One word? When seven would do…

Friday – always a good day I find 🙂 We’re getting our heads around the rhythm of the days and weeks here, it all seems to revolve around the ferry coming. In the summer that is Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday – twice each day. From next week we’ll also have the Shearwater coming across from Skye, I think daily which will bring people rather than stuff.

The post gets collected in a mail sack and delivered to you, usually left on your drivers seat of your car rather than through a letterbox as most of us don’t have letter boxes anyway! Anything else that comes in on the ferry arrives on the back of the Calmac pickup which gets driven onto the island while the islanders flock around it grabbing their stuff and then drives back on to the ferry and goes away again. Unless it’s a huge load in which case it stays between ferries.

In the morning we went to the tearoom but got distracted by helping Mike (the ranger) out with some strimmer maintenance. Vikki appeared and we had a chat and she invited us for coffee on Saturday. Davies and Scarlett went back off up to the static and Bonnie and I went with Ali (the deer project worker, wife of Sean) and Eve (their daughter, aged 3) up to see where their house was. I checked emails and did a bit of online stuff and then we headed down to the 2pm ferry. We had some post – registration forms to join the doctors surgery, the dog food delivery from RP and the wonderwasher (with edible contents) from Bob & Katy 🙂 🙂 Post makes us feel special 🙂

It was sleeting down at the ferry and bloody freezing so no one was hanging about. There are three people on the island we’ve not met yet – Caroline (wife of Richard, Reserve Manager for SNH), Morag (the school teacher) and Marcel (deer stalker, partner of Rachel). We’ve passed Caroline and Morag but they have not made the effort to say hello and I was not totally sure who they were. I intend making a point of introducing myself next time we pass them. Marcel is currently recovering from an op on his leg so is not about much but is rather antisocial apparently anyway.

Ady got helping Dave who is the harbourmaster unloading deliveries for the shop and then offered to help unload back at the village so I went back into the teashop to do some more online stuff and wait for him. When he finally got to me there was a power cut so no internet which meant we didn’t manage to do the couple of online things we had to do together. We did have a chat with Fliss about settling in, life in general and Home Ed though which was nice and she extended an invite to the kids to go down and watch TV etc at her house whenever they like. We then chatted to Rachel (Catering Manager at the castle, one of the IRCT directors currently).

Davies and Scarlett appeared back and having intended not to go to the shop we ended up going for a beer. Which became several ;). It was a nice couple of hours though with many of the islanders turning out for an early afternoon Friday beer. We chatted lots to Mike (the ranger) who has offered to do loads of stuff with the kids education wise. He is really passionate about passing on his knowledge anyway, loves the idea of outdoors based education and is thrilled to find interested kids in nature, wildlife and the environment and also gets to justify his ranger post the more take up of his services there are. We also talked about wider community stuff and threw about some ideas for things like film nights and other events. All exciting stuff 🙂

Scarlett spent most of the time helping Jinty restock the shop from the shed outside and earned herself a pin badge for doing so. Jinty is quite a hard nut to crack but Scarlett has utterly won her over :). Davies chatted to Mike about an idea for a Viking story based on Rum he has and picked Mike’s brains for some history. He then told Claire (runs the tea shop, lives in a yurt) about his plans and she offered to come up and teach him book binding so he can make his own books to write his story in. Davies has a plan to sell his stories to the tourists in books he makes himself 🙂 I am utterly LOVING the effect Rum is having on the kids, everything I hoped for and more :).

We went back to the static having realised we’d left it far too late for our planned dinner and bought some bacon and pesto instead to have pasta. We put the genny on for a bit to help with lighting and watch a film while we ate and then all had an earlyish night together.

Saturday – we started the day with a bit of a roundup of the highs and lows of our first week on the island, it feels like much longer already! It’s been a rollercoaster but it already feels more like home that Sussex did for the last few months. We’ve met most people and feel that we’ve made friends and are already a part of the community. We have definitely spent more time (and cash!) at the shop than we planned (it becomes the island pub of an evening with people gathering to drink and chat from about 6pm onwards) but it has been really valuable to get to know people, Bonnie has done all her socialising with the other island dogs and it’s allowed us to do lots of networking.

First ferry on Saturday is at 9am and we were expecting a wheelbarrow from the hardware store in Mallaig but Dave had already said he’d grab it for us if it arrived. It did, and he delivered that along with our second gas bottle to the static for us. Dave has been an utter hero, giving us stuff (including a little trailer) and managing our whole static move. We’ve been buying him beers and coffees and from talking to others know better than to offer him cash but will find a way of rewarding him for all he’s done for us. Dave is going to train Ady to do the harbourmaster job as relief when he is not around which will be some extra cash and comes with free wellies 😉

We had a fairly lazy start to the morning and then headed down to Vikki’s via filling up the water containers. We’ve offered to pay water rates while we’re using the village supply so that will be £6 a month 🙂 I had my first shower in the static which was lovely, once we get the toilets sorted properly it will be such a cosy home. Currently we have our two camping loos, one marked for pee and one for poo which is working well but we still have the porcelein loo in the bathroom which would work if plumbed in so it’s rather cramped in there.

Vikki’s house is lovely, a three bedroom cottage with sea views. It was a social visit and she confessed she has been really looking forward to us arriving. I think it is partly that she has a professional interest in us both being here and in succceeding but I also think she has earmarked us, particularly me, as likeminded potential friends. Which is something she feels a real lack of living here. After a bit of general chit chat we got down to the nitty gritty of listing all the islanders by name and sharing our thoughts on them. Vikki started it, which was good as I think if we’d done I’d have worried about it going further than her garden. Her take on people is surprisingly close to my initial impressions although as she is a rather different personality to me I can see how some people she’s clashed with I’ll be fine with and vice versa. She was really pleased about me intending to apply for the admin role although she thinks Fliss is also applying (and will therefore probably get it, she is more qualified with experience in bookkeeping and knows how the trust works) but said she would far rather work with me!

Davies and Scarlett went off with Bonnie exploring. They have found an old camp that previous island kids have created and added to and is now claimed as theirs. They are having a ball here, so much freedom, so many interesting people and places to explore and a puppy to tag along with them. 🙂

We sat in the sun in Vikki’s garden for a couple of hours and arranged to go in to the office on Monday as we have an odd job person task to do, various paperwork to complete, need to start paying road fund and water etc.

Our chickens and ducks arrive next Saturday on the ferry so we need to have a home sorted ready to put them in. Having trapped our horse box on the croft land the other side of the road blocked by the static even if we did get a shed sent across in time (highly unlikely, a week is not nearly long enough to arrange such things here, plus it’s more money than we have, plus the hardware store in Mallaig and the Travis Perkins in Fort William close on Saturday afternoons so we couldn’t get hold of them anyway to place an order) we couldn’t actually get it down to the croft other than by hand. Vikki offered use of her chicken coop as a short term plan for the chooks (we have feed and bedding so can clean it out and re stock it) and we’ll donate eggs in payment :). The ducks can come on to the croft land straight away as we have a wheelie bin which can serve as a perfect temporary duck house laid on it’s side with the lid propped open and then closed up at night :). We just need to dig one of the drainage ditches out a little to create a pond for them. Sorted!

We then went to the teashop, the kids had cake and we had tea / coffee (free to residents if you buy food :)), we spent some time online ordering walking boots for Ady, Scarlett and I (something we’d failed to realise we’d need but have quickly cottoned on to so ordered nice and cheap from Sports Direct so we can take Mike up on his offer to take us walking around Rum wildlife spotting). We placed a CoOp food order too and I got some unperfumed shampoo and conditioner ordered for me as stocks are running low and I’d failed to find that anywhere before we came over. Still need to get our car tax sent back (have now missed the end of this month, poo!). We plotted alternative options for the chicken, duck and pigs housing and looked at corrugated sheeting online which we think will be the best plan.

Dave, (Static hero, harbourmaster, chainsaw sculpturor) Sylvia (his wife) and Andrew (their baby) arrived so we joined them in the sunshine for a cup of tea and chat, learnt the very romantic story of how they met and the kids went off to play in the park. We keep getting distracted by tea shop, shop and chatting but I guess we need to adjust to island time anyway and this is all very valuable networking and friendship forming stuff that is always going to be more worthwhile than anything else we can do. Dave had delivered our second gas bottle and our newly arrived wheelbarrow to the croft for us.

Back to the static and we headed down to the horsebox to gather some more stuff. We’ve all been wearing a small selection of clothes so were able to dig out more along with our duvets and the hot water bottles, an electric camping heater and various other ‘essentials’. We trekked back up again and deduced that the smell coming from the fridge was indeed, as feared, coming from the chicken. Turns out time on the ferry, then sitting around in the car while we sorted the static on Wednesday , then going in a fridge which kept getting turned on and off will make a chicken go off – who’d have thought? 😉 We debated taking a risk but decided chucking away a £6 chicken now and finding a different dinner option is way preferable to D&V disposal of said chicken in 48 hours time in a static with no plumbing. So I made pizza dough and we left it to prove while popping down to the shop. We needed to dump some rubbish (including chicken) at the skip on the pier – our long term plan is to burn any rubbish we can, reuse anything we can and excepting plastic packaging or recyclable stuff not need to use the rubbish skips at the pier but all in good time. We also filled up our water and then called in the shop for a drink.

Back at the static we put the genny on and the kids watched a film while they ate and we used the camping heater at the other end of the static to warm up the bedrooms. It worked quite well but drank fuel and we’re planning getting a portable gas heater instead – something like this http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/PORTABLE-GARAGE-WORKSHOP-SHED-GREENHOUSE-GAS-HEATER-4-2KW-/380396297368#vi-content to have down in the bedroom area of the static for the colder times. Warmth, food and the ability to get clean are going to be basic requirements we’ve decided and that is where we’ll spend our limited resources above anything else.

The drive along the village road from the pier to the shop was just stunning, Loch Scresort was calm and mirror-like, a couple of small yachts were docked in and the sun was going down. We watched some campers sitting outside their tents admiring the view and decided that while they must be feeling so very lucky to be on holiday here we actually live here :). There have been more than enough moments like that this first week to balance out the frequent ‘WTF have we done?!’ moments, thankfully 🙂

Sunday – I’ll blog a little of our morning although we are not very far into the day yet. Ady headed off to take some stuff down to the horse box and bring some more back up. Bonnie is very attached to him, probably because he is the one getting up with her first each morning. I’ve ordered a couple of kindle books to help me get to grips with her as I have spent the least time with her and want to ensure she is bonded with me too. I suspect in terms of all the advice on training we have already made loads of mistakes with our rather crazy first week with her but she is loving running with the other dogs on the island, adores the kids and has made what could have been a really hard first week for them an exciting adventure so everything else can fall into place later.

I spent an hour chatting to the kids about Home Education. I believe so strongly in the approach we have followed so far but our lives are changing and I want to be realistic about how that impacts on Home Ed. We have had various offers of help from people to spend time with the kids and teach them things and I am very aware we will be under scrutiny living in such a small community in a highly visual way. Tourists are aware of us and ask questions and there is the school teacher on the island who will no doubt have an opinion of what we are doing. I want to be able to confidently appease any challengers along with of course continuing to meet my first priority which is delivering an appropriate education to my kids. With that in mind, we talked about how best to move forward from here. I explained that in school the end result is qualifications to prove your level of education but that has never been my intention, I think that deciding what you want to learn and then learning it is the right path, getting qualifications if required for a specific purpose. I think it is still far too early to be fretting about what they want to do / be when they grow up but I also don’t want them to have missed chances to learn things when they have cropped up. I am aware that our previous method of spending all our time together and finding interesting / educational opportunities wherever we can is not as easy to pull off now we live on an island with no access to museums, galleries, cities etc but we do live on a national nature reserve, rich in wildlife, geological interest, full of interesting and talented people with many skills and with a constant stream of other people all of whom may be able to teach us things. It is ensuring we tap into all of those opportunities which may take a little more input from me and a little more forward planning than we have previously had to employ.

We talked about ways to cover the next step – both the children want to improve their reading and writing along with generally following their interests so we have decided to spend an hour or so every morning after breakfast together on something, as decided by them. I have offered workbooks or similar as online stuff is not going to be as easy to access at the moment or that they find something that interests them and we work on that instead. I know my preferance is for a project of their choosing that encorporates literacy but it needs to be their decision. Thankfully they both want the same. Claire is coming up today to teach us how to make books by bookbinding which is something I did years ago in college but have long since forgotten so will be great for all of us and then the kids plan to make a series of books they created themselves containing all the things they want to learn about.

The current list is as follows: Davies – wants to write a story about vikings on Rum, he has a plan for the plot and some characters and would like to also make an animation of the story. He wants to sell the books to tourists and maybe show his film in the village hall. He’s found a book people book about story writing and was inspired by a book I made when I was about his age. This will need further researching and we found a Horrible Histories Vikings book in the horse box which he is going to read aloud to me as a starting point, along with collecting drawings and character ideas in one of his books and spending time talking to Mike about the vikings here on Rum and looking at locations for his story as we explore the island. He’ll keep an account of all of this process as he goes so it will end up as a massive project with various bits of evidence of what he’s learnt and different skills involved.

Davies would also like to do a proper survival sleepout with me. He’s going to research and plan the whole expidition including plotting a route on a map, working out what we need to take with us and packing it, planning the best time to do it with regard to weather conditions etc and he wants to head to one of the bothies with an overnight outside in a shelter we’ve built too, maybe some foraging. We probably have all the necessary resources for this already except a map so we’ll pick one of those up from the shop. Everything he does towards it will be documented in one of his made books too.

Scarlett wants to do a river life project on Rum. She wants to do river dipping and identify, measure and photograph / draw / record her findings. She wants to do it over different weather and seasonal conditions to compare results. She wants to learn more about the different life cycles and behaviour patterns of what she finds and also look at different stretches of river. She would also like to do similar in the islands lochs.

Scarlett wants to do the marine trips with Mike and learn about the sealife around Rum. She has realised how unique where we live is and wants to become an expert on all things water related in the area :). All of this will be recorded in her books she’ll make.

Scarlett would also like to learn various things from various islanders. She wants to learn about soap making from Fliss. She would also like to learn more sewing, crochet and knitting from me having seen the stuff Fliss sells in her shop.

Ali and Martyn who manage the deer research project are people Scarlett wants to spend time with. She’d love to be at a postmortem and learn more about all the work they do here with the deer. She’ll record all of this in her books.

Both the children would love to do a Come Dine With Me style activity now we have our own kitchen again. This will involve them planning and cooking a meal for the whole family each and getting rated on it. Julie & Chris do it with Jack, Maisie and Lorna and we’ve been really keen to do it ourselves. We’ll get our recipe books up from the horse box and do that too.

They are both keen to start learning more about wildlife photography and there is no lack of subject matter or people who know about it here so that is on their lists. They would also like to learn more about astronomy now we have all the starts displaying for us with no light pollution, actually so would I so that is something else to add to our list.

This is an amazing place full of amazing possibilities and I want to make sure we grab everything we can. A breakfast meeting for the four of us every day will be a great way of managing all our time and making sure we get our time together as a family and all get to go off and do our own thing too.

On which note although I have so much more to say I need to go and have lunch and see if Claire has arrived to teach bookbinding yet. More soon!