of the car being booked.

Vikki left, Ady and Scarlett took Humphrey down to Lesley and then collected Marcel. I cooked dinner which the kids had and I kept back Ady and mine. The shot rang out (it was SO loud) and 90 minutes later Ady ran Marcel home and returned with a black sack full of pork. He had given Marcel about a third but we have 10kg of delicious looking meat now in our freezer. Many lessons learnt, not least that those piglets were indeed ready for slaughter a good six weeks ago and if we’d only done it we would have four pigs in our freezer rather than one and another to sort out when we get home next week. Still, we now far more ready for the next lot of piglets, hopefully later this year.

A really late dinner, everything finally packed up and to bed.

Tuesday morning Ady took Bonnie to Mike & Casey’s. We decided it would be better for just Ady to take her and although she was a bit confused at being left there with her crate I have had pictures from Casey of her looking very happy. Then more stress over the car when we rang to let them know what time we’d be arriving in Mallaig for them to come and collect us and were told the car was a little one not suitable for four people. Argh! We had to leave them to sort that one out as we had to catch a ferry. Sure enough they did and we have a Ford S max which is lovely and plenty big enough.

Ferry trip was smooth, it’s nice to be on the boat without Bonnie who always find it stressful and we have to sit in the small designated dog area with. Picked up the car hire guy in the smax, back to the office to complete paperwork and then on the road. Glasgow by 8 finally found our Premier Inn by 830 and sitting in the restaurant by 9pm. A nice meal, lots of attention from hotel staff, baths and all slept well despite the heat of the room.

Wednesday – breakfast then on the road Manchester bound. A smooth journey, stopped at our old house for a photo, stopped at Boots for cosmetic supplies (top up of nail varnishes :)), Asda for some clothes shopping (new pants, new pjs for Scarlett, new jeans for Ady, jeans for Davies, wine glasses for me, I’ll be amazed if they make it back to Rum unbroken!)). Arrived at Lynda’s for chats and cosseting – all our favourite foods there waiting for us and lovely clean beds. Had a nice evening with them.

Thursday – back on the road after a quick stop at Tesco for some more supplies of various things. This time destination Sussex. Arrived there just before 3pm.

A lot of upset over various things belonging to us that had been got rid of. Lots of comforting Scarlett 🙁 Was very tempted to gather everyone up and just leave but managed to keep a lid on my temper. Kat and Robin there when we arrived, Frazer came after work. Went out for a meal with Mum & Dad. A late night with lots of drink consumed.

Friday – Back in the car by 10am, destination Eden. We stopped for a coffee and a browse in Lidl and Sainsburys (don’t forget how shop deprived we usually are…) and arrived at 430ish. Will blog more about the Big Lunch Extras thing later but very well fed, felt like minor celebs as everyone had heard of us. Missing kids lots, not helped by being in a family suite in the hotel with a seperate room with bunk beds in. Were it not a ten hour round trip I’d have been most tempted to drive back and get them. Sorely regret not having asked if they could have attended the weekend.

Have rung and skyped with the kids tonight and confident they are happy and settled. I’m struggling massively with not having my kids, dog, animals, home etc where I can see them all and panic everytime my phone gets a text or email. Sure it will all be fine and the weekend looks good ahead, just exhausted with the emotional toll of it all.

Hotel is nice, have had a bath and drank a glass of wine in bed while watching TV and blogging, feels most decadent! Sleep is calling now, a busy weekend ahead and then all of the travelling in reverse.

So. We can’t possibly do a third winter in the static. A second one has proved challenging beyond words. The fact is that we spent way too much time simply surviving and are actually not moving forward during these winter months. I want our lifestyle of off grid, low impact living but, BUT not at the cost of our health, happiness and energy and enthusiasm levels.

We crave baths, living space and a proper solid base to shut the weather outside. We can’t throw our all into developing the croft when so much of our time is just spent tending to our basic survival. I am on the one hand incredibly proud of our getting water, the compost loo, solar and wind power up here. But in the last week we have spent one full day getting firewood up the hill and a second full day just processing laundry. If we took out of the equation all of the carrying firewood, food, gas bottles etc up the hill, removed the big deal that is getting warm and dry after a days work, having a space to take wet muddy clothes off, emptying the loos, filling up the generator, dealing with problems happening to the wind turbine, the water supply etc then we would actually be able to put in full time hours on the crops, the animals and start to consider a proper house build. Oh and focus on some of those other things like down time with the children, socialising at things like book groups, having people round for coffee.

That leaves us with 3 options if we stick to our pledge not to be in the static next winter.

1. have a better house on the croft. Given our failure to sell Osborne Drive last year, our secure and reliable tenants in there now and my reluctance to liquidate all our assests and invest them here just incase at some future point we decide this no longer works I am very worried about trying to sell the house again -both the implications of selling it and the long term consequences of doing so. Rum is perfect for us for now, I believe Ady and I have a good 20 years here of finishing raising our children and then focussing on our own end of our working lives by realising our dreams of self sufficiency, permaculture, volunteer hosting etc. But then I don’t know if our long, long term future is here. I don’t know where Davies and Scarlett will settle or the direction their lives will take them in. I don’t know what our health will be like in middle and old age, I don’t know what will happen with my parents and in which direction we could feel ourselves pulled in the next two decades. To chuck everything in to such an uncertain, remote place seems a little rash even to my fairly reckless standards. Medical provision on the islands is poor, access and infrastructure is likely to be very slow at progressing and given our fairly harsh physical existence just now I forsee a future when a gentle stroll to amenities, good access to the doctors and a ready supply of sunshine and warmth and comfort may well be something we crave at 60 and 70 rather than mud, rain and extremes. All of that talks me out of trying to sell Osborne Drive and build a proper house here on Rum. Along with my yearning for something a bit different. I really want to build something alternative, green and different. My current (and for at least a year) dream is a cob house. I am currently planning to spend the winkle money on going on a course to learn more about it and hoping to maybe persuade my parents to pay for me to attend the course as my birthday present (they said we could talk about what I wanted when we go down) and Christmas present combined so that we can spend the winkle money on Ady coming too. It’s a four day course in Norfolk so Davies and Scarlett could spend time with friends or family while we were there sometime this summer (various dates through May, June and July. I know it would be a two year or so build but if we could learn about it and get started this year then the plan of eventually having a low cost house on the croft would happen without selling the house, done by us using local materials, with plenty of scope for volunteers, WWOOFers and friends to come and help.

Which sounds great but won’t of course be ready by next winter. In which case house on croft option 1 is something else temporary. I am waiting for a nissen hut quote but it’s a long time coming and although until it actually comes in I am not sure whether it is financially viable or not it will still require either borrowing money, begging money or a quick earning of money in order to make it happen this year. It remains option 1.

Option 2 is renting a house on Rum. We are on the housing list and while there is no imminent house and we will have no real idea of when a house may come up it is at least a possibility. Up until now we would have said that we didn’t want a house in the village. Indeed it will be financially crippling and by no means ideal in terms of being off of the croft but it would enable us to have a sensible base to work from on making things happen on the croft, have people to stay, have a bit of respite from our extreme lifestyle and a bit of a taste of normality for a while. We would personally pledge to only be there for 2 years or as long as a build on the croft took us but freeing up the static to earn money by renting as holiday accommodation or using to put up WWOOFers would mean all of that would happen so much quicker anyway. This is an out of our hands option but is there in the background. I think we would give this until September to happen and if it didnt then it would decide us to go with option 3.

Option 3 is to become fair weather Rumachs. To take three months or so off every winter to get off the island, learn more, travel a bit, experience different things and not just exist through the winter. It would mean no turkeys, reducing general livestock to a very small number and working out the logistics but could be done. We could then either look at housesitting, WWOOFing or trying to get work of some sort over the winter so that we could go into more suitable accommodation over the cold months before coming back next spring ready to get cracking on house build and either finishing or doing the same again in Winter 2015/16.

There is a part of me that clings to the idea that the harsh winter months are the trade off for the amazing summer months but actually they need not be and I think after two of them we have done our time, earned our stars and get to just skip off with a note from our mum excusing us next winter. Still lots to think on, still waiting for that nissen hut quote, for a house to become available in the village, for getting that cob training course booked but at least it feels like a germ of a plan.

Remember that schedule for Sunday about panicking about no one having enough clothes? Tick!

Well Davies and Scarlett anyway. Ady and I didn’t even get to our clothes but we are less arsed about being judged on our mud splatted clothing, I feel it just gives us an air of interesting eccentrics which is sort of the effect I will be aiming for anyway. The kids are equally un-arsed but I fret more about being judged as an unfit parent parading my children in too small jeans and wellies than I do about people just thinking I am a loon.

Yesterday was work for me in the morning. I had all sorts of new post office things such as selling mobile phone top ups, people paying their NI by cheque and paying cheques in to their bank account. An 88p stamp to send something to Berlin was a piece of cake in comparison! It was as usual very sociable though – Bad Neil, Mel, Emily, Norman, Mike & Debs, Steve, Claire and then Jinty and Ross coming in at the end along with Ady and Bonnie.

Some faffing about getting a copied dvd off Steve while I tried to hold Bonnie on a makeshift lead of bailer twiner and all our shopping in the freezing cold and got all cross and impatient and then home.

We had lunch and then Ady cleaned out the chicken house while I went to finish off tidying up the pig pen. I reeled all the excess fence onto my new reel, put a secondary fence (not wired up to the electric) along most of the fenceline and just enjoyed the feeling of being out working on the croft.

Then back in to make bread dough and pizza dough as we had Mike and Casey up for dinner. First time we’d seen Casey since she headed off in November so lovely to see her back. Mike has been back and forth a bit and I’d seen him at the shop on Thursday already. Casey was suffering from an ear infection and they had pledged not to drink but both ended up having a few beers anyway 🙂 We had pizza and Casey had brought up a collection of gifts including Out Of Africa which they said we
should watch, a hand made Christmas decoration, a very lovely scented candle, the promise of one of Mike’s amazing pictures still a work in progress and a game to play with us. Yes, a game.

We played it after dinner. Scarlett loved it and her and Casey won, Davies really enjoyed it and he and Mike came second. Ady and I bloody hated it (although we did a fine job of pretending) and came last. I feel just as tainted as that time I had lentils at the Not Swingers house. I hate games, they are not fun, you don’t get to be silly and I don’t want to concentrate on collecting cards or paper money or plastic pieces, or try and guess what other people’s next move might be. And I don’t want to worry about not knocking my wine over when I wave my hands about when I talk. The end.

But then we played Casey Charades and I cheered right up, I love that game. It has all the vital ingredients of silliness, being loud and waving arms about, in jokes, totally inappropriate behaviour and clues which have to be burned afterwards incase someone got hold of them 🙂 Adore it.

They left around 1am hoping to see the Northern Lights on their way home. They wouldn’t have done, I’ve been looking every ten minutes for the last 2 nights. They better bloody not appear next week while we’re down in Sussex *has scary premonition of most ironic and annoying possible scenario ever*.

Today was Sorting Out The Clothes Day. But first we all slept in. Our bedroom is baltic just now with a side order of condensation city, we’ve been going to bed fully clothed and still waking up shivering. It’s pants. I wanted it to be colder but actually it sucks at night. We have the terracotta pots and tealights things working but even that is not taking the edge off.

First Scarlett, every single item of clothing from her bedroom and a mammoth trying on session. Whittled a rather full wardrobe down to just about enough clothes suitable to take away, unpicked the ankle cuffs from a pair of trousers which just about make them acceptable and she wore a pair of tracksuit pants for two hours this afternoon in a gradual working her way up to wearing them properly process. Fortunately she is pretty good humored about her clothing foibles and mostly cheery about it. That done we have a large pile of clothes for material scraps and a bin liner full to take down to the village for the swap shop clothes bank area in the hall.

We broke for lunch then and Ady put on Navigator for them to watch. He and Davies watched it all, Scarlet dipped in and out, I worked on unpicking trouser cuffs and then emptied out the tops of the wardrobes in our bedroom. I gave up on packing for me as daylight was fading fast. Then Davies and I did his clothes, he is far less picky! So kids all packed up clothes-wise.

I’ve sorted out all the croft animal sitters with a group email laying out all details, all of them have replied to let me know when they are doing their shifts, we ran through Bonnie care with Mike and Casey last night and I’ve just emailed Lesley about dropping Humphrey down to her tomorrow. Scarlett and Ady cleaned him out today so he is all sawdust fresh and ready for a mini break too. I’m just waiting back on details on the car hire for Tuesday and final details for the actual weekend but they can arrive by email during the week anyway, I appreciate most people won’t be leaving home on Tuesday for an event starting on Friday! I’ve had a couple of emails from Lynda today so that all remains is the weather and Calmac working together to ensure the ferry is running on Tuesday.

I fed the animals, trial running the new dual location feeding with birds in one place and pigs in another to test out how it will work for animal sitters. It was all nice and smooth. Ady got dinner one. Several episides of the Good Life which is just so good for our souls and then a couple of Will & Grace before bed for children.

Tomorrow is proper packing up, Humphrey to the village, Vikki coming up for lunch and a pop down to the shop.

In the meantime I have stuff to say about houses and future plans and stuff but will have to get to that another time.

Yes, off island, for ten days!

When I organised the Big Lunch back in June I got invited to a Big Lunch Extras workshop thing. I was going to go to the October one but life caught up with us and it just didn’t fit in but managed to get on the January one instead. I’m not entirely sure what it entails but it is lottery funded community building workshops, seminar stuff at the Eden Project with lots of networking, training and help with accessing info, grants and so on. It sounds both interesting generally and potentially useful for both us here on Rum and for me / Ady and some of our other ideas for business stuff. Plus they are covering all travel expenses!

So on that basis although it will be a mad 10 days we are heading down to Cornwall, via Sussex. I’ve not said anything as we have literally no time to see anyone – our schedule is as follows:
Tuesday – leave Rum on 2pm boat, arrive Mallaig 330pm, drive to Glasgow to stay in Premier Inn off motorway.
Wednesday – drive to Manchester, stay with Lynda and Stuart – both because they are a handy stop over and because I am not sure when we’ll next see them and we miss them!
Thursday – drive to Sussex, arrive mid afternoon. Finally meet Robin and see Frazer for first time in nearly 2 years. Parents want to take us all out for a meal to belatedly celebrate everything missed for last two years – birthdays, births etc. Stay at Mum & Dads.
Friday – Ady and I drive to Eden Project arriving for lunchtime for Big Lunch Extras. Kids are staying at my parents. First time Ady and I have ever been away from kids since we had them, regardless of quality or interestingness of workshop it will no doubt feel like a sort of honeymoon!
Saturday & Sunday & Monday morning – Big Lunch Extra for Ady and I. Indulged by grandparents for Davies and Scarlett until approx Sunday lunchtime by which point my Mum will have had enough of them and Davies will be spending time reassuring Scarlett that it’s only one more night til Mummy and Daddy come back.
Monday – drive back to Sussex from Cornwall. Reunited with children, suspect more visits from Frazer, Kat and Robin. Stay the night at parents.
Tuesday – Drive to Glasgow. Stay in Premierinn.
Wednesday – drive to Fort William, Overload on supermarket shopping etc, stay in Premier Inn.
Thursday – drive to Mallaig, catch ferry, return to Rum, get reunited with Bonnie, croft, static, animals, deal with any fall out days away, reconnect static to water, gas, solar, wind, put away vast quantities of food shopping and probable stuff kids will have rediscovered at parents and insisted on bringing back. Sigh at laundry from 9 days away with no access to washing machine. Collapse.

I suspect we’re mad. It was the only way I could ever see us getting to Sussex to meet Robin as we could never justify the expense. We have one set of people looking after Bonnie, another looking after Humphrey and three sets of people sorting out their own rota for pig and poultry feeding twice a day. If I’d realised when I started arranging it that Gav and Laura wouldnt be back I would probably have never even considered it! I’m not even going to start considering poorly animals, gale force winds or any other eventualities and have been talking to Davies and Scarlett about road safety for weeks!

Definitely needed to blog this, it was far too long for a comment reply Michelle! 🙂

Today has been laundry – three loads, all very complicated as the water needs taking off the supply to the static and putting on the washing machine, via a hose that Ady has bodged with a load of gaffer tape so it only leaks a bit ;). Then the nice posh genny has to be used to start the machine as the other one doesn’t make the door lock and the water valve open, but the nice posh genny is not powerful enough to get the water up to temperature (old machine, lowest wash is 40 degrees) or operate the spin cycle so once it is full and heated we have to turn it off, switch gennys over and then start it up again. Very complicated. But clean washing! On the croft! For just the price of the petrol! It was a perfect drying day so I got the first two loads dry and aired infront of the log burner, now folded and put away. The third load I hung out by headtorch light but hopefully will dry tomorrow. We’ve already realised we don’t own enough pairs of pants each to take with us so will stop on the second day and all get new pants. On Sunday I have sceheduled in panicking that no one has clothing suitable for staying at grandparents / meeting strangers to do training workshops about community building. We have lots of clothes that are mud stained, ripped and meet Rum chic standards. Maybe we’ll be buying more than pants!

Barbara Pig has not escaped at all today, hurrah and yipee. Bonnie caught a rat, she is a spectacular ratter,yay Bonnie. Ady and I are both at dry throat clearing cough stage of the cold and the weather has turned colder so the bedroom is very chilly at night which doesn’t help. Rent paid again by tenants, still no sign of the winkle cheque in our bank account.

Today was Pig Move Day. Every time we move the pigs we learn something new, get a bit better, realise we still have not cracked it. First though Ady and I went down to the freezer to get pheasants (from Muck) our for dinner and see if Sandy had any suitable plumbing bits to borrow to sort out the washing machine. Ady found something which may work but we will raid B&Q next week to get a proper supply of suitable things to rig it up once and for all.

Back at home Ady fired up the strimmer to clear the path for the electric fence while I started working on closing up the side they have been on and is now a mud bath. It has only been 3 weeks but they have already totally trashed the area we moved them to just before Christmas, reminding me of just how wet this last few weeks have been. After some debate we decided to give them the whole area to the edge of the fence which will mean they have traveled along the length of the croft since we got them. It’s a pretty big area but means we can use two sides of the croft boundary fence and our animal sitters next week will be able to feed them without actually having to set foot on the croft at all; we have put the feed bin outside the croft so they can walk the nature trail and feed them over the fence. Perfect.

Ady strimmed, I faffed with fencing – my new electric fence reel is indeed revolutionary – I balked a little at spending over a tenner on an empty plastic reel but actually it makes winding up and dispensing fence so easy it was worth every penny 🙂 Mel and Em walked past so we stopped for a chat with them and arranged for them to take a turn in the rota of Croft 3 animal looking after next week – Mel & Em, Mike & Debs and Vikki are all dealing with the pigs and birds, Lesley is Humphrey sitting (2 years old at Christmas so an old man these days) and Mike & Casey are Bonnie sitting.

We hit a point of being ready to cut the old fence which put them on a very small area briefly and called lunchtime as it seemed a logical natural break. Back up to the static for lunch where the kids were engrossed in Scribblenauts – a DS game they both got for Christmas and is responsible for Scarlett’s leaps forward in reading and writing 🙂 After lunch Ady and I went back down and the kids decided to go and visit with Mike & Casey who got back on Tuesday’s boat and they have missed loads. I said they had to wash up first but Ady let them off doing it until later so they went off with Bonnie.

We were doing really well and at 230 were well ahead of schedule and pausing to watch an eagle circling over the croft which we spotted before the chickens so took great enjoyment in then watching the chickens to see when they all stood to attention having finally spotted it. Ady, me and all the birds looking skywards we missed Vikki approaching from the top of the croft! 🙂 She started to help move bits and then suddenly we saw big clouds coming in and rain started spotting so as we were ahead we called teabreak time and headed up to the static to get the kettle on. Just as Vikki and I got in so Mike & Debs appeared from the top trail too. Ady joined us shortly afterwards for coffee, chats and welcoming Debs to the island and Mike back after several weeks off for Christmas. It was ace to see them all, although I cursed the kids for going off without washing up and Ady for letting them! Then as it hit 4pm everyone realised they needed to head off before dark, Davies, Scarlett and Bonnie came home and Ady and I went to try and hurriedly finish the pig pen. Of course we didn’t. We lost the light, Barbara and one of the little boys kept getting out and in the end we gave up for today. I reckon if we’d had that hour we spent drinking tea and chatting we might have finished it all but actually I’d rather have friends drop in for a chat and a cup of tea and carry over the last hour til tomorrow.

Ady and I headed down to collect veg and any post (amazon subscribe and save delivery of conditioner, ketchup and cooking oil, – rock n roll) before coming back home. I cooked dinner – roast pheasant, potato gratin thanks to some out of date double cream Jinty was giving away and tinned veg. Was delicious and frugal and quite local.

I’ve heard back from Big Lunch that they are sorting out our car hire and will be able to reimburse our expenses next weekend so we’ll not be out of pocket for very long at all which is a relief. Still waiting on that winkle cheque arriving in our bank account though…

Not the day we’d planned, another of those Rum type days where time runs away from you.

I had a shower this morning and the water ran out, just as I had lathered up my hair and body and was stood naked and sudsy. Ady had stepped outside so I suspected I would be left to deal with it all by myself but he reappeared back indoors so I could yell for him to fix it somehow! His solution was to hook the pump up to the water butt so that I could at least finish my shower.

That done he got his oranges on and headed up to look at the source of the water. There must have been air trapped somewhere along the system so he bled it all and now it is not only fine but the pressure is way better than it has been of late. We’ve all learnt a lot in the last three years but Ady has gone from being one of the least practical men I know to someone who can not only have a look at all things electrical, plumbing or gas / heating related but probably sort it out. I know none of our systems here are in the last bit sophisticated but it’s still something that makes me very proud of him and he of himself.

While he was doing that I carried a couple of bags of logs up the hill and started to chop them up. We have had about ten bags of logs sitting in the trailer at the bottom of the croft for well over a week waiting for us to get them up and on the odd occasion that we are at the bottom of the hill empty handed we have both brought a sack up but there were still about 7 left to bring up and get chopped. It’s amazing how quickly the wood dries out once it is chopped and stacked with air circulating around it in the woodstore, certainly not the well seasoned, nicely aged firewood one would burn in an ideal world but not entirely green either.

Hmmn, not sure paragraphs about our firewood and plumbing are desperately interesting reading really but it’s our day!

And at least there are paragraphs. Even if there are sentences starting with the word ‘and’ 😉

Then it was lunchtime. It has rained on and off so between showers I read Davies and Scarlett the first half of the latest David Walliams book which Davies got for Christmas. Scarlett is doing lots of writing and trying to spell things out at the moment. Interesting how both of them will have learnt to read by learning how to write…

After lunch we saw someone heading up the track towards the croft just as we were about to try and start the washing machine up. It was Sean the rat, coming to give us some rat advice after the rats in polytunnel and rats eating through the wheelie bins storing animal feed incidents of late. I left him and Ady to it while I worked through all the wood chopping as Ady had brought the rest of the wood up the hill for me before lunch. All now chopped and stacked and drying out. We have probably just about got enough to see us through the log burning weeks ahead til spring although we will gather some more before then and are planning to get a chainsaw of our own later this month so will get more efficient at processing firewood.

Ady and Sean walked all around the croft looking at various areas and discussing ways to deter the rodents. Sean is here doing his phd in rat behaviour and is one year through the three year course. I think he only needs to be here for one more year on Rum and then can spend the third year writing up findings but his girlfriend is hoping to move here soon to volunteer with SNH so maybe they will end up staying longer. He has learnt loads in his first year from lots of observation, setting tracking plates to monitor footprints of rats, catching and microchipping about 50 rats and spending lots of time out on the island watching. It’s an interesting subject once you get past the eww factor of it being rats and as we are relatively low in rat predators and relatively high in rat food as an island it is a good study location. Sean says that the rats here are so clean and disease free that you could actually eat them. No one plans to but given how closely we all live to them here it is heartening that at least they are not spreading nasty diseases.

I finished chopping and came in to read some more to the kids. We had an interesting conversation about dominoes leading to potential items to make and sell to tourists using Rum resources such as simple old fashioned games made from wood, stones etc as counters. Ideas such as jacks, tick tack toe, dominoes and so on all came from a set of wooden dominoes my Dad has that his dad made for him as a Christmas present when we was a boy. I can think of lots of charming Davies and Scarlett produced Rum gifts they could create to sell in lovely handmade little bags….hmmmm

By then it was starting to get dark so I started sorting out dinner – leftover gammon in a suet pastry roll and various potatoes according to taste / preference for various people.

Our usual evening ‘routine’ of an episode of The Good Life followed by one of Will & Grace.

Clare sent Ady and I texts this morning to say she was coming back on the ferry today. Davies has been lighting a fire in the yurt twice a week but last time was Wednesday last week so Ady headed down this morning to light a fire and clean up the inevitable puddles (the door leaks when it rains and the wind blows in a certain direction).

It tipped down with rain all morning and most of the afternoon so it was another indoors day. The wind has blown all day too though so plenty of power and we’ve had the genny on all day. I’m concerned that the cheque I posted last Thursday has not hit our bank account yet and not sure how long to give it before asking the winkle man to cancel the cheque and send us a new one. Argh.

The kids tidied their bedrooms which were a bit post-guest messy with added stuff heaped in them but being so small and having been very well tidied before guests didn’t take long. I had offered to read to them but the weather cleared up after lunch and they were engrossed in something on their tablets. Ady had made soup from chicken bones and leftovers and Fliss gave me a loaf of her best bread yesterday as part of bag of birthday stuff so we had that for lunch and then Ady and I went for a walk with my camera. We were slightly scuppered in our plan to walk to the village by Barbara Pig breaking out and following us all the way to bridge before she caught us up and we took her home again. She’s so bad. That meant it was dusk really so not much good for photos but we walked down to the village anyway. There was no post for us but we saw a nice joint of gammon in Jinty’s fridge so bought that for dinner instead of our planning fishcakes which pleased everyone.

We bumped into Clare, Mel & Em and of course saw Jinty and then walked home again. Always good to get outside if at all possible for a bit of a walk – I hate not leaving the static all day. Back at the croft Barbara was out again, definitely have not sorted out the fence just yet grr.

I’ve had a truly lovely day 🙂 In a perfect ideal world it would have had a window of about 90 minutes somewhere between 1pm and 3pm where it didn’t rain or look like it might possibly rain in which we could have headed out to the Clearances Stone along the road to Harris and Kilmory. It is easy walking and has a fab view back towards the croft so I could have tested out my new camera. But it didn’t and frankly I was not up for the gamble of getting wet, the children were very happy playing with the lego and we had loads of wind whizzing the turbine round and powering the internet so instead we stayed in, Ady bought me a constant supply of tea (laced with brandy after a certain hour) and so we didn’t bother.

For the first time in about 4 years we had a bedtime intruder – Scarlett woke after a bad dream at about 3am and came into our bed. Our bed barely fits the two of us so with an additional body plus teddy it was a squash and a squeeze! To the point that at 5am Ady stopped trying and came to sleep in the lounge. Except Scarlett and I were not aware of that so continued to try and sleep squished up on my side of the bed. Ah well.

So we were up late, Ady cooked bacon sandwiches for everyone and then we just hung out. I had a real flurry of blast from the past contacts on facebook including a lovely message from the Mum of a friend 🙂 We watched eagles circling and then a buzzard getting mobbed by crows – love that looking out of our windows is so often like an Attenborough documentary :). I got my camera from Ady and the kids and a surprise cloth bag saying ‘ignoring advice since 1974’ which is just fab 🙂 Cards including a home made Davies card, one from my Granny, the official one from my parents and then a bright purple sparkly glittery ‘fabulous at 40’ one written in by Frazer, Kat, Mum and Dad including lovely things written which made me cry.

At 5pm we headed down to the village, ostensibly to put in the veg order but fairly obviously so that Rum folk could do the birthday thang. The shop was bedecked with balloons and the whiteboard said ‘Nic is 40 celebrate 40 years on the planet’. Lots of birthday kisses from all around. Mel & Em gave me a lovely bottle of wine (which I had had at theirs on Boxing Day and said was lovely), Jinty gave me a very large glass of baileys and a seed sprouter with the ironic recommendation that it is great for chickpeas ;), Abby baked me a cake, Vikki gave me another bottle of wine (my favourite from naked wines which we both signed up to for a while) and a book we had been talking about last week, Lesley gave me a box of Lush stuff, Fliss had left an Isle of Rum bag (long coveted, never purchased) filled with a loaf of bread, some honey and orange butter and a bar of soap but my best and my favourite gift of all which was a song written about me by Jed, our resident visiting rock star singer songwriter called ‘Nic is turning 40’ all about me, our wind turbine and washing machine, our caravan, my cool kids raised outside the system, my veg growing, my strong man and how I might be turning 40 but I only seem 20 to Jed, it was awesome 🙂

It was all very lovely and we left at 8pm to wander home. I rang my Mum while Ady cooked dinner – venison steaks and home made chips 🙂 and brought me a large glass of wine too. We watched a Good Life and a Will & Grace.

And now, at my age, I really should be in bed 😉

It’s almost been a weekend off actually.

Yesterday morning I went off to work where I had my usual enjoyable couple of hours being Mrs Post. I was patronised by Stuart the headmaster, Emily from the castle, Dave and his brother, Ross and Lesley’s brother Gordon – all heading to the boat to go off, Bad Neil and Norman. The boat brought me new wellies, dog food and some mystery items squirreled away by Ady. Too much to carry so I left it all there and walked home to return later with the car.

Back at the croft Davies was feeling much better and none of the rest of us have shown signs of the Mainland Cold so far so fingers crossed we may have avoided it. Ady had been busy with various things and had a productive morning. We had a cup of tea and then he and I went back to the village with the car to collect post and parcels, get some stuff out from the freezer for dinners and some venison steaks from the freezer for dinner on my birthday. On the way home the car died and Ady was worried that the effort taken to restart it again would have drained the battery too much to start it again from cold next time. So we went home for lunch and then took the car back down to the village to put it on charge at the workshop overnight, then walked home. I wore my new wellies which rubbed my heel – need to break them in!

We had a mammoth Good, Bad, Learnt in 2013 session with hopes for 2014 which is always good and life affirming 🙂 Then I cooked dinner and we watched a couple of episodes of The Good Life and a Will & Grace. The two sit side by side in a quite pleasing manner somehow… Ady and I also unwound a new spool of electric fence wire onto my new electric fence wire spool designed to prevent tiresome tangles of electric fence and preserve sanity. We’ll see…

Today was grey and drizzly so I stayed in bed reading – I’m reading the latest Bridget Jones and although it took a while to get into I am actually really enjoying it, it feels like catching up with an old friend on facebook after ten years! I keep finding myself wanting to post on fb, ff or my blog in Bridget style – Rainfall 5cm, minutes spent walking in rain 57, mud splatters on previously clean jeans 1 million, alcohol units 4 (not good), percentage of day spent obsessing over imminent big birthday 23 (good). 😉

I had planned to do some pig fence stuff but Ady had done some fixing of the fence earlier and persuaded me it was far too cold and grey to be outside so instead I spent ages trying to sort out the phone signal issue. I have now actually got someone at o2 to concede there is a network problem and assure me that they are working on it. They are refunding us both 10 days worth of money (we’ve been without for 6 days, if it reaches 8 I will get in touch again) and we’ve to keep checking to see if it comes back up. Tiresome, tedious and very annoying. We do at least have emergency call cover which is heartening incase of needing proper help in a hurry up here. Fingers crossed it gets sorted soon.

As it was windy we had the internet on for a lot of the day so I faffed on facebook a bit, chatted to some friends and Scarlett watched stuff on a tablet while Davies stayed in bed until it was afternoon watching something on a phone. Almost like ‘normal’ families on a Sunday 😉

We had lunch / breakfast / whatever you call it when you eat cheese on toast at about midday and it’s the first meal of the day for some of you and the second for some others… Then Ady and I donned our orange waterproofs and headed down to collect the car from the village and take Bonnie for a bit of a leg stretch. Back at home we fed animals, brought in firewood, put almost dry washing on the airer and then Ady cooked dinner and I made bread. A really relaxed lovely Sunday.

I don’t actually know what is planned for tomorrow, I know there have been emails circulating with me missed out of the loop so suspect something is afoot and I know there will be bacon sandwiches for breakfast and venison steaks for dinner. Other than that I am happy to be led around like a woman of certain years 😉 🙂

I was going to not bother blogging tonight as I have to be up for work in the morning but I notice I signed off my last post by saying I had to be up for work in the morning which means its a whole week. Oops.

Last Saturday was a very quiet morning at work, I think I had about 2 people in. The system was not working for the first hour so I had to ring the helpdesk, which sounds straightforward but Jinty had had a fit of post Christmas tidying and reorganised all the folders and posters so I couldn’t find the number for the helpdesk for at least 20 minutes and had to look through loads of old newsletters. When I did find it and ring them they asked for our branch code which I couldn’t find either and had to then leave them on hold for about ten minutes (was not going to hang up having been in a queue to talk to someone for ages) while I tracked that down. Argh! Finally sorted it all out, rebooted everything and got it all up and running again at about 11am.

Jinty and her visiting sister called in before the boat and then dashed off again and I finally got a flurry of customers just before closing time. I realised that due to being closed on Thursday (Boxing Day) there was no totals of cash in hand in the safe to copy across so I had to pull all the change out and count it. It took *ages* and I just finished as Jinty came back with loads of green looking people who had arrived on the boat for Hogmanay on the seasickyness boat all year – I think all ten or so people had thrown up on it!

I said hello (no hugs!) to everyone and then headed up the hill for home.

Ady had spent the morning digging out the wind turbine pole and rigging it up ready for the new one. We had lunch and then put our oranges on and headed out to finish installing it. It was the stillest day I think Rum has ever seen but finally during the evening the wind finally got up enough to spin it and test that it was indeed in full working order once more. Hurrah, yippee and woohoo!

On Sunday we mostly faffed with the washing machine. We eventually concluded that it would not work from the water butt as the pressure was not sufficient so moved it over closer to the static and hooked it up to the burn water that we have piped to that. Sure enough it worked! 🙂 This is fantastic! The joy of a washing machine working ON OUR CROFT within 20 feet of our washing line is possibly one of the greatest achievements yet. I know it’s not compared to getting the static up there, getting water across, finally getting the compost loo, growing crops, rearing animals and all of that but a bath and a washing machine are the two big home comforts I most miss so to have finally hit the point that we are making those happen rather than just lifeline survival things feels like a real leap forwards. Further faffing as the Honda genny (Ady’s pride and joy, cost over £1000, very precious) struggled with the spin cycles which the internet tells me do spike at just over the 2kw mark (our genny’s capacity is 2kw) but our cheap back up bargain genny (about £200 but more powerful at 2.6kw) cannot manage the start up bit to get the water flowing. So a combination team effort between gennys is currently required and the fast wash cycle takes over 2 hours which is a whole lot of petrol to run a genny for. Will be less than the £2.50 per time we pay for a laundry token and minus all the hassle of going down to the castle and back certainly but still tweaking required.

Monday was BART DAY! Eagerly anticipated arrival of Kirsty, James, Marcus and Alex on the boat. Ady and I had been further washing machine tweaking in the morning and I had some washing pegged out and more still in process. We all met the boat, Ady and James came home in the car while the rest of us walked. We had a cup of tea on the sporran and then adults walked over to Croft 2 to show Kirsty and James Gav and Laura’s cabin and borrow some petrol from Gav’s stash.

Late night, much drink, lots of kids on screens. You can picture the rest of the day 🙂

Tuesday morning Kirsty, Ady and I walked down to the village to collect veg box, get in some supplies, gather post from the boat (including my birthday present, woohoo it’s arrived in time although stashed away at the moment), sing Happy Birthday to Jinty etc. Barbara Pig was on an escape adventure from the night before and accosted Kirsty and I as we walked home up the hill. Ady spent a lot of time outside taking her back to the pig pen. Other than that much tea was drunk, chatting was done etc.

We saw the old year out and the new year in in style with music, dancing, fizz and at midnight all spilt outside to watch fireworks from down in the village and across on the mainland. Magical and special. Another Rum friends memory banked 🙂
Children went to bed around 2am I think, adults more like 330am, we certainly saw the year in fully 😉

New Years Day was a slower start, obviously. The kids had been invited down to the castle to play xbox and console games, Davies had to light a fire in the yurt and I think we were all in need of a bit of fresh air and leg stretching. We all walked down in various combinations, the kids lit the yurt fire and then headed to the castle with us lagging a bit behind. I’d been unsure whether all of us were invited to the castle or not and didn’t know whether inflicting all 8 of us was better or worse than dumping the kids… in the end I was honest with Mel and we arranged to have a bit of a walk on the beach for half an hour or so before coming back to join the kids. Having mentioned that Kirsty and James had not seen inside the castle before either she offered a tour too 🙂 Yay Mel 🙂

So Kirsty, James, Ady, Bonnie and I had a wander along the beach, we showed them How to Pick A Winkle, Bonnie chased some crows and we reflected a little on previous new years days on beaches we have shared before heading to the castle. Mel and Em had laid on festive snacks of a very high quality and we had a lovely hour or so chatting and drinking tea with them before Em Bonnie-sat and Mel took us (and Scarlett and Alex) on a castle tour. We were conscious of daylight leaving us so headed back to the croft.

Ady was Mr Curry Meister for the night so he did that while Kirsty was wise and I tried out being inspirational again for the first time in ages. I miss friends 🙂 🙁

A lovely last night although poor Davies had succumbed to James’ cold which on top of three incredibly late nights, way more screen time and way less outdoors time than he is used to had him feeling a little delicate and sensitive along with three other children all slightly passed their best selves meant they took a little coaxing before getting back on track.

We called midnight an early night 😉

Thursday was Operation Pack Up and while there is still time to find something so far I don’t believe Kirsty and James left anything behind…. 😯

Some of us walked and some of us drove to the pier, all arriving with plenty of time to chat to fellow Rumachs, very many of whom were waving folk off yesterday (Jinty’s Dad and sister, Lesley and Ross’ Mum, us saying good bye to The Barts and Sandy leaving in spectacular drunk fashion apparently proclaiming there is no love left on Rum!!!). The ferry turned the corner and we all parted ways back to our ‘normal’ lives.

We spent the afternoon emptying the car of the massive animal feed delivery that we’d found in the boat shed having arrived on New Years Eve and starting to carry logs up the hill and split them to go in the wood store. Rats have chewed through one of our feed bins so that needed repairing. Davies needed to mostly sit next to the fire and drink vitamin C drinks, Scarlett did lots of tending to her poorly brother. I made bread dough and by popular poorly boy request moved traditional Friday night pizzas to Thursday. I also trekked down in the dark to the shop for some supplies having decided it would be better done last night than tonight and would mean we’d not need to leave the croft all day today. I also got to test out my new Christmas head torch 🙂

Earlyish nights all round.

The wind has been fierce today to the extent that we tethered the wind turbine for most of the day. Even with that done we have had enough power to charge everything, run everything and still have a full battery without the genny on at all today :). Both kids have had bath showers (filling the very deep shower tray up for a shallow bath) and hairwashes so Davies feels less full of skanky cold germs and better and Scarlett has had her hair detangled. We’ve mostly been indoors all day and played games, watched some TV stuff, knitted, done drawing and generally vegged out feeling the static is huge without guests or the Christmas tree! Oh and I did some paperwork sorting and filed our tax returns for 2012/13 so feel very virtuous about that 🙂

I messed about for ages trying to sort out our non existent phone signal and managed to ring my parents and get a crackly message out to say we are fine but have no phones just now. I might ring again in the morning and try for a more coherent message.

But for now, as I have work in the morning…. 😉

I remember the bit in When Harry Met Sally when Sally is crying down the phone to Harry and then says ‘and I’m going to be 40…’ Harry asks ‘When?’ aghast. Sally carries on sobbing ‘someday….’

I have 10 days left. I’m going to be 40 someday.

Maybe I am getting old. For my birthday I would like a washing machine and a bath…. 😉

Christmas Eve was lovely. The kids both made stockings. Davies really wanted to do it all himself – cut out the fabric, stitch it, design and glue on decorations. Scarlett is actually quite a good sewer but far lazier and if she could have handed it all over for me to do she would have done so. Except I was up for some sewing myself so was busy turning an old pair of jeans into a shoulder bag for myself.

I semi rescued the Christmas cake, then decided only we would ever see if and it would still taste lovely even if the icing was dragging the marzipan down off the sides. So I stopped and moved to eating it instead 🙂

I can’t remember much more about the day, we watched some festive stuff but were all a bit wired really from anticipation of Christmas and fear that something might still happen to stop us staying in the static.

At 430 we headed down to the shop for mince pies and mulled wine. There was quite a gathering down there and it was a lovely hour or so all gathered in the shop chatting, sipping mulled wine, bantering and exchanging festive cheer. It is the sense of community here and the being part of something like this which holds us so tight and makes us want to fight for what must often seem to the outside world like a mental dream and a test of sheer bloodymindedness that is keeping us here. It isn’t – we simply know that the good bits are so good we would never hope to find anything like this again.

We walked home, very laden down with festive food and drink – tax credits paid on Christmas Eve meant that we were able to fully indulge, along with cashing in our Christmas Club funds that we’d been saving all year. Brandy, whisky, wine, beer and a bottle of fizz, along with treats like Baileys extra thick double cream to load onto mince pies, salmon, cheeses and things like Terrys chocolate oranges for stockings.

Back at home I did the final wrapping up while Ady got the curry on – we always had a Christmas Eve takeaway back on the mainland, ever since our first Christmas together – clearly not an option here so a homemade curry has to suffice. Maybe next year we’ll plan to cook extra in advance and freeze it so it is more like a takeaway!

While at the shop we had learnt that the internet had been struck by lightning earlier in the day and was out of order. Word was that it would be out until Boxing Day at the earliest, if fixable on Rum by venturing up Hebnet Hill, longer if it was something requiring a part to be sent up. This filled us rather with dismay – both as we knew we had people who were waiting for updates on our safety on facebook, friend feed, blog and by email. And because we had planned lots of iplayer viewing for our slice of Christmas TV pretending to still be normal – Doctor Who, Open All Hours, Miranda!

The kids went to bed lateish and then pretended to be asleep at about midnight so we were able to load up under the tree and in stockings. I think we were in bed by 1am. It was eerily quiet and felt as though we were all holding our breath waiting.

Davies and Scarlett woke about 715am and opened their stockings in Davies’ room. Ady got up and put the kettle on and got the fire lit and I followed about 15 minutes later. Presents were more reserved this year but they still had about 15 gifts each under the tree, mostly things they had specifically asked for and a few surprises. Davies had 4 DS games, some books, some lego, some pencils, a laser pen. I had also got him a Spy Watch with secret video camera and microphone, some clothes and more books. Scarlett had Playmobile, clothes, DS games, books and I had made her a cuddly pig and we got her an MP4 player with a load of her photos that used to be on a mains plug in digital photoframe that she loved and lots of her favourite music and a tiny, tiny opinel knife that she saw back in LLangollen when we were WWOOFing and has talked about ever since. Everyone had Christmas jumpers 🙂

Ady got the fullbox set of The Good Life on dvd, a penknife, chocolate, biscuits. I got books, a new headtorch, a new rechargable reading light and some of the very best chocolates that no one else likes (my most favourite sort!) Scarlett gave me my favourite of her candles and Davies had made me the most fantastic book all about me going on Popmaster – fully illustrated with a fill in the blanks popmaster question bit at the back ending with Ken Bruce awarding me with a signed autograph, which is enclosed in the back of the book and is a genuine Ken Bruce autograph. I LOVE it ! 🙂

Presents all exchanged we listened to Junior Choice on the radio, opened the fizz for Bucks Fizz and ate cinnamon rolls fresh from the oven. Yum.

Ady fed the animals and the kids got stuck into their various things. It was a very chilled morning. We managed to get signal around midday and rang my parents to speak to everyone there – Mum, Dad, Kat, Frazer and Robin. It was nice to hear them all happy and together and meant I was able to feel pleased to be not there without feeling guilty! 😉

At 2pm we were all ready for some fresh air and exercise so walked down to the shop for a glass of fizz as Jinty opened for a couple of hours. It was very festive feeling in there and Bonnie was allowed off the lead and behaved really well, playing with Jock and striking the right balance of friendly but not annoying to everyone at the shop.

Back home again almost at dinner time. We had a modest sized but very delicious Christmas dinner and watched The Good Life Christmas special which felt entirely appropriate.

The rest of the day was equally low key, music, some games, lots of chocolate and drink and nice nibbles. Lots of kids on DSs. We all went to bed around 11pm, knackered.

Boxing Day we had a boat! The kids slept in while Ady and I went to meet it, then realised it was running to a different timetable – d’oh! So we came home again, via collecting a car full of firewood to at least justify the journey. We faffed with the washing machine a bit and have now deduced it will need more water pressure than our water butt offers. We have a plan to test this theory this weekend, fingers crossed.

Back to the boat where petrol came off at last – hurrah! A bit of a festive catch up with various people at the boat and then home for late lunch. The internet came back – woohoo! Lots of packing stuff up and carting it down the hill to go to the castle where we had been invited for Boxing Day games, snacks and sleepover fun.

It was us, Mel & Em and Vikki. We had a really nice afternoon / evening playing low brow games like Bird Bingo, Mexican Train Dominos, Trivial Pursuit, Charades. Davies and Ady played lots of X box, Scarlett and Emily did loads of crafting stuff. Lots of nice food, Bonnie was really well behaved and just wandered about and hung out under the table. A real highlight was skyping with Mel’s family who have a Boxing day tradition of indoor fireworks so we joined them virtually for that. It was utterly hilarious, most definitely made all the funnier for Mel’s clear utter cringing mortification at her family. Loved it! 🙂

We all went off to bed about midnight – the kids slept in one room, Ady and I in another but in twin beds. I had a poor nights sleep, first too cold, then woke all tense and clenched where I was cold, then felt a bit ill so sat in the loo for a while, then back to bed only to be woken by Bonnie about an hour later wimpering. I woke Ady to deal with that as I knew she probably needed to go out for a wee and I had no contact lenses in so didn;t fancy blundering around various levels of the castle to get out. I still had to lay awake with the light on to check he came back a few minutes later and had not been locked out though. I finally got to sleep just before dawn I think.

Mel was already at work when we all got up so we breakfasted with Emily and then headed off. The kids popped along to the yurt to light a fire and we caught up with Ali in the village then all came home to fed animals.

Ady had a frustrating day trying and failing to get the wind turbine up – the cable which runs up the inside of the pole had fallen down inside and despite repeated best efforts could not be coaxed up again. He is planning to deal with it tomorrow morning while I am at work. I burned all the rubbish from Christmas deliveries, got the fire going and bought in more wood and assisted and encouraged in phase one of post Christmas tidy up. We may have guests next week so room needed to be made in bedrooms and I have been feeling generally oppressed by the level of stuff closing in on us. I do love Christmas decorations but after three weeks I am ready to declutter again and have our already very space limited static feeling a bit roomier once more.

Dinner was leftovers. We have ordered my birthday present (reconditioned camera), caught up a bit online and I really need to go to bed as I have work in the morning!

I am so cautious about feeling positive incase another big storm comes and takes the roof away but we have had a good few days and all is heading in the right direction.

On Saturday morning I worked and it was a good couple of hours, lots of people in, plenty of them stopping for a cup of tea and a chat. I came home and Ady had more or less finished the pig move, I helped a bit and then we had lunch before heading down to the castle for carols. While there we processed all the laundry mountain, getting two washes and one load of drying done and back home with the second load of drying on and ready for collecting the next day. That was a literal load off my mind, every time I went in the bathroom my heart would sink at the heap of dirty laundry to deal with and I was running out of clean pants! Hopefully our petrol will arrive soon and we can actually test the washing machine here on the croft.

Carols were lovely – mulled wine, mince pies, someone playing the gorgeous steinway piano in the great hall and a load of us gathered to sing together. It was a perfect couple of hours 🙂 Fixed my soul. Home for wrapping presents for me, cooking dinner for Ady and a festive film. Everything felt so much better.

Yesterday was Turkey Day. Ady did the first one on his own – the disabled one that we have been nurturing along for the last 2 weeks. Fliss had rather screwed Ady down on a price so we sold her that one discounted as the leg was bruised. We’ve made our money back on it though and it would never have continued for long so was always a lost cause once it had been injured. I helped with the second one. We shot it in the head to kill it, then bled it and then plucked it. I helped with the plucking and Ady gave me a very comprehensive turkey biology. It’s crop was huge, so big and full I brought it up for the kids to cut open and inspect – full of fresh grass and grain. All it’s organs were pink and healthy and although sad to have killed an animal it makes me happy to know what a great life our animals have.

We delivered Fliss’ turkey, collected the laundry and then I made some cranberry sauce, some bread, some mince pies and got dinner sorted as Vikki was coming up to eat with us. we had a nice evening with her although she stayed later than I was really up for being hospitable for so I went straight to bed when she left at about 1am.

Today was a rescheduled ferry and although our petrol didn’t come everything else did including some things I had given up expecting before Christmas so that was great. Ady and I walked down to collect the post and some bits from the shop then home for a late lunch. The kids spent the morning decorating gingerbread houses that Dave and Naomi had brought for them when they visited and Scarlett in particular was very artistic and spent hours on it. They look fab and smell divine. I turned the ginger infused vodka into liqueur and had a disasterous attempt at icing the Christmas cake which will need fixing up tomorrow once the first layer is dry. It will taste fine though which is the main thing!

Ady did lots of ‘just popping out…’ things which was a bit irritating as we had agreed to spend this week with the kids but they enjoyed having me around all day. Tomorrow they want to make stockings, I want to sort the cake out and we’re all heading to the shop for mulled wine and mince pies in the evening before our traditional Christmas Eve curry.

I am ignoring the weather…

I’m so fretful about the pigs 🙁 I feel so guilty that two animals in our care have died. I can make lots of excuses or justifications and I know that in their name we will be better pigkeepers and learn lessons for the future but it utterly sucks that creatures have died in the name of our learning lessons. I think that they were just too small and thin to make it through this incredibly challenging winter – everyone on Rum is saying it has been the wettest, windiest winter they can ever remember. The wind is just relentless, we have almost gotten used to the walls flexing and the roof rattling it is so commonplace. That makes me feel bad that we did not manage to feed and fatten them sufficiently to give them reserves make it through and that we have failed to house them adequately. I am trying really hard not to get too hung up on this incase we lose any more of them because I don’t need to find sticks to beat myself with.

So this morning we planned to move them. Ady worked on building a new house with a floor while I worked on moving the fence. Except the electric fence wire is so tangled I spent bloody hours untangling rather than actually doing much else. I have now ordered new fence wire and a fancy reel to use so that this never happens again but for today it was grim, bleak and very frustrating. I should have put my waterproofs on but I thought it would be an hours job at most so went out in jeans and a padded shirt without even having had a cup of tea – that’s how optimistic I was. Four hours later, soaked to the skins, teeth chattering, shivering and utterly demoralised I came in having finished but feeling totally defeated. There was no bread because I’d not made any, I was very caffiene deficient, hungry, had not done anything towards the kids Christmas party and was wearing my very last pair of clean pants because the dirty laundry pile has grown to two bags while we hold off using the castle laundry until a) we have tested our washing machine and b) we have enough money to proces laundry at the castle.

So it all got very on top of me and I cried 🙁 Fortunately on the rare occasions when I lose it everyone else steps up. Scarlett came and pushed my hair behind my ears, passed me a tissue and gave me a fantastic pep talk, Davies bought me chocolate from the shop, people at the hall were lovely to me and people on facebook were even lovelier. Ady has been a superstar and now the fire is drying all the wet things (including a couple of pairs of emergency handwashed pants), I’ve had a drink or five, watched a Christmas movie and eaten (and drunk lots of tea) everything seems feasible and manageable again. Still lots to do – turkeys to kill, pluck and oven ready, much laundry to process, pig move to finish and wind turbine to put up – if it ever stops being so bloody windy!!! but we have two more days before we have declared the ‘end of term’ for Christmas break and I have gingerbread houses to construct, mince pies to bake, stockings to help make and snowball to drink – Monday and Tuesday is Family Christmas time regardless of anything else.

Counting down….

Another disturbed night – windtastic til gone 3am. This morning all was calm though. The ferry had been disrupted and was just calling once at 150pm rather than the usual 1135 and 2pm so we were able to listen to Popmaster after all. My dad said to me on the phone last night ‘have you been listening this week? There was one question I actually knew!’ to which I replied ‘Yes, and I said to Ady that I bet you knew that one when it came up’. I love that little connection with my Dad every weekday morning.

Then I chopped some firewood while Ady did toilet-related maintenance before it was time to head off and gather winkles to put on the boat. We got them from their various places around the bay, loaded them on the car bonnet (as the back door isn’t opening at the moment!) and double bagged them all, labelled them and stuck them on a pallet which Dave tractored on to the boat for us. A general chat with folk down at the pier including Merry Christmas hugs for Paul and Coryla who were heading off (so that’s another empty home in the village, hostel now has no staff or visitors).

New boots came on the boat for both Ady and I but we’re still waiting for a couple of presents for the kids and our petrol didn’t come, we’ve been promised Monday now.

We walked home leaving the car in the village for later and got caught in a massive hailstorm with hailstones the size of marbles and a bit of thunder and lightning. I’ll have more bruises on my legs from the hail! Home for long enough to eat some toast and have a cup of tea before it was time to head back to the village for the nativity. We did our snowflake turn, sang some festive songs and then I stayed for a second mulled wine with Lesley while the others headed home to get dinner on and let Bonnie out. I walked all the way home singing Christmas carols at the top of my voice 🙂

Tonights dvd was Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmas, a triple of Disney festive cartoons which was lovely and I am finally feeling properly Christmassy. Tomorrow we’re doing some more pig house improvements and then have the kids Christmas party in the hall where Ady is playing santa. We’re hoping to get the wind turbine up on Saturday, we have Vikki up for dinner on Sunday and then we are planning to not do anything other than feed the animals twice a day for the week from Monday. Not sure when we’ll hear about the price on the winkles but at least they will be with the person who is doing the next bit with them.

Winkles are done for this year. We have nearly six full sacks which is pretty good going for 4 days, wish we’d managed to find a contact earlier but it should still bring us a few hundred quid which is going straight in the nissen hut fund to kick start us. They are booked on tomorrow’s boat and the bloke is collecting them – fingers crossed for the boat running, for the winkles getting there safe and for us getting a decent price for them. Lots of ifs and buts and unknowns there really but our work is done.

Another dead pig yesterday, the other little girl. I am worried about the smallest boy, infact I’m worried about all of them really 🙁 Ady buried her next to her sister. We’re learning all the time with this animal keeping lark, it’s just so tough when your method of learning more is dead animals 🙁 We have moved their house, Ady has put a buffer sheet across the front to stop the wind and we collected an old door from SNH today to put down as a base. We’ll move them this weekend to a drier patch of land too although of course that is only dry relative to where they are rather than actually dry…

The wind is back tonight, it’ supposed to peak at about 3am and then die down, fingers crossed it does and the boat runs.

There isn’t much in the way of other news really – the kids have been home doing pre Christmas stuff the last couple of days – they are happy enough left up here in the warm to play while we go a-winkling. Tomorrow is the nativity play and on Friday it’s a kids Christmas party. We want to get the pigs moved and the wind turbine up but other than that we are done with any real jobs and next week is going to be all about Christmas. I’ve been going through photos of the last year and reminding myself of all that is amazing and great and good about life here but the fact is Ady and I are exhausted and just need a rest from the relentlessness of surviving here in a caravan in a harsh winter. I can use all the positive thinking in the world and know that this is the right place for us but we have hit the sort of wall that can only really be circumnavigated by a big helping hand or an uplift of some sort. I am hoping a happy family Christmas with the possibly promise of a really good Hogmanay might just do that for us.

Yesterday was crazy windy and Ady was not happy leaving Davies and Scarlett home alone, I didn’t think getting them up early and dragging them out was a good plan either so we compromised with just him going winkle picking. I got up and decided that was mad and if there were winkles to be picked then I should be picking ’em, so got the kids up and we all went down together. It was indeed mad crazy windy and although nothing did go wrong at the static I think they would have felt scared home alone. I dropped them and Bonnie off at the hall with their tablets and headed off to find Ady.

It was horrible down on the beach, the wind was constantly whipping at your face and throwing up spray, not particularly cold but just nasty. The wind was blowing towards the coast and just totally prevented the tide from going out at all really so there was no where to pick from. We persevered but were achieving nothing. Vikki wandered over to say Hi and comment on how not low the tide was and invited us back for a cup of tea which at that point was probably the thing we both wanted most in the world. We said we’d give it a further half an hour and she headed off to collect the kids from the hall and put the kettle on at her house.

We got about a quarter of a sack between us and decided that given there is no guarantee of getting a boat on Thursday to get the winkles off anyway we would have one more try today but if it was no better we’d give it a miss for this year. Secured our sack just below the high tide line with lots of rocks and headed to Vikki’s. She had given the kids hot ribena and put some sausage rolls in the oven – love her 🙂 We came home and Manager Mike was here, having arrived by a different route to bring us some apples. He was heading off today and wanted to wish us seasons greetings, find out if the rumour about me resigning as director was true and have a chat before he left. He stayed for an hour or so chatting and then we had showers and Ady cooked a lovely roast dinner.

Today was less windy so we were able to leave the kids to make their own way down. Davies had to light a fire in Claire’s yurt so we arranged to meet them once we had finished winkling and they had done that and we took Bonnie with us. We are struggling to get petrol for the genny booked off the island and back on again so Doug the ghillie was leaving today in his van and smuggled our empty jerry can off for us and dropped it off at the fuel merchants for refilling – I feel much more confident we might get it back before Christmas now that it is actually already off the island and getting refilled.

Winkle picking was good today – Ady and I both got a good 3/4 of a sack each – if we manage that again tomorrow and Wednesday we’ll be sending off the best part of 5 sacks and rumour is that the price might be as high as £150 a sack. Every penny will help and is planned to be the kickstart fund for our nissen hut build. I’m clinging to that thought.

The sad news was that when Ady went to feed the animals he found the smallest girl pig dead in the house. We had walked along the croft edge yesterday on the way home from Vikki’s and seen all the pigs and Dave the cockerel. This morning Dave and Speedy the pig were dead. I am less surprised about Dave as he was ailing a bit anyway although we thought we had pulled him round but Speedy is a real shame and a mystery. As we don’t know the reason for death we won’t eat the meat, particularly as she was due to be kept being Scarlett’s favourite pigly. A tough day 🙁 I had plenty of time to ponder on all of this while winkle picking but I know that big decisions should never be made on bad days.

The kids met up with us just as we were about done and the ferry was due in so we all went to the boat. The wind turbine is here 🙂 It’s too windy to put it up (oh the irony) but fingers crossed for Friday or Saturday for that. We had various post including lots of presents which means all the biggest gifts for the kids are now here. I am waiting on a few bits and pieces but nothing that would matter terribly much if it didn’t make it here in time, it will just extend Christmas a wee bit more!

We got home and I got the fire lit as I was getting really cold and achy from sitting too long in the cold car after the winkle picking. I made some bread and then dinner. We watched Home Alone 2 as advent movie tonight. It’s really windy again tonight and I am almost dreading seeing what the next morning brings. Life seems very tricky just now.

Yesterday I mostly just enjoyed properly feeling better. I spent some time sorting out the storage area under the sofa and filling up jars and tubs with pasta, rice, flour, seeds and so on. I made pastry and left it to chill, finished off the Rumble and then went down to do a phone / Skype interview for the second applicant for the bunkhouse PM job. He was my favourite but I have deferred to the others and we have gone with the other one. I am just as confident they will do the job just fine, I just preferred this one. I got home just before needing a torch and Ady had finished the laundrette. We’re waiting now for a) more petrol to arrive on a non cancelled ferry and b) a day that is not so windy we are able to actually hang wet washing out without it blowing across to the mainland before we test it but in theory it is ready to go :). Very excited. This could be more life changing than the Great Bagel Setting on the Toaster Discovery of 2008.

I made mince pies (which are delicious and already almost gone!) and pizza and we watched Fred Claus which was excellent and is probably my favourite advent film so far. I realised today we are missing Charlie Brown Christmas and The Snowman so have ordered both but they may not get here in time so will go in the pile for next year.

I worked this morning – the weather was hideous so hardly anyone came in but I enjoyed tidying up the herbs and spices which always annoy me when I am shopping as they were all disordered :). Ady came down to meet me as we were expecting a reduced to clear sale to happen but it was rescheduled for later today and I didn’t manage to get hold of him because Jinty had taken the shop phone home in her pocket!

Home for lunch, I played some games using marbles with Scarlett and then headed back down to the village to meet with Lesley and Vikki to make our final decision on the PM job. Ady followed me down and we did indeed get some cheap and free bargains at the shop before coming home for dinner. Tonights dvd was Christmas with the Simpsons which is just some festive episodes and was a bit weak really but I had got Island of Misfit Toys (which was a favourite of Davies when he was really small) from ebay so we watched that too.

Tomorrow is winkle picking = not sure if I am dreading it or looking forward to it. A bit of both I think. Wish it was not forecast to be so windy though as we need to be on the beach for 9am to catch tides and the kids will still be in bed then and I don’t like leaving them up here on their own when it is too windy.

Just as we thought the challenge was over…. on Monday we met the ferry on which there was nothing for us at all, put our veg order in and then I had to go back down in the evening for a run through of the interview questions for the Bunkhouse Project Manager job for the following day.

I felt not right while I was down at Lesley’s doing that and by the time I’d walked home I was feeling really out of breath and just wrong. It was really hot in the static which made me feel worse. Mike came up for dinner which was a lovely curry Ady made but I couldn’t face it and although I kept hinting about needing to be up in the morning Mike took forever to leave and when I did get to bed around midnight I had a restless night tossing and turning and still feeling rough.

By morning I was dashing to the loo and feeling all hot and cold and clammy and distant. I thought it was too short notice to not do the interview which has been a nightmare to organises – they were supposed to be last week but boats got cancelled, the guy from Eigg had come over the day before and stayed the night and was off back to Eigg via another overnight on the mainland, the poor guy from Canna has still not managed to get here and we’re skype interviewing him tomorrow. I just about got through it before staggering (quite literally!) home. If someone had been watching I’m sure they’d have thought I was drunk coming home, it took me about 35 minutes instead of my usual 15 and I just fell into bed.

Scarlett was an absolute angel throughout, bringing me tea, water, constantly checking me and tucking me in. That child has compassion and caring far beyond anything she gets from me, Davies tends to avoid anything germy or yucky so has given me smiles and waves from afar! 😆 Then followed a hideous shadowy 30 hours or so of bolting to the loo, not always making it, wind rattling the walls and roof, nightmare dreams and feeling like death. Poor Ady dealt with all of it so well from sleeping in the lounge (I have to clamber over him to get in and out of bed so it wouldn’t have worked him sleeping in with me even if there had been bedding to use!) and then spent almost all of the next day at the castle processing laundry 🙁 It was awful, dreadful and more than enough to have me seriously questionning what the bloody hell we are doing living in a caravan away from supermarkets, flushing toilets and washing machines!!!

Eventually by yesterday evening I had started to feel a bit more like me and had showered, eaten a little bit and sat with the others being a bit more human again. The bed was made back up and Ady was able to come back to the bedroom. Unfortunately due to being asleep for so much of the previous 24 hours I then couldn’t sleep so was awake til crazy oclock reading anyway.

Today I have felt almost normal, just a bit weak. I chopped some wood, brought it in and stacked it up, made bread and made dinner which was my limit. Made me realise just how physical our lives here are just normally even without carrying sacks of animal feed about or marching up and down the hill. Ady spent the day constructing our laundry – another galvanised sheet add on to the wood store in which we’ll put the washing machine and our second genny. It has a sloping roof with guttering into a water butt which will feed the washing machine. Fingers crossed it will be up and running next week – having spent nearly £20 down at the castle laundrette yesterday it will be very welcome! It’s so breezy and exposed here that we can line dry year round and then just air infront of the log burner so hopefully our carting laundry up and down the hill days are almost over.

Ady and the kids went down to the nativity dress rehearsal which they said was great fun, I stayed home to get dinner on and just not push myself too far. Aside from photo calendars each for my parents and Granny all the christmas shopping is done, just waiting for stuff to arrive and keeping fingers crossed that ferries come as we are waiting on petrol, diesel, wind turbine and most of the kids Christmas presents still to arrive.

The wind is back. Not scary wind, just noisy and taunting us by making the wind turbine whizz round noisily while creating no power. We’ll try and take it down maybe tomorrow.

Scarlett had a lovely birthday – after such a bad nights sleep the night before we were very relieved when everyone slept in later than planned – after 8am seemed like a very respectable time to be getting up when Davies was asking if he could get out of bed yet from about 5am on his birthday!

Rum is currently egg-less island with all of the many resident domestic birds on the island including all our own off lay for the season. The non arrival of Thursdays boat meant no eggs to be had and so Scarlett’s first, second and third birthday breakfast choices were all off the menu (fresh toast, cinnamon rolls, pancakes) so I made cinnamon doughnuts instead. They were a little doughier than we’d have liked which sounds like an odd complaint for dough-nuts really I guess but she assured me were a satisfactory substitute!

Presents from us included Playmobil, candle making bits and bobs – after having several candle making kits last year I was able to top up supplies such as wicks, wax, wick holders and wax dye which meant more supplies for the money. She’d asked for a home made cuddly toy of one of the Croft animals so I’d made a Barbara Pig and a Bonnie and some bits and bobs including an edible Christmas decoration for Humphrey’s cage, some Adventure Time tattoos. From my parents she had a Playmobil ferry (which looks a lot like our calmac Loch Nevis). I’m glad we are still in the age of toys and not just gadgets but her main gift was a DSlite. Although both Davies and Scarlett have a 3DS they miss playing their rumble pack games (they had hundreds!) on old DSlites so both asked for one of those. Davies paid half of his, we bought Scarlett’s. I am fairly sure they are copies, imported from Hong Kong off ebay but they work fine and at 50 quid each seem worth the money. Except they didn’t arrive in time due to the cancelled ferry on Thursday. Davies had spent weeks making Scarlett a book – a full 30 odd pages long, fully illustrated called Adventure Croft – a combination of Adventure Time and Croft 3 featuring Davies, Scarlett and Bonnie and characters from Adventure Time. It’s all a bit over my head but is their current favourite thing to disappear and giggle over on youtube. She was very delighted with all her gifts but says she loves the home made ones the best. 🙂

After breakfast the kids played mostly with Scarlett’s playmobil – Davies is now chief instruction follower and construction manager of making up the pieces – I sort of miss that role as it always used to fall to me, but it’s lovely to see them heads together working on stuff so I left them to it and made birthday cake and birthday tiffin instead.

Lunch was also menu planned by Scarlett – crackers, cheese (stilton, brie, cheddar), twiglets, pringles, peanuts, olives, pickled onions, chorizo followed by tiffin. We watched the Advent Movie of the day which was Merry Madagascar while eating.

In the afternoon the kids went out to play in the snow for a bit and then Scarlett and I did some candlemaking together. I assembled the cake and we all went down to the village to share it with friends and sing Happy Birthday. There was a HUGE turn out at the shop with loads of people there to sing, eat cake and wish her Happy Birthday. And a big pile of presents too – £10 in cash, a box of chocolates, a zebra hat, soft toy, owl necklace, books, modelling clay, sweets, tie dye dylon, notepad made from elephant dung, a mini tent, a DS game, pens and more. Lucky girl 🙂 The childrens’ birthdays here always restore my faith in our choice to live on Rum when I see how much Rum belongs to them and they belong to Rum, how the community sees them as ‘our Rum children’ and know them so well. They never miss the parties of old when they still get to celebrate birthdays with people who mean so much to them and are so thoroughly spoilt.

Home later than planned due to such a nice evening at the shop for Scarlett’s dinner choice of roast gammon and mashed potatoes. Much joking about the Nigella ham in coke having a whole new meaning these days! 🙂 A late night all round.

Yesterday morning I worked and had my usual nice Saturday morning playing shop. Norman brought me down a cheese and onion pasty fresh from his oven, still warm for my elevenses 🙂 Delicious. Dave and Naomi came down to the shop to say goodbye before Ady took them all along to the ferry to leave. Then he and the kids came back to collect me, having got our parcels from the ferry which included all the missing birthday presents and some cards from family too.

It had been our plan to find our Christmas tree but we popped down to the yurt to light Claires fire and discovered some damage that needed attention so by the time we arrived home for a very late lunch it was already nearly 230pm and starting to get dark. We were still missing a turkey and I had found some piles of feathers so Ady and went off searching. We found it tucked into the hedge, still alive and well aside from a broken or dislocated leg. We took it back to the rest of the group but it couldn’t keep up so we went down to the river with an axe but stood debating what to do for so long we lost daylight. The dilemma is whether to kill it now and have to freeze it or keep it alive for another week to have fresh. we were always going to be eating either this or one of the other male turkeys for our Christmas dinner so it is not a problem but we are short of space in our freezer anyway and a fresh bird would be nicer. We delayed the decision by sticking it in the car with food and water for the night where it gobbled down both and looked very comfortable.

I spent the evening ordering a replacement wind turbine and all of the Christmas presents for Davies and Scarlett – not really feasible to do much earlier than this as there is nowhere to store presents when they arrive but hopefully early enough to allow for postal or delivery delays and any more cancelled ferries.

Today it has rained all day. Ady did a few bits outside while I have been in all day, chatting with the kids, brushed Scarlett’s hair, knitted, wrote the handful of Christmas cards we’re sending and letters to go in with them and made a start on the Rum newsletter. Despite a fairly quiet day we all still feel tired but have Mike up for dinner tomorrow and a plan to fetch that elusive Christmas tree.

What a week. ‘What you wanna do’ Dave and Quiet Naomi have been here lots. Dave continues to be annoying but very kind hearted and generous which is an odd mix as it makes you feel both irritated and guilty. Eilidh and Scarlett have failed to find any sort of connection while Davies is visibly (and audibly!) relieved when Ben heads away home at the end of each day. We have said we will see them tomorrow evening at the shop for birthday cake but spend family birthdays just the four of us so have a lovely day of Just Goddards tomorrow.

After lots of issues I finally decided that I don’t actually want to be part of the IRCT board of directors just now. There are too many squabbles, whisperers and destructive and obstructive forces and it is such a fragile time for the trust just now. I’m not the first to retire early and I’m sure I’ll not be the last, I feel a bit bad that I have added to the unrest but it was sapping way too much of my time and energy and I was not feeling sufficient intrinsic reward or that I was making a worthwhile difference to justify the physical and mental drain on my time. I’m a bit teary about it but already feeling mostly just relieved which is a big step on feeling bitter and resentful which is how I could envisage it going. Ady is being very supportive and while its felt very challenging dealing with all of that while putting on a happy ‘move to Rum, it’s great’ face for the visitors, dealing with the worst weather we have ever encountered and agonising over the fact the ferry didn’t come today and therefore many of Scarlett’s birthday presents are not here in time I am sure next week when everyone has gone away, Scarlett is 11 and the weather returns to some semblance of normal and I’ve had a decent nights sleep it will all feel back in perspective again.

Ady and I were in one of our questioning moods this week wondering whether we are supposed to be here, are clinging on out of bravado or uncertainty about what to do next and last night felt like a good test. We were very que sera sera about what might happen, deciding that if the static got ripped apart then that would be our sign that our time here has come to an end. We seem to have been spared and sitting here with the table loaded with the presents (and some IOU on the next ferry vouchers) in the flickering candlelight with the fire all cosy and images of the kids playing in the snow today gives us renewed hope that this might be the right place for us in the end.

I look back on my blog from the days when Ady worked, I stayed at home HEing and think how samey it all was compared to the rollercoaster that was WWOOFing and now Rum. The highs here still outweigh the lows although the spectrum we span is SOOOOO much wider these days but when I recall all those ‘inspirational’ quotes I plastered that hall with at our Bye Then party I am reminded of what we felt was lacking, what we were searching for and what we hoped our lives might become and I realise we are living our dream just now, just at times the pinching to check we are awake hurts a bit more than it should.