Yesterday was another productive day – packing up venison in the morning, wood collecting in the afternoon and a quick call in to Fliss & Sandy’s to meet Sandy’s parents who were over for a couple of days and Sandy particularly wanted to introduce us to.
In the evening I started to feel my throat thickening and snot gathering and by the time we’d eaten dinner and watched a film I was fairly sure a cold was on it’s way. For once I went with sensible and took myself to bed before midnight. The cold that became a chest infection back in the summer really scared me and given the levels of damp in our bedroom I am desperate for it not to turn into something more sinister this time so will be looking after myself much better to try and see it off as a simple cold.
I slept okay but woke at 7am which is really early for me, but clearly my body only needs a certain number of hours sleep and is used to waking up after them. It was still pitch dark so I snuggled up in bed and read. Ady got up and made me a cup of tea and got the fire lit so by the time I did get up it was lovely and warm in the lounge. I had a steamy shower which helped to clear my head and then rang my Dad as I had a favour to ask and some news an old friend of his had emailed me to pass on. That was nice – I do miss my Dad.
Ady and I went to meet the boat – we had CoOp food shop coming off (six boxes – lots of twiglets and festive fayre!), the winkle money arriving (£715 hurrah! So over £1200 for all the winkling in the end, well worth it), empty petrol cans to go off. Neil said he’d been contacted by one of our venison customers to ask if we could send her meat off today so Ady went back to the second boat to send it off. Loads of islanders left today for Christmas; Claire, Steve, Lesley, Paul, Marcel, Mark, Doug (both Mark and Doug left for good, they have been seasonal ghillies), Coryla. Sandy’s parents went and Sean’s parents arrived. Vikki has her parents coming on Saturday, Neil’s family arrive on Monday as do Jinty’s Dad and sister. The school boat brought the three girls home for Christmas so a rather different feel to the island just now.
Two more boats before Christmas left but if they both get cancelled it doesn’t matter now to us. Tomorrow I have my phone interview in the morning, Ady is doing some fencing work for Mad Ben the Fencer (he reckons 4 hours at £10 an hour) and then it’s the kids Christmas party. Weekend spent wood collecting and then we’re there.