I finally went to bed around 4am, read for a while and was probably asleep by 5am. My face is much improved today though and I am hopeful that the 5 day steroid course might just see the Nicface outbreak off. I’m at the GPs in the morning anyway though so will make an appointment for further consultation about next possible moves from here.
Ady went off to the car boot sale first thing this morning to meet his brother, who is a real regular at them and had been persuading Ady there would be loads of farming books. Ady went more to spend some quality time one to one time with Chris with strict instructions from me to return with No Plastic Tat Whatsoever! He did come back with a couple of books each for the kids for Christmas and five or six books about farming, growing and housebuilding all for about a fiver and he’d enjoyed being with Chris for a few hours so all worthwhile, particularly as I slept through him being gone anyway!
I made a loaf of bread ready for lunch and Ady and I got cracking on the croft application. It is tough to strike the right balance between not using it as a job application form and being too self promoting while wanting to come across well. It is also tough to know quite what tone to strike as the crofts on Rum come with a very specific agenda and purpose so we need to ensure we are jumping through those hoops along with the usual crofting requirements. I think we have come across as sensible grown ups with decent career history and plenty of skills, along with just a touch of eco hippy dreamers with a wish to be part of a community and enough mental stability to survive on a remote island and enough mental instability to want to do so in the first place! 😆 We have refered them to our blog at the end of the application which I think is a pretty good reflection of who we are.
This took us most of the morning and afternoon inbetween making lunch and dinner for everyone. Part of the battle included finding a way to edit word documents as I have an expired trial version of word which allows reading but not editing and the MS works word processor that came with my netbook messes up the formatting of word docs. Eventually I downloaded openoffice which seems to have solved all that and I know have the form all completed and ready to print off.
The kids have had a good day, playing, watching a film with my Dad and in the absence of advent calendars (they have a playmobil and a lego one we bought them last year and I was convinced had been packed up and labelled and brought over here ready for this year but must have ended up in our loft at the house as it is not here and I refuse to buy another expensive one each. They can have cardboard ones!) they decided to make one for each other. Davies has made a very fabulous Angry Birds one for Scarlett with a pocket for each day containing pieces to create a picture on the background he has drawn which will make up a scene. All of the pieces are backed with white tack so Tarly can stick them on. It is very cool, if rather un-festive!
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Actually he tells me it is festive as the bird has a santa hat on!
I’ve not yet seen Scarlett’s creation for Davies.
Davies lost a tooth today – the first one either of them has lost this year, we’re a long way from ‘dentally mature’ here (love that phrase read on Ali’s blog!). Mention of the ‘tooth fairy’ was made by both children with an ironic tone and a wink 😉
Mum has been a bit rough and very grumpy today. I do feel sorry for her but she is the worst patient ever and makes it very tough to be kind and caring. Dad has long since given up!
This evening we all watched Countryfile together, which had the kids asking to visit Northern Island ‘next’. I love their enthusiasm for travel and seeing bits of our country. I love even more that the request is for somewhere nice and close to where we plan to be living :). They went to bed and Ady and I made a start on the business plan. Again this is a tough document to put together as it is accepted that crofting does not actually turn a profit or generate a sufficient income usually so the term business plan is not the conventional meaning of something you might use to raise finance or other support, rather a document to demonstrate your understanding of crofting, ability to work the land and appreciation of local community, crofting laws, grants and funding and willingness to work within a set of guidelines specific to the local area. It’s a learning curve and a beneficial exercise if only for aiding to our sense of excitement and convincing us this is what we want to do and consolidating all our skills to help us realise what we will be able to achieve. So mostly positive, if rather hard work.