Oops, mistakenly posted this on wondering wanderers – hope no one saw it!!
Bloody teachers! 😉
I worked at post office this morning – a swapped shift as I am not working on Saturday as it’s Scarlett’s birthday. How did my baby get to be 12?! 😯
I had my usual trickle of folk in and Bad Neil and then later Fliss stopped for a cup of tea and chat. I do like Post Office, it’s most sociable 🙂
Derek brought along a delivery from the boat of my apple trees. I ordered and paid for them back in about August and was wondering if it would ever actually get cold enough for them to be dormant enough to send – the same happened last year with fruit trees which didn’t come til late November for the same reason. These are rather more of an investment though – £150 for the 8 of them, all heritage varieties, six eaters and two cookers, all specifically chosen for their suitability to our soil and climate from a choice of about 60 types that this little Scottish orchard had available this year. I found the contact on a Scottish permaculture mailing list. We have the fruit cage ready to go but need to dig some drainage ditches and then actually put them in properly according to instructions with mulch and stuff – too big an investment for my usual method of shove it in and cross your fingers! In theory this is our last big financial outlay on the croft until the house is built and we are definitely staying, so they are slightly symbolic trees too. Oh the stupidity of burdening a tree with any level of symbolism! :rolls:
I walked home in the rain with my trees and various bits I had bought from the shop, mostly for Scarlett’s birthday. Her birthday menu runs thus: cinnamon french toast for breakfast (always a problem as there are never eggs on the island in December, this year is no exception but I had frozen some eggs beaten with sugar during the earlier in the year egg glut so am ready this year!), cheese, crackers, olives, pickled onions etc for lunch (onions pickled again cutting it too fine really but I had been ordering pickling onions with my veg for *weeks* – next year I will try and grow some myself!), roast gammon and potato gratin for dinner (our own gammon this year – yay!). She wants a birthday cake of tiffin for up here with us and something more chocolate sponge-esque to take down to the village to share. I had various cheeses, crackers, stuff for cake making and a mini bottle of prosecco that Jinty had got in a crate of and I had earmarked as a pressie for Scarlett.
The others had been variously up to things all morning so we all caught up with each others days so far over lunch. We had then planned to plant out the trees but it began tipping down with rain and was already 230pm so we decided to unpack them and put them in the polytunnel with the roots wrapped in a wet sack to keep them hydrated and plant them out tomorrow when we have more time. Davies and Scarlett made the most of a break in the weather to walk down to the village and then I followed them an hour or so later. Ady stayed behind to feed the pigs and ensure Barbara didn’t escape – she didn’t. I met the kids and we joined in with the first run through of the school nativity and then had the monthly residents meeting. Ady put on a load of laundry, collected pig feed from the bunkhouse, put the laundry into the dryer and then came to join us.
The nativity run through was fine but I was annoyed with Deb who kept trying to coerce Scarlett into joining in and taking a part, Scarlett was very resolute and is determined that she does not want to do it so I was proud of her for sticking to her guns. Davies did well reading his parts with just the right mix of aloof cool teendom and enthusiasm for a community event ;). Deb is clearly desperate to include Davies and Scarlett more in school stuff which would be nice if it were for their benefit but is quite clearly because she prefers doing stuff with older children and feels Eve and Joss will get something out of it. I may have been ranty about this on the way home 😉
The meeting was a typical winter one, a very low turn out, not much on the agenda and no appetite for contentious stuff. Then most people left, the rest of us had jacket potatoes and then Sean the Rat did his talk which is the last of the current round of Rum lectures. He talked about his Phd which is about the Rum Rats, explaining how he has conducted his research, early findings and various science-y stuff. He is doing some discections of rats soon and Scarlett and Davies are keen to join in with that, he is also looking for help with his trapping and chipping of live rats in the next few weeks so they have volunteered to do that too. Better than nativity stuff 😉
We got home, more or less in the dry and watched Muppet Christmas Carol all snuggled under blankets. It made for a very late night, but no one has to be up in the morning. Tomorrow brings cake making, mince pie making, apple tree planting…
Did Sean the Rat talk about the South Georgia project? http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/dec/02/worlds-largest-rat-poisoning-project-rid-south-georgia-rodents
It made me think of Rum when I read it.
Comment by mich — 07 December 2014 @ 3:08 pm
He did indeed – apparently the predicted cost for that project even here on Rum would be millions!
And just realised this will be the thousandth comment on this blog! 🙂
Comment by Nic — 07 December 2014 @ 6:51 pm
well just you remember that it was me that got you there 🙂
Comment by mich — 08 December 2014 @ 9:32 am