So the big shock news this week was that Mike and Casey are leaving. Casey goes tomorrow – she has a two week trial at a job which she hopes to get offered. They are waiting for final paperwork on renting a house, have handed in their notice on their house here on Rum and Mike has applied for various jobs – all down in Cambridge.
Mike has not handed his notice in for his ranger job here, he is hoping to secure another job first but planning to live in his tent from March onwards after he leaves Stable Bothy and carry on Rangering here until he has another job. I assume it won’t be long and Casey says once she definitely has a job he will probably move down there anyway because she can cover the rent then.
This is very sad 🙁 Mike has been a great friend to us here on Rum and Davies and Scarlett adore him. We all think the world of Casey and so will miss the pair of them hugely. We have all also learnt so much from Mike about nature and wildlife and so will have a big gap there too. I am sure it is the right move for the two of them and pleased for them too but people leaving Rum is always hard in such a small community.
It has also created all sorts of chaos about who gets their house. On one hand we don’t actually want their house – we’d struggle to afford it, it is not ideal in terms of location (right next to the shop / hall etc) and would very much be an expensive, distracting place for us. On the other hand it would mean we could relax about what happens to us next, focus on building something up here knowing we have a secure, weather proof roof over our heads for the next winter or two, would mean we can have friends and family to stay with so much less stress, can offer WWOOFers and other volunteers the chance to come here and stay in the static during the spring / summer / autumn and have a ready supply of labour to help with stuff on the croft and house build and maybe even rent the static out during tourist season to raise some funds. Except we are not the only ones thinking that way and it turns out Gav and Laura have expressed a similar interest and down in the village there is a huge squabble underway with people championing both parties. Oops.
Casey came up today and was very indignant on our behalf (her and Mike really don’t like Gav and Laura) and briefly I was equally as riled up at the prospect of us not getting the house despite me having big reservations about actually wanting it…. I’m over that now and feeling much more what will be will be about it all. I guess if nothing else I am reminded that anything can change very quickly and over the course of this year another house may well come available at a better time and better location for us anyway…. We’ll see.
In other news we have done all the laundry now and are gradually bringing it in to air infront of the fire. I have provisionally booked us two places on a cob building course in Norfolk in May (awaiting funds to secure the booking, winkle money still in progress and reimbursement of expenses from Eden are slow coming through), I have lots of seeds on their way and was asked today to write a blog post for Big Lunch Extras. I am inspired anew to chase some writing work somehow… paid would be good!