I had a surprising facebook message this morning from Bad Neil asking about the sheerwater boat trip – what time and how much. I assumed he was asking for someone else but no, when we arrived at the pier he, Lesley and Dougal were there ready to get on with us!
First though it was talk at the croft – when we first arrived here we met a couple of uni professors here with a group of students and doing experiments about the worms here on Rum. The paper which one of them was writing was published last year and hit the press renewing interest in the worms. We gave a talk to some of their students that year and again the following year. We missed the next year as we were away but this year they had been in touch to ask if we would give a talk and croft tour again so they came up this morning. We had been clear about our available window – between Popmaster and having to head off on the Sheerwater – we are busy people! 😉 We packed up lunch and met the group. We did a fairly standard Q&A session, talked about crofting generally, crofting on Rum and why we personally were here, then talked about our animals and crops and took them round to meet the pigs, the penned mother hens and chicks, the new peahens and to see the wind turbines. It was a good session and came after getting a reply to a speculative email I’d sent to one of the big cruise ships that calls at Rum and brings passengers ashore for castle tours offering croft tours with the As Seen On TV Goddard family. Exploiting all possible opportunities 😉
Then off to the pier to meet the Sheerwater. It was busy – Neil, Lesley & Dougal, Fliss, Debs brought Eve and Joss on a ‘school trip’, Trudi and her two volunteers and a whole load of tourists plus us. We grabbed our usual seat at the back and Fliss, Neil & Lesley joined us so it was a bit of a locals day trip which was fun. We didn’t see much – a few porpoise fins at one point, so Ronnie the skipper took us to the south east corner of the coast of Rum where there is a kittiwake colony. We were really lucky to see a sea eagle flying through the middle trying to snatch kittiwake chicks. It didn’t succeed but had a couple of fly-bys trying delighting all the binocular wielding folk.
Back to Rum where we had to clamber across two moored boats at the pier to get ashore. We’ve had to climb across one before but never two. We drove slowly back stopping to position the wellies for the trail as we went, got stuff out of the freezer for dinner and then came home. Davies and Scarlett headed back down to deliver a dozen eggs to Fliss. I took Kira outside for a while and she wandered around the caravan a bit then managed to get underneath. I could hear her miaowing so we knew she was there. We took the hatch off where we access the generator and I called her and she came out. She seems unscathed by the adventure and still very keen to get outside. She and Bonnie had a few face offs but seem as cautious of each other really. Kira tends to bolt for the caravan when scared too which is heartening. We will keep letting her out a few times every day with us around until I am happy to just let her be outside but I am confident she will be just fine and of course she is such a long way from roads that she is safe too.
Ady had been making a hole in the wall next to the bell tent earlier so that campers can access it from the top trail so we were looking at that and chatting more about ideas for up there, we closed up the shop and the polytunnel and Mike & Debs were walking around the nature trail so we chatted to them for a short time but it was very midgey so none of us wanted to linger.
I brushed Scarlett’s hair as she had had a shower and now I’m knackered after too much sunshine and talking! More of the same tomorrow as we’re off to Eigg for the day.