Saturday – Ady was off ghillieing again in the morning although he didn’t do any dead deer collecting, they just walked the horses back to the village from Harris. I was Mrs Post Office. It was pretty quiet with my two most regular Saturday morning visitors off island – Fliss & Neil. No news yet from Neil & Lesley, due date was Saturday. Jed & Stevie kept me company and we drank tea and chatted. I’d had a letter from the tax credits saying they’d not had our return back but I’d done it online so I rang them from the post office. For the first time ever I got through pretty much straight away. The woman said that she could see an attempt to do it online had been made but it had not gone through because the website doesn’t work properly!! She did it all online and hopefully that’s all sorted out now. Then I loaded the car up with various shopping and two pallets and drove back to the croft.
I’d read a really lovely blog post from a sort of friend = Corinne, the day before. Corinne is an old uni friend of Mike the previous Rum Ranger and came to visit Rum just after we moved here. We really hit it off and she loved Davies & Scarlett – then she just had their two little boys with them, having left her older teen back with his dad. She has since got married and had two more boys, one just last week. I probably won’t do justice to the blogpost properly so go and read it  but it had stayed with me and when I parked the Rangerover I just stopped for about ten minutes and sat in the car. The sun was shining, the skies were blue, I had both front windows open and a lovely breeze was tickling my neck. I could not hear or see another soul and after what has been a fairly chaotic week it was a moment of pure bliss to sit there with no one wanting anything at all from me.  Moment over I loaded myself up (a bottle of gin, 2 bottles of soda water, a box of wine, 4 pints of milk, 2 packs of butter and 2 of Flora, 10 cans of beer, a block of cheese, a frozen chicken, a large bar of chocolate and various post. None of it essentials really ;). Lovely Scarlett saw me walking along the path and ran down the croft to meet me and take one of the bags from me, Davies met me halfway to take another bag. They asked why I’d been so long and I told them about This Moment.
We had lunch and Ady arrived home soon after. I messed about with some string art for a while and then tried to do some stuff outside like water the polytunnel and look at the strawberries but it was crazy midgey so I retreated back indoors.
Today – Ady and I walked down to the village in the morning to do a load of washing as Ady had a few blood stained clothes to get cleaned off. We chatted to Ross & Doug for a while and then went off picking some of the last raspberries while the washing was on. Back up to the croft for hanging washing out and having lunch. Scarlett has been desperate to go swimming all summer and today seemed like the best day so far so we all headed down to the peat pools just below the croft. Davies was in wetsuit, Scarlett in t shirt and pants. I semi thought about going in and latterly wished I had done but didn’t in the end. We sat for a good hour chucking crocs in the water for the kids to race to get and throw back, much hilarity! Bonnie was most bemused by the whole business, the kids were exhausted by the end of it. They went a really long way down the shallows of the river like the rapids at Centerparcs, it looked like so much fun. Home for showers for the kids and finally my hour down in the polytunnel watering, transplanting a few things, harvesting some peas and purple spouting broccoli for dinner and some lavender for baking.
Ady made dinner, I brushed Scarlett’s hair, had a shower and rang my parents to check all was well with them after the airshow crash. Mum had been at the show and said it was really awful. Brought back all the memories of us seeing a plane go down in the field behind us at the 2007 show. So, so sad 🙁
Dinner and Doctor Who, lots of emailing back and forth with an entrepreneur who has made contact with us after the Fogle show and has some interesting ideas to chat over. Not sure if anything will come of it all but exciting to talk about possibilities.
Tomorrow a friend from my library days is visiting for a couple of days, staying in the village but hopefully spending some time with us. I’m looking forward to catching up with all her life changes over the last 4 years.
The plane crash is all over our local news too as the pilot is local. So awful.
I think the This Moment thing is why I don’t like trying to think about the future and what I might do in 5 years time or when C leaves home. I want to enjoy the now and tbh I have no idea or any drive to do anything in particular so am quite happy not spending time pondering it. The only problem is that This Moment stuff is tricky when you’re balancing other people’s life choices that don’t agree with what you enjoy, yet have to support them as that’s what being in a supportive family is all about. Otherwise, why bother being part of the family (I’m specifically thinking Kentwell and exams here!).
However I have spent the morning with a friend, the afternoon watching tv, enjoying the relief provided by pain killers and just enjoyed a rather delicious spag Bol that M had made for me to have whilst he was away whilst drinking a generous glass of red. It’s raining but I’m in the warm and dry (with no wind or midges 😉 and I’m not under the leaky bit of roof right now). So it’s not a bad moment.
I’m sure I had something brilliantly erudite to say but it escaped me. Hey ho. Xxxx
Comment by Mich — 24 August 2015 @ 7:29 pm