One word? When seven would do…

instead will just say where we are now and hope to do better. I really miss blogging but it has simply been beyond capabilities lately, mostly for technological reasons. But today the new netbook arrived and while I have hours of work ahead of me to try and get everything set up on it so it is fully operational I am able to blog from it so will try really hard to get back into the habit as I miss doing it and know I will miss having the record in years to come.

So… I was properly poorly for a while there, my cough just didn’t go away by itself and I was drained, exhausted and starting to get worried that a mainland hospital stay was ever increasingly on the cards. I was not sleeping, constantly coughing and wheezing and rattling and in real fear of as asthma attack or onset of pneumonia. Dr Google didn’t help (unsurprisingly!) and in the end I rang the doctor again and shared my worries and she sent me down to the village to collect the nebulizer from the castle to hook myself up three times a day to that. It took about 3 days but finally kicked in and I now have a brown inhaler which I am still taking a couple of times most days but I am now sleeping, have regained some strength and fitness and feel like me again. Don’t want to have that ever again!

In other news the tenants paid late again this month, only a couple of days but we chased them again and I am deeply unimpressed with both them and the agency. It is very much our intention to sell the house now really, it feels like a millstone and a nusiance rather than security and investment. I want to pay off the mortgage and our debts and fully throw ourselves into our new life here really. With Frazer now being very supported by Mum & Dad (Kat is pregnant, they are moving into the flat Dad bought as a quick turn around investment instead of it being sold on) Dad is less able to help us out and I want to be doing our own thing without begging for every extra thousand pounds each time. We have been in talks with Corin at EHOak about our plans for a house, investigated the crofting housing grant scheme criteria and Corin is preparing some drawings for various options for us to look at further. We are determined to only see out one winter in the static regardless so this is the first move towards making that all fall into place.

All continues to go well on Rum, the croft is moving forward although we need to get cracking on our crofting grant scheme application form to get part funding for polytunnel etc so we are ready to get growing come the spring. There remain challenges within the community and general wranglings and ups and downs which we inevitably get to hear of even if we are not necessarily involved. We’ve had Ranger Mike up for dinner, Kate Tattiehouse (Ian is off island this week) and been for dinner at Fliss & Sandy’s. They are off island for the rest of this week so we are collecting Fliss’ girls from the school boat on Friday and taking them back on Sunday and being their nominated grown ups while they are home alone for the weekend (they are 13 and 15 so very capable). I get to go and have a bath in the house tomorrow and Sunday 🙂

After some personal debate, discussion with Ady and sharing the initial idea with visiting friends I have put together a proposal for crowd funding to raise money for the compost loo. The guy we’ll buy it from has agreed to hold his price as they are about to go up AND donated £20 too :). Two different friends have already donated £50 each too so we are £120 closer to that happening in a cheerily short space of time. Various other friends have agreed to share it on facebook / twitter too so I can see that as a credible and okay way of getting funding sorted despite my reservations that I am just begging! I’m inspired anew after a chat with Kate tonight to start chasing some writing work too which would take off some financial pressure and make me feel ever more as though I am working towards realising our dreams.

I think that’ll do for a quick catch up. I have other stuff to try and plough through and it’s already gone tomorrow o’clock. But I am tentatively back 🙂

I think I’m getting better. I’m just a bit rubbish at allowing my body to catch up with itself to be sure…

Friday – A late start for some of us (Davies and I) and a rather topsy turvey late breakfast / early lunch arrangement.

Ady and I went to the boat and collected a couple of parcels and helped with Jinty’s delivery which was huge. It was crazily midgey at the pier, definitely the worst I’ve ever known it down there where it is usually quite midge-free.

Back to the croft, I made some pizza dough for dinner later and we all walked back to the village as Ady had arranged to meet Claire to start working out details for a Swap Shop – a bit like freecycle, a space where you can put stuff you don’t want for other islanders to help themselves. They have one on Eigg and it works really well -= althought we’re a much smaller community we think we may well be able to make it work here too.

Back to the croft for dinner – one of the parcels was our static bolt down kit and another oven shelf, the little oven only came with one shelf so now having two means life is massively improved when doing a lot of oven stuff, pizza being a prime example. I can now cook 3 pizzas at once instead of just 2!

I left the others to an evening of playing cards and listening to music and headed to the village hall for Ladies Night. I could have happily given it a miss really but felt I should go as I’ve been pushing it. It was quiet – only Fliss, Lesley, Claire, Kate, Izzi (and her visiting daughter and niece) and me, but it was a nice evening. We finished about 1230am and the walk back to the croft even with headtorch and wind up torch did feel a very long way. I still paused a couple of times to look at the sky and feel overwhelmed by the beauty of living here though, particularly when walking alongside the river.

Today we’d agreed to help Ian on a Hebnet (our internet provider) mission to get a reel of cable a kilometre up the hill behind us which will mean the whole island is getting faster broadband speeds. It was hard work – Ady, Mike and Ian were using a motorised barrow with the cable reel and scaffold poles in it, I was following behind with a satellite dish in a box which got heavier the higher we climbed. Terrain was crazy with boggy bits, thigh high grass and holes up to your knees. But the sun shone, there was enough breeze to keep the midges away and it was stunningly beautiful the higher you climbed. At the top we put up a cradle with the scaffold poles to unreel the cable from. I volunteered to stay at the top and monitor it being unravelled, which meant I got to sit on a rock and wait for the others to come back up again. We then trundled all the way back down again, often as hard as going up in the first place.

Nearly five hours of pretty hard graft finished off with a well deserved cider in Kate and Ian’s garden 🙂 We came home to feed animals, drop Bonnie off and grab some cash before heading back down for a beer at the shop and to get a piece of pork for dinner tomorrow.

It feels odd to know lots of friends have been together last weekend and this weekend – I remember struggling with this feeling about this time last year too. Am really hoping we can pull off a Rum fest…

I had blogged honest. It’s just that when I hit publish it all disappeared and then it was late and I couldn’t be bothered to try and recreate it all. I’d already lost a whole WW blog newsletter and had to be all inspiring and motivational all over again there so this blog was the natural casualty of that. Sorry.

Erm… I had done a day by day account, let me see if I can remember it and try again.

Monday – Still pretty ill. Quiet ish morning at home, delivered a cake, met the boat went to the doctors. I had an actual appointment for being ill, the other three were just having a first sighting since we registered with the surgery appointment. I had my chest / back listened to, did the puffing into the cone thing and came away with steroids and the promise of antibiotics coming the following day. I think there is more of a belt and braces approach to medicine giving here but on the basis of how crap I was feeling I was quite happy with a drugs cocktail. I’ve been diagnosed with a chest infection and I have to say given this is probably the fittest and healthiest (certainly the lightest and slimmest) I have been in my adult life I am have felt pretty rubbish so certainly was at the needing some medical attention point.

The doctor was very lovely, patient and kind and really listened. I came away feeling as though I had been properly seen.

I had a Blasda meeting at 5pm and Bonnie managed to come with me by virtue of pretending she was staying on the croft with Ady when I left but sneaking after me and catching up with me when I was too far down the hill to walk back but without collar or lead. She was actually very well behaved and not too much of a problem. The meeting was brief and I met Davies and Scarlett coming down the hill towards me with collar and lead so we walked back together and collected some rowan berries on the way to make some jelly with.

Back to the croft where the rest of the day fades into a blank rather. I know Ady cooked a really nice chicken stew with dumplings and we watched the remainder of Outnumbered while we ate. I know the kids had an early night and Ady and I attempted to watch Contagion, borrowed from Fliss and Sandy but we both started to fall asleep on the sofa so gave up and were in bed by about 1030pm. Oh to have both sofas and beds to retire to – the novelty may never wear off :).

Tuesday – Having realised I was out of sugar meaning all my jam intentions were not going to happen I spent some time plotting sugar getting opportunities. The doctor rang to say my ABX were on the Sheerwater so Ady and I headed down to the village to beg some sugar and meet the boat. We ended up nearly an hour early (we’d not been sure on the time of the Sheerwater so did a bit of fishing while we waited. We ended up catching two pollock, collecting my drugs and coming back to the static to cook the pollock for lunch.

In the afternoon I rang Vikki who had some spare sugar so Scarlett and I headed down there to barter some sugar for eggs and have a cup of tea. We came back up and I cooked dinner and did baking for the Market Day. Quiche (large for our dinner, small individual ones for Market Day), cheese scones, lavender shortbread. It was a later night than planned as baking evenings often are. Scarlett and I also made some jam – blackberry and lavender.

Wednesday – Market Day. Ady and I were up early to get stuff to the hall, collect some stuff from the craft shop and get the hall set up for Market Day. We then met the ferry, collected various parcels for us and for Fliss and Sandy and dropped them round there before going to do Market Day. Ali came along for part of it. I lost my patience at the pier when feeling patronised and put upon which was my first real example of being anything less than helpful and community minded – I suspect the ripples may echo round Rum for a few days yet… 😉

Market Day was very slow indeed, not worth the time spent there or the effort and cost in baking although at least all baking gets consumed back at the croft by us so doesn’t go to waste. We’ll do next week and that will be it for this year. We called round to Fliss and Sandy’s for a cup of tea before heading for home.

Back to the croft for a bit of an earlier dinner – curry and a nice evening listening to music and chatting. All too easy to forget to just enjoy being us four :). Davies and Scarlett spent the day playing lego and enjoying the relative spaciousness of the static without anyone other than the two of them in it.

In the evening I did some blogging and sent out a newsletter to WW blog followers about our first bout of crowd funding and money raising to start creating our dreams.

Thursday – we were determinded to have a productive day and indeed we did :). First thing we all donned wellies and grabbed a notebook to walk the croft. We split it into nine sections and have determinded some ideas of what wil go where. We looked at house sites, debated polytunnels and raised beds and livestock areas and ventured off to the side of where the croft land extends to and over a small burn to a very beautiful spot within spitting distance of the croft. We were all reminded anew just how gorgeous this place we live is and how fortunate and priviledged we are to be here and call it home. 🙂

We gathered food and laundry and headed for the village dropping off the washing at the castle on the way. At the pier we caught up with Kate and Ian who we’d not seen all week, had a good poke around their boat and then were pleased to see Paul & Carole and Fliss & Joss arrive to join us on the Sheerwater, particularly as Ranger Mike was not on board today. We saw pretty much nothing but enjoyed the ride :). Collected the clean washing and got home. Scarlett made tea for everyone, I hung out the washing and Davies walked the new pig pen area to tread down the grass ready for strimming which Ady did. The kids caught the new chicks so I could try and sex them – definitely two the same, I’d say hen but it is possibly still early days and I am more adept at bantams than chickens so we’ll see.

Ady and I moved the pigs over to the next patch of ground which was alternately rainy and very midgey so not entirely pleasurable but worth it to see them so happy in the new area of long grass with loads of new roots, plants and flowers to munch on :). The ducks have finally started laying so we have our first two duck eggs :). It’s felt like a very productive crofting day.

At 7pm we called Beer O’clock and headed down to the shop. Fliss was there, along with Norman, Jinty, Kate & Ian, Vikki (briefly), Ranger Mike and then Claire and Steve. It was a really nice evening with a great vibe so we ended up staying a wee while longer before heading for home. Ady made lasagne while I baked some bread and as no one has to be up in the morning we pretended not to notice how late it finally was when we ate dinner.

A white tailed sea eagle ate my homework miss… so erm, my blogging is a bit behind.

I suspect catching up is beyond me. Maybe you can read about the last week on Babs’ blog (cough! 😉 )

Suffice to say we had a fab time with FabBabs & co. Fires were lit, port was drunk, walking was done, kids were rowdy, lots of feeding happened, we played Rachael Bingo (I’m hungry, bored, tired, HOUSE!), Ben was a tick magnet, the house felt way, way, way too small. Jinty’s fruit and veg order didn’t arrive so we had no ‘have an apple then’ apples to offer children, there was sunshine, rain, midges. Babs got to join me on Laydees Nite does Cocktails which included a 1am walk home from the village and a laying out on the pallets infront of the static looking up at the sky watching the Percy wotsits and was very magical.

Basically they joined us for a typical week on Rum.

The weekend has been quiet and recovering. I am properly Not Well with a cough which seems to have developed into some sort of nasty infection. I have an appointment with the doctor tomorrow as I don’t recall the last time I slept through the night without waking gasping for breath and coughing like mad. Obviously medicine is tricky to come by here – one of the things to stock up on when we hit the mainland next month I think. I have tried nasal breathing, honey and tea tree oil drinks, ginger, honey and lemon drinks, asthma inhalers and resorted to crying to myself in the middle of the night on more than one occassion 🙁 I am hoping tomorrow for hard drugs that kick in quick and remind me of who I am supposed to be rather than this quite pale imitation who has to sit down and recover after walking down to the washing line, collecting in dry laundry and walking back up the hill again.

Last night we went to a barbecue at Paul & Carole’s. We’d not realised in advance it was an exclusive event which I am always a bit uncomfortable with here. It is one thing to have a circle of closer friends but quite another to invite some people and not others… We stayed til just after 10pm but I was feeling very rubbish and started seeing bright halo lights around things which I’ve only experienced once or twice before but always makes me need to lie down in a dark room.

Today Ian came up to help Ady do some static levelling out – six weeks in and it has sunk in some places so needed a bit of making level again. We have got the boards to go around the base of the static to block it off, Sandy is giving us some insulation and we have the bolt down kit ordered and hopefully arriving this week so should be prepared for the autumn very soon with the static. I have some ideas about fund raising for the compost loo which I need to explore further and I still have lots of form filling out to get grants for polytunnel etc but we do have a job list by month for the rest of this year to work to so I am feeling that we are now on track to get stuff done without beating ourselves up.

I collected some blackberries but didn’t do very well so we dropped Ian back in the village and headed along the coast road to collect some more, getting six marg tubs full 🙂 Jam making tomorrow!

On the way back Fliss & Sandy invited us in for a cup of tea, Fliss had tried to contact me earlier to ask if we wanted to go to the beach with them today, which we would have done. We do get on really well with them, they are easy company :). We bumped into Vikki too on the way back so stopped for a brief chat with her before coming home to get dinner on. I had a play with the resin casting stuff I ordered for Midgefest but arrived late – my plan is to create some pendants, keyrings etc with Rum midges set in resin. It takes 24 hours to harden off but looks pretty cool so far, with a variety of different shaped moulds.

We had dinner and watched Outnumbered which had come in Lovefilm this month. I was not sure if D & S would get it or not but they thought it was hilarious and we watched 3 episodes before they went to bed.

I’ve baked a couple of loaves of bread and am looking forward to making jam tomorrow. We currently have nothing much planned for the coming week and the weather is supposed to be awful so we’re hoping for some indoor catching up with each other time.

I think every single one of the readers of this blog has a role to play in why we are here right now. I think all of my friends are instrumental in larger or smaller amounts for putting me where I am today.

Tonight I have been involved in a fascinating conversation with Ady, Mike (my not swinger friend) and Chloe (his 14 year old daughter) about philosophy, why we should do one thing every day that scares us and the string of coincidences that brought into existance and what our responsibilities are now that we are here.

So forgive me for being a few glasses down and therefore a bit deep and drunken-full 😉

But each of you readers have shaped my life in some way. If I start naming people I fret about leaving some out but Helen (who lives on a boat) it was in meeting you and hearing about your travelling adventures that I decided this was something we could still embark on rather that something we should feel was already behind us, Helen (not the boat one, the one with the beans) you endlessly inspire me to be better, more unselfish, more giving of myself, Joyce, you are as ever my life icon, someone who doesn’t get control over all the shit life chucks at you but you deal with it with dignity, positivity and awe inspiring amazingness. Allie – as ever I remain wanting to march behind you with a banner for whatever it is you are writing about, Ali – listener to so many of my rants and dreams, red (or orange) to my blue :), Michelle, Kirsty, Barbara, friends indeed to us when in need, sounding boards, supporters, cheerers on. Alison, for possibly knowing me better than I sometimes know myself, Layla & Si, living our dream with us along the way, Jo, a hugely inspiring person to me for so many reasons, not least your ability to share things and keep pushing on …. I dont even know who else is reading really – if you are and I’ve missed you out feel free to shout and I’ll tell you precisely why you are important to me.

But Jan and Jonathan… examples of people who’s paths we would not have crossed were it not for Home Education I think. Professionals to our unskilled careers, doing it the more structured way to our autonomous lazy bugger approach, Christians to our raving atheists and to the casual observer such very different people to us.

Except, there was a spark, something about their company that has meant we returned to stay with them possibly more times than anyone else (except Barbara, but then we practically lived there!). Not just the gorgeous house (which remains quite my favourite house I know), not just a hankering after their lifestyle (remote, gorgeous, land to grow food and keep livestock and host big party camps) but their company. The peaceful, calming influence of Jan, the prodding, verging on anarchic (certainly with regard to musical taste) presence of Jonathan. The complementary and different personalities of Catie, Megan and Jasper (who given I sent contributions to the mother blessing by post for I consider I knew pre-birth!). I have a lot of J&J house based memories in my bank. The night various people had to come in because tents had blown down, playing that game where you had to mime song titles, rolling a car back and forth with Caroline Wellyboots before she announced her pregnancy, driving up and down their crazy lane in pretty much every vehicle we’ve owned for the last five years including various company cars, my clapped out Sharan and of course Willow. Coming to see what Ady was doing to Willow on the drive to discover five guilty looking blokes gathered around the front seat of Willow while she had no steering wheel attached and a big jumble of intestine-looking wires spewing out from the steering column.

But most of all I recall late night conversations with Jan and Jonathan. Jan and I have chatted on so many subjects from parenting to home ed to religion and without fail I go away with a fresh perspective on things and a renewed enthusiasm for trying a different path. Jonathan I continue to hold partially responsible for us being here on Rum at all. After a very late night conversation one of the (many) things we discussed was what I would do if I could do anything at all. I remember discussing a dream to create a land based project, based on self sufficiency for the four of us. Once we’d done that we’d invite others to see it and learn about it. We’d live off grid in some cool eco self build and we’d become a destination for likeminded folk, keen to learn about a different path. Sound familiar?

It feels only right and proper that this realisation of our dreams is somewhere so close to the hearts of J&J, almost within view of their regular holiday destination on Skye. A tiny wee commute for them (relatively speaking) to hop across and see what on earth we are getting up to.

So today having finished baking stuff we all got up early and went to set up the craft fayre with Fliss then headed to the pier to meet the boat. Jonathan stood out by being tall and wearing orange and calling across the sea from way out ‘Hello Nic!’ Also on board were Mike & Chloe so a fairly chaotic few hours between boats as we tried to cram in as much of our life here as possible taking in the croft, the village, the otter hide walk, the craft shop, the castle and meeting as many people as we could so J&J could go away putting faces to names. Mike and Chloe came along too and both parties said they had enjoyed meeting each other so hopefully it was a successful collision of worlds :).

We waved goodbye – having successfully managed to get Jasper on board too (which was by no means a given although he would have been VERY welcome to stay here :)) and walked back to the village then drove to the croft. Mike and Chloe were hungry (one thing we’d managed to not do was feed everyone :oops:) so we fed them and the animals and then walked back to the village for a couple of drinks at the shop so they could experience the full Rum deal. We chatted to a few people and then walked back to the croft for dinner.

Davies and Scarlett monopolised Chloe for ages talking about consoles, games and zombies and then they went to bed and we had a very interesting chat about philosophy. I do love teenagers 🙂 Am very excited at the prospect of getting a couple of my own 🙂

Everyone else has gone to bed and I probably should do too – Mike the Ranger is off island but has told various tourists to go and find the Goddard Family on the Sheerwater tomorrow as ‘they can identify most things!’ so I guess we’re doing rangering tomorrow – bring on the basking sharks I say 🙂

Today has been very productive again :). This morning Ady and I went down to the village with Bonnie to get sausages out of Fliss’ freezer for dinner and post Lovefilm back. Fliss was not in so I emailed her to say we’d been and invited her up for coffee if she was free later.

We had lunch and then I went to mulch around the fruit trees with cardboard. About 3/4 of them have taken and we are even getting the odd fruit of the blackcurrants and raspberries. Renewed me with enthusiasm for getting some crops in – hoping to dig over some beds maybe next week along with getting the CCAGS grant form finished and sent off so we feel in control of stuff like polytunnel etc. I’ve also been thinking a bit about crowd funding and some creative ideas for fund raising which I may explore further.

I then went and hung out with the ducks and geese for a while. I love having livestock so much, I find the company of the chickens, ducks, geese and pigs so mellow and restoring. I love how they have this chilled pace of live which largely just involves scratching around for food, hanging out with each other, basking in the sunshine when it is there and sheltering from the crap weather when it comes. Reckon we could all learn a lot from stripping back to basics like they do :). Mostly I just like watching them all unselfconscious and making their own variety of happy noises as they go about their days.

Davies and Scarlett were doing much the same thing – they have been having a really good couple of days, lots of creative and imaginative play and getting on with their own little projects. Three times now they have built a sort of world (they call it Gloopa Loopa land) down on the river bank and it has been washed away. They create a whole community with leaders and politics and rules and shops and housing and stuff and it is very indepth, clearly their way of processing what they learn about here on Rum. Today they decided to build it again on the croft, where it won’t get washed away. They earmarked a space and got Ady to strim it for them and dig out a large hole in the middle and bring up some water for them and they got busy. So far they have built a castle, several dwellings and a beach because ‘the queen loves the beach and couldn’t live near it any more so the king brought the beach to her’. 🙂

Ady and I stopped for a tea break and sat on the steps enjoying the sunshine when Fliss and Joss arrived for a cup of tea. That was lovely, sitting in the sunshine with new friends chatting. We were treated to an impromptu airshow too as three jets were overhead and really quite low doing various manouveres. Ady was in his element :).

I walked down to the village with them when they left and called into the shop for a few bits and then round to Vikki’s to collect some printing she had done for me and had a cup of tea and chat in her garden too. Then back home as I had baking to do. Cake for teashop and some stuff for Market Day tomorrow which I am feeling a bit guilty about abandoning Fliss to do all on her own but I have 11 people all arriving on the ferry to see us tomorrow!

Ady made the most delicious toad in the hole while I whipped up cheese scones, ginger cake and lavender shortbread along with icing to finish the cake off in the morning. The next 10 days are going to be Very Busy Indeed but I am very excited to be having so many friends come to share our island with us. Can’t promise to be anything other than very slack at keeping on top of blogging mind you…

said in a rather whiny voice because I haven’t seen my friend for faaaar toooo long and have no end date in sight for that 🙁 was going to text you today but thought it might make me cry so I didn’t. So I’ll blog for you instead. Fliss is doing a good job of stand in friend that is tall and wears glasses (sometimes) but it’s not the same.

Today has been a Productive Day. I feel a bit crap that’s it’s my Dad’s birthday and I didn’t manage to get myself together to send a card until after it was too late for it to arrive today 🙁 and I am missing him lots. I spoke to my parents on the phone last night for ages and they are really missing us lots. I tried to tell Mum that she should take comfort in knowing how happy we are and that this is the right place for us but she said although she is delighted we are happy it just means we’re never coming back which doesn’t help. I know Julie went away feeling much the same. Family and friends and the distance between us all now is definitely the cloud around the silver lining. We are friend rich for the next week or so though so that will see us through… anyone wanting to book their space please feel free to do so.

Back to being productive though… Ady and Scarlett moved the broody hen which proved to be a mistake and she is now back in the coop again on her eggs. We had hoped to move her to a brooder pen ready to hatch but she had different ideas so we’ve returned her to the coop again. I spent some time outside with a draw knife stripping bark off poles ready to put the tipi up but it was pretty midgey and my favourite not related to me crofter (Neil on Eigg) told me to NEVER try and work when it is midgey so I worked til I couldn’t see my arms for midges and then came back indoors again. I collected all the dry washing from the line, sorted it and make all the beds (we’d slept in sleeping bags last night as I was too slack to bother yesterday). I made various phone calls including checking Bonnie in at the vets, booking her in to their kennels, returning the call to Calmac who wanted to speak to the marketing person for Rum (which seems to be me!), dealt with the rent from the tenants (now paid), did lots of online stuff including a food shop, booked diesel and petrol on the ferry, replied to emails and some blog comments and generally got on top of stuff.

Ady did strimming. Lots and lots of strimming 🙂

Davies and Scarlett did lots of drawing and Davies did some more writing of his latest story – about a dragon called Long Tail. He’s been doing lots of character developement including creating models of the dragon in plasticine and Steve here has promised to help him do some online stuff with it including making a game with the character (he designs computer games).

Then we went down for the Midgefest post mortem and next stage in Events Committee which is Blasda – yet more probably too ambitious ideas for us to get cracking on in the next month. I love the fact there are other crazy dreamers here with ideas too big for them to take on but happy to have a crack at nonetheless. I feel in good company ;).

We stopped for a couple of drinks and could probably have stayed longer as it was a nice evening (if a bit midgey) down there but we had food to cook and kids to get home after lots of late nights and more on the cards this week so headed for home around 8pm.

We watched a bit of River cottage hedgerow but it was really disappointing so we gave up on that. I cooked dinner and everyone else has gradually gone off to bed. I’ve been doing some more online stuff including signing up with Vonage for a local landline type phone arrangement. Not having reliable emergency phoneline coverage has been a bit scary to me with Ady doing chainsaw and strimming and having kids too. For not very much money it means we have a bit more connection to the outside world and can be contacted easier by people too. Eventually when our contracts run out on our mobile phones we will go across to PAYG sims as we rarely use them at all now anyway. I’ve also bought the domain name croft3.co.uk as after much debate we have decided to just stick with croft 3 as the name of our croft. We may later name a house when we build one but for online purposes I quite like having that to cover us for various things we may sell / produce / offer.

Thursday – First thing we had arranged to be at Ranger Mike’s for some Midgefest prep. The kids did some papier mache-ing while Ady and I tried to create some playlists from our phone music stash onto Mike’s laptop. We walked home to collect food for the Sheerwater trip and the cake of the day for the teashop. We realised we’d cut it very fine for time so decided to gamble and try and drive back across the river. The gamble paid off and hopefully we will be better prepared for next time as we really missed not having the car on Wednesday. And then off on the Sheerwater. Ronnie was really late arriving and there was quite a crowd of us – us four, Ranger Ranger, Gav & Laura, Jinty’s sister Kirsty and some tourists. It was a perfect day for it though, gloriously sunny and flat as a boating lake.

We saw loads of porpoises and shearwaters but not a lot else. Porpoises are very shy and smaller than dolphins so not worth chasing to try and spot as they are not curious about us like dolphins and even the minke whales are so it was more spotting from a distance than being on sea safari. There are rumours of another superpod in the area with an orca also in tow which would make our summer to see so fingers remain firmly crossed for that. Maybe the next two weeks with company will prove good luck charms – we seem to see more with friends.

Back at home I had a shower and made some bread then the kids stayed here while Ady and I went down to the RCA meeting. It was well attended and an interesting one with talk of hall use and various other things after which Ady went home to the kids and I hooked up with Kate, Fliss, Vikki and Lesley and we went back to Vikki’s for the first Laydees Nite. Apparently years ago they used to have cocktail nights for the women here but it’s been let slip of late. Vikki is very lonely, Fliss told me she thinks no one likes her, Kate really misses her friends and sisters back home and Lesley is a 33 year old woman who lives with her 22 year old boyfriend and clearly misses intelligent conversation so I pushed everyone into getting together. Ady reckons it’s the women who run Rum and sure enough it is all women in positions of power here so it makes sense to me to get together and form friendships. It was a good night, we shared several bottles of wine, ate nibbles, chatted and all got to know each other better. We’re all at Lesley’s later this week for cocktails which I’m really looking forward to. Kate, Vikki and Fliss have all shared how much they enjoyed it and are glad we did it 🙂

It was a long walk home at 1am though – I do live a long way from the village! It was a full moon though and a beautiful night, so low level angst about meeting a red deer along the way aside I enjoyed the walk. I got home to find Davies had waited up awake for me which I am sure is the wrong way round for parent and child! 🙂

Friday – More cake deliveries – I’d made them the night before as Claire wanted two this time so only had to ice them before delivery. Mike called up to check on beanbag making progress and we needed to collect some stuff from Fliss’ freezer. We all went down to deliver cakes and collect food and ended up staying for tea / juice / biscuits with Fliss and Sandy before coming back up for lunch before the ferry came in as Ady was piermaster.

Neil came back on the boat, as did a stallion that has arrived for a short stay to mate with the Rum pony mares – he;s been doing that quite spectacularly infront of the castle, rather an interesting and quite inkeeping spectacle at George Bullochs home! We called in to the castle to collect some DG notes and said our goodbyes to Gav and Laura who I suspect are away to prepare a very strong application for Croft 2.

Back home I finished making midge beanbags, gathered up the mosiguard we’d been sent as prizes for Midgefest and then we all went down for a Midgefest meeting. We ended up having that infront of the shop and then Ian offered to take the kids with him on the canoe for an hour or so, so we stayed behind and had a couple more drinks while they went off with him. It made for a later than planned dinner but they love doing it so much.

Saturday – Midgefest 2012! All up early to meet the first ferry which we did waving flags and handing out programmes. As suspected no one came specifically for Midgefest but this was always our dry run testing time. We had been planning a Ranger walk but with no takers Mike went to do more prep, Ady the kids and I walked down to the otter hide to plant a clue for the treasure hunt and then to the hall to check on progress there. Claire had completed her willow midge so we helped mount that on the speaker stand, Ady got dressed up as the Midgecatcher and the kids did some final touches decorating to their midges. I realised I’d forgotten to put together a pack of incense sticks which I’d promised as a raffle prize so I walked home with Bonnie to collect that. When I got back Vikki invited us for coffee. The kids had already got stuck into the treasure hunt so we left them doing that and had a nice hour in Vikki’s garden while she talked to us about croft business plans, then the kids called round and we realised it was craft activity time so headed down to the village to get involved in that. Kate and Abby had done a fab job of laying on pebble painting and mask making and a lovely couple of hours was had sitting in the sunshine doing that with some fab results.

As we were the only real participants left we took Kate up on her offer of tea in the garden (her and Ian are housesitting for Sean and Ali who are away for a couple of weeks) and decamped up there with the games. We saw a pair of sea eagles fly so close overhead we could actually clearly see their white tails and then had fun with the parachute and the feed the sundew game we’d made. We left there with time to prepare the raffle for 5pm and I spent some time chatting to Mike’s friend who is staying with him and interested in Home Education. She lives in Sheffield so I was able to tell her I know there is a strong network of HE folk in that neck of the woods :).

The raffle went well – we had some great prizes including weekend in a camping cabin, dinner at the castle bistro, lunch at the teashop, a chocolate cake, bottle of wine, various mosiguard products, selection of items from the craft shop, incence pack and membership to the Friends of Rum. Lots of pleased winners 🙂

At that point we came home for a couple of hours to have some food and put Bonnie away, feed the animals etc. The kids had pancakes, Ady had beans and I had leftover cold potatoes and bacon with some salad. Then we headed back down to the discotheque. It was a slow start but by about 9ish we were all dancing away and having a fab time. We had a really good night and several more unlikely members of the community came in and danced too. A great time had by all 🙂

We left just before 1am when Scarlett had had enough – given we’d all been up since 730am I thought she did pretty well 🙂 We walked home with the intention of sleeping til we woke this morning.

For some of us that was earlier than others ;)I certainly caught up on a week of late nights and disturbed sleep from my persistant cough (over 2 weeks now, grr). Ady and I went down to the village with two loads of washing and got that all done. We pottered about and chatted to the various people around in the village – it has a really different vibe on a Sunday somehow.

Back at home I was hanging the washing out when Vikki arrived on the top path as she’d been peak climbing and called in to use us as base camp and report her safe return along with having a cup of tea.

Vikki left and I made some bread and pizza dough (out of white flour so used wholemeal, pizza def not as nice with that). We all had showers (kids have a bath in the deep shower tray) and then dinner. I talked to my parents and Frazer on the phone for a long while and we watched the first 2/3 or so of My Fair Lady but everyone was getting tired so I packed the kids off to bed before it ended to watch the rest tomorrow.

It’s been the sort of week I am coming to get used to – lots of socialising, busy all the time and still with not enough hours in the day. This week is looking like more of the same with added houseguests 🙂

let days go by with no bloggage!

Monday – I’m on cake duty for teashop all week – hugely political, can’t be bothered to type out all the reasons why but I’m earning £7 a shot for doing it so I’ll take the cash thank you very much!

I had leftover raspberries to use up from our foraging adventures so I did a chocolate and raspberry cake which came out with a very gorgeous pink icing. I made that and Ady, Scarlett and I headed down to deliver it and meet the ferry. Lots of people came off including Vikki, Fliss and Jinty coming home and Jinty’s sister Kirsty (who is the double of Frazer’s girlfriend Cat which is messing with my head) visiting. Also Gav and Laura, prospective crofters. I met Gav at the crofting course hence they are here and I suspect they are the strongest candidates for becoming our neighbours. I like them a lot and think they would be a great addition to the island. I greeted them and invited them up to the croft for a cup of tea once they’d landed properly. Kate and Ian gave us 3 live crabs they had caught and Ian offered to come up later and help process them.

We delivered the cake and headed up here. We had lunch and then they arrived so we had a good chat with them and then I walked back to the village with them as I had a Midgefest meeting to attend. We did that, Ady, Davies and Scarlett came down to meet me as it was veg box night and I ended up being bought 3 cans of cider by various people which put me at that happy point of not wanting to go home. Ian had come up and helped Ady and the kids do crab killing and meat extraction so when we did get home it was simply a case of cooking some pasta and tossing it with crab meat. If I’m honest I’d probably not bother again, but I am not a huge fish lover anyway. Ady and the kids enjoyed it, possibly more for having been involved in processing it.

Tuesday – Cakes again – I’d managed to not buy icing sugar so had to improvise with a cake that didn’t require icing and went for orange (also trying to use up fruit and veg gluts). Ady walked down to the car (other side of the village) with me to deliver it and call in to Fliss and collect some food from their freezer (we are borrowing space in there) then we drove back to the croft. This latterly has proved to be quite an error but more on that later….

When we arrived home Ian had been up and offered to take Davies and Scarlett out in the canoe in the afternoon so we had lunch and then walked down to the village with them to meet Ian. I love that this is now their life – heading off for canoeing trips with people who teach them so much and have all this time and energy for them :). We chatted to Paul and then came back to the croft. I had some online stuff to do and Ady wanted to strim an area so we got on with that. Gav and Laura called by on their way back from climbing up Hallival and while they were here Davies and Scarlett arrived home full of chatter about crab and lobsters and starfish :).

They left and as we needed some bits from the shop Scarlett came down with Ady and I while Davies stayed here. He is enjoying the odd bits of time to himself, or time with Bonnie and it is great to be able to give him that at his request.

We came home and inbetween cooking dinner I had something of a bakefest cooking cakes for today and tomrorow, cheese scones and three types of muffin for the craft fayre today.

Wednesday – At about 11pm last night we’d debated whether the rain meant we should move the car to the other side of the river and decided to gamble getting wet there and then in the dark walking back from moving it was worth the risk of the river running too high. We stayed dry but made the wrong choice and both of us woke several times during the night to the sound of continued heavy rain and sure enough the river is now a torrent meaning the car is trapped on the croft.

Ady was on piermaster duty today so after discussion with Davies and Scarlett we left them at home and donned waterproofs to walk down to the village with all my cake offerings. Ady and I arrived at the hall and moved tables around to get it prepared then he headed off with Neil to learn the ropes while I chatted with Claire who made me a very delicious honey, lemon and ginger drink for my continued coughing.

Fliss arrived and we finished setting up the craft fayre and enjoyed our usual Wednesday 3 cups of tea, chatter and selling stuff session. Fliss made nearly £50, I cleared a tenner but have used Fliss’ freezer space for storing leftover muffins for next week which saves cooking 🙂 and I earnt enough to cover the Sheerwater for tomorrow 🙂 We chatted about various options for making money and I have more cunning plans for making cash by crafts.

Ady called back in after the ferry and took some cakes home for the kids to have lunch with them, then he came back again before the final ferry. We had 45 minutes before the shop opened and we needed some bits for dinner so went back to Fliss & Sandy’s for a cup of tea / chat. I am loving making new friends with other couples like this, it really feeds my soul to make new connections and spend time getting to know people 🙂

Quick stop at the shop and then home – Ady spent some time sorting some drainage out around the static, the kids took advantage of a break in the rain to head down and look at how high the river was running and I got some dinner sorted – garlic and rosemary flat bread, veggie pasta bake as we had Vikki, Gav & Laura up for dinner. It was a nice evening – Gav & Laura are ex teachers and got the full Davies and Scarlett charm offensive so now have a lovely positive view of Home Ed kids, then the kids went off to watch a dvd while the adults chatted. The usual nice evening with Vikki and lots of positive plans for the future of Rum. It is very cool to sit putting the world to rights once a week and actually be able to get together the following weeks and talk about what motions you have put in place towards making it a better place 🙂

I have musings on children growing up and away and my acceptance and support of that, on the beauty of living here and the exhilaration of feeling so much a part of nature and loads on the politics of the current set up but frankly I am currently way too busy living it to be recording it. I must sort that out as I am very aware I will have this set of feelings and perspectives only for this finite period and will regret not having recorded them once they pass.

I was woken way earlier than I had planned to be up this morning thanks to Bonnie barking. Scarlett had let her out and she’d chased some deer off the croft but then chose to stand shouting about it for about half an hour. Scarlett and Ady were already up – Davies and I were up soon after thanks to Bonnie. Grr!

We all breakfasted and then went out together to feed the animals and check on the geese. The kids spent plenty of time cuddling them and handling them, our plan is to do lots of that to try and minimise any aggressive goose behaviour. At the moment they are still quite downy and very cute so easy to bond with. We turned off Mrs Chicken from the huge clutch of eggs she was sat on and returned just the marked four eggs – two weeks from now we could have chicks 🙂

Back at home we looked at the weather forecast and decided to get stuff done requiring the car the croft side of the river then take it back to the other side so collected all dirty washing and the power pack and dropped the washing off at the castle for a wash, took the power pack to the boat shed at the pier to charge up and collect tomorrow, put some stuff in the post for the morning and had a chat with Ranger Ranger Mike. Then back to the castle to collect the washing and have a chat with Ross and Alison before coming home for lunch and to hang the washing out. Scarlett and Bonnie came with us, Davies stayed behind making stuff for this weeks craft fayre.

We didn’t manage lunch as Ady and I then put a depth gauge in the river (since removed again) and Sandy, Joss and Meggie came up so we had cups of tea and chats with them for an hour then a later lunch. Ady did some strimming and the kids and I did some jewellry making. Then Ady came back and he and I sat down and thrashed out plans of action for the next few months, sorted some prioritising and targets and have some researching to do to get our crofting grant application form completed. That was a job well done and overdue so I feel good about that :). I made some bread and Ady went to drop the car off to the other side of the river.

Rachel arrived, having loosely arranged to do so on facebook on Friday night, armed with cider and snacks so we had a good old catch up while Sika (shared dog between her and Marcel, Neil & Lesley) enjoyed playing with Bonnie.

Rachel left and we had a lovely roast chicken dinner – so nice to have enough space and oven capacity to make a full roast dinner once a week or so, things we missed in Willow :).

Tomorrow sees most of the current off islanders returning home – Vikki, Fliss, Jinty. Midgefest meeting and veg box night. It’s just another Rumic Monday 🙂

Yesterday we headed down to the village to help Julie pack up. We realised she was far from being ready to pack up so went to collect Davies and Scarlett for some lunch before the first ferry and leave Julie to feed her brood lunch. The kids had been tending to an off course racing pigeon that landed here a few days ago. They had called him Bob and he was very pretty as pigeons go but I’d refused to rehomed him at the croft. Claire had got in touch with his owners in NI but it was unlikely he’d be recovered really so far from home. He was very thin and it was no great surprise when he didn’t last the night. The kids were really upset though and held a service for him. We missed it (felt like a really bad mother 🙁 ) but Mike the ranger attended and sang a hymn for Bob.

We met the boat but there was very little on it for us. I have ordered various jewelly making stuff from ebay including some resin moulds and resin compound with the intention of setting midges into keyrings, pendants and earrings. I reckon I’ll make a killing 🙂 A couple of bits from that had arrived but not the actual moulds or resin.

We dashed to the croft and grabbed some food then headed back to Julie to help with the final pack up. It started to pour with rain so we got soggy doing it. Then to the pier. It was a real mass exodus yesterday with Dave & Sylvia (going away for Dave’s op and treatment, not sure when they’ll be back), Vikki (away for the weekend hill walking), Fliss and girls (going to Inverness for back to school shopping, Fliss back on Monday, girls going to Glasgow to stay with their dad for a week or so), Jinty (away til Monday, coming back with her sister) and of course Julie and co leaving. We stood and waved the boat out of sight, called into the shop for a few bits and then headed for home. The weather was not great so we left the car the other side of the river and walked home.

We debated heading back down to see the Olympics opening ceremony in the hall as we knew a few people might be watching it together but it was one of those nights where it is just so cosy to be holed up together in our static with sofas and space and power and we ended up having a lovely dinner of breakfast (sausages, bacon, eggs and potatoes cooked with garlic and onions) and a family film (Mr Poppers penguins) on dvd so stayed home and enjoyed that instead.

Today has been very productive. We cleared out the goose house ready for new arrivals, built a new duck house and cleared out the wheelie bin they had been using ready to store feed in, Ady strimmed, I made pizza dough, spent time with Tom and Barbara Pig, walked down to the village and picked 3 punnets of wild raspberries (well we picked lots more, but have come home with 3 still uneaten!). I made signs forr the croft gates (forgot we have four gates and only made three, will remedy that tomorrow!), Ady strimmed, I made pizza dough and then we went to meet the boat.

Margo and Jerry were on the boat so we collected them 🙂 nipped to the shop for a few bits, got our post off Norman and came home to release the geese. They were both quite scared and pretty docile. They wanted to go in with the ducks and we may let them tomorrow but for tonight after some bonding and cuddling we shut them up in their new house with some water and bedding which doubles as food and left them to it.

Ady and the kids buried Bob and then Ady put the signs up while I sorted dinner and we watched the Olympics opening ceremony on iplayer. I lasted all of about a minute before I was wiping away tears, I am such a sap!

We have Sandy calling up tomorrow with his daughters to visit all the animals and I want to have a fiddle with the jewellry making stuff that has arrived but other than that we’re planning a Proper Sunday with roast dinner and very little else on the agenda.

Honestly, I finally get my act together and no one has anything to say about it!?!

I slept in this morning, very lovely and after a late night last night and the dregs of my cold still hanging about it felt much needed. I was most amused last night that after all my feeling left out of my online friend loop on the night I got back online properly the people I spent most time hanging out with were fellow islanders! I was bantering with Vikki, Fliss and Kate on facebook and email.

Ady had already been productive and had brought my clock in from the horsebox. We’d debated it and decided the static walls are not strong enough to hang it from but every time he went in the horsebox he looked at it and fretted about it getting broken before we’d ever put it up here so in the end he decided it was better up and at risk than down and at risk. It does feel properly like home with my clock up 🙂

” alt=”” />

The kids breakfasted and then we sent Maisie home (as in the trailer tent). We listened to Popmaster (am not at all keen on the new themetune…), I filled out some forms to register with the dentist and then did some knitting and finished off a little purse for the craft shop while the kids watched a wildlife documentary on iplayer.

At midday we headed down to the pier, collected the battery that was on charge (we have 3 now, the pigs battery (which this was), the static battery which runs the lighting and water pump and the solar battery which powers things with plugs. We buy an electric meter card and can use the boat shed to charge stuff up – a full charge on a battery costs about 25p, electricity is only 7p a unit here) and then met with the other Goddards ready for the Sheerwater.

The sea was a like a boating lake today, you could see for miles, flat as a mirror and very beautiful. Lots of porpoises were out, lots of shearwaters but not a lot else really. It was lovely as ever though and a fitting end to their visit here. We dropped off Maisie’s bedding at the trailer tent and then Ady and I headed croftwards while the kids stayed on to hang out in the village. Back at the croft I rang my Dad. It was a really bad line so I didn’t get all of what he was saying but he had various bits of bad news to impart (nothing personal for me, just news of friends of his) – I promised to ring back at the weekend for a proper chat. I do miss him 🙁

I rewaxed my waxed jacket which I’ve been meaning to do pretty much since we arrived here. I wore it loads WWOOFing last year and noticed after we arrived here that in patches it was not really waterproof any more so ordered the spray to re-do it which duly arrived and was put in a cupboard. I wet it in the river and then hung it on the washing line to spray and rub in the stuff. I collected it on the way back up this evening, nice and dry 🙂

I then left Ady putting final touches to the goose pen. We have a goose and gander arriving on Saturday’s boat and although they will be totally free range after a while we need to pen them until they know where home is. We have a donated chicken house for their shelter so have just put a bit of fencing around it for now to put them into when they arrive. I walked down to the village with the intention of catching up with various people and buying food for this evening. I ended up having a beer with kate instead but that’s fine :).

Ady appeared with the car as I reached the crossroads walking to the beach to meet Julie so I got a lift with him. I helped Julie and Lorna find Lorna’s shoes which had been abandoned on the beach and then we started cooking dinner over the fire. Julie was lured to the dark side to have a beer so her and I abandoned the midges, Ady and the kids and walked to the shop to buy one. We waved at Fliss sitting in her conservatory on the way and on the way back asked her if she wanted to join us and she did! 🙂 So glad we asked.

So a lovely last night looking at Mallaig and the yacht lights in the harbour twinkling as it got dark, eating sausages and just loving where we live :). Julie and I shared lots of ‘I love yous’ and then we headed for home, dropping Fliss off on the way. Rain was forecast so we parked the other side of the culvert and river and walked home in the dark. I grabbed my dry jacket off the washing line on the way and within about a minute of us closing the door behind us the rain has started and the wind is blowing again. So lucky to have had a last night like that just before the weather changed.

Tomorrow sees loads of people heading off island along with Julie – Fliss is away for the weekend, as is Vikki, Sean and Ali go for 2 weeks and I heard a whisper that Jinty is off again for a weekend. I’m glad we have upcoming visits aplenty from other friends lined up to keep us going.

The solar set up arrived today 🙂 It’s proving very good so far. I am sitting hooked up to wireless broadband while my phone charges and we listen to music. I won’t repeat myself about how it all works as I intend blogging about it on the WW blog but it’s bloody excellent.

It might even mean I manage blogging daily after the others have gone to bed like I used to. 😯

But until that day here is a quick catch up of the last few days:

Monday

Reason for lack of bloggage is still power / internet related. We do now have internet and wireless at the static but both require electricity so only happen when genny turned on which we don’t do every day. We have just ordered a big solar panel, battery and invertor though which we think (fingers crossed) will be sufficient to keep everything charged / plugged in most of the time though so things should improve.

What have we been up to then?

Erm, Monday was midgefest meeting and Rum Venison Processing meeting. Not even sure I’ve blogged properly about either of those. Midgefest can be found at but in a nutshell is an ironic minifest, village fete stylee to try and build our profile as somewhere to visit both inspite of the midge and for more than just Kinloch castle, red deer and the Bulloch family. More about my crusade on all that some other time but I’m enjoying playing a leading role in this and hoping it becomes something bigger next year.

Venison Processing is exciting 🙂 Lesley got a grant for £10k earlier this year to set up a venison processing community interest company. The idea being we buy dead beasts from the red deer cull and then turn them into processed venison meat and products for sale. The company can theoretically support a couple of directors and employees (all part time), plough some profit back into business development and donate any leftover monies to the IRCT. I am to be a director, Ady is to be an employee. The grant money will cover staff training in butchery, machinery and equipment, start up costs of buying beasts, packaging etc and see us through our first year of trading. More on all that as it actually happens but it is perfect for us – free training, a chance to use the skills, possibly some cash and the chance to be in on something from the beginning that could be a really useful place to sell our own produce through at a later stage. Very pleased at all that 🙂

Tuesday – we walked to Kilmory. It’s a 10 mile round trip and in retrospect was a bit ambitious really although Julie and I have walked with our older four for many, many miles over the years Lorna is not as up for such things and the addition of the two dogs, the cleggs and midges and the hard going track, not to mention the destination being the beach which meant instead of resting and recovering from the walk Lorna (and Jack actually) ran around and got more worn out before the long walk home again. Despite all that it was a good walk, the weather was mostly kind and the beauty of Kilmory beach never loses it’s appeal. We’d seen Martyn the day before and said we were planning a trip so he’d said to knock on the door and if he was home he’d show us round but he was not about.

We all felt pretty wiped out when we got home but Ian & Kate came round for the evening and we had a really nice couple of hours with them. It’s far healthier to be getting together at people’s houses rather than hanging out round the shop picking up all the island gossip. I like the evenings spent with a couple or a few people rather than whoever turns up for a beer.

Wednesday – Craft Fayre day – I really enjoy Wednesdays although it is often a mad morning trying to bake stuff to be ready on time as I do a cake for the teashop on Wednesdays too and unless I am properly organised I fail to get that sorted the night before. I was on good form this week though and managed cheese scones, chocolate and banana muffins and the cake for the teashop. Ady dropped me off and went to meet the ferry as we were expecting various things to come. I really enjoy the couple of hours sitting chatting to Fliss and tourists and this was no exception. I’d identified Fliss as a friend before I arrived here and despite various set backs and other stuff I still forsee her being my best on island buddy long term. She and I have stacks in common, both personality and interest wise and I feel happy to be repaying some of the huge kindness and support her and Sandy showed us in our early weeks here now that she is in a place where she needs some back. It feels odd to blog about stuff she tells me, sort of like gossiping as no one here knows her and just now I am probably closer to the people I see day in day out here on island than those keeping up with my very sporadic blogging… Suffice to say we’re bonding and I look forward to good times and fun ahead along with the being there for each other when days are dark.

Wednesday evening we went to Claire’s yurt for a long overdue (as in she’s been inviting us there since we arrived!) evening. James, who is currently Mr Claire cooked a chilli and we sat outside and ate. It was really nice to get a good poke around inside the yurt – I’d not want to live in one with the kids but I do find them a lovely space, really romantic and pleasing and I’d happily have lived in one alone or with Ady. We ended fairly early and all went to the shop for a drink. My parents rang so I chatted to them for a bit and then wandered home.

Thursday is Sheerwater Day. I’d planned to get various things done in the morning but Vikki came up for a coffee which threw me off my stride so I didn’t get it all sorted and we came within a whisper of missing the Sheerwater altogether. The kids ran down the pier – I claimed I cannot run but I suspect if it were not us, known for going every single week and with Julie & co already aboard waiting for us we’d have missed it. No dolphins this week but it was gannet tastic 🙂 I have gotten really proficient at spotting stuff and can now identify kittiwakes, gannets, great skua, puffins, shearwaters, guilemots, shags fairly well at a distance using knowledge about flight patterns etc. Abby who was sitting with me and had only been once before was deeply impressed 🙂 I told her I might be a ranger when I grow up! My proudest moment was being the first to spot a whale though – I caught the dorsal fin and watching the movement was able to shout ‘whale! It’s a whale!’ to which the skipper came down and asked me where and I excitedly bumbled my way through a direction and we sped off. Not the best spotting ever as it kept eluding us but we are spoilt by such amazing experiences every week and had this been our first whale spot we’d have been ecstatic with the closeness of it :).

I started to feel a bit rough on the way back and as Julie and co brought a cold over with them that has been steadily spreading round the island I was anticipating it coming and I have it first. We stuck a wash on at the castle and went to Julie’s for a cup of tea while it was on, then the kids said Fliss and Sandy had asked us to pop round so we saw them for a cup of tea too before heading home in a rush to ring the CoOp to pay for food shopping coming the next day, hang out the washing, bake bread and make dinner ready for Vikki coming round. I was feeling pretty rough by then and standing in the really hot kitchen pumelling bread dough as it was midgey and all the doors and windows were closed had me very bad tempered. Ady was lovely and sent me off for a shower though after which I felt a little better. We had a nice evening with Vikki although as ever it ended later than planned and I could have done with an early night really having over committed myself for Friday.

Friday – started way too early for a woman coming down with a cold and battling the end of a very busy week. I got up at 7am to catch up with all the pre me venison processing stuff that I’d been emailed but failed to read before. Then we were down at the village for just after 9am to accompany Mike on an Eagle Walk as he wanted some pictures of children on the walk and had asked if we’d go along and let him take them of Davies and Scarlett for various publicity. Fliss had come along too with Joss. Mike got loads of posed shots of us all being Littlewoods catalogue-y and pointing into the middle distance and looking through binoculars 🙂 The others carried on with their walk and did indeed spot eagles but Fliss and I needed to be back at SNH HQ for a meeting at 11 so we had to rush back down the hill. All this pre lunch exercise did me in and as I’d wheezed up the hill in the first place chatting to some tourists about Home Education I was a fast pass to a slump really.

Fortunately the meeting went well. Sandy came and rescued us with the car as we’d never have made it for 11am and we were given cups of tea at the meeting. It was with Sarah who is the SNH manager off island but specifically for Rum and George who is her boss and even higher up. They both read the blog so were referring to various things I’d mentioned on there which always feels odd. They were supportive of our venison plans and very fair with their imposed conditions and requests so it all looks like it will go smoothly ahead 🙂

I went to the village hoping to draw some cash out from the post office for later but it was already closed. Claire donated a cup of tea to me and I sat and chatted to Julie and Ali who were in the hall and I resuced Bonnie who had been shut in the car while we went on the eagle walk. Julie wanted some eggs so she came to walk up to the croft with me and we met the others coming back down. The kids came with us to get lunch and Ady followed with the car.

Down to meet the ferry which had loads of stuff on it for us. We helped unload the shop delivery too and met Elsa who arrived on the ferry. We’ve been really looking forward to the evening of her coming so despite still feeling pretty shite I got the kids fed and we headed down. Bless them Davies and Scarlett had lent us some of their cash to pay (which I wrote them IOUs for and have now repaid having been to the post office the next morning). Ady and I thought we’d be home fairly earlyish as it was supposed to start at 730pm so we planned to have dinner afterwards.

In the end it started late to allow for the castle staff on duty to come after work and Elsa spent the delay time sitting outside the shop drinking with all of us and chatting. She is really lovely – I’d happily pay to see her twice a week every week! I hope she comes back. It was a fantastic night – she plays the fiddle, penny whistle, guitar and button box. Given my least favourite noises are the violin and recorder I was prepared to tolerate rather than enjoy but her playing made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up it was so beautiful and moving. Her songs come with an anecdote before she plays, interwoven with all sorts of tales about her and her life and her husband who accompanies her. They spent the winter living in the Canary Islands and the summer touring in a 25 year old camper van playing at village halls. A life we could well identify with 😉 Elsa’s 11 year old son was with them and really hit it off with Clan Goddard (we currently rule the island there are so many of us with Julie and co here too) for the 24 hours they were here.

Scarlett was desperate to dance and so Claire got up with her and Maisie and they danced at the back of the hall but soon got more confident and moved to the front dragging me up with them (not that reluctantly you’ll be surprised to read!), then the blokes got up, then we all got up and the evening ended with a ceildh. It was magical, amazing and everything for me that is wonderful about Rum. I was so glad Julie got to taste a bit of what it can be like here.

We called it a night just before midnight I think and I was utterly done in by the time we got home, going to bed without any dinner or any voice but on a high from such a great night regardless.

Saturday – after a bad night I slept in and Ady went to meet the early ferry and have a coffee with Fliss & Sandy. He arranged to go back later in the afternoon with me too and came home. I’d got up, decided I still felt crap and gone back to bed again before he came home. Ady made bacon sandwiches and then he and I went down to the village to catch the post office. Scarlett came with us and we met Maisie so she stayed down with her. The walk down and back wore me out and I was hoping for a quiet afternoon but Vikki arrived, followed by Julie so that never happened. Ady tells me that it’s my own fault for making myself popular 😉 😆 He went down to Fliss and Sandy’s himself and apologised for my absence while I drank tea with Julie and Vikki. It felt a bit like being back in Sussex – Vikki and Julie get on well and as two of my closest friends that is nice. I do miss Julie lots and having her here even if we’ve not spent every waking moment together has been so lovely, it will be a real wrench when she leaves at the end of the week 🙁

They went, Ady came home and cooked a roast dinner. Comfort food for people with colds and sleep deficits. The kids watched a film, I caught up on flickring photos and did some isle of rum website stuff (I am helping maintain the website now). Then it was bedtime all round. Scarlett had bought me a lemon in Jinty’s shop so she’d made me a honey and lemon drink earlier in the day. I love how me being ill brings out her caring maternal side 🙂

Sunday, blimey today, up to date!
A quieter day although the crazy wind here has stopped it being quite as relaxing as hoped. Ady and I were awake just after 4am with the wind checking for damage and issues. We seem to have fared pretty well considering the battering we’re taking but it is a timely reminder that we need to be prepared for the winter and potential serious winds that will bring. The static is holding up well but we have secured the gas bottles more, lost some stuff in the horsebox thanks to the canvas blowing looose and rain getting in. The pig ark blew over the electric fence so has been put back and secured more and the galvanised sheets in the chicken and ducks areas have blown all around the place. Our ramshackle chicken house has stood up just fine though 🙂

Ian called round just after 10am to check we were okay and stayed for a couple of cups of tea. We had lunch and then Ady and I headed down to the village while the kids stayed here playing. We dropped a bag of food at Fliss and Sandy’s making use of freezer space they had offered us and stayed for tea and cake and chats, then popped in to check how Julie was faring with the weather. She’d been up at the same unholy hour we had repegging her awning and moving the car infront of it as a windbreak but was fine. Then to Vikki’s to deliver eggs and stay for a quick cup of tea too.

Back home we discovered the fridge had blown out (the vent is on the south facing side of the static) and the mince (only remaining meat) probably needed using today rather than waiting til tomorrow so a hasty rethink of dinner options along with the realisation that we didn’t have all the ingredients for lasagne anyway meant we had burgers and potatoes instead. It was delicious and meant Ady cooked instead of me. I am feeling much better today but still welcommed the chance not to cook after all.

Which brings me to the end really – kids off to bed, me catching up online a little, wind still howling around outside. The car is on the other side of the ford because the river is running high, too high to drive across. I need to be up early enough to cook and cool a cake to deliver before midday and wind dropping allowing the ferry may well bring more exciting stuff like our solar panel and invertor set up.

When people who rarely ever blog are trumping me with regular updates I really need to pull my finger out!

It’s lovely having Julie & co here. We have the kids, well mostly Maisie here every night while the others dip in and out. It’s almost like they live here really, joining in as and when and having their own space to retreat to aswell.

It’s a funny time here just now, fully into tourist central with the feeling of being slightly invaded by incommers. Makes us realise how much it feels like home to us now. There is the added oddness of having Sandy fall rather spectacularly off the wagon and spiral into full on drunkenness with some very bad behaviour. Ady and I have found this really testing to witness for lots of reasons, not least the complete transformance of him from someone we thought we knew into someone we have no idea of the measure of. It’s been really hard watching Fliss try and deal with it, their three daughters be around it and seeing the really quite offensive reactions of fellow islanders sit back with a mix of scorn, amusement and pretending not to notice. I have been very vocal in certain company about just what a community is and should be. Fliss said today that everyone had commented when we arrived at just how different the vibe was here with people turning out to offer support and help and be friends, I have been staggered at how little of that has existed for Fliss and Sandy this week.

Sandy has stopped drinking again for now and our relationship with Fliss has certainly had a very speedy fast forward into more intimate and close. I don’t yet know quite what to make of what happens next but I know that Ady and I are taking the stance of friends in need being friends indeed, showing our support for what in my opinion is an illness rather than a lifestyle choice or something to be judged or ridiculed for and I am hoping that in the same way we have been key in rallying support for Dave & Sylvia and their cancer we can help lead a movement towards seeing Sandy’s problems as our problems and seeing what we as a community can do to help them.

In other news we had a croft warming barbecue yesterday and for once Rum didn’t help us out with glorious weather but rained and was windy all day to the point we expected no one to come when it was still pouring down at 3pm and we’d set a start time of 4pm. In the event the sun did put in an appearance and we had a fairly good turn out of people climbing the hill laden with sausages and beers to celebrate finally getting onto the croft with us. We finished at about 2am I think sitting round a campfire singing. All very reminiscent of the best days camping with friends over the years in a field but then wobbling up the front steps into our own home and remember it’s not just a field, it’s our field 🙂 Looking foward to hosting a Rum fest for friends sometime soon

Think that brings me about up to date. We’re about to order a compost loo and we have plans for both water to the static and a solar power scheme which will certainly meet our energy needs at this time of year. We have our first WWOOFers booked in for later in the year and next week two lots of people are coming to look at Croft 2 so we are hopeful of having neighbhours in the not too distant future.

I really miss blogging, I miss the actual act of typing out my day, of sharing what I’m thinking and have been doing and I really hate not having it all recorded as I know those days now blur and slip away from me merging into all the others. But I will try and get back to it as soon as it is feasible to do so and life is too short to be filling my head with regrets of things I’ve not done, so I’m shrugging off these unrecorded bits and writing them off as time spent on stuff which was more important at the time.

Parents Visit.

Mum and Dad arrived on Friday 29th June and stayed until Friday 6th July. They had a fairly action packed journey up but got here okay. After teary hugs and kisses at the pier and a first meeting with Bonnie Ady drove all their stuff up to the croft while the rest of us walked up there. It was fantastic to see them, I’ve missed Dad loads and to be able to share Rum with people for the first time was just brilliant. To walk them along the roads, introduce them to the people here and show them the track we got the static along and then bring them to our croft was so good.

They stayed with us in the static – Davies and Scarlett shared Scarlett’s room, Ady and I had Davies’ room and Mum and Dad had our bedroom. It worked okay although the kids definitely enjoy having their own space now, however small so it was a big ask to have them share again. Ady and I both slept badly in the very narrow twin beds in Davies’ room (we normally take one of them out to give him more space in there anyway) but it was fine. The toilets were a challenge for Mum and indeed for Ady emptying them. Dad got his head round trying to make sure he used the loos in the village where possible but Mum never did. We seemed to spend a lot of time cooking dinners and washing up but in the main it was just good to have them here. Dad totally got it, against all my worst fears that he would not understand what we are doing at all. Mum fell in love with the beauty of Rum but struggled with the active side of our lifestyle with all the walking everywhere and carrying heavy things about.

Overall it was a successful visit really. I think although it would never be something they’d want to do they can see how happy and settled we are here, already part of the community with lots of friends and making a real start on building a life and home and business here on the croft. They watched me baking cakes for the teashop, making stuff to sell at the weekly market days, swapping eggs for salad and selling more eggs to the shop and I think this is the closest they have been to proud of me really. They can finally see me throwing my all into something which I suspect they have never felt I’ve done before. I would argue with that but it’s irrelevant really so I’ll just be pleased they are happy :).

We tried to take them out walking to explore the island but an ill fated trip to Kilmory ended with Mum spraining her ankle so the only real trip we did was on Thursday on the Sheerwater. It was Mum’s birthday on that day and we’d arranged a private castle tour for her and Dad in the morning which the kids went along for too and then on to the Sheerwater. After several weeks running of great cetacean sightings we were all fingers crossed that this would be a good week and it was the best yet. We saw a fairly big pod of dolphins close up and then had an amazing encounter with a minke whale for about 20 minutes. So special 🙂

” alt=”” />

They left on Friday which was rather tearful all round. Made easier for Davies and Scarlett by the knowledge that Julie, Jack, Maisie and Lorna were arriving the following Monday!

I’m not sure when they’ll next get up here. They did the drive home all in one go, arriving back in Sussex at 5am which I think is pretty crazy but is up to them. We’ve talked on the phone since and I think it is easier for us all to talk now they know where we are but possibly slightly harder for them too knowing just how very far away it is.

Life up on the croft is brilliant. We have loads to sort out – compost loo is top of our list to get dealt with, closely followed by water, polytunnel and then energy. The list of research keeps growing. I got a book today on Earthships and we watched Garbage Warrior at the weekend so are inspired anew in that direction I think. But we’re still exploring the croft and getting to know the land really. We had 40 fruit bushes arrive last week so have our first crops planted in – nothing else is worth doing until we have the polytunnel otherwise it’ll just be deer fodder really. We have a goose and gander arriving at the end of the month though so our livestock continues to grow and thrive. All the hens are now laying, the ducks are settled if not laying yet, Dave the cockerel is really doing well and Tom and Barbara the pigs are lovely 🙂

Julie and co arrived on Monday. Maisie is sleeping up at the static with us, Jack and Lorna are down with Julie in their trailer tent and Julie’s Mum is in her own small tent next to them down at the campsite. We simply cannot accommodate them all in the static and they need showers / loos really so they are better down there with their own space. It’s lovely having them here, the kids are just having a ball. Julie is struggling with a cold and this is only night 3 for them anyway but they are here for another two full weeks so she is slowly settling in and getting her head round everything.

Other highlights: we hosted a birthday Barbecue for Vikki at the croft last night which was fab. We’re planning a croft warming barbecue at the weekend if the weather stays kind. I sold out of cheese scones today again at the market day and am enjoying that little regular earner each Wednesday. I am involved in a sort of Village Fete in August we’re calling Midgefest which we are having weekly meetings about and is also taking up time coordinating. Life is busy but very good 🙂

Not as in insane, as in frantic 🙂

Monday Ah, so good to wake up again on our land 🙂 We headed down to the village where many claps on the back and congratulatory cuddles were offered. We realised we’d double booked ourselves for the evening so nipped along to Ian and Kate’s caravan. They are the ones renovating the Tattie House and currently living in a wee caravan, so are fellow trailer trash ;). We nipped along to the ferry with them but there was nothing on it for us. We’d had walkie talkie contact with the kids all morning as they had wanted to go up the ridge behind the croft to explore so they headed off that way with Bonnie. Davies then radioed to say Scarlett had hurt her leg and there was panic in his tone really so Ady went back up. Sure enough it was a fairly nasty gash so Ady cleaned it up (and the surrounding area!) and then brought her down to the village where I was trying to blog about the static move. Norman had a quick look at it and reassured Ady it didn;t need stitches but a good clean up and maybe a couple of butterfly stitches. Scarlett, Davies and I then went on something of a wild goose chase trying to find someone with butterfly stitches even though I knew we had some back at the horsebox. Eventually I decided to go back there instead so we collected Ady and headed there where I cleaned it up some more, Ady held it together and I put the butterfly stitches on. You know Scarlett, she is pretty hard and once the initial tears had been mopped up, by Davies, she has been very nochalent about the whole business. Tough cookie 🙂

It meant I was running very late for a 4pm meeting with Fliss, Vikki, Claire and Mike to discuss Midgefest though. We had a good meeting and arranged the same time next week to update on progress made. I will not be reporting much as I’ve slacked terribly on that to be honest, but I’ll try and get sorted on it.

After that I nipped home and then we all came back down for a drink at the shop. Monday is one of our two nights we do have a beer, being veg box collection evening from the shop. Sadly there had been a mix up with the order so no veg had come, but we were celebrating the static nonetheless so we stayed for a couple and bought Fliss and Sandy a couple of drinks each and thanked them once more for everything.

Then we loaded ourselves into Ian and Kate’s car along with Vikki and Mike and headed over to Harris for a lovely evening on the beach. Ian and Kate had brought sausages and burgers, we had loads of beers and just had an amazing few hours talking, laughing, cooking over the fire, spotting birds and seals and playing games. Just perfect 🙂 We left around midnight and all sang all the way home to Kinloch. A fab experience we are all keen to repeat again asap.

Tuesday We collected some wigwam poles and canvas from Sandy and Fliss. We are hatching a plan with them to hire out their wigwam on our croft. Loads still to be thrashed out and we need to get it actually up and check it is sound but it is now up at the croft ready to be put up. We had a cup of tea with them and a chat. They are interesting people, probably the ones we’ll end up closest to here I reckon as we have lots in common. Sandy is an alcoholic, currently clean but prone to falling off the wagon according to the village. We’ve not talked about it with them yet but I am sure it will come up one way or another at some point soon. I’ve been really impressed with his ability to just disappear when the drink comes out, as it has very frequently over the last few weeks with all the static stuff going on and the hard drinking Eigg boys over here.

Back at the static we’d invited Paul, the new mechanic up for dinner so I cooked earlier for the kids and then made a quiche for us. We had a really nice evening with Paul, he’s from Somerset, pretty near Glastonbury so we had plenty of stuff round there to chat about having spent so much time there last year. Paul is newer than us to the island and equally bemused by all the politics and nonsense so it was good to form a solid beginning of a friendship with him. He does love it here and I hope he and Carole get passed all the bullshit and make it work.

Wednesday We’d declared a Family Day as we are very aware of neglecting time with the kids these last few weeks. We had got into a good rhythm prior to starting to move the static and we need to regain that AND start getting stuff happening on the croft. It was the ferry at 1135am though and we had empty diesel cans booked to go off so needed to get DG notes. We met the first ferry and got off a Harbro order (animal feed and supplies) of some china eggs to encourage the birds to lay where we want them to rather than randomly around the croft and river bank, a new collar for Bonnie and a couple of bags of dog treats, an Amazon order (taco shells and a sack of rice) and the replacement strimmer bits which sadly were wrong again, and a Co Op food order which was 100% right and what I’d ordered for probably the first time ever! Then we chased around for nearly an hour trying to get DG notes, finally getting some from the SNH office. Sigh for things being so much more complicated than they need to be sometimes.

Back to the static for lunch and then we walked up the hill in the rain to check out and pace the distance from a higher than our static roof point in the burn where we can start getting our water supply from. We all got soaked doing that as it was pouring with rain AND the grass is long and was wet. My boots are leaking so I was totally soaked and I can’t find any of my waterproof trousers. So more shopping! We have various things we want to find homes for and plot out on the croft but not in the pouring rain! The kids and I walked down to the village to do a few online bits but there was a directors meeting in the hall so we didn’t stop long. Ranger Mike came up for dinner (curry, to say thanks for storing some of our food in his freezer) so we went back and I watched a puppet show Scarlett had been working on using an empty cardboard box our CoOp order had come in that looked like a TV or puppet theatre.

A nice evening with Mike, it’s so fab to be able to have people up to our house for dinner, I’m not at all sure the novelty will ever wear off :).

Today – this morning we did some reading with the kids – Scarlett is under suffrance looking at the Bob books. She could so read if she’d just believe she can. She did well this morning with me though and Davies is flying through reading now. His writing and spelling is doing really well now, still a little on the creative side but the increased reading is definitely starting to show through.

Then off to the Sheerwater. The ford is running very high after lots of rainfall here and I think the car needs to stay on the village side of it rather than the croft side now so we drove down to the pier. It was just as well, lots of people came: Ian & Kate, Fliss & Joss, Morag (the teacher) and Cara (the pupil), Ranger Mike and six tourists, and Ronnie came into the old pier so we all had to jump in cars and drive back there instead.

Another fab Sheerwater trip with a pretty large pod of about 25 common short beaked dolphins all playing around the boat. So magical 🙂

Right, I need to go – it’s ordering veg box day and we have a big load of washing to get done then tidying up in the static before my parents arrive tomorrow.

Where were we?

Ah yes, midway along a very midgey nature trail track and deep in the depths of despair about life, the universe and everything!

I’ve lost track of what day was what, I think I did my slightly more positive post on Wednesday so I’ll assume that’s true and start with Thursday.

Thursday is Sheerwater Day. We’ve been every week since we arrived and been gradually seeing more and more out there each week. This week was an odd one – Ady was up with Sandy strimming on the croft, I made a cake for the teashop (I was supposed to bake every day last week but failed to pull that out of the bag at all thanks to everything else going on, but woke on Thursday and decided enough was enough with all the wallowing and I needed to get on with Normal Life again) and walked down with it. Scarlett came with me and when we got back Ady was nowhere to be found. Davies had seen him going one way but not come back. I’d arranged to collect Claire from the Teashop to come out on the Sheerwater with us so after a bit of deliberation and looking around for Ady I decided to leave him a note and take the kids and some lunch out rather than all of us miss the trip.

In the end it was only the three of us, Claire and Izzy (castle chef, I’ve mentioned her before I think, if not I am about to update the ‘Rum Lot’ biographies on the side bar soon). The trip over was pretty uneventful but just as we approached Soay we saw the Adventure boat coming towards us with a pod of about 10 dolphins all leaping and bow riding around them. It was pretty cool 🙂 Some of them came with our boat for a while too.

We dropped off the post and then headed back and Daniel (one of the crew) called down to say ‘more dolphins coming up’ and suddenly we were right in the middle of the super pod that has been around the Small Isles for the last few weeks. We cut the engines and just stopped. It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. No sound other than the waves lapping against the boat and the clicking and whistling of the dolphins. Although Rosemarkie has been the most fab experience for dolphin watching (they are bottlenose, these were common dolphins) this trumped that a million times over for being so close you could actually lean out and touch them if you wished. They stayed around us for about 20 minutes leaping, playing and splashing. We all debated jumping in with them and it was very tempting. It was an eerily quiet and almost spiritual experience which all three of us adults said made us feel tearful. I don’t think I’ve ever felt quite so connected with wild animals before, it was as though they were as delighted and enchanted and interested in us as we were with them. My camera battery died with the first shot so I have no footage of it but that is almost better because instead of stressing about the perfect shot or video clip I was resigned to simply living it and committing as much as possible to memory. Izzy has some phone video and all you can hear is Scarlett giving a running commentary on how ‘the sea is alive with dolphins’. Izzy said if Scarlett doesn’t grow up to be a wildlife show presenter she’ll be amazed. I reckon she’ll be keeping that clip just incase (I knew her when she was nine and was with her when she saw her first pod of common dolphins ;)).

Back on Rum (I quite like the fact we leave every week for two hours, even if we never touch dry land. It gives a real sense of perspective to see it as the small island it actually is from a distance) we caught up with Ady. He and Sandy had rung Calmac to check the wheels had arrived and been assured they had and would be on the 2pm ferry the next day.

That night brought heavy rain and our bedroom roof leaked. It all felt pretty bleak and we really struggled to find the energy to even hope the next day would bring anything positive.

We were up early and Claire came up to bring my amber back as the clasp was broken and she fixed it for me. We’d decided me not wearing it last weekend had been part of the bad luck so she got it fixed and delivered for me for Friday. She stayed and had tea and chats with me as I packed everything up again. Ady went to meet Alasdair at the pier and we hoped it would all turn out okay.

However it did not pan out that way as although Alasdair arrived, on a boat, with Chris and Dean also from Eigg the wheels did not. They were not on the 2pm ferry. It was a crushing moment really, there is a manifest that comes in with the boat saying what has come in and for whom and it clearly said ‘Goddard, 1 box’ but there was nothing for us at all. I rang Calmac and was assured it had been put on and nothing had been left behind which meant it must still be on the boat heading for Canna. Two people rang ahead to Canna for us to ensure that if it did come off there it would be put straight back on the boat. In the meantime Chris (who appears to be something of an eccentric genius – he lives alone on his boat, moored off of Eigg and looks like Captain Birdseye) managed to straighten the axle that we’d all been trying various methods on all week and failed. He is slow and steady and thinks things through which there had been all too little of last weekend. I credit him with much of where we are now.

We went back to meet the later ferry incase it had gone to Canna and back but there was nothing on there. We talked to the skipper – Ben who by now knew the story and promised to see what he could find out back at Mallaig but was worried it may have gone on the Eigg and Muck ferry instead, in which case it may be sitting on one of those Isles instead. We came back to the shop and after various phonecalls managed to get hold of the only person at Calmac Mallaig who knows what she is doing – Cat. She went down to the freight cage, opened the parcel to check it had wheels in it and put it on the van ready to be driven onto the Rum ferry on Saturday morning herself, came back the phone and apologised that ‘we employ idiots’. Love her! That done, with an assurance we trusted that they would be with us first thing on Saturday we retired from static business for the evening and had a drink with everyone. We went off to get dinner sorted for us and the kids and then we went down for another drink while Davies and Scarlett watched a film at the static. It turned into something of a session, with Alasdair spending over £100 at the shop. Ady left to put the kids to bed, I stayed awhile but didn’t drink much and headed off at 1130 leaving them all in full swing still. I hear it went on til 3am, ended with dinner back at the castle and was a real party to remember.

We were not in a party place…

Saturday was an early start – Ady and I headed to the boat and sure enough the wheels were there. Apparently they’d even radioed ahead to Neil (on harbourmaster duty) to say ‘the boat contains the wheels!’ 🙂 We gathered them up and headed towards the static. Chris was along the path so we collected him too. Up at the static we soon had a workforce of Sandy, Mike and Ian. The wheels went on and then Sandy went to fetch Alasdair and Dean and the day began. The kids went down to Fliss and Sandy’s to watch a dvd with Bonnie so they stayed out of the way for the duration of the day which made it much easier than last week.

I cannot say it went easily and there were challenges every single step of the way with things to dig out, move and pull straight as we went. The tractor broke down in the middle of the ford so we stopped for half time oranges. The midges were evil so most of us were in midge jackets / hoods the whole time which really didn’t help with the heat or vision but slowly and surely it got there. We crossed various paths, turned corners, navigated round rocks and banks, crossed the river and finally, finally crossed the gate and into the croft. It didn’t go smoothly even from there as we needed the mats all the way up the croft hill and we almost lost it into the ditch just inside the croft. All the animals were freaked out by this massive tractor and static moving alongside them but to cheers, camera clicks and a feeling that it wasn’t quite real we were there. On the croft.
Words can’t quite express what a feeling that is. Our view is stunning, all the more amazing for the length of hassle it has been to get it here. Ian came and helped us level it, Vikki brought up sandwiches and elderflower fizz to toast it and then we headed down to the village. We said goodbye and thank you to Alasdair and Dean – we have not yet settled up with Alasdair, we’ll sort that out later. We were given housewarming bottles of wine from Abby and James (castle staff), Claire and Steve and tonight Mike brought up a card and bottle of whiskey. Rachel came up with a bottle of cava and the whole village is thrilled for us with congratulations coming from even the most surly and grumpy of quarters. It felt like a real community effort yesterday.

We had a drink and then came home for dinner. A really late night but with no reason to be up for anything specific this morning that was fine. Home. On the croft 🙂

Today has been lovely. Ian came up for a cup of tea and chat about hydro power, then Ady and I returned the mats we have borrowed from Billy the contractor on the castle and put a wash on. The kids stayed at the croft with Bonnie and played in the river. We caught up with the castle staff and Abby took us on a castle tour which we had not actually managed to do before – amazing place.

Back at home Ady strimmed round the pigs as Barbara keeps escaping, I hung out the washing and then sorted out the horsebox a bit to get various things out now we are not so worried about weight in the static. While I was doing it Rachel arrived with Sika so Sika and Bonnie had a great hour racing about the croft together while Rachel, Ady and I had a bottle of cava to toast us getting home. We can actually see each others houses now 🙂 We walked down to the village with Rachel along the north nature trail which is probably our quickest walking route to the village at about ten minutes and certainly a smoother walk.

Back for dinner – beef stew and dumplings. And some breadmaking as the oven was on, along with a cake for Teashop tomorrow and cinnamon roll dough for breakfast in the morning in celebration of being here at last. Mike called in with a card and bottle of whiskey and Kate sent a text to arrange to go to Harris tomorrow evening. Suddenly everything feels wonderful and possible again. I know there will be many more challenges ahead and hopefully we’ll face them with more positivity than we managed this last issue but it’s over now and life is good again :).

Writing it all out yesterday was definitely theraputic for me. I did have a little cry and then went and chatted to Vikki. She’s been off on island on holiday for 10 days and had come back on Monday. We’d met her from the ferry and brought her stuff back for her and gone in for a cup of tea and stayed awhile. Unfortunately rather than welcoming her back properly or hearing about her time off we’d rather swamped her with our woe and the full on catch up of Rum during the last ten days which had included a relationship break up, someone leaving, our static adventures and tales of one new member of castle staff who didn’t even last the week and another who probably won’t. Once we got home we realised just how rubbish a welcome home that had been and had been feeling bad about it. So I went and had another cup of tea and shared cheery positive stuff instead which left me feeling much better about life generally.

By the time I got back to the static we just had time to cook and eat dinner and then we dashed back out again to make a talk at the hall by geologist Jim Blair who has written about Rum and the other small isles unique geology. It was pitched more at a geologist than an interested layperson and certainly way above the kids heads but we sat through it and then had a drink at the shop with Mike who had returned home. Good to see him back :).

We left and were home about 11pm, the incredibly light evenings really mess with your head regarding bedtime and I thought I was turning in for an early night only to look at the clock and realise it was 1230am! It is light again by 4am and I slept badly not getting up until the alarm at 830am.

Today was the second craft fayre of 2012 – the first was on April 25th, the day our static arrived so we were not around for that one. This time I had full intentions of sitting behind a groaning table of home made stuff but circumstances have again contrived against that so I had just three scarves (two crocheted, one knitted) and several plates of baking – cheese scones, cranberry and chocolate blondies and some ginger cupcakes (ginger sponge is my new signature cake, I like how it goes with my hair ;)). The kids came down too and had made some bits which sold (mostly to islanders ;)) and then got pound signs in their eyes and were away gathering shells and other beach treasures and putting together bags of precious found things for 25p a time. They did pretty well and are very motivated to make stuff for the next one. I reckon we’ll be trying for weekly fayres through the summer season.

I spent the time chatting to Fliss – I still have not bonded with her properly, we mostly talk business ideas and crafts, nothing really personal although I keep trying and will continue to do so. My closest friends here so far are Vikki, Kate and Rachel but I think Fliss and I could be really good mates if we can get past the fact I am so new and she is so guarded. Ady and Sandy are getting on really well and Ady feels very at ease with him now which is a real silver lining to the whole static moving debacle.

I sold a fair bit of my baking, I bartered some more with Fliss for some lip balm (she makes soaps and other beauty lotions and potions) and sold some more to Claire for teashop tomorrow, so made over a tenner, have some nice baked stuff for us for the next couple of days and some lipbalm too 🙂 One of the students here at the moment came over to say he’s been reading my blog and is from Lewes which was nice. I am all enthused and inspired anew with making and selling stuff again :). I also got some amazon deliveries today and now have some lovely books on permaculture, self sufficiency (including cool projects like earth ovens, solar dryers (for fruit and veg), compost loos and so on) and earth shelter houses. Ahh books and glossy pictures of other people living the dream…

A meeting has been set up for Monday night to get cracking on arranging midgefest, Rachel is coming up for tea tomorrow afternoon and it is Sheerwater day – yesterday Mike saw pods of dolphins and 8 minke whales so I am hoping for a good trip on that.

The wheels didn’t arrive today but having chased them up we are hopeful they’ll be in Mallaig tomorrow so will come on Friday’s boat and all will still go according to plan. Sandy and Ady have been talking about revenue streams from camping up on the croft too so he is feeling more positive today aswell.

Right, my washing should be done (I’ve been sneaking some online time while it’s at the castle laundry) so I need to get back for dinner. Not a full return to normal Nic service and I am still very much in sick feeling in the pit of my tummy limbo over what will happen next but I am certainly back to a brave face and ‘it’ll be fine’ again.

Need to record this all because despite having knocked us for six I know that with a sense of perspective it will all feel better.

It’s been said many times (by us) since we arrived here that everything gets all out of perspective and feels so much more intense than it actually should. This is another of those times I reckon. If we had access to friends and family, the internet and so on then this may not feel like quite such a big deal.

So Sunday morning we were all up bright and early and by 830am we were unloaded onto a trailer and ready to go. The initial plan of digging out the bank a little to create a wider path was quickly shelved in favour of coming down the very steep side of the bank instead from the road above. The benefits should have been that it was minimal damage to the static and we got a straight run at the culvert which was the next big issue along the way.

The trouble (from my out the other side feeling of events) is that somewhere along the way it went from being our home, our everything being moved from one location to another and morphed into some sort of Top Gear challenge with a load of testosterone fuelled blokes in charge of diggers, tractors and chainsaws seeing how far they could drag a static before it all fell apart. The short answer is not very far at all. 🙁 By the end of the afternoon we had me in tears, Ady looking like someone had ripped his heart out, two kids and a dog all having been banished and kept away all day having learned more new swear words in a day than in their whole lives before and a rather bruised, battered and wheel-less mobile home that now truly was a static because it could move no further. Bleak was not the word.

Coming down the bank took out the plumbing and gas pipes from underneath, along with three of the metal bracing bars that form the chassis. The bay window base took a real beating as the tractor didn’t have full operation of it’s up and down bit so a pile of sleepers was on the front of the tow bar to try and keep it hitched but when it crashed down the bank they shot up. How we didn’t lose the window I don’t know.
” alt=”” />

That done we realised one of the wheels was buckled and bent so a sledgehammer was taken to it and it looked a bit better. Next challenge was actually crossing the culvert which is a pipe diverting water from one area into the stream /river but was already a fairly crumbling track over it and not very wide. We used sleepers, planks and steels to brace it but the angles were just too much and further damage was done. The toughest bit was when we realised a tree was pushing against one of the doors and four of us had to brace the van away from it, which meant pushing it towards falling off into the river the other side, while the tree was chainsawed down. Excitement but not in a good way.

” alt=”” />

We thought we were on the way from then on, the two worst bits passed but as it bumped along the killer stones on the track the damaged wheel simply gave up, the bearings came out and the wheel came off. Crunch down on that side of the van with dreadful creaking, crashing and groaning. We all ducked down to look underneath and the other tyre exploded. Ady got a faceful and has a cut on his forehead, I think he’s lucky to have his sight.

At that point I think we realised no one actually had a clue what they were doing and the suggestions that Ady and I had been sitting on because we thought we were interfering with people that were used to this sort of thing felt all the worse for being left unsaid. All the political bollocks of this island and people who don’t talk to each other had clearly had an impact and Ady went to speak to Billy, one of the contractors on the castle to see if he could offer anything. Billy and Ady returned with Billy’s big green machine which theoretically could lift the static onto a trailer so it could be got to the croft that way. Except Billy couldn’t get across the now very broken culvert in his 10.5 tonne machine.

” alt=”” />

The static was then dragged, by digger and tractor back onto the track and everyone called it a day for the night. Leaving us with a wonky static that doors didn’t even close on, no plumbing or heating. Sandy came back and fixed up the gas and water for us. He has been a start although he is currently sober and has a real drink problem so apparently could at any time fall off the wagon and disappear. That feels very scary as he is currently the only person I am really trusting to know what he is doing. I want to shove Alasdair’s digger up part of his own body. I may be unfairly bitter towards him but I feel the need to be really cross with someone…

Rachel appeared with wine, cider and beer and sat and talked to me while Ady tried in vain to cite the static to get it level so we could sleep in it. Without wheels there was nowhere to get underneath to jack it up and with all best intentions Rachel and I were not much help. In the end we took up Claire on her offer to cook us dinner and Rachel on her offer of a free room at the castle for the night. Neither felt like what we wanted to do or had dreamed of being the case for that night but I think walking away was the best thing to do at that stage.

Ady went off to bed, the kids celebrated seven plug sockets in our room and I drank myself into oblivion down in the kitchen with the castle staff. Bad idea – when you wake in the morning all your problems are still there but you are even less able to deal with them thanks to a killer hangover. I have no real idea how I functioned at all yesterday and I’ve never seen Ady so low.

We spent the morning chasing around trying to work out what to do next, spent another £250 on a new set of wheels and used up all our favour asking. The new plan is for the axle to be returned to it’s proper shape with help of a heat torch, the new wheels to be fitted and some tuffmat surfaces to be laid down infront of the static as it is towed along on Friday. That assumes the wheels arrive on time, the axle can be made straight, the wheels don’t pop off again on the track, we manage to cross the ford and nothing else goes wrong. Theoretically we could be on the croft by Friday night. Just as theoretically we could be 10 foot further along with an even more damaged static and my parents arriving a week on Friday.

Sandy came and helped Ady level the static so we are back in it in it’s new location, we can actually see croft 2, but not quite croft 3 and we are theoretically past the worst two bits of the journey. I just can’t pull my usual ‘it’ll be fine’ out of the bag because for what feels like the first time I’ve been proved wrong and I’ve sort of lost my faith. I’m trying really hard to keep perspective – no one got hurt, the static is damaged but repairable, people came and helped and supported and commisserated and I know we have friends thinking of us from afar. No one got hurt, there is every chance it will go smoothly on Friday and I’ll be bouncing around as usual setting up home properly on the croft and waiting for my mum and dad to get here (I can’t even talk about how much I am missing my Dad without dissolving into tears, I’ve not talked to them about what happened yet because we are still in the middle of it all and I can’t bring myself to think the worse but don’t dare think anything like the best.)

I know it’s not, but this feels like the biggest challenge ever and I don’t even really know why. When I think of what we’ve been through – the money woes, the times when we were WWOOFing when Willow was struggling, somehow this just feels bigger. It feels like I’m lying to the kids when I try and reassure them everything is okay, like I’m pushing Ady beyond what he feels happy with, like I am asking more of friends I have only made in the last few weeks than it is okay to be asking. I know perspective will put this all back where it should be and one way or another the uncertainty of what will happen next will be answered by the end of the week. I know Dad will help us with more money if we need it and I know the world will still turn and it will all be okay, I’m just struggling to convince myself of that right now, let alone anyone else and when I’m the one who usually has that role I can’t quite stomach the thought of being proved a liar.

I spent half an hour yesterday sat at the top of the croft looking around and drinking in the view, the air, the atmosphere. We’ve quietly questionned whether we are doing the right thing being here and when we finally sat down to dinner at nearly 11pm last night and I remembered it was Ady and I’s 19th anniversary so the four of us toasted us it was with more than a twist of irony in our smiles as we looked at each other and said as we do every year ‘and they said it would never last’. This is a million miles from where we imagined we might be when we fell in love half my life ago and in just the last 48 hours I feel better and worse has been demonstrated. I’m looking forward to being out the other side made stronger by what hasn’t killed me.