Dad was round first thing and popped along with me to Mike & Rose’s to look at the Troublesome Gate. His suggestion was to cut down the gate. We debated that further and I put forward my idea for bringing the posts out further instead to fit the gate as I was really worried cutting the gate down would be a) hard to do and b) compromise it’s stability. Dad agreed and we whizzed over to their house to rummage in his garage for some batten to do the post extending. We found some suitable bits and then headed back to our house. Dad offered to stay with the kids for a couple of hours and Ady and I went back to the Troublesome Gate.
We spent a good hour doing the extending before deciding that actually it wasn’t really going to work and that maybe cutting down the gate was the best option after all. So we dismantled all our post extending, measured the gate (three times!), marked it and then cut it. Ady now has Super Strong Arms from all the WWOOFing but they still ached from 6foot worth of gate sawing. I took the old gate off (for the third time!) and started taking the hinges, latch and bolts off it for reuse – all rusty old screws that took a lot of unscrewing – I have no knuckles left!
At 1130am we had to call it a day as we’d arranged to meet up for a drink with Dan and Jonathan, also known as Nix and DB. They have been following our WW blog for a year or so, initially from the other side of the world and been regular commenters and even blogged about us! When we realised about a month ago that them being in Sussex would coincide with us being in Sussex we set about trying to meet up. Financial constraints meant our planned lunch didn’t happen but a drink or two was just about in budget so we came back and got changed, picked Davies and Scarlett up and headed along to a pub to meet up with them.
They are lovely – a transgender couple, really gentle, calm and interesting people. It was fab to meet them in person. We began with handshakes, but 2 hours later after lots of chatting and laughing we ended up in the carpark taking self timer shots with them and parted with cuddles 🙂
Then back to the Troublesome Gate. Dad had said we could drop the kids off with him again so we did that, collected a large cardboard box from a skip outside a pub (for later use) on the way home, got changed and headed back to Mike & Rose’s. We’d collected an electric drill and an electric planer from Dad and these proved to be our lifesavers in the end. We planed both sides of the gate which shaved off enough to get it a perfect fit, spent ages extending the post to attach the top hinge, hung the gate and then put all the furniture on it – latch (with hole drilled through the gate), barrel bolt etc along with making an extra bit on both sides of the gate to actually attach said furniture to, drilling a new hole in the post to take the barrel bolt which was now at a different position and further wrestling with rusty screws. Our fingers were getting colder and less effective at working as we finally lost the light and finished the last little bit in the dark at 6pm. Rose paid us and freezing cold and almost broken we returned home.
We were running about 2 hours late by then, but we boxed up the chickens (hence need for box), packed up the car with overnight stuff and went to collect Davies and Scarlett from my parents. We dropped the chickens off at Bruce’s and promised to see him properly when we’re back again in March – he’s now looking after Willow and the chickens!. We called into Sainsburys for some fuel, some wine and some food as we were all starving having not really eaten all day and finally arrived at Tom & Ingrid’s freezing cold, starving hungry and totally shattered.
Lovely friends that they are they fed us (home made lasagne, salad and garlic bread, yum), gave us wine, shots, moonshine and other such alcoholic delights, fed us chocolate, entertained us with chatter, music, Attenborough documentaries for Scarlett, chess for Ady and then were just as wiped out as us by about midnight so we all went to bed.
This morning they cooked us breakfast – the first in a day of Many Sausages, sent us off with a huge jar of honey (from Tom’s mum’s bees), home made marmalade, pheasants (dinner tomorrow, hurrah), all the wine and beer we’d taken round there and extracted promises that we’ll go and stay there again in March. Love our friends 🙂
From there we went to Chris & Julie’s for a lovely couple of hours playing in the garden for the kids, sitting and chatting for us and then a lunch of home made bread rolls, sausages, and a gorgeous creme caramel style pudding that Jack had made as they do a family Come Dine With Me competition most weeks with everyone cooking dinner one night per week weeknights. We LOVE that idea and keep meaning to make it happen but as yet have not managed it here.
Then to Caz and Bid who are currently living at Caz’ parents (long story) for a few hours. Kids played, watched a film and made a Lego animation together. We chatted, caught up, came up with an excellent list of questions for our croft interview (we decided we should have an array of things to ask for that point in an interview when you are asked if you have any questions for them. None of them are remotely connected to crofting or the isle of Rum but we think they should be able to answer them anyway! NOTE we may not actually ask them! :lol:) Oh yeah and we ate sausages! Caz made toad in the hole for the kids. Caz gave us some firewood so we’ve been toasty warm tonight in the house 🙂
We left there and came home via the supermarket for a few bits. Scarlett wanted pizza for dinner (she’s not actually that keen on sausages!) and we wanted some veg to go with tomorrows pheasant. Back at the house Ady and Davies had the first bath, Scarlett and I had the second and I soaked away the last of the fencing aches and pains with lots of bubbles and a glass of wine.
Our dinner was reduced frozen burgers, reduced potatoes, reduced rolls and reduced salad, I think it was about 50p per head 🙂
It’s been a completely mad week since we got home – we’ve redecorated an entire house, done a 2 day fencing job, repainted our garden wall, tidied up the garden, rehomed chickens, done about 5 tip runs, cleared out the lofts and the garage, got our house on the market, spent a night staying with friends, visited various family and friends, met internet strangers in a pub and done all the coordination for the Scotland trip and WWOOFing. I’m looking forward to the no communication status and lack of alcohol and late nights potention on Eigg for the rest!