Two firsts

Last night I saw bats here for the first time. I welcome them - though I cant hear them like I could in my younger days - possibly due to the lack of hot water and general cold making the ablution of ears a luxury to be undertaken only in times of need. Such as the unexpected appearance of small trees on the pillow in the morning.

This afternoon we heard a cuckoo. This is delightful is it not? I have a friend living the crofting life on the west coast who hates cuckoos cos they never shut up. I can well imagine and think it is time to start planning my aural arboretum. It could be a good wee money spinner too.

Despair

Jussi seems to be very worried about my grasp of dairy farming. When I proudly showed her this and announced we'd be making cheese by the autumn she ran off in tears. Is there something I should be told?

I'm desperately trying to get stuff planted - it feels late to be planting - I should really have had stuff in cold frames to get them started. But I'm still trying to get the ground dug.

Yesterday I planted broadbeans, carrots and sprouts. Like many things in our kitchen some of these seeds were well past sell by date - so I've planted more densely expecting many to fail.

A couple of weeks ago I found sheep on this garden so I've strengthened the defences. But yesterday there was a rabbit in there - and I cant see how it got in. Very worrying. There might be a war situation looming.

But there's lots of rhubarb. I think we'll start eating this before the week is out.

The urbanisation of tweetie pie

All these bloody twittering birds. Drives you bleedin mad. What they need is modernisation. I mean it's embarrassing them all living out in the open in a modern progressive society.

So in our first step I brought our bird house up from Dunbar. Amazingly birds seem to like it and many like to drop in and grab a seed or two before heading off again.

Hoodies in the 'hood
I met a man yesterday. A notable event in itself. He was a bird ringer and had been up in the hills behind us plotting the location of hoodie
nests. He gives this information to the game keeper who then goes and blows them off the face of the planet. This somewhat extreme social engineering is due to the fact that hoodies peck the eyes out of lambs. I'd heard this before but thought it was an old wives tale - but he assured me it was true. I asked him if buzzards were a problem too, he assured me not, as rabbits are so dumb they make much easier pickings.

The gamekeeper is out every night this time of year lamping foxes - though I've not seen him. I want to meet him though cos I'm dying to try fox pasta

FREEDOM!

To be honest, there's not much use for an old Belfast sink up here. But in Dunbar we had a sink with a tree (Scots Pine) trapped in it. We don't know how long it's been there - but it is at least ten years old - stunted, trapped and unhappy.

So I wanted to treat it to a new life - and here it is. On the long shot it's in the left hand corner - wont it look magnificent at the foot of the drive in about, erm, twenty years time or so? If it survives the sheep, the rabbits, the deer and the wind of course.

The original plan was to put it on the right hand side where the wall would give it some protection from the winds. But the soil there was less than a spade deep and right on bedrock. At least where it is there's a tad more than a spade depth of soil sitting on (what in my archaeological days we called natural) undisturbed glacial sands. (I'm no soil scientist, but it was red (iron panning?), sandy and I reckon glacial - what else could have formed it?).

Changeworks
bought me some fruit trees as a leaving present (when we're ready for them). The biggest challenge is finding somewhere where they stand half a chance of surviving. Along the line of this fencing behind the scots pine is one option. At least there's a half decent depth of soil there and the line would more or less follow the prevailing wind, so they'd protect one another.

It's not a great option though. I'd rather have a clump of trees - but where?

Crunchy things

Did I mention how good the crunchy carrot is? The Crunchy Carrot in Dunbar. And they have a really fab veg box delivery scheme and you can specify things that you like to have in it and things you don't want and you can even ask for local organic meat to be included. Fab. http://www.crunchycarrot.co.uk/

How's that Sarah?

Wheatear

My dad was a birdwatcher. He'd wander the fields and woods of the East Yorkshire village where I grew up and report back what he'd seen or heard. For some reason there's a couple of birds that in my memory have a strange mythical significance - the fieldfare and the wheatear. I can almost conjure the memory of him coming home and announcing that he'd seen one of these birds.

I saw a wheatear yesterday on my adventure with Ailsa. It's the first time I've ever seen one. And a magnificent little bird it is too. Worthy of a mythical status.

It has rained all day today. Very little wind - just constant rain. It's given me a fine excuse to do nothing. Great.

Jussi has spent all day unpacking and repacking all the boxes I brought up from Dunbar. New things are appearing all over the cottage - spice racks, notice boards, bath mats and lots of pictures. Good stuff.

Tomorrow will be more productive for me.

Dunbar

I found the whole being back in Dunbar thing quite stressful. Not in an Aaaaargh there's too much to do sort of way, but in a 'everything feels very difficult' sort of way.

• It took most of the week to pack the van. It took about an hour to unload it. That's not fair.
• Tadg had five kittens. Or perhaps his cat did.
• It's exactly 200 miles from Dunbar to the Country Store thingy place near Evanton on the A9. A good place to stop though it closes around 5:30.
• I'm glad to be back. The weather aint so good today, but yesterday was glorious, and me and Ailsa went on a couple of adventures including the beach and hills and sheep and bogs. We encountered a woman who is thinking of buying one of the local pubs and making a successful restaurant out of it. It put me in the position of being mildly encouraging but seeing all the drawbacks and naivety and not mentioning them.
• We are still agonising over the design of the house. We just have to go for it - even though it falls well short of an ideal solution.
  

A visitor from Auchtermuchty

Well done Rebecca for coming to see us this weekend, all the way from Auchtermuchty. Auchtermuchty is one of my favourite Scottish place names. It means something like 'the wooded hills with pigs'. I've been to Auchtermuchty and I can vouch for the hills....

Rebecca made us some cardboard scale models of what the house would look like - really really good. And she left her laptop at home so she couldn't do any work, and I think, I don't think she even thought about work, once she'd mentioned the ministerial briefing she had to write by Tuesday, a few times like.

It was lovely to see you Rebecca - come again soon.

Comedy body

One of the dis-benefits of being up here, living a life of idyll, is the time you have to dwell. Hypochondria is never more than a finger prick away. Here is my current catalogue of woes.

• Regular readers will know about my sore thumb. This continues to be exacerbated by my manly refusal to give it a rest. But thumbs are things you use a lot and the times when I notice my sore thumb most are - putting on shoes, and switching off lights This latter may seem strange, but all the light switches in the cottage are really stiff - and they hurt my po liddle thumby whumby.
• Right knee - giving me jip like. I like to think this is a recurrent injury I've had since cycling the Pyrennees, but maybe it's just the knee giving up on having to carry all my excess weight.
• My right heel. What's that about?
• The ball of my left big toe. Ditto.
• I've pulled a muscle at the top of my back. This is self inflicted by my insistence that nothing is too heavy - it's all about mind over matter, or if that fails, brute aggression.
• Very stiff shoulders - especially my right shoulder. This I attribute to driving the van all the way down and then all the way back in under a week.
• And I so need a haircut.
  

Wow

Chocolate with bacon bits........

Fug

In Edinburgh with the boys last night. Drank too much. Fug. Had a man coming to see me about a chimney - we'd arranged between 9 and 12. He turned up at 8 - he had to phone me to get me out of bed. Fug. ........

A day in Edinburgh

0738
Oh the joys of the train from Dunbar to Edinburgh. But the coffee and flapjack from the Shoestring fortified me for the challenges of the day ahead. Good to see Lennie and Ewan and Chris and Richard again, however briefly. I forgot to ask Lennie how the crazy golf was going.

But how lucky I am that I'm not catching that train every morning anymore.

QUESTION
When in life are you able to talk about yourself for an hour with three people hanging on every word you say?

ANSWER
The job interview. Fantastic - what a great opportunity - thoroughly enjoyed it but I think on reflection I wasn't what they wanted. I also used the F word - not a good idea for that sort of interview. (Fun).

Changeworks
Great to see people at Changeworks again. I didn't get chance to see everyone I would have liked. Met Teresa, then lunch with Liz. Changeworks continues to face a surfeit of challenges and opportunities - exciting stuff, but I'm glad I'm out of it.

I spent most of the afternoon on Princes street - shopping (not very successfully) then to Laura and Daniels for tea - thanks guys. Daniel's home brew is a of a standard to aspire to.

Back to Dunbar on the 2100. A brief call from Tadg - I think to tell me the cat was having kittens, but you can never really tell with Tadg.

Then a catch-up with the Apprentice via BBC iPlayer. I think firing Lindy was right - Jen wont last long though.

And bed - kenacked. Can't keep up with the pace of city life anymore!

No fuel queues at Asda

Quick - get down there - no queues for fuel at Asda Dunbar - and it's only £1:15.9 per litre for diesel. I spent £63 quid - on top of the £50 I spent in fuel in Dalwhinnie (twinned with Las Vegas).

Sunny Dunny

Interesting fact
It is exactly 200 miles from Lairg to the Forth Road bridge - at least it is if you divert via Dalwhinnie (twinned with Las Vegas).

After feasting on the lettuce and tomato sandwich (with marmite) that Jussi made me I didn't need to eat again. Curry.

We'd left the curry - I mean house sorry - in a hell of a state so I did a lot of wandering round scratching my curry - head - wondering where to start. So I found Ailsa's nintendo DS and played Zelda and the Phantom hourglass. Curry. I got the radio on - a real treat Curry.

Curry curry curry curry.

Around 8pm I gave up and went to get a curry.

FAAAAAATAAAASTIIIIIIIC

Heavy van man

Not sure how - but I seem to have a wireless connection here in sunny dunny. Though it's a bit flaky.

So the big day dawned - my return to Dunbar. Feeling quite strange about it - but there are things to be done so no alternative. So off we go.

Well. Not quite. Battery on the van was flat as a cow pat. Fortunately I'd half anticipated this and the van was parked atop a hill at the house. Well when I parked it I thought it was the top of a hill. Actually there were several two or three inch rises to overcome before the downhill. And man is that van heavy. Still with a bit of teamwork we got the van going. Jussi's last words before I set off were something like - Gawd that engine sounds awful - not what you want to hear as you embark on an 8 hour drive.

Journey without incident. Did see the aftermath of a recent accident at Coldbackie - motorbike and small car. Bikes have great fun on the single track roads around here - but really guys - whizzing round narrow blind corners aint too clever.

And at Tongue I had to wait for 10 minutes while a shepherdess coaxed a ewe with two itsy bitsy cutey liddle lambs down the road. Awwwww.

Lunch at Dalwhinnie (twinned with Las Vegas) and fuel - £1:26 a litre!!!

Moonrise over washing

Well it was funny at the time. I think the wine helped.

Heading South

Going to Dunbar tomorrow - and phew what a busy schedule of meetings, an interview, lunches and beers. Looking forward to it - but it does feel very strange to be going back. There's a long list of things I have to bring back from Dunbar - here are some highlights:-
Corkscrew
Wine rack
Scissors
Cat brushes
Muffin tray
All blankets but no duvets
Washing Machine
Bricks
Belfast sink
Coal glove
Sea Buckthorn bushes.

Obviously I've been very selective - pulling out only the things that'll get you rolling off your chairs with mirth.

I doubt I'll be posting again until I get back up here in about a weeks time. If Scotland runs out of fuel next week it'll take me a bit longer. It's clear that all journalists are lusting after a crisis - The Sunday paper I bought today was like Dad's Army or something - Don't panic buy - there's no need to panic buy - don't panic buy - don't panic. The net result will be panic buying. Hey ho.

Village People

I think I need a hard hat. I'm taking out the upstairs ceiling - tongue and groove (baby!) - and this leaves the low beams with nails jutting out all over the place. Jussi likes to tell me my memory is sieve-like but this is ridiculous.

Parties

I hope all you Changeworkers enjoyed the multiple celebration last night......and that Zoe didn't disgrace herself too much.

We had our first Ceilidh up here. I guess we should have guessed but it wasn't anything like what we expected. More an evening of musical entertainment than the mad hurling whirling we'd imagined. But good nonetheless. The highlight was a couple of Shetland fiddlers - Jenna and Bethany Reid
http://www.jennareid.co.uk/biog.htm
man the noises they could make! I see from the website that Jenna often plays with Kevin Mackenzie
jazz guitarist (who played at Angus and Susan's wedding party in Claremont Crescent ?15 years ago) - I'd love to see the two of them playing together.

There was a very pregnant woman who kept standing up and playing the bagpipes. You had to feel for the poor wee mite - I mean bagpipes are LOUD.

BE QUIET!

It's spring and the daffs are being very noisy. I think this one is the leader.

Sharing

A house within the house. A wasp? It's about the size of a golf ball.

dreamy views

From what will be the bathroom. It's important to keep hold of those dreams.

Some views

Of the cottage from the house.

The cottage needs a shave

But I'm too busy ripping the guts out of the house.

I hate glasswool. Horrible stuff - even with dust masks etc you can feel those nasty little fibres geting everywhere. And it's full of old mice nests to - so apart from the glass fibres I'm getting regular showers of mouse shit.

How bucolic.

Congestion

Petra (Pedi) doesn't want to do a house swap. Fair enough - I was only joking anyway. But it got me thinking - all those people!

In the last five days I have spoken to Jussi and Ailsa, of course (although maybe some of you are surprised that Jussi and I are still talking - but really it's fine), a woman in the store (once), the postie (twice) and a very brief hello to one of the neighbours. I've also had telephone conversations with four or five suppliers of various things. But that's it.

On the other hand I've had conversations with quite a few sheep and I've been sung to by blackbirds, robins, wagtails, bullfinches, green finches, sky larks, lapwings, curlews and other little finchy warbly things. I've been hauntingly whooped at by what I think are grouse. And of course I've been heartily laughed at by the van (see below).

But put it in perspective - I'm reading The Lizard Cage by Karen Connelly - which is all about a guy in solitary confinement in an appalling Burmese prison. I have blessings a-plenty - and I can't imagine what lengths that man would go to to get a bowl of bubbling cabbage soup.

Mechanical prowess

Let's face it - I just don't have it. So the van has a dodgy catch on the bonnet - discovered as I was trying to check the oil and water in preparation for the trip south next week. Basically the cable release is old and stretched and so doesn't release the catch.

The thing about things like this is they are always impossibly difficult to see and get to. I mean - hats off to the designers who manage to fit all kinds of engine bits into a small space but it's pure hell trying to service the bloody things. And you never quite have the right tools.

The only way to get into the engine was to take the front grill off and then pull the cable release with pliers. Getting the front grill off was easy at first but then I met two attachments that I didn't have space to unscrew without the bonnet open. This is the kind of thing that make me just plain livid.

So you wander off and think about it for a bit. Conceive an alternative approach which is equally quickly thwarted. Fuckit.

After a few attempts I resorted to brutality and with hammer and screwdriver I beat the canny little attachments to smithereens. Ha! Take that you smart arsed P*()^. Only slightly shredded my hands in the process.

There must be a way of shortening the cable rather than replacing it - bit it's impossible to see inside the lever mechanism without taking out most of the panels in the cab. Still at least I can now check oil and water - if rather inelegantly - and those two attachments were over engineered - the front grill is detachable and safely re-attachable.

But I think you can tell - the ruggedly magnificent van which has comfortably survived 112000 miles will soon become a quivering wreck under my stewardship. Which is a pity of course.

Fox Pasta

Look at this....http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/the_daily_politics/4853388.stm

YESSSSSSS!!!!!!!

Cat tv

Their favourite programme is The Two Wagtails, but they're pretty fond of Blackbird Worming too. Despite their fascination with what's going on out there they are still too terrified to make anything more than the briefest excursions outside.

There was a fox in the garden this morning, with what looked like half a rabbit in its teeth. It saw me and tip-toed into the whins (gorse). We might have a fox den in the middle of that stand of gorse behind the cottage. I can still look favourably on foxes and this one was very handsome - but one of Jussi's projects - the chicken house - isn't so far off completion. I think I'll change my views then.

Can you eat fox?

Structures

We knew there was something hiding over the kitchen ceiling where the original house had been knocked through to form the extension. I expected to find a rusted beam but found this wet concrete slab. The water must be coming in through the roof junction with the extension - which is good news - and I think this slab of concrete is better news than a rusty beam. But what do I know really!?!?!?!

Tales from the kitchen

On sunday I got us a ham hock. This was used to make a rather scrummy cabbage soup. There was still some left-over so with a bit of bolstering we had cabbage soup for tea on Monday. Here's a handy hint so all you chefs out there - if you find the quantity of your cabbage soup is lacking, simply add.......more cabbage. Works a treat.

But - as we were about to sit for said bolstered cabbage soup a neighbour popped round to give us a dozen surplus eggs. Naturally we all wanted eggs for tea - so we each had a couple of boiled eggs as a starter. This meant that less soup was consumed than was expected.

I had cabbage soup for lunch on Tuesday.

Cabbage soup starts to ferment after a couple of days. In more ways than one.

Tonight we're having potato egg and cheese bake with cabbage. I'm not feeling too well today and I'm wondering if its cabbage poisoning. That's the danger, dear readers, of buying a cabbage for 2 quid and then finding them for 50p each. The bargain was irresistible.

There's a guy taking photographs of everything he eats http://everythingiate2008.blogspot.com/
Go on follow the link....

What an amazing diet. He claims it's partly about reverence for food - but I promise you, Michael Pollan, you aint got half the reverence for your food as I do looking at those pictures.

Fairtrade often features in his piccies so maybe he's a right-on guy and it would be really cooooool to swap homes for a couple of weeks with a gen-u-ine crofter - God I could eat some of the meals he gets just now.

But just now I've got to check on the cabbage.

tails from the kitchen

So much more amusing than tales from the kitchen. One day - with supporting piccies of ?? rabbit tails maybe.

Notable events

• Ailsa was off feeding lambs at the weekend.
• I cut my toe nails today - first time while we've been here - April 15th 2008 - a date to remember
• A baby robin eats more than 14 feet of worms every day
• I haven't warn a watch for over two weeks
• I feel like I'm losing weight. I can't get the mirror to agree - I've tried various persuasive methods - but to no avail.
• Although we can get 4 TV channels - there's no radio. I haven't listened to a radio for over two weeks.
• I hurt my thumb a week ago when I was making my first big mess. It still hurts - but hey! I soldier on
• No news from Monty's PR machine - I was hoping he'd rush up here and help out. Maybe the tw word was a bit strong.
  

Basking in the sun

I think we might have a micro climate. The weather forecasts always paint a grimmer outlook than actually comes to be. Or maybe two weeks is too short a sample to claim that. But it's how it feels just now.

There was a frost last night. Here is Yellow Mug soaking up the morning rays. Aaaahhh.

A deep hatred develops

Monty Don. The grinning TV expert. When he plants things into beautifully prepared soil - all grins and grins and grins. I wonder how many minions he has working all hours to get the soil being so nice. And weed free. Hate hate hate hate!

Our garden soil is heavy - riddled with ground ivy and bracken and dog rose. And it hasn't been dug for years.

Monty bloody grinning twat Don.

of fiddlers and architects, accordians and skype

Architects
It's going to take longer to get the house ready than we planned. It's going to be more expensive than we planned. We are not going to be able to rebuild the house as nice as we planned. Hummph

Fiddlers - Fèis Air An Oir - and accordians
Oh yes - we're all getting into this. Ailsa is learning the fiddle and Jussi and I are playing at learning the accordian. Jussi is much better than I am - cos she can play the piano and is used to her left hand playing to a different rhythm from her right. I've just spent about 2 hours trying to get a snippet on this blog to delight you all with my musical prowess. Alas to no avail. But I will try again!

Skype
Ah the joys of Skype - had a video call with me mum yesterday. Oh the fun and the joy. And it was free!

A loyal following

Writing bogs is a strange affair in that you never really know who is reading it and what they think. But I have a loyal reader. So here's to Lulu - and thanks for the comments (and even the emails complaining that I'm not keeping up with the posts!).

The pub

Friday night is kids swimming night. This gives me and Jussi a couple of hours in the pub - time for a few jars and chance to meet some of our other neighbours.

They weren't quite so sober as us - very friendly and I think eyeing us up as an opportunity. We had offers of help with everything from graphic design to excavation work ("I'm the best digger in the area." - aye - maybe when you can stand up mate). I was almost offered work on a fishing boat out of Scrabster.

I wanted to ask who's sheep are on our land. But thought better of it. One of the local patriarchs said he'd come visit us this weekend. That's will be a better time to discuss these things - over a sober cup of tea.

But as Friday nights in the pub go - it was very enjoyable - and a beautiful spring evening and glorious sunset for the mosey home.

Shopping 3 - Allens of Gillock

A few miles north of Greenland (no, seriously) there is a treasure house that deserves to be the main attraction for tourists in these distant lands. Allens of Gillock is a farm, now converted to a builders merchant - a sprawling jumble of converted barns and outhouses. Ramshackle. It sells everything. It's fantastic. Anyone who loves a screw should go there.

Shopping 2

Yesterday we went shopping - we spent £40 in Tesco, about £10 in the Coop and about £20 in Lidl. I saw a cabbage similar to the one I bought the day before for less than 50p.

Supermarkets distort the supply chain, they screw producers and then keep prices low through super-efficient supply chains and low margins - relying on volume for profit. Their low prices destroy the local infrastructure so that now, shops selling £2 cabbages are the only local outlets remaining - and more often than not they've bought their produce not from the farmer or wholesaler but from the supermarket.

Supermarkets aren't bad - but in the competitive market they do bad things - especially in the way they squeeze producers.

Yer middle class urban intelligensia can boycott supermarkets and shop local through veg shops and farmers markets - and more power to them! But up here we have no choice, if a traditional distribution network ever existed its now gone. There is a weekly farmers market in Wick - that is a long long way away. Hopefully one day we'll have produce to take to it. For now, alas, supermarkets are our lifeline.

Shopping

Yesterday I spent £7:85. I bought a small cabbage, 1/2 doz eggs, a litre carton of orange juice and two litres of milk. The orange juice had come all the way from More Than One Country and cost £1:25. This means the rest averaged at £2:20.

I've long held that we pay too little for our food, and I'm not complaining about those prices although it doesn't feel nice of course. These local prices, and the 60 mile round trip to get to a supermarket, is making us value the food we buy - especially veg. This is a good thing. Food should be revered. This isn't just a throwback to school dinners when we all had to sit through Grace, tummies a-rumbling, it is as about sustainability as building an itulldoofernow compost bin.

If only more of the prices we're paying was going to the producer.

This week

It's been a good week. The cottage is starting to feel organised, we're working our way through the list of people we want to contact (and help us!) and Ailsa seems to be well settled at school. Here's a few highlights (eh?)

1. I thought I heard a lorry this morning.
2. Ailsa seems to be one of the 2 or 3 kids in school with a wii. This has already prompted random children to turn up demanding playtime.
3. Tim, a neighbour who renovated his croft house, says 'don't use the polyurethane blocks for insulation! They might have higher U values but the wind just whips round them - use glass wool'.
4. If you're looking for a story about cats stealing food from unlikely places - Phyllis is yer woman - like the time her cats stole lamb chops from the frying pan while they were being cooked.
5. I have trouble differentiating between past and passed. Well at least it shows someone is reading the blog.
6. Life, so far, is great here. I'm working quite hard on the garden and the house - but it feels bloody marvellous. OK - so we might still be in the honeymoon period - but it is brilliant. This week has been much warmer and despite all the hard work - there's lots of time to just sit and...
7. Yesterday I saw three buzzards sort of dancing in the air.
8. There is loads of bird song here - with no other noise except the stream, the waves when the wind is right and the odd sheep. Ted needs to bring his recording equipment.
9. Jussi fancies being a chimney sweep. dont ask.
10. I was in a meeting once and the aim was to come up with a list. We got nine really good things to add to the list - job done? No, the facilitator insisted we all stayed and thought of a tenth - because ten is a good number of points for a list. So eventually we finished with a list of nine good points and one totally superficial and useless one. How pointless is that? Well fortunately I'm not like that and I'm happy to stay with nine points. Soddit.
    

The first bath

A notable event no? This was last week when it was very cold and I'd just destroyed a room in the house.

The cottage has a magnificent cast iron 6ft bath. The enamel is seriously distressed and the bath is a bit rusty, but that roughness is good for scraping the warts off yer bum. (OK - I dont have a warty bum!).

A full tank of piping hot water gives a good 3 and 1/4 inches to wallow in for at least 40 seconds - which is the time it takes for the iron mass to suck the very last bit of heat out of the water. Undeterred I used the shower, well at least I tried - the shower fittings sort of disintegrated. Still with a bit of patience I managed to wash off the plaster dust though.

I've made an itulldoofenow!

I seem to remember my mum used to make itulldoofenows. This isn't the first itulldoofenow that I've made here but it is the most ermmm - photogenic? Anyway it's an itulldoofenow compost bin, 'made' from timber salvaged from ripping out the walls in the house. I don't suppose Evelyn will be all that proud of me afterall. Oh well ...

Ailsa's first day at her new school

Things must be serious. Jussi was seen cleaning and polishing Ailsa's school shoes last night. What is the world coming to?

Peewit

Jussi heard a peewit (lapwing) this morning. It made her very happy.

The bed

The 'master bedroom' has two good old fashioned iron sprung single beds. These both have two mattresses assuring one of a comfortable nights sleep.

We've put the two beds together and laid over our king size mattress. This makes for quite a high bed. Very high. You cannot climb into bed - if you try the springiness tips you off and you finish up on the floor under the duvet you desperately grabbed to break your fall.

No, you have to jump, nay hurl yourself up. You need the height and a decent distance to get you far enough onto the bed so as not to be tipped off again. It's very funny.

Eco-tricity

We have a prepayment meter and it's taking a fiver a day to be not very warm. Well freezing actually.

Part of the problem seems to be the hot water tank which seems to be permanently on - so we've flipped the trip switch. Hot water is a hugely over-rated luxury anyway. There's nothing quite so refreshing as washing yer gonads in iced water.

Lump hammer ahoy

I've started 'renovating' the house. Lump hammer and bolster chisel flailing wildly I've made a right mess.

Somewhat romantically I have visions of salvaging some of the timber to build a compost bin (Evelyn would be proud....) or a climbing frame for the chickens. We shall see!

Stuck in the mud

Yellow mug takes break from unloading the van. Some of you may notice the van is at an unnatural angle.

It took two days - on and off to free the van. The problem was that one of the front wheels had been driven off a ledge in the garden, tipping the van so that one of the rear wheels was lifted too high to give any grip. ("Does this mean we have a one wheel drive van?" asked Jussi. I smiled sagely and mumbled something about the 'differential' but to be honest I don't have a clue - but surely we cant have a one wheel drive van?!)

We tried lots of things to shift the van including stuff like gravel, old sacking, cardboard, a few layers of old wire fencing under the back wheel; reloading the van with heavy boxes over the raised wheel, swinging insanely off the tailgate (fun but ineffective) etc etc - but all to no avail.

Eventually, and I suspect, breaking every safety rule in the book, I built a platform of rocks under the front of the van and used it to support the jack and jacked up the front wheel - tilting the van to almost level and enabling us to drive the van off the jack. As I was doing this I remembered that the father of a childhood friend was killed by his jacked car falling on him. So I was very careful.

But oh how we whooped with delight.

A fine mug

This mug came with the cottage.  What a fine mug!

The first week

Our first breakfast - notice the roaring fire

The first week has been about unpacking and repacking all the things we really really dont have room for....and.....the van.

We took our first walk up to the house on Wednesday.  There was lots of post for us - lots of people sending us cards wishing us well - and even some cards from the postie saing he had parcels too big for our letter box.  Armed with these cards and a bunch of bills, a basket full of washing and a shopping list Jussi took Ailsa swimming.  (The swimming pool is also an internet cafe and launderette).

I used this time to unload more boxes, try to unstick the van and set up the TV.  Good news! - we have good reception on channels 1,2,3 and 4 - much better than we expected.

After about 3 hours J&A returned, exhausted and hungry, with, amongst other things, a parcel from Claire and Shaun.  This contained all kinds of goodies to get us started - and thoroughly welcome it was too.  The posh choccy shortbread disappeared in milli-seconds - thanks guys!

I'd asked Jussi to buy some stuff for tea.  She brought home a leek.  "But it cost 63p!" she exclaimed vehemently in her defence.

So with that and the last of the Crunchy Carrot Veg box (I think this is the last time I'll be able to get a plug in for the crunchy carrot) and some aduki beans I made a quite a tasty soup (I can hear Gillian - "Come on Simon, surely it was the best soup ever...)

A new duty for Ailsa

Our cottage, already stuffed full of boxes, was now covered with wet washing.  A bit later it was hung out on the washing line - not to dry you understand, it rains far too much for that - but just to get it out of the way.  This system creates a rather exciting task for Ailsa in mornings.  It's her job to go chasing over the common grazings collecting all the washing that has been blown off the washing line.

 

This house snores

No really, there's a satellite dish on the wall outside our bedroom.  It catches the wind and the whole house shudders in a satisfying sort of way.

The Move – April 1st 2008.

Of course we had final packing to do and it was all a bit stressful. I left in the van at about 10:30. It was windy and the high sided van was buffeted all over the place. As I approached Forth road bridge there were signs all over saying the bridge was closed to high sided vehicles.

Naturally this didn’t apply to me – but I was fighting with the wind and I didn’t want to risk it so I diverted via Kincardine. Clearly no white van man worth his spots would have done this and it shows I’m a sham of a white van man.

Jussi Ailsa and I met up at Dalwhinnie (twinned with Las Vegas) for lunch. They’d left Dunbar about an hour after me and arrived in Dalwhinnie about 10 minutes ahead of me. After a fine lunch we set off again.

I trundled along at a steady 60 passed Inverness, up the A9. It was still very windy and crossing the bridge to the Black Isle felt a bit hairy. On and on….. I had planned to stop at the campsite café in Lairg, but it was shut so I carried on looking forward to a coffee at the Altnaharra hotel.

After Lairg the road goes single track – but the view of the road, especially from the heady heights of a Mercedes sprinter, is fab, so I was able to keep to a fairly steady 50. It was only after encountering a BT van and a rubbish truck that I decided a steady 40 and no fifth gear would be better. The fully leaden van had a pretty long breaking distance.

“Lammer auf dem strasse” is a sign that the Altnaharra is close and boy was I looking forward to that coffee. They serve good coffee in cafetieres with home made shortbread and a pick of the daily papers, or Hunting Shooting Fishing magazine if you prefer.

The Altnaharra Hotel was closed.

I had a couple of bananas to keep me company though. The road to Tongue takes you passed a huge loch and it started to dawn on me – big time – I was moving man – this is my new stomping ground – **cking look at it. **cking **ll. **cking **ll. This was repeated – many many times, with various emphasis and variable volume on that part of the journey. I simultaneously marvelled at my vocabulary – but really – no other words could express the rich depth of my emotions at that point.

This is amazing – well done Simmy boy! Well done Jussi. Well done Ailsa. Unbelievable. Wow man!

I was the first to arrive at the cottage. Jussi and Ailsa had taken several detours but they soon arrived too. We got in, let the cats out and cracked open the champagne as the cats scratched and sniffed their way around our new sitting room.

After a bit of van unpacking it dawned on us that we had singularly failed to comprehend the shift from a big 7 room house to a small 4 roomed one. All that packing is going to have to be unpacked – essentials sorted out – and then repacked to return to Dunbar and thence to storage.

In our stressful last minute packing we’d failed to pack Ailsa’s bear bag – that bag with the special things she really really wanted to have with her. Aaargh the guilt. Poor Ailsa. She took it very well and resigned herself to it without tears. Very brave of her – but at the same time that degree of emotional control suggests that the temporary loss of things so dear to her pales to insignificance against the anxiety she holds for this new life.

On the other hand, when she first arrived she ran around shouting “I was made for this place.” She’s as mixed up as I am.

Jussi cooked our first meal – potato scones with Belhaven smoked trout fried with Crunchy Carrot Veg Box runner bean doused in The Co-op Truly Irresistible Caesar Dressing. Not gourmet – and here’s a tip house movers – it’s a good idea to plan and pack your first meal, make it something nice and celebratory – but I was very grateful that Jussi had the energy to cook.

I’d lit the fire – so there was a glow to the dining room – though precious little heat – and this goes onto my list of things I should have realised I would miss about living in Dunbar - Warmth.

I was done in, late and sleepless nights, early mornings, the general stress of moving and an 8 hour drive in an unfamiliar van in strong winds and single track roads followed by a couple of glasses of Champers had truly finished me off. I was in bed by 8:30.

Jussi on the other hand was a Whirling Dervish. She’d knocked back two cans of red bull to keep her from driving off the road.

In my thermals and under two duvets I slept like a trout.

Day One – Wednesday April 2nd – Of badgers and posh shortbread
I was awake by 5am though. Partly woken by the cats scratching about but mainly by a great looming sense of…..THERE”S THINGS TO DO! I poked my leg out from under the duvets and quickly realised my mistake. It was far too cold! So I stayed in bed contemplating, not, it shames me to admit, the lengthy list of things to do, but rather what I was going to write in my blog. I fear this is insufferably vain – particularly as I have no evidence to suggest that anyone is reading The Blog. In fact it’s so vain I would go so far as to say it’s vainglorious. I say I would, but I wont because I don’t know what vainglorious means. But it sounds right doesn’t it?

It may be that vainglorious means “pertaining to badgers”. In fact perhaps I could get this blog quoted in the OED as the first use of the word with that meaning. That would be an achievement – it’s one thing to invent a word but to take an existing word and give it a new meaning would be something else. Examples of such usage might be:
“Daniel’s project management was renowned for being vainglorious”
“Chris’s approach to selling carrots was vainglorious”
etc
No offence intended obviously.
So dear imaginary readers, do me a favour this week and use vainglorious as pertaining to badgers. As you can see from the above examples it can be quite challenging to find a situation when you want to say ‘pertaining to badgers’, but I’m sure you’ll manage.