Timing

One always wants the weather to be top notch when visitors come. Unfortunately the weather chose to turn a bit grim for Sam's visit. It wasn't too bad - she still managed to get out on a couple of walks, but it's a shame it wasn't as good as it's been. Sam had a good relaxing time I think and she thrilled at the excitement of our venture. Thanks for coming Sam....

Jussi and I both felt a bit grotty over the weekend - a precursor to a bit of a cold that seems to have hit us this morning.... Hopefully we'll be over it by next weekend when Rebecca is coming to visit (Yay!). There's beer left in the barrel too - hope it's still OK when she gets here.

There's a lot of timing required in cheese making - and Jussi had a bit of a disaster yesterday morning which put Jussi in a very bad mood. Sam and I went off for the Sunday paper and on my way back (Sam went off to explore the beaches) I met a neighbour who we'd given some cheese to earlier in the week. He raved about it - he confessed to being a bit of a cheese nut ("Well I'm from Wensleydale"). This went someway to cheering Jussi up.

Then when I got home we got a call from a French lady who we'd also given some cheese to. She also raved about it saying how pleased she was that she coould now get decent cheese up here....So Jussi was happy again and able to retrieve something from the overcooked curd incident of the morning.

We sent cheeses by post over the weekend - to Hamburg, Dumfries and Gairloch - and Sam has also taken some down to Changeworks - we're keen to see how well it travels.

sunrise 07:09, sunset 19:06

Phew! All those parties were wearing us out.

Busy next couple of days - two trips east. Today it's Lyth for some hay and Forss for info on wind turbines 'etc'. Tomorrow will be Thurso for the weekly shop and meetings with banks. We should have combined the two days of travel of course - but we didn't find out about the Forss thing until after I'd made appointments with the banks. At least we are combining needs on both days - but even so - a 100 mile round trip for hay? Doesn't make sense to me.

Sam is visiting at the weekend. Yay! I think she committed to come before she realised how far it was....

And Macolm et al are coming up in October. Yesterday I started a pilsner brew (as well as bottling the Grand Cru). This means Sam has to finish off the barrel of Tom Caxton bitter at the weekend so I can barrel the pilsner when it's done. Hope no one is expecting her at work next week.

Sledging

As winter draws in Jussi is increasingly having to face milking in the dark. So far it's only really a problem on cloudy days - but we need to do something about it.

So we are trying to get a power supply to the byre. We've had an outrageous quote from one electrician - we are negotiating about this - but he reckons we should take the cable from the house to the byre 18 inches (50cm-ish) underground. It's only a distance of 10 feet or so, 4 metres max. So I just need to dig a wee trench. So far I've managed about 1 metre of trench to a depth of about 6 inches and I've almost ground to a halt having broken Ado's sledge hammer.

Bedrock.

Is there a technique? Dynamite perhaps?

Party of the year

I confess - no one turned up for the 6 minute party and we forgot all about it. At the time I was washing up, Jussi was milking the goat and Ailsa was doing her maths homework.

But we have another chance. Today: Sunrise 7:07, sunset 19:08. So at 19:07 we can have a 60 second party before we plunge into the doom of winter. There's no excuse this time Mike.

Six minute celebration

It was the equinox yesterday - equal day and night. So today we should have a longer night than day - but my widget says: Sunrise 07:05, sunset 19:11. We're planning a six minute party tonight - everyone is welcome. It'll start 19:05, and we'll send people home at 19:11. But it'll be some six minutes - well worth the trip I promise.

Sunrise 07:02, Sunset 19:14

We continue to be blessed with amazing weather. I remarked on this to the postie on Saturday and said we were very lucky. His response - "Luck? It's not luck - we deserve it!".

The sun is beating a hasty retreat South. At sunrise and sunset it's moved almost 45 degrees, it's now rising and setting roughly due east and west - at the height of Summer it was on its way to NNE and NNW.

But there'll come a time when we'll know it's lunch time cos the sun has risen. But best not to think on it innit.

New beginnings

Good luck Matt.

Capital Gains Tax

Erm. B*ll*cks.

Birdlife

Erm. B*ll*cks.

Sunrise 06:54, sunset 19:26

And all is well - the goats seem happier, Ailsa is thoroughly enjoying school and we don't work in the financial sector. What more could you ask for?

I'm aghast at the scale of this collapse. Like many (maybe even, like everyone who looks at these things) I'd been predicting it for years - but I don't think I imagined anything as big as this. I still don't understand how it will pan out - how far reaching is the skulduggery and how we'll dig ourselves out.

One thing is clear to me though - it is the poor that will suffer. So bankers have insured each other to protect high risk loans in some bizarre magic circle and then paid themselves vast bonuses for creating the illusory business. When it's collapsed Governments have injected millions to try and shore up the moral and financial bankruptcy. Those millions would have been used to build schools and hospitals, fund social services - so those things will have to stop for a while, making thousands unemployed and putting a further strain in Govt finances - to be recouped only through taxes taxes taxes.

We are all going to pay for this shit but it will, as ever, be the poor that shoulder the brunt of the burden. Only of course they wont shoulder it, they'll collapse to be swallowed by societies squalid swollen underbelly. Will anyone pay any attention?

In the UK the vast network of CCTV cameras will notice. They'll watch. If anyone chooses to protest against the hardship and the injustice of it, CCTV will be there to 'protect us'.

Blogging

You might have guessed, but I do spend to much time exploring blogs - I look for green blogs that agree with my mind-set, and I look for anti-green blogs so I can drop comments that I hope will irritate their authors and readers, and just maybe, get them to reflect a little.

I've not yet found a green blog I could rave about - until today. I've only read a couple of posts but so far I'm mightily impressed by Low Impact Man. This post has a humanity that is all too rare in the green diatribes I usually find. This is a long post - but worth reading through.

Our environmental problems are huge and stupendously complicated. The solutions are the likewise - but they start with you and me trying to do a little bit more every day, and understanding that others may not be able to change as fast we can - we shouldn't judge - we need to understand and if possible engage and encourage (but not patronise!).

Nocturnal emissions

Wort III - in his youthful exuberance - is making a bid to escape the confines of the fermenter. He's dribbled all over the chest of drawers where I keep me socks and knickers. He's achieved this at an ambient temperature of around 17C. It's recommended that he's kept at 25C - heaven knows what would have happened if he had been at 25C. I have visions of Quatermass.

New arrivals

Welcome into the world dear Wort III. Wort III was created following the attack of the Vikings yesterday - suddenly I'm facing the prospect of nae beer.......

This is 9 litres. Wort III needed 500gr of sugar (I used spray malt) which is the same amount of sugar I usually use for 25 litres. It promises to be a strong brew of Grand Cru - a Belgian special. But it wont be ready for weeks.

Other new arrivals include Salt and Ginger - an advance birthday present for Ailsa. They are guinea pigs and are currently too shy to allow me to photograph them. Kim the chef is a widely travelled chap - he's spent lot of time in Peru and Bolivia and was able to tease Ailsa with all kinds of exciting ways to cook with Salt and Ginger......

Reel 'em in

We don't get a lot of visitors, in fact we don't see many people. It's quite easy to go for a week and see only the postie and if only one of us does the weekly shop in Thurso, the other one could easily go a full two weeks seeing no-one. But we have ways......

There's a steady flow of fishermen who park up next to the cottage and walk up to the loch for trout fishing. Maybe three groups per week. I'll often engage them in a little chat - preferably before they head up, and drop some loaded hints about accepting any surplus catch. It's not worked yet.

Yesterday Jussi was cooking three trout that had been given to us by a local ghillie and sent me and Ailsa up to the croft to get some dill from the garden. On the way there were a couple of fishermen packing up and we stopped for wee chat. Half an hour later Jussi still didn't have her dill and saw that the fish was in danger of over-cooking and so she leant over the gate and invited them in for tea. They accepted enthusiastically.

Stefan and Kim are on holiday from Denmark and spoke excetional English. But some nuances passed them by. Having been offered tea they expected a drink, they were amazed to be presented with delicately poached trout, potatoes and green beans followed by freshly baked rye bread and goats cheeses. All washed down with copious quantities of the home brew bitter I was promising myself I wouldn't crack until the end of the month.

They were great company - respectfully keeping silent over the hard boiled trout but lavishing praise on the bread, the cheese and the beer. Kim is a chef - Jussi was particularly pleased with his comments on the cheeses. He also seemed to be a bit of an amateur mycologist and was particularly impressed by these mushrooms which we have in vast abundance in the cottage garden and all around.

After a few more beers and wide ranging discussions on the state of education, the rise of right wing politics, global warming and drink driving laws they staggered off to pitch their tent in the moonlight beside the Naver promising us gifts of freshly caught salmon in the next couple of days and a return visit with wives and daughters in the next couple of years.

Here's hoping! Good luck guys and thanks for a splendid evening.

Sunrise 06:43, sunset 19:40

And all is well.

Meanwhile I can think of a good few parts of Edinburgh - like the excellent cycle path network - that could do with this treatment.

A day out

When people come to visit from doon sooth, they often ask us if we've explored this or that area or walked up this or that hill. The answer is almost invariably 'no'. I guess we don't need to - we're surrounded by natural beauty and don't feel the need to go jump in a car to enjoy it. It does feel unadventurous though. Another reason is, actually we're quite busy, and even when we're not doing stuff it feels as though we should be and planning excursions really isn't a priority.

But occassionally we get a day out together. Thursday was a gloriously windy sunny and warm day. We had a van full of demolition rubble from the house so we packed up a picnic lunch and headed off to the refuse dump at Melness. And a great time was had by all:

• At the tip we met a refuse worker who keeps organic pigs and was amenable to swapping a bit of pork for some goats cheese and whey (to feed the pigs).
  
• After eaying our pack lunch in Tongue we headed for Skerray and met the wonderful people who run the post office and the food link project. We spent an hour or so sitting in the sun with them chatting about things.

Very pleasant.

A Mattling

One of this blogs regular readers has just become father to this wonderful looking little chap - so here's to Magnus! Congratulations to all.

Archaeology

I've returned to ripping the house to shreds, and I'm pleased to report, that's phase one complete. The next stage is to take the floors out - but that fills me with trepidation so I'll sit on it for a couple of weeks.

Under the layers of paper and plasterboard was this linoleum wall covering. How proud they must have been when this was first fitted. And how practical. As far as I can tell this was contrasted with shiny green walls. Mmmm. It was covered with wallpaper laid over newspapers - spanning 1929 - 1937, so the linoleum went up pre-1929. In fact given how hard wearing lino is it's probably safe to say it's pre World War 1 - which is bringing it very close to when the house was probably built.



Reading the newspapers wasn't too easy - all torn and flakey as they were. But from 1929 there was a piece declaring that someone had found a tortoise that was a pet of Captain Cooks and in 1937 I read an opinion piece complaining about the mechanisation of the British Army - because horses and men are better than machines and always will be.

Upstairs the A frame of the roof had been covered with tongue and groove. It's unfortunate that we had to take this off - but we had to cos some of the roof timbers need replacing and we needed to have a clear view of it all. But in one of the two original rooms the tongue and groove overlaid wallpaper that had been pasted straight on to the sarking board. It must have been cold in winter - compensated for, no doubt, by the fact that it was common-place to have families of 10 or more in these 4 roomed houses. And at certain times of the year animals shared the house (a practice still common today at lambing time).

Obsessions

Sewage. It's an important element of anyones life. But I am getting a bit obsessed by it. Not sure if this is a portent - I mean the things that obsess us tend to be symbolic of deeper psychological drives innit?

There is a serious blockage in the sewage system on the house. I spent a good part of yesterday trying to flush things through with a hose (and spraying myself in the process - how bucolic) - but it's a major block and it's going to require more serious action. This is going to bug me for some time to come.

The septic tank also needs some serious love and attention. And a sensible person would fix up the septic tank before clearing the blockage methinks (given that we're not using the 'facilities' in the house).

Septic tanks are fascinating things - invented in France, by accident, in the 1860s. I thought they were a much older invention.

Meanwhile Jussi is obsessed by the local community website. She particularly looks at things for sale and usually wants to buy something - today it's chickens and guinea pigs - both useful sources of protein I guess. Trouble is she gets so engrossed that she forgets to keep an eye on the milk she's pastuerising or alchemying into cheese and then rushes into the kitchen in a cloud of blue language. Which makes a nice circle on which to end this piece on obsessions.

Pastures new

We've opened up the bottom field for the goats. (The bottom of the bottom field has featured before). It's a long way from their stabling and they are nervous of being in there - but it's got the best vegetation for them, and it's west facing so it's the warmest field and we want them to graze there. But every time you coax them in and then head off to do another job...you look back and they've returned to their familiar lands.

The best way of keeping them in the field is to sit with them (of course we could shut the gate, but we want them to have access to the stables all the time - I dunno - ask Jussi).





Yesterday was a glorious morning so I got the Sunday papers and sat in the field with them. I managed to read nearly all of the Herald and the Observer virtually uninterrupted.


Slight distractions were Flavia who thought the Observer in particular was very tasty......








































.................and a wee monkey who frankly finds it funny to disturb dad whatever he's doing.

And guess what this is?

This is part of a double page advert in the Sunday Times magazine from December 5 1971. If you click on the image you'll see it is shots of various German towns that we bombed the shit out of at the end of the war. But what is it advertising? I'll post the answer in comments.

Social History (2)

For me the most fascinating part of the magazines from 1971 are the adverts - here are a couple for you to delight in. There were many I could have chosen - many have a sexist theme (automatic car adverts aimed at dumb blondes, whilst real men go for real cars, real fags (20 Embassy for 19.5 p!) and, erm, real shirts!), and there are loads of adverts for the armed forces.

But here are two I found particularly amusing. If you click on the image you should be able to read the text and marvel at the LSD laced cigars and spending two hours discussing the design of your new tv - (on the phone?!)

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

The article goes on to explain what a clever woman she is despite the fashion of 'Thatcher Bashing'. It's not explicit but there's a very strong undercurrent of outright sexism in the piece and a certain distrust of her relatively humble roots. Despite the unpopularity of her right wing doctrines (even in 1971!) you can't help but feel that the main problem is that she's a woman from up north. How things have changed?

Maybe. But then again there's a certain hysteria around the Republican VP candidate Palin (especially in the left leaning green blogs I tend to read). There's no doubt that her green credentials are appalling but we need to be careful of under-estimating her and be aware of why we might be so keen to.

In times of hardship - and even if people still aren't aware of the hardship climate change is causing they are definitely aware of the economic collapse we're on the brink of - people seek strength and determination above all else. In the 1980's you could hardly find anyone who had a good word to say about Thatcher, her obstinacy and destructive policies - but people voted for her time and time again. I see the same characteristics in Palin. In contrast Obama looks smiley, nice and weak - not what Americans are likely to want - but heaven help us - the world needs a green US president.

Social History

The Observer 1971. A piece about where people work features this catholic family living in a shack in Northern Ireland - the mother, Kathleen Stokes (26 years old, pregnant and with 4 children) complains - 'it gets a cold at night, the children get chills and there are rats enough'. They've been in the shack for two years, husband John built it as the only way of having a permanent address, and thereby the only hope of getting a job or state benefits. The piece goes on to say that when the kids leave school they'll have nothing to do but 'join the mobs of stone-throwers confronting the British Army'.

To me this piece does two things - it reminds us that the 'troubles' in Northern Ireland was a class struggle as much as anything, and it should remind us that when people talk of the waste and over-consumption and the need to restrict consumption (what gets called contraction and convergence) for the sake of the planet we need to be very careful about how we do it. There are few people living in this kind of deprivation in the UK today and we need to keep it that way, as well as lifting the poor across the world who still suffer conditions like this. And that means giving them a home they can heat, a fridge they can store food in, and maybe even a tumble dryer.

It's excessive consumption we need to curb, not human rights.

Neglect (2)

I seem to have posted a piece called neglect before. Anyway this one is an apology - I've not been paying you enough attention.

This week I've been farting around with the Inland Revenue, Accountants and Bank Accounts. The frustrations this causes have been vented on the house where I've demolished the 'living room' and made good progress getting the ceiling timbers off upstairs. They are whacking good pieces of wood and will do fine for raised bed building - if I get to the wood before Jussi nicks it all to build other stuff. I've uncovered a series of Observer and Sunday Times magazines from 1971 which I've found fascinating albeit rather grubby.

Any guilt at such violence in the house has been assuaged by pouring love, attention and hot water bottles on Wort. I mean these clear starry nights are all very nice but it is getting cold and poor Wort is struggling to produce a bubble.

I've also been in touch with John at Butterworths nursery. This website is a great advert for restricting choice - a mind boggling array of apples etc. John seems pessimistic that we'll get trees to grow up here but he's sent me off to get soil profiles etc. Seems like we'll have to grow our fruit as cordons - which is a bit of a pain really......

And Ailsa has got a job working in the mines but she keeps passing out as a result of working too hard (Harvest Moon on the Nintendo DS).

Weather

Yesterday morning was all dreich and drizzle but by the afternoon things had brightened beautifully.

I decided to burn off a lot of old wood and was making a fire. When Ailsa came home it was thundering and she complained about thunder with no lightening or rain in bright sunshine. Five minutes later her complaints were answered and we had a cracking thunderstorm with hammering hail and sheets of rain. The fire looked very unhappy but it survived.

Half an hour later it cleared into a gorgeous crisp warm (ish) evening. We've been having a lot of very sultry weather recently (terribly un-british - it's felt like the tropics) - and the refreshing air was a joy. After night fall we were treated to the most magnificent display of stars I've seen for years - the air was incredibly clear (no light pollution here). The milky way scooshed over the cottage and the stars were so bright it felt as if you could reach up and touch them, and eat them. In the distance you could hear the surf crashing in on Torrisdale Bay.

The clear skies stayed overnight and Jussi swears there was a frost this morning, and a bit later I grabbed this piccy Strath Naver steaming in the morning sun.

But Wort is unhappy this cold morning. Hopefully things will soon warm up and he'll be softly bubbling away to himself again making a good autumnal ale.

Secrets

Neighbours

We got given a few dozen branches of blackcurrant yesterday so Jussi got to work and made us a batch of blackcurrant 'jam'. For 'jam' read 'syrup' - it hasn't set. She made about 6lb of the stuff and it's yummy. This morning breakfast was blackcurrant jaryp (syram?) soaked up on freshly baked wholemeal (with rye and sesame) bread. Scrumilicious.

We've also met our other neighbours at last. They are only here a few weeks in the year as they work to renovate their house and we've missed them the last few times they've been up. They're from thoroughbred Yorkshire farming stock and they plan to keep goats as well. They have done nothing to dispel my opinion that all people with goats are nutters - in fact they wholly reinforce it (we encountered them as they were taking their dog for a walk - in a wheelbarrow). But I like them all the more for it.

That they are planning to keep goats is a boon for us - and we've been particularly looking forward to meeting them because of it. Yesterday we learnt that they have a lifetime of experience with goats - even better. It'll be a couple of years before they move up permanently though.

Sunrise 06:16, Sunset 20:15

I've not been checking the sunrise widget often enough and I've missed the point where the sun began to rise after Jussi gets up. The darkness seems to be accelerating. Oh Woe!

I finally have to concede that there'll be no gherkins. This was always going to be a long shot but there's a wee dark brown rabbit that seems to be trapped in the garden and it clearly has a penchant for cucumber plants. If I was really dedicated I'd hunt the rabbit down - but I can't be bothered - the garden is too overgrown. I think this growth is harbouring frogs and toads and maybe even a hedgehog which are keeping the slugs down and I think that to track down the rabbit would require stripping back that undergrowth.

I hope to eat rabbit eventually, but I think I'll need to get a gun and go lamping. There are trap options for rabbit catching, but there's always a chance of getting the wrong species and anyway they are a bit barbaric. Mustn't forget my softie suburban roots.