Monday – after some time away and some time back I’ve began to edge back into Rum again. Not the full on politics but the stuff which first attracted me here – the chance to be in on the start of exciting projects, in making a difference, in being the change. I’ve also been trying to retain focus on what we want to achieve here on the Croft but confess to being less inclined to outside tasks for a while. I’m enjoying the bread baking, cake making, crocheting side of autumn. Ady remains focussed on outsideyness though and is working on sheep and pig moves.
Ady was working at the hostel in the morning, while I did some crochet at home. I walked down to meet him from work, we swapped over Debs car battery for her on our way to the pier to meet the boat as we had a game order coming from Muck (duck, pheasant – yum!) Ady headed for home while I walked along to the bunkhouse with Development Officer Steve who had come off the boat and Margaret, a rep from Voluntary Action Lochaber come to do some training with IRCT directors. I had a meeting with Steve after the training so hung around for it, it was quite interesting actually. Also there were Jed, Bad Neil and Fliss. Then Lesley came along and she, Steve and I had a meeting about trying to set the ball rolling for getting a cafe / shop / village hub project off the ground. Loads to do, that will be a years in the making type project but really good to feel like we’re working on something really positive.
Home for dinner – venison burgers and chips.
Tuesday – I decided that the kids bedrooms were totally out of hand so had declared this week every single item had to be taken out of their rooms, all rubbish chucked, all unused stuff donated to charity and everywhere totally cleaned and de-moulded ready for winter. Scarlett’s was first and it took two days to work all through it – wardrobe, cupboard, floor space, desk space, storage under the bed. We got rid of loads and it is so, so much nicer in there now. While I was supervising that I also made soup for lunch and pheasant pies for dinner for Wednesday. Ady and I also nipped down to the boat to collect our butchers order, move the venison company mincing machine from the hostel into the workshop and Ady’s 400 trees he got from the Woodland Trust arrived too so we collected them. Ady has been desperate to made hassleback potatoes for ages having seen them in a potato recipe feature in a magazine so he did those for dinner.
Wednesday – Scarlett and I finished her room in the morning and then I went down to Fliss’ for Crafternoon in the afternoon. Ali and Deb were also there. Initially conversation was pretty tedious centering around Ali’s kitten (seriously, it is ALL she ever talks about!) and school stuff (Debs is the teacher, Fliss and Ali both have a daughter in school there) but after Ali left we had an interesting conversation about politics. Home to find Ady had made hassleback potatoes again to go with the pheasant pie. I had a salt mishap (as in I unscrewed the lid and about a fifth of the pot went in rather than screwing the grinder) into the sweetcorn which rendered that part of dinner inedible but it was otherwise well received. Apparently venison pie is nicer though…
Thursday – Davies’ room. We cleared his floor, under his bed storage and the first corner of one wall, probably about a third of the way through. I carried on midge making while helping him, both kids had showers and I brushed Scarlett’s hair, made lasagne for Ady and I, bologanise for Scarlett and meatballs for Davies. I guess we all had venison mince and pasta and at least I didn’t do the washing up! We had planned to go to the village but rain and Davies’ bedroom meant we never got there. Ady did some outside stuff though.