Thursday – Ady was working in the morning, painting at Foxglove Cottage. I spent some time doing online stuff and then he was home for lunch. We all ate together and then I headed down to the village for Crafternoon. It was just Deb, Fliss and I as Ali was stranded on the mainland and we actually had a really nice few hours. I usually sit mostly silent but without Ali there conversation turned to education and it was really interesting and enjoyable to discuss and debate stuff.
Ady spent the afternoon spring cleaning in the caravan on tasks like kitchen cupboard doors, walls which get sprayed with mud when Bonnie shakes and general post winter clearing.
I got home just after 6pm to an email saying that the trip to Muck had been cancelled. No progress with Barbara Pig.
Friday – Barbara’s actual due date. Despite hourly checking and plenty of time spent hanging out with her nothing has happened maternity wise. I made bread dough, pizza dough, tortilla wrap dough and rolled out 20 plus wraps all of which does my upper arms lots of good. Outside we moved 10 galvanised metal sheets and 8 fence posts from various locations at the bottom of the croft to a spot right at the top of the croft ready to construct bird housing, It’s the time of year when we need to pen the chickens and ducks after their evening feed to ensure we collect as many eggs as possible before letting them out in the morning to spend the evening free ranging. We won’t manage to pen them all, which is fine but should secure sufficient egg layers each day to satisfy demand for fresh eggs on the island. After some debate about design we have settled on a plan but have decided to construct with screws rather than nails to allow for deconstruction, moving on and reconstructing as required. So a task in progress awaiting parts.
We broke for lunch and then went back outside to finish off, finding ourselves at 430pm finished that but with nothing ‘small job’ enough to start before the day was through. So I came in and did a few rows of knitting on a scarf for sale. And cleaned another window – I have been gradually working my way round the caravan inside scrubbing off all the green and black stuff after the winter using an old toothbrush. That is everything except the kids bedroom windows done now.
The kids were very productive with Davies creating two new postcard designs and Scarlett designing a logo for her candles. We discussed drafts and experimenting and she did a couple of versions before deciding. Probably the first time she has grasped the idea of not just striving for perfect first time and then considering something finished.
Pizza and some down with the kids tunes for the evening. I suspect we are now embarrassing parents. We are delighting in this ;|)