Thursday was Sheerwater day but it was really, really windy and when Ady phoned to check it was running he was told it was but it was choppy out there. After some discussion we decided not to go. A tough one really as we’ve never  missed one before through choice, only because we’ve not been on island or its not been running. But this year we have been on so many where we have seen nothing at all and just paid a tenner to sit feeling cold and at various degrees of feeling seasick. Instead we made the most of the wind turbine for internet power. Manon and I put some strawberries in one of the raised  beds and netted it.
In the evening we went down to say goodbye to Mel & Em. There was a really good turn out with most people on the island coming along for a beer and to wish them well. They both made a touching speech and they headed off home for their last night in the castle around 8pm. Which is probably when we should have headed off too but instead that dangerous third can of cider was cracked open and from there it is a slipperly slope to the kids being given out of date kinder eggs by Jinty to persuade them to stay while we were poured complementary glasses of Baileys (me) and Jura (Ady) to persuade us to stay. And it worked! At 11pm we finally called time on the evening and I think dinner was around 1230am. Oops!
Friday morning I had a meeting in the IRCT office so I went down for that. It was productive and hopefully will be the start of something exciting for Claire and Steve who are looking at housing plots. I had not expected to be home for lunch and had set Manon on weeding the herb spiral but walked in the door just as they were all laying out food in the caravan. Manon carried on with that after lunch and then transplanted some comfrey she had dug out of the herb spiral into the space along the outside north side of the polytunnel, then she carried on weeding. She has not done as comprehensive a job weeding as I would, or as is necessary given the ground elder and rushes but she has cleared the inital grass off the raised beds which leaves the slightly more satisfying job of ferreting out the long roots of the weeds which is the bit I actually enjoy so we make a good team.
We took the kids and Bonnie down to the ferry to wave off Mel & Em. There was a good turn out of most people on island there to say final goodbyes which was nice. We will miss them both – as Bonnie sitters, as friends and Mel as someone who we genuinely liked a lot. Emily had a whole load of crazy about her which frequently meant she was a nightmare in meetings or to the IRCT but she meant well.  We dropped the kids off in the village and came home to feed the animals and make pizza dough. We walked back down and collected the kids them came home. There was a bloke over who has played at the Edinburgh Fringe and is travelling around in a milk float playing music. Usually we would make the effort to attend such things but it had not been advertised, it was starting at 830pm and it turned out tickets were £8 each. Word had it he was not very good anyway so we were glad we had not bothered.
Saturday – work for us both in the morning. A quiet one for me with just Ross, Neil and Steve plus some tourists. Steve brought me a bowl of soup to try which was lovely but reminded me a bit of Norman and his random Saturday morning food offerings… Ady met me and we chatted to Doug for a while before heading up the hill.
We had lunch and then Ady and I walked across to the cabin and Dave and Faye had arrived on the morning boat. We had a cup of tea, caught up on each others news and arranged to meet at 6pm to walk down to the shop for a beer later. Ady and I collected some water pipe that Ady had found to use for cloche hoops and spent some time working out a plan for the raised bed on the south side of the polytunnel where the strawberries have been moved to. It needs a plastic covering both to keep it warm and grow the strawberries but also to protect the fruit and plants from our own birds and wild birds. We made a start and more or less decided how we would do it, the fed the animals and walked down to the shop. We stopped for a couple of beers and then came home for a curry.
Sunday – I had intended a lie in but Ady has a habit of managing to do something noisy outside the bedroom window every morning which wakes me and today was no exception… Although I was awake I did stay in bed and read my book though. That showed him! 😉
Before and after lunch we worked on the cloches and made three frames using a dismantled pallet and the pipe hoops, then covered them with some of the ripped polytunnel plastic. They look great and will work perfectly. Really pleased with them 🙂 The strawberries are looking a bit traumatised by the move and I doubt will fruit any more this season but we now have two beds full and I have sown some strawberry seeds which are just starting to germinate too so next season should be good.
I checked the fruit cage which is desperate for some weeding and we have blackcurrants ready to start harvesting. I also made a mini rockery of all the lavender which had been getting water logged in pots and was looking quite sad. Some has flowered, some has just gone woody so it may not all come back (it was a bargain ebay purchase last year, 10 ‘seconds’ from a nursery where the plants were healthy but didn’t meet the size spec, plus a very old pot from Osborne Drive). This should give it all a better chance. Ady did some scything too.
Ady cooked dinner and I had a long catch up phone call with my parents. I was hit today while we were messing about dismantling a pallet by a wave of really missing my Dad 🙁 It doesn’t happen very often like that but when it does I could just sit and cry, or pack a bag for the next ferry, so talking to him tonight really helped.