Sunrise 04:19, Sunset 22:10

Gardening tips

The broad beans and the courgettes - both of which came from seed packets I'd been hording for years, have failed to show. So in their place I've planted cucumber. If they come through we'll have an almighty glut of cucumbers - great news cos I love me gherkins (and the dill is coming on strong). If I was really clever I could try making my own malt vinegar - mmmmmm there's a challenge.

It looks as though we'll have plenty of lettuce in a few weeks and the spinach is being equally prolific. The cabbages, carrots and sprouts are looking promising for the winter cropping.

The onions look OK - but something is eating their tops. What eats onions in preference to all the succulent shoots growing around them?

We have a gooseberry bush - and it's fruits are plumbing up nicely and the current bushes will have something of a crop - though they have long been neglected and have suffered through lack of pruning. (The currants here are electric - sorry).

And then there's the continuing supply of rhubarb. But the stems are getting thinner so I think it may be coming to an end, which should help reduce our toilet roll consumption. Incidentally, if ever you're in Germany I recommend that you buy toilet roll - not because it is much cheaper than it is here (which it is) - but because you can get bog roll with all sorts of designs and messages stamped into it. It's gloriously cheesy - way outstrips the Eurovision song contest for entertainment value.

Meanwhile we've started collecting coffee grinds. Allegedly they will protect plants from slugs and snails. I put the first weeks collection down this morning and a quick estimate revealed that the garden should be fully slug proof by October 18th.

Bon Appetit

It's always heartwarming I think to see people and animals tuck in to their food. The cats were very hungry this morning and Ailsa devoured her breakfast with great gusto.

I went up to the garden. The har was still hanging around so it was still, warm and humid. Perfect conditions for the midge. They are here. Aaargh.

Before we moved we knew the midge would be a threat. We took solace in the fact that everytime we visited this place there was a howling gale keeping the midges down. But it's not always windy here. And when the weather is as perfect for them as it is today they come out in force.

Not that it is as bad as I've experienced elsewhere - but it was bad enough - and it is only the first day of them biting - there'll be worse to come.

Har Har

It says something about the stillness of the weather today that we had a har this morning. It's still hanging around a bit. It was a good thick one first thing - I love that stillness that fog brings to the world.

Friday night 5

Pedi
has asked me to get a piccy of a haggis and cheese panini - so I asked around in the pub as to where I could find one - no-one could offer anything helpful - other than they'd make one up at the pub if I asked - but this feels like cheating. It did open up one of those 'great things I've done with a haggis' conversations though (please don't try claiming you've never had a 'great things I've done with haggis' conversation). The two that stick in my memory are haggis soup and haggis lasagne.

Haggis Soup
Apparently this soup, a creation of one of the pub regulars, once made it to the specials board of a pub in Finchley. The recipe is as follows - make a lentil soup. Add haggis. Serve. It sounds OK to me - could be one to try on those eternal winter nights.

Haggis Lasagne
This is stated to be good, if you and half of your street are incredibly hungry - like not eaten for two or three months. The recipe: Make lasagne, only use haggis instead of meat sauce.

Quite a lot of the men work offshore, normally 2 weeks on 2 weeks off, or even further afield. There was a guy there last night who'd been in Poland for a couple of months or more and was just back. He was depressed when he learned we had glorious weather in May - "That just means the rest of the summer will be rained off."

Great.

Almost home alone

Jussi has gone off on her travels again. This time to see her sister and to go on a cheese making course. Apparently she'll be returning with cheese she's made. Oooh.

But she's taken the camera - so this blog might be a bit wordy for a bit.

Ailsa is off school today on account of a largely imaginary cold. But I'm OK with this. She's banished to her room to do her homework and write long promised letters. So far I dont think she's got much further than reading her vast collection of The Beano.

Rights of passage

Wort has grown into a man! This morning I syphoned him off into the barrel. Siphoning is fun - I mean you get several free mouthfuls before you can be sure the syphon is working. And hey! Wort is now beer.

Actually, given the bubbles I watched rising from the fermentation bucket as I was syphoning it out, I think maybe Wort has been casked prematurely. But no matter. The beer is now in a cask with about 150g of unrefined molasses for secondary fermentation. If I've casked it too early the worst that'll happen is I'll get excessively gassy beer, or maybe an exploding cask.

It's so exciting! The beer is meant to wait until midsummer, when we are hoping for visitors. Well maybe I'll be able to save some for that long - but five gallons isn't much in three weeks really is it?

Censorship

I've been amusing myself visiting anti-climate change websites and leaving little messages supporting the notion that it exists. This lead me to here.

I didn't read the full article, but some of us have been suggesting we need things like this for fifteen years or more. But I did read the comments - some of which were looking divinely rabid. So I added my comment thus : "Seems like a good idea to me - fair and necessary". And guess what? - the comment has been 'moderated' out! Good to see the British press has such high standards supporting open debate.

Youthfulness

It's nice when people talk to you innit? I mean like people at supermarket check-outs. People always have a few words for you up here, even if it's just a "How are you today". But the lad in Lidl excelled himself today, he scanned the first item and passed it to me saying "There you go dude."

Dude! Me? - 47 years old? I mean I like to think of myself as hip and all that - if only to exact maximum embarrassment value for Ailsa but really. He then started discussing vegetarianism with me.

Quietly pleased I am. How sad is that?

Civilisation

There are several indicators of civilisation. Running a sports day in driving rain may not be one of them, but panini is. Crusty Italian rolls - like white bread should be. Sitting in a pool of water (on account of the plastic chairs, which despite emptying and wiping down before first sitting on them, refilled with alarming speed) I overheard the following conversation:

Mum 1 : "Cor I'm stuffed"
Mum 2 : "Had a big lunch did you?"
Mum 1 : " Yeah I had a lovely haggis and cheese panini"
Mum 3 : "That sounds really nice"
Chorus of approval from all three mums.

Rain

Rain! The first wetting we've had since the blizzards when we arrived at the beginning of April. A happy thing for the garden (and me cos it saves me watering), but not so happy for the school sports day. Crikey they aint half hardy up here, driving rain, howling winds and still the egg and spoon went on. They even did a tunnel race - this is basically crawling around in the sodden grass for 50 yards. They'd have cancelled it in Dunbar for sure, but not here, no sirree.

Ailsa, who has been struggling with a wee sniffle - gave up after two races complaining she was unwell. I was torn between my loving sympathetic dad and my inner physical education teacher bully dad. I'm afraid the latter won out but I'm feeling guilty now so sympathetic dad will win the day.

Simon's Rhubarb "Crumble"

I'm not one for recipes - but here is a rhubarb crumble Jussi and Ailsa seem to like a lot.

- a good lot of rhubarb (8 thin sticks?)
- 2 large oranges
- a good lot of oats (200g?)
- 75g butter (1/4 block)
- a good pinch of salt
- enough sugar

put chopped rhubarb in juice of 1 orange with some sugar. Give it a short stew.
Put oats in a bowl, add diced butter, add juice of 1 orange, add enough sugar and salt. Squeeze it all up. It should be thick and clarty but not stick to your hands.
Put the crumble over the rhubarb mix and bake at 175C for 1/2 hour. Then grill for 10 mins to brown the top.
Let it cool a bit and eat with creme fraiche.

Lizard Cage

On a previous post I mentioned that I was reading the Lizard Cage and thoroughly enjoying it (although 'enjoy' isn't quite the right word). Jussi was perturbed that I should read a book about such a depressing subject (it is about a man in solitary confinement) as soon as we moved here.

But now, I'm happy to report that Jussi - who reads far more books than I do, also rates the book very highly. So git yersen to a library and read it. And reflect on what's happening now in Burma as you do so.

End of sermon.

On the other hand I'm now trying to read Darkmans by Nicola Barker. I can see it's very clever, and quite amusing, but I'm just finding its literary skittishness and leaps of imagination boring. I've put it down and will try to return to it another time when perhaps I'll be more in tune with its trickery.

Wort

14C this morning. We are a week into his bubbling - he's definitely slowing down - and I need to start thinking about putting him into a barrel.

Wort is added to common English plant names - usually in relation to medicinal plants - so bladderwort may have been believed to assist bladder ailments. (What use Butterwort?). The word wort is of proto germanic origin meaning plant or herb (in Old Saxon it was wurt). This perhaps suggests that our ancient plant lore came with the Anglo-Saxons with little of this wisdom arriving with the Normans. (but then 'herb' comes from the old french, so maybe not). Presumably the Celtic wisdom had long since been obliterated. I can't think of a synonym for plant or herb that might have Celtic, or pre-norse/anglo-saxon, roots.

Wort is also thought to have origins in 'root' - (Gothic = Waurt = root). So why is wort applied to the liquor we use to brew beer? The nearest I can get to is that it's mashed plants. Mash is the precursor of wort in the brewing process and it seems this stage may have originally been called Mash Wort, and presumably the modern distinction was a subtlety that arose later.

Etymologists might want to play here. Unfortunately my OED etymology is in store so I can't cross reference what this website is saying (and I know there have been conflicts between this site and the OED book on words I've looked up before).

In the 19th century root was slang for penis. Norse ships used different woods, and different parts of trees - including roots - for different parts of the ship. Such was their understanding of the material properties of things they had around them.

My understanding of such materials amounts to, for example WOOD, usually burns and sometimes sticks together with the help of a nail or thirty. I seem to remember ash is good for making bows, and willow bark can cure headaches.

(That reference to ash is a bad but quite clever pun, as both ash and bows have two meanings. Just how bad the pun is is illustrated by the fact that I have to explain it to you).

Yay!

Jussi is back.
Wort is happy - (16.1C)
The midges aren't biting yet.
It continues to be gloriously glorious in a glorious sort of glory type way thing.
Sunrise 4:27, sun set 22:01. Winter is well and truly banished - it doesn't really get dark at night anymore.

Common Grazing

Another glorious Sunday so Ailsa and I headed for the hills to explore our common grazings. We have two lots - these are taken from the main part immediately behind the house, the other is a couple of miles away to be explored another day.

Maybe Lulu can help me to identify the plants? We have lots of orchids hereabouts - I think the Heath Spotted Orchid - but orchid identification is a bit subtle for me - especially as the same species can have many colours.

There are several lochs in the grazings - this one appears to be very shallow - but the main one, is very deep apparently.

The views are of Strathnaver - scraping the barrel of my school geography it appears to be a classic U shaped glacial valley. There's a riding school by the sands and most weekends you can watch punters trotting off and splashing in the sea - pretty bloody wow. I think this is the beach Mikethebike fancies for kite buggying - but when?

Some views 2

Last week there were extensive reports of a couple of whins fires in the local paper. One nearly burnt a house down (though not as nearly yours Lulu). The fires were probably started deliberately - if you burn off the gorse you get new growth which makes for fatter lambs.

In the paper a local ornithologist ranted against the fires (it is against the law to burn off the gorse after April 15 to protect nesting birds). He did so anonymously - doubtless an insurance against some mishap befalling him or his family - but everyone here seems to think it was one of our near neighbours. The choicest remark he made was '...and all for the sake of a few blades of grass...'

This week the letters page is quite indignant. Apparently Highland crofters are far more endangered than merlin, red grouse or golden plover, what with all the 'unelected quagos imposing their rules on everyone, [and] assorted jobsworths and busybodies putting their oars in'.

Meanwhile the Shucksmith report is recommending transfer of more power to local crofting committees. It seems to me that the letters pages are filled with vested interest - crofters who have lots of friends are in favour of the extended power they doubtless see coming to them, whilst the outcasts and incomers are vehemently opposed. Having seen the effect of family disputes in several guises here (not least our attempt to buy this croft) I rather suspect that giving power to the local crofting committees would be a poor idea.

Meanwhile others are decrying the missed opportunity to do away with all the regulation that surrounds crofting. There are two main points embedded in their arguments - firstly that the Highlands are not a museum and attempts to preserve the 'crofting way' are patronising, absurd and misplaced, and secondly that the vast layers of regulation surrounding crofting simply stifles it and any opportunities for local economies to regenerate. One eloquent correspondent likens crofting to Soviet collective farming. Really?

Me? I think Shucksmith has missed an opportunity to link crofting to the Sustainable Development Agenda and Scotland's review of it's food policy. But as ever, joined-up Government is too much to ask for.

16.3C Go Wort Go!

Friday night 4

A short one on account of the girl giving up on swimming due to a minor dispute – god almighty girls and petty politics huh? But I was there long enough to be cornered by the man they call Noah.

“..and my fucking brother has shot my pet sea gull. ‘Fearless’ we called it, had it almost eating out of my hand I did. My brother just loves shooting things. You know I had two pet goats? – Well one day he ran over one of them in his tractor, reversed over it so he did. ‘Apple’, the other goat was so scared it ran off and hid under one of the caravans – starved itself to death so it did. Took me weeks to find it. You know he once gave my car to the fire brigade so they could practice on it? And he shot my cat. Two barrels of a 12 bore. I mean I wouldn’t do that, I used to be an artist. Fucking loves shooting things so he does…”

14.0C – come Wort – you can do it.

Rhubarb Recipes and the eternal madness of capitalism

Cabbage seems to be going out of season. Certainly other veg – exotic things like courgettes and aubergines are here and cheap. So the cabbage curry recipes might have to wait for a bit.

But Rhubarb is here aplenty – there are at least five stands of rhubarb I have access to, Much of it is exhausted - thin stalks which are quite tough – but still there’s plenty of good eating.

Anyway – Thursday should have been shopping day – but the furniture arriving screwed up the timetable for that, so there was a degree of scraping around to find food for our evening meal. In the freezer were some lamb chops bought last week in Lidl – £2:79 for 10 chops. Living here we are surrounded by sheep – and tasty looking lambs. But if you fancy a bit of local lamb it’ll cost you at least 4 times that. The lamb I had in the freezer had gambolled all the way from New Zealand.

I roasted the chops int’oven and then added some bits of veg – carrots, a tomato, red pepper, broad beans, onions and garlic, garlic, garlic, a slosh of red wine and a good dollop of left over stewed rhubarb. All topped with spuds and bunged back into the oven for half an hour.

Now some of you will know I’m not mister modest when it comes to appraising my own cookery – but Aam a tellin’ ya – it was plate lickin’ good!

So can anyone else recommend savoury rhubarb recipes? A quick surf on the web reveals a few – but they tend to use the rhubarb for a jus. Apparently rhubarb was originally imported into the UK from China. How do the Chinese use it?

14.1C looking a bitty bit sad.

Re-united

The house in Dunbar has now been emptied. The removals van arrived here on Thursday. It was tight – I’d worried a lot about whether the lorry would be able to negotiate the hills and bends - it made it but it was very close.

The sea container is stuffed full and still there’s stuff been put in the house. Astonishing really that you can’t fit the contents of a four bed and three public roomed house into a sea container. It will never fit into the croft house but there’s only so much you can give away at once and we’d exhausted our seam of generosity betime we left Dunbar.

Other piccies show examples of how mean we are. Jussi made the removals guys take these things and much (much) more. Oh how they laughed.



16.5C and bubbling nicely.

A bit of inspiration

Green living in the north

And their website

More tales of friendship

Of course Wort isn't my only friend. While Jussi is away I'm building up quite a relationship with Sprouts. She is responding well to me washing her twice a day. Such an honest, primeval foundation for a relationship.

I've grown so attached to Sprouts that she is taking over the kitchen. I think I'm supposed to have eaten her by now. Mmm.

On a everythingiate type theme I shall now lunch on a Sprout (lentil) and pilchard salad with oatcakes. The pilchards are a mere 29p from Tesco, packed with all that protein and omega 3 - pure bargain, all the way from Thailand. Tadg tells me that Sardines and Pilchards are the same thing. Is this true?

PS - 13.6C

Beer for breakfast

It's nice to have a friend. And delightful when they pop round for breakfast. My new friend is a giant bucket of Wort. I've called him Wort to reflect my dazzling creativity.

Things just weren't warming up in the house, so I decided to have Wort share my breakfast experience. It was a late breakfast - I had to wait until I'd been to the shop to buy some milk. In fact it was more like elevenses having had an apple, a pear and a banana for breakfast, elevenses was coffee with toast (homemade wholewheat bread) with co-op value marmalade and homemade apricot jam. I think Wort enjoyed the outing.

The temperature reached the giddy heights of 16.2C before it clouded over and the wind picked up forcing me to have to hump Wort back inside (where's it's now a balmy 13.2C - technically warm enough for Wort to work - but slowly).

With searing self awareness I now realise that I need to keep my relationship with Wort under control. I cannot lug him around every time I detect it might be marginally warmer over there, over here, just there etc. My obsession for his welfare would ultimately be destructive, he'll go sour on me.

But Wort it at a delicate stage in his life. Until his yeasts get going he is vulnerable to all sorts of nasty diseases. Of course it is true that if I hug him for a couple of hours he'll warm to a perfect working temperature, and taking him to bed with me would probably have a similar effect. But sometimes, painful as it might be, you just have to let go.

13.5C. Getting better. Come on Wort! You can do it.

New Baby

Changeworks gave me a home brew kit as one of my leaving presents so yesterday I decided it was time to get it moving. It should be drinkable by midsummer when Shaun Claire and Chris are here. It's a Coopers pilsener and should work at temps as low as 13C.

I did all the cleaning and mixing it and all was fine and dandy - except for the temperature - I dont think we get there. Ambient temp most of the time in the house is around 11C or 12C. Of course I should have checked this before I started... I need to think of ways of warming it up - a thermometer (and hydrometer for that matter) would help.

I celebrated starting the non started beer with Gin and Tadg tonic whilst watching Fergie (Duchess of York) flounce around in Hull (my home town). I did have quite a lot of gin, but I felt she did quite well. hic. But here's something less reverent - and funnier.

This morning I just managed to get Ailsa off to school, and I just managed to grab some milk for me morning cuppa before she snaffled it all for her breakfast. Which is just as well - like I really needed that tea!

Not a fox (not in sox)

On Friday night I saw a fox in the lane coming towards the cottage. I rushed in to grab the camera so I could get a picture of it - thinking mainly of Ado. Camera at the ready I waited silently as the fox got closer and closer. Then I realised it wasn't a fox at all - it was a cat (not in the hat).

Now that was some cat. Huge. I very much doubt it was a Scottish Wild Cat but maybe it was? It's more likely to have been a wild cat/domestic cat cross, because wild cats are like totally rare man. It scarpered before I got chance to snap it.

Cats on the loo

Yesterday was a bit of a strange day. Ailsa went off swimming on her own, I did a bit of tidying and lounging but nothing much else. Today I have things to do, and I am a bit frustrated by our on-going phone-line problem (can't be on-line and use the phone).

I think we had a frost last night - I fear for me lettuces, I'll go up and check later.

Too much information
The cats were inevitably unsettled by the move but our patience is exhausted. This cottage is not a cat toilet. So they've been banished. We are a few days in to this regime and they are starting to get used to it and I think the front door will just about survive their attempts to get in. Hopefully they'll get used to using the great outdoors as a loo and we can let them back in before the winter!

I think I probably have the cleanest colon in christendom. It's all that rhubarb. But how can I prove it?

Sunrise 04:43, Sunset 21:44

Saturday morning walk

Yesterday Ailsa said that she thought she saw a dolphin or a whale as she was walking home from school, so this morning we headed up the hill (Ard Mor) by the sea to see if we could see, see?






Here are a few piccies of the adventure. Formatting the text with the piccies is hard work so you might struggle if you want more than to just soak up the beauty of it.

Ailsa's hand is looking back across the village. We live on the track disappearing over the hill just to the right (and up) of her hand.

Below the flowers is a piccy of the hills to the west of here. I've promised her we'll climb those together one day.

Next is a shot up Strath Naver. The grey area is packed full of archaeology - to be explored one day.
Then there is a shot of Coomb Island (or Neave Island). There's a disused chapel on there - with a small boat it might be fun to go explore one day. Behind Coomb Island you can see Eilean nan Ron. Don't know who Ron was or why there's an island named after him.

Ailsa spent ages watching the gulls flying around their nests. A little later she decided to practice being a gull sitting on the nest.

It was a thoroughly enjoyable little adventure and top notch quality time for me and the girl.

White van woman and other miscellany

Yesterday started a bit crazy, Jussi was going to Dunbar in the van and I was heading for a meeting in Inverness due to start at noon. I waited until after breakfast to check the route and suddenly doubted I could make it in time so I panicked and fled the croft leaving Jussi to sort the van out for herself.

I did make it in perfect time as it happens - but there was some rather rabid driving on them there single track roads between Tongue and Lairg. But I made such good time that I was able to stop for a coffee and bacon roll at the storehouse.

Jussi seems to have got to Dunbar OK too. But now it's just me and Ailsa, and the cats. We're not sure when Jussi is coming back either. Can I withstand the loneliness?

Landscapes are difficult

A quick snap from the road driving home on Thursday night. Those blue lumps are hills don't you know

Sunrise: 04:49, Sunset: 21:37

That means our days are 30 minutes longer than in Edinburgh already. Mac users can grab the widget.

Marketing

It's always a bit irritating when you think you know more than your teacher. But I kept quiet about it and quietly imagined Helen making business consultant trainer mince. I'm sure HFW would approve. Managed to get 61.2 mpg on the trip to Thurso. Those clever Skoda people with all that technology - trouble is you spend all the time looking at yer fuel consumption instead of the road. And a very effective way to improve fuel consumption is to avoid braking. Hardly the safest advice around on bendy hilly roads. It's a lovely journey though - tomorrow I'll try to remember to take piccies for you to gawp at.

Lunch was the same as yesterday - soup and sandwiches. Yesterday the sandwiches were; tuna salad, ham salad, egg mayo salad, corned beef salad and cheese salad. Today they were tuna, ham, egg mayo, corned beef and cheese. I saw the cook and asked her if they hadn't delivered the salad this morning - "Oh no it's not that, it's just that I like to vary the menu."

Got home to see the spinach was germinating. So far we have signs of sprouts, carrots, two types of lettuce and spinach.

Jussi wants to sit outside tonight and crack a bottle of wine. But it's the UEFA cup final - sorry chuck.

Cats on the loose

Ok - so I've read, written or contributed to hundreds of business plans in my time - but I'm not daft enough to think I know it all - so for three days this week I'm on a training course organised and paid for by those nice people at Highlands and Islands Enterprise.

After the first day I can admit that I was right - I don't know everything there is to know about writing business plans. So pretty useful so far. The course has 9 participants and it doesn't feel too much like a counselling session for recovering schizophrenics - though there have been times when it's come close. The most fun was had at the introductions session in the morning when two participants realised they were both there to set up a cattery business for Caithness. Ouch!

Fuffin Fuff

After the joy of the Grazing Committee Chairman and armed with a much better idea of what we needed to do with the IACS (you have to be really dedicated to follow that link) grant form, Jussi headed to Thurso to see the Government adviser to agree a few details on the form.

He was impressed - he doesn't see so many of these forms filled in so well on the first attempt. But it turns out that we dont have this bit of paper and that bit of paper, and he hasn't received the other bit of paper that he should have been sent by these other people and then there's the other form that hasn't been filled in by the other other people. The upshot? Weeeeellllll - it seems our purchase of this property isn't as complete as we thought it was and there is still a whole load of shit to plough through before we are there. This will take a minimum of two months - way passed the deadline for IACS and the loss of a small but useful income stream for us this year. And I've heard Scots laughing at Spanish bureaucracy.

It is a set back. We will not be overcome.

BT are putting up a good fight. A very nice engineer came round and said he couldn't fix our phone/internet problem. But for £90 it can be fixed. Fuffin fuff.

Business name

Aaargh we need a business name. Aaargh. I've done this before - it's hell. Aaaargh.

Cabbage Recipes

Please use comments to post your tried and tested cabbage recipes. Pedi has promised me an Indian one - can you do better than that?

The crofting way

It's all about sharing and helping your neighbours and together beating the common foes of weather, happenstance and bureaucracy. Innit?

Bollocks it is.

Environmentalists

Universally loathed. "Coming along telling people how to farm their lands. The only thing that matters to them is birds. What's it to do with them anyway? They should keep their noses out."

The Chairman of the Grazings Committee

A very important man. When we bought the croft there was a lot of too-ing and fro-ing over the common grazings and it turns out that it's not quite as sorted out as we thought. So we continue to pursue the vendors, the Crofters Commission and others to resolve a few outstanding issues. Meeting the chairman of the Grazings Committee was an important part of this.

Once he'd finished his scornful tirade against goats he was quite helpful. As was his 90 year old mother who, once she'd got over her disappointment that we didn't want a whisky, was far more inclined to be encouraging and who gave us lots of useful information about what they used to do in the old days.

Generations eh? All over the (western) world the young uns dismiss the wisdom of their elders. One of the strengths of the Transition Town movement is that they say to go out and listen to older folk and learn now, before it is forgotten, what they used to do - especially with respect to farming. Amongst other things we learnt from the old lady that keeping goats used to be quite common around here, that whins (seen as weeds now) were introduced because of their nutritional value - you can grind them and feed them to animals (we already knew that goats love them).

A useful meeting.

Washing underwear in public

I've dug the third plot in the garden. It's the biggest plot I've done and it took less than half a day, whereas the other two took several days each. Why?

• It's dryer - the soil is lighter - I was even able to use a shovel for shovelling rather than the spade I've had to use the rest of the time.
• Maybe the dog rose roots have kept the soil lighter too? Pulling them out was fairly easy.
• Obviously I'm so much stronger and fitter than I was the last time (despite there being no boot camp).
  
• I'd just had a huge row with Jussi. This greatly increased my work-rate.

So we have a third plot that I'll plant next week and hope we'll get a second lot of stuff in late summer.

In the other plots, the sprouts and the carrots are germinating. I've all but given up hope over the 4 years after use by date broad beans.

Sort of off-white beigey can man

It came through the mists. All my worries were unfounded. The truck got up the hill, the crane could easily reach from the track, the foundations held superbly. The can is level.

We had lots of fun locking each other in. Apart from a slight orange glow from a ventilation hatch it is completely black in there (which means it's watertight - very important). It's not often you get chance to run in a dark place, in circles, until you are completely disorientated. Great fun.

We have a furniture store. Yippeee!

Friday night 3

Aaah. Another Friday night. This week was a lot calmer than previously, quite chilled in fact - maybe it was the hot weather. We had a very sensible discussion with a neighbour who gave us lots of advice, and we managed to break the ice with the Mohican.

The Mohican is a fixture in the bar. He looks kinda scary - all torn clothes, tattoos, body piercings and multicoloured hairdos. But he's full of useful tips about not trying to store octopuses in the bottom of the fridge (they escape, cover the place in ink and trash everything), and why it's not a good idea to dress the way he does and wait outside a school in a strange town with a car covered in blood. Really nice guy.

We also learned that there's a B&B in town we're the owners have a room they call 'The Murderers Room' - because of things that went on in there a couple of years ago. They have to bite their tongues and not offer prospective guests that room in that name.

And how local suicide statistics are skewed by tourists. In fact just this week a German tourist is suspected of throwing himself off a local causeway.

It may sound a bit gory - but it was a good night out!

Today

It's not been a good day to be honest. Too hot for physical work and frustrating on the other. Sea container not coming as promised, phone line not fixed as promised, farm holding numbers not arrived as promised (in fact we've been deferred to another department), we still don't know our field numbers and we are no closer to completing the IACS form which is a key part of grant farming life and needs to be in by May 15. And there's no progress on the house, and there's masses to do before we'll be ready for goats - which are due to arrive mid July. Aaargh Grrrr Aaargh.

Self Portrait

Rhubarb is a mild laxative. But as I said to Jussi the other day when she asked me if I had a tissue - "Just because I'm full of shit doesn't mean I carry toilet roll around with me all the time."

Planting Plan

From left to right, by plot, we have:
PLOT ONE: parsley, dill (to attract lacewings), broad beans (4 years after use by date), onions and carrots (co-planted to put off each others enemy insects), more onions, brussel sprouts.
PLOT TWO: parsley, dill, courgette, chard, cabbage, sacrificial nasturtiums (so that cabbage whites leave the cabbage alone) - a space for cucumbers - currently still being brought on in doors, picking lettuce, spinach, cos lettuce.

I don't expect anything, and anything we do get will be a bonus. Next year I'll have cold frames so I can bring everything on and plant out now, rather than plant seeds now. And there'll be less digging to do so I might be able to swallow some pride and make it up with Monty Don.

But it looks like I'm going to have to dig a third plot for more of nearly everything. To the left there is a thick stand of dog rose (now cut down) and I don't fancy grappling with all those roots. On the right is ground ivy land. But it has to be done (if only it would cool down - it is so hot......)

Delusions of grandeur

Obviously I'm proud of these foundations. They might not look much to you but all these blocks are at the same level - within a cm or so (if all the strings and spirit levels worked) and they are all standing on hard ground - not squidgy sinky sinky soil. Proof will come tomorrow (did I say that yesterday?) - and even if the container isn't flat when it's plonked down - I'll claim it's because the container is twisted - as many of them are which is why they get sold off anyway.

Aaaaaarrrrgh

Red car woman

Jussi found a shop in Thurso that still sells nails by weight. Nice one.

Jussi's pet

Another glorious day. It might seem boring that I keep mentioning the weather but really we have to appreciate it while it's here. This part of Scotland get some of the highest rainfall and strongest winds in the UK - and come the winter I'll be able to look back on these days and remind myself that it'll be alright in the spring!

Blue can expected tomorrow. It might be pink.

Jussi is away to Thurso on the weekly shop - I've been tending the veg patch this morning while it was still cool. (Am I mentioning the weather again?) I mean it's great being able to slip into Mediterranean mode - move veeeeery veeeeeery slowwwwwwwly - and the air is full of the rich heady coconut scent from the gorse which always reminds me of suntan lotion.

Speaking of food - we have a Rhubarb glut. Not enough yet to get the jam pans out, but I reckon it'll be soon.

Another constant source of fresh veg is Jussi's sprouts. She keeps 4 sets of seeds on the go all the time - our favourite is sprouted lentils - and my favourite way of eating them is with peanut butter and marmite sandwiches. Here's a plug for marmite. Dig the piccy of the boy!

Jussi's pet is currently the third source of home-grown dietary treats. She feeds it rye flour daily and then takes some to make fantastic sour-dough bread. There was a time when we thought we couldn't get rye flour up here and we were plotting a bulk buying internet raid, but fortunately we've been rescued by a supermarket giant in Thurso - but it was close. To be honest I prefer yer standard wholemeal wheat bread - but the sour dough is a treat cos it's just that little bit of variety - especially good with pickled herring.

Not very photogenic though eh?

Too hot

I'm not complaining but it is really hot again today. We've had to seek refuge from the sun. Tee hee - it's much more comfortable than steaming away in that little office on Newhaven Road.

I've managed to do some planting - I'm worried cos it all seems so late - still - courgettes, lettuce, chard and onions have all gone in.

Ailsa went to docs today on account of her spraining her achilles tendon on the sand dunes on Monday. I think she's OK - just needs to give it a rest a bit....

No progress on blue can man. Maybe tomorrow.

Another glorious one

Fantastic weather again - which should really have been spent lounging and basking - but we had 'office' type stuff to do so most of the day was indoors.

Communication issues
One of the challenges of the day was sorting out our phone line which is giving us jip. This included me standing down at the bottom of the garden on the mobile phone relaying instructions to Jussi (plugging the phone in, unplugging it, have you got a dial tone etc) from a guy who, judging by his exotic accent, was working a night shift in Calcutta. Comic but not funny. Hopefully it'll be sorted soon. (oh - I was at the bottom of the garden to get a signal on the mobile).

Cricket thing
Is it possible that we have a cricket/grasshopper thing? There's something in the long grass making that kind of sound - but surely it's not that warm - and where has it come from? I wondered if it was a frog or a bird of some sort but it hardly seems to pause for breath, so I reckon some kind of insect beetle thing is more likely.

Blue can man
Hopefully we'll get our sea container tomorrow - but something in me water suggests it wont turn up yet. The foundations are ready.

A bit more history

Petra (Pedi) has been asking for more background on how we've come to make this change of lifestyle. Others may be thinking similar questions so I'll try to summarise how the changes came about as best I can without getting too engrossed and boring. This may be a challenge, and I hope you can forgive any over-indulgence, and if I'm too brief please do ask more - either through comments, or if you prefer email me directly at firstname.lastname.contact@googlemail.com (ie simon.lee.contact@etc). I'll approach this as why, how, and consequences.
Why

• Family - working too hard, seeing my daughter very briefly before going to work, and briefly (and exhaustedly) when I got home was no way to live - I mean what should my priorities be in life? Not work! And then, having a fairly high baseline of constant stress just leaves you feeling unsettled and non-too-pleasant to be around and it's bad for your physical health too. Something had to change.
  
• Work - don't get me wrong - I LOVED my job at Changeworks- it fulfilled me in many many ways and was wholly in line with my personal beliefs - the importance of the environment, of social justice, and the power of collective action.
  
• But my real driver in that job was saving the planet - and I began to give up hope that the planet could be saved. This presented me with two challenges:
  
• Firstly - Integrity - It was becoming difficult to lead an organisation who's mission I was beginning to question. (For the benefit of Changeworkers I should add that I don't think this belittles the work it does, but I do think that Changeworks needs to revisit what it is about and how it will achieve it. You'll understand that I didn't have the heart for this journey so soon after the last one!).
• Secondly, if the planet is stuffed then we need to adapt - how am I going to adapt?
• Adaptation. Climate Change is a disaster on all sorts of levels. The disasters that will affect us all (and sooner than most of us think) are socio-economic. Food and water will become scarce. Coastal areas (where most of us live), will increasingly become flooded. Populations will migrate - away from drought, starvation, floods and political unrest. These will all promote further political instability.
  
• My personal adaptation to this (which may be a bit too quick of the mark but we're thinking of my daughter here too) is to ensure that I live somewhere were the new weather patterns are manageable, away from flood and drought risks, be somewhere were I can grow much of my own food, and be somewhere sparsely populated, with a strong sense of community where hopefully, we can be far away from the worst of the social disruption on the horizon.
• Integrity there's no point in believing in something and not doing anything is there? - Not if it's something as big and as directly personal as climate change.
• Leadership In my own small way I'm showing people that we need to make extreme changes and fast. It's not self-sacrificial in any way but I do know that for some of my friends and acquaintances it is highly symbolic and making them think about climate change than they ever did when I just told them about it. There are great people out there trying to tell us what is happening - for example Jonathan Porritt or George Monbiot. I'd rather do than talk about the need to do.
  
• Help. I could not have made this move without massive commitment and belief from Jussi - but it suited her too - she was bored with her job and she has a deep longing to raise goats. To be honest, she has driven the move on a practical level while I've ranted on on a more (useless!) philosophical level.
• So here we are: I now live a life that warmly includes my immediate family, that is wholly in-line with my personal values, and that will hopefully be robust enough to cope with the changes ahead.

How

• We have some money - but really not much. What we have acquired has accumulated through lucky property purchases and sales. We've never considered 'investment value' when we've bought our homes, but somehow we've always got lucky. Money is extremely tight - which is why we are living on cabbages!
• The rest of the 'how' comes down to blind, naive optimism - to the point of outright stupidity many would say. But whatever happens we are going to enjoy the journey - we both firmly believe that it is better to fail than to regret not trying.
• But the contemplation of the changes was extremely difficult. For me it included all kinds of convolutions around what I wanted in life, and it made me explore many personal demons.
  

Consequences
Petra has mentioned fears over health insurance - we have a national health service, which although it is distinctly creaky - should be able to provide basic care for the foreseeable future.

But pensions are another worry altogether. We are resigned to financial poverty and hope that the welfare state on top of the minimal pension provision we already had will see us through. At the end of the day we don't believe money is all that important (as long as you can afford the basics) - it's about enjoying where you are at and that is down to a state of mind, not a state of bank account. And really - I dont trust capitalism to be able to survive the changes ahead anyway!

We are also likely to be disadvantaging our daughter - with respect to things like university education etc. We don't know how we'll deal with this, hopefully we'll find a way. In the meantime she absolutely loves being here and we hope that the legacy we leave her is more valuable in the future than it might appear to be now. But this aspect of our decision was very hard to grapple with.

And if none of it works out we are both adaptable intelligent people - we'll find someway of getting through - or at least we've promised ourselves to enjoy trying and above all to not regret.

Run for the hills
The title for this blog comes from a comment made by Jonathan Porritt CEO of the excellent Forum for the Future. He was speaking at a conference looking at the corporate response to climate change and he made a throw-away remark along the lines of but unless there's real action very quickly it'll be time for us all to run to the hills. At that time our plans for this life change we're well advanced so I wasn't influenced by what what he said, but I was, somewhat perversely, re-assured.

Wow

What a day - not a cloud in the sky, the merest hint of a breeze... - any Changeworkers in the office today should get down to Portabelly and have yourself a barbecue NOW - Teresa wont mind (much).

And look what I found as I sat having my early morning cuppa. Note the clover leaf for scale.

We saw our daughter briefly this morning. She left around noon on Saturday for a sleepover and has phoned from time to time to tell us she's not coming home yet. She's away to the beach now.

I'm still working on the foundation for the sea container - it's hot work in this weather and some of it involves chipping out bedrock - which means I have to wear my eye protectors which are yellow and this reminds me of Ged who always used to cycle in yellow shades and this reminds me of the greatest bike shop on earth..... with the greatest strap line ever - The revolution will not be motorised

Medieval jousting tournament
Pah Pah Prrrahhh! Truuuuuump-be-pump! Etc. The house resounds to these ancient sounds. I think it's the high fibre diet.

Never enough time

After taking a couple of weeks to secure the deal we've suddenly been informed that we're getting a sea container delivered on Wednesday. Sh*t. Got to get the foundations dug and quick - and it's not so simple a job as we have no suitable flat land for it. We have to excavate to try to create a stable more or less level bit for it.

But hey - it's fun. I love been outside scraping around in the dirt - really - it reminds me of my archaeological digger youth. What I don't remember from those days is the accompaniment of several cuckoos cuckooing away. Quite nice actually.

And now we seem to have been offered some free and quality goats. How very very exciting. But it means we've got to get a shift on getting ready for them - which includes, amongst other things, rebuilding the stables....aargh.

And there's still the garden to dig, the house to sort out and and and.

Friday night

Is pub night. From about 6 to about 8:15. This was our second Friday night pub night. I think it's not really good time to go to that pub. The few people who are there have been there for several hours washing away the weeks worries, and worse for wear. Not the same people as last time and no patriarchal sobering influences. Quite mad, and on reflection, probably quite dangerous - though I didn't feel it at the time (at least not as much as I should).

It's all quite jovial really - but there's an edge, a tension. I know I have an uncanny knack of exposing these feelings - I'm an overconfident loud mouth after a couple of pints. On top of all this I'm English - and although I've been constantly reassured that I'm "one of the good ones" one feels this judgement could easily be over-turned - especially after said couple of pints.

And the pints were flowing last night. Stand within twenty feet of the bar and people buy you drinks, which you must reciprocate of course, and it all spirals.

Nothing kicked off last night - despite some of my less cautious rants "Rangers are crap - they didn't deserve to win the semi-final last night" - all taken in good humour - but oh so close.

The minx
She came from Iceland. Here to study the spread of the North American Mink. She was young and good looking, female and alone - a pretty incendiary combination in that bar at that time on a Friday night. One of the locals - who makes a tour of all females entering the bar, decided to give her his full attention which included a non-too-coherent treatise on the penguin (because she's from Iceland innit). Having failed to impress with this he proceeded to throw £20 notes into her soup bowl, a chat-up technique I'd never seen before (and if anyone is wondering, it didn't seem to impress). Unsurprisingly she was clearly uncomfortable.

Being congenitally gallant, chivalrous and ...erm... drunk, I naturally rushed to her aid. As I recall this comprised of shouting "Give me the money man, give me the ****ing money". I'm sure she was greatly comforted by this intervention. Said man, on the other hand, was less than pleased. Amazingly I was sober enough to correctly interpret the bared teeth being flashed my way and took a visit to the loo. When I re-emerged I was relieved to see that the Icelandic had fled and our penguin expert had latched onto a couple of tourists. I had the good sense to leave and stagger home.

Once home I was treated to this spectacular display of colour.

Another hard day at the office

Tales from the kitchen 2

Jussi brought some belly of pork back from Thurso and demanded Boston Baked Beans. But we didn't have any molasses. So I used a couple of lumps of 70% dark chocolate instead. Worked a treat. We had cabbage with it and Jussi made some delicious cheese scones.

But I still look at Pedi's blog almost daily. Her food seems so sunny and warm!

Architects

Trubble a' mill. This architect guy keeps changing his story. He's now saying he could get the drawings lodged with the Council for the start of July with fees around £3000+. This is late, it seems expensive and is different from the story we had a couple of weeks ago.

Aaaargh. Basically he's very busy and our work is work he doesn't really want. Everyone in the building trade seems to be very busy - what's happened to the housing crash crunch credit thingy?

I haven't been working on the house for nearly two weeks - there was the week in Dunbar and I've been trying to focus on the garden veggy plots. Hey ho. Jussi has built a wonderful door for the chicken house though.

Beautiful morning

I mean stunning. Cool, bright and full of birdsong. I mean it's what it's about innit?

They came from the East

The TPLF - Tweetie Pie Liberation Front. These reckless vandals claim that the urbanisation initiative is a global colonialist conspiracy to enslave the so called free birds to capitalism. They liken our offerings of dried crusts to the actions of a drug dealer giving free fixes to entice innocent songbirds into a life of prostitution and crime.

How ludicrous! We love our feathered friends. But they struggle - scraping a meagre subsistence life from this barren land. With our help they could enjoy the fruits of a consumerist society - we want to build nest boxes, hang strings of lardy stuff embedded with peanuts. This would make them happy.

The TPLF are radical fundamentalists, their views hark back to the dark ages. Primitive misguided fools.

Is it a coincidence that we heard a cuckoo the day before this wanton destruction? I fear not. The cuckoo is the ring leader and we will seek him out and bring him to justice. We cannot allow this fanatic to brainwash our young innocents.

We have received intelligence reports that the cuckoo is intending to infiltrate the nests of other birds and destroy the chicks of any who do not subscribe to their primitive idealogies. We take these shocking reports seriously. This abhorrent terrorism must be stopped.

The tweetie pie urbanisation intiative will continue. We will rebuild the bird table, bigger and better than before. We will introduce ID cards and strive to ensure that all birds are ringed so that we can track their movements and identify co-conspirators. And we shall not rest until the cuckoo is ousted from its hide-outs - in hills woods and whins the cuckoo will be silenced.

Or maybe it was a bit windy last night.

Carbon Monoxide

We have a carbon monoxide alarm in the kitchen which adjoins our dining room through a serving hatch (which is always open). We have an open (mainly coal, I've not had time to cut the peats) fire in the dining room which is lit most days. Ailsa's room is directly above the dining room, and these two rooms share their air through gappy floor boards.

Last night (in the middle of the Apprentice - You're Fired for heavens sake) - the alarm triggered and sent us reeling with hands clutching our ears. Eventually, with windows and doors wide open we got the alarm silenced. I went round opening all the trickle vents we'd closed up when we first got here when it was oh so cold, and was delighted to discover that we were all alive this morning.

I don't understand why the alarm was triggered last night, and not previously. The most frightening possibility is that the alarm has gone off previously but we've all slept through it. Anyway we'll get it sorted, although at the moment Jussi and I don't exactly see eye to eye on the best solution....