Return of the idyll

That last post was a bit gloomy eh? Truth is though, sometimes it's better to express those bad feelings rather than sit on them and let them fester. The wind died hours after that post - to be replaced - for one morning only - by Summer. Big Summer Blast. Blue skies, blazing heat. Wonderful.

By afternoon it was raining. After only two and a half days it has now stopped raining - though it is still a bit misty. The English language is surprisingly lacking in words for rain. Rain has many guises. The rain here is most often mist-like. Usually it's driving mist which can be very wetting but can also be very refreshing. For the last couple of days we've had torrential mist - very wet, very heavy but also very fine, and quite silent. And an awful lot of it.

Last night I popped outside to check that it was still raining - and indeedy it was. And the scene by our cottage door was of a hedgehog eating the cat food. One cat eating a rabbit, and the other cat torn between jealously watching the hedgehog and jealously watching her daughter devour rabbit. I mean, I ask you, on a scale of 10, how high does that score for blissful ruralism?

Meanwhile I'm trying to knock out a tender for the building works on the house. I'd drafted it and asked a pal in the trade to comment on it. He didn't exactly tear it to shreds - but after I've absorbed all his comments it will look very different from my first draft - and a good few acres of trees longer to boot.

But I'm also working (shock horror) - got a bit of consultancy work and this needs to take precedence. And I've got a brew to be bottled, an accountant to see this week (hopefully) and still the behemoth of the grant application for our empire building to complete. Hey ho. Onwards onwards.

The wiiiiiiind! The wiiiiind.

A few days ago I complained about the wind - and the impending doom of winter. It's been windy ever since. I've been watching weather forecasters say how nice the autumn weather is here and there - no mention of our winds.

Windy it is. And yet not. The weather maps show winds gusting to 15 to 20 miles per hour. Which is windy. And yet not. Last winter we regularly had winds gusting to 40, 50 mph, and on a couple of occasions at least 60 to 80 mph. Therefore it is not windy. I don't care what you tell me about being blown over picking the runner beans, or scooping various items of garden furniture from the common - and the washing of course - it is not windy.

We had lots of visitors over the summer - and they asked us how we survived last winter. And we told them. It was fine - we survived - it was fun - we expected it to be bad - and it was - but it was fine - we just wrapped up and survived. All this is true - and in the summer heat it all seemed so - well academic really. But now - after days of not windy really - the thought of winter, and the thought of real wind, is beginning to scrape away on the insides of my rib cage - not nice I promise!

The thought of winter, the spectre of winter really is starting to get to me. People have told us that it is the second winter that finishes off the good lifers, the neo, proto and quasi hippies. The second winter does 'em in. They pack up and beat a hasty retreat to softer climes as soon as they emerge from their winter pits after the second winter.

After last winter (our first) - I thought - well fine - it was a bad winter, it was a windy winter, it was a cold winter - if that's as bad as it gets we'll be fine. But this looming fear of a winter that hasn't even started yet is taking me by surprise. Looming doom gloom.

Will the second winter be the end of our aspirations for life in the Highlands?

A bit of politics

The whole Obama change thing - he promised health reform, peace in the middle east, action on climate change. USA leading the world.

But he's failing on all fronts. China upstaged him at the UN yesterday, Israel has refused to enter talks with Palestine - insisting that the current talks are talks about talks rather than talks - a sleight to Obama's authority, and the whole health care thing is a mess. It suits me to have a visionary leftish US leader, but he's starting to look weak and ineffective.

Meanwhile the Danes have suggested that the Copehagen Summit in December might not reach any agreement to supercede the Kyoto Protocol, a sentiment no doubt influenced by our current economic turmoil as well as the apparent inability of the US to sign up to anything - Obama's charisma doesn't extend to promising US citizens any infringement of their 'right' to create 19 tonnes of CO2 per head per annum (cf China - less than 5 tonnes).

The US administration is very different under Obama - the whole renewable energy thing is progressing very well - the USA has changed a great deal in a very short time - but world leading? I don't think so.

Maybe we have to shift our focus and cast our hopes onto China. Unencumbered with democracy, the Chinese government has the power, and as a nation they have the economic might to really shake things up. Can they do it? Yes they can. Though I suspect they'll exact a high price for their reforms. They are recent victors of economic wars, in their view the climate is stuffed because of things we've done - and they'll make us pay retribution. Perhaps rightly.

And actually, I think we have to hope they will. China is a strange bed fellow for us lilly livered pinko liberals - sympathisers of Tibet (and all the other ethnic groups getting crushed in China), objectors to huge dam projects, the proliferation of coal power stations and all the rest. But I think I'm pinning my hopes on China to lead the world in Copenhagen in December.

I'm a little queasy about this. But I don't care really. Copenhagen is our last chance to save life on our planet as we know it - and maybe China is our last realistic hope of achieving anything there.

Windy returns

Inverness rocks! It was all good - the charity shops, the other shops, the pub (Castle Tavern) the tapas bar near the castle and the shower in the hotel. We returned via the (no show) dolphins in Fortrose and the Nigg Ferry - and the excitement of the traffic lights in Lairg.

D&D had looked after the goats just fine and it was all good.

We've returned to wind, wind and more wind. It's a warm wind. But at the end of the day wind is wind eh? It sounds a lot worse, sitting inside, than it actually is when you get out there. It feels slightly foreboding. It's only September. It's gonna get a whole lot worse.

For now though, the garden is spewing veg, the goats are happy and all is good.

FBDO and FBNO!! **

Tomorrow we have goat sitters. Jussi will milk in the morning and then we'll head off leaving the goats in the capable hands of D&D.

We will go to Inverness and visit shops. This, coupled with all the traffic and the people and the noise and the smells will be a bit of a shock. We will eat in a restaurant - food cooked by someone else! We will stay in a hotel. It will be warm. We will drink in a pub and there will be more people, people who have no recollection of cave dwelling. We will breakfast in the hotel - eat vastly more than is necessary, visit more shops and drive back, stopping every 2 miles or so when Ailsa gets car sick. It will be an adventure. A swan song before the hatches get bolted and we hunker down for Autumn storms and winter toe dropping-off-with-the-cold.

Wow. Really not sure how I'll cope with all the thrills. Will Jussi be able to relax so far away from the goats? Will Ailsa be able to survive not seeing the first episode of the restart of Merlin? Will my veg be OK?

Tonight I'm cooking pasties for D&D - all veg from the garden. There'll be onions and garlic and parsnips and carrots and chard in the pasties and we'll eat them with THE CAULIFLOWER and maybe broad beans - if only I'd thought ahead could have used goat meat in the pasties.

But just now I can't think straight - the anticipation of a day out is killing!

**FBDO and FBNO - Fruit Bat Day Out, Fruit Bat Night Out. Don't ask! -

"Oh those yellow bats of Texas

They are not really bats

They're only imitation

And they wear yellow hats

You can tell they're phoney

Cos when they're on the wing

They make all the noises

They dance and shout and sing

eh eh eh eh eh eh eh

eh eh eh eh eh eh

eh eh eh eh eh eh eh

eh eh eh eh eh eh

eh eh eh eh eh eh

eh eh eh eh eh eh

eh eh eh eh eh eh eh

eh eh eh eh eh eh"

How many cauliflowers does it take to feed three people?

Last night the answer was three - and even then they had to be supplemented with carrots and lots of mashed potato. The cauliflowers are very tasty but extremely small. Out of the ten or so plants I've had only one looks as though its going to get anywhere near what you might consider cauliflower sized.

But why? They were all planted at the same time, in the same bed, with the same spacing, and they've all been subjected to the same watering regime, feeding regime, caterpillarpickingoff regime, slugpickingoff regime, weed control, et cetera. Why does one cauliflower decide that it will invest in a good canopy of leaves and therefore have the energy produce a decent enough head while the others just faff about looking pathetic?

And does the success of one cauliflower mean that I should invest the time and energy and try them again next year, or does the pathetic eau de cauliflower meals we've had from the other nine mean that I should abandon any fantasies of cauliflower cheese forever and ever. Amen?

Friday night 18

I suspect you'll find it hard to believe, but Jussi and I have not had a night in the pub, or a night out anywhere for that matter, since February. That's a hell of a long time to go without a night out. There are lots of reasons for this, but it mainly comes down to the arrival of the kids and the constant overhead of feeding and milking.

Friday night 18 was actually a Saturday and was relatively uneventful. It was bingo night so half of the revellers disappeared into a back room for much of the evening. (To play bingo silly!). The remaining half dozen or so punters took it in turns to ask us if we were enjoying our holiday. This was quite depressing really - I mean we know them by name, but after a few drams and bevvies we instantly become tourists. Maybe it's a feature of rural life - if you're not a face that has been around all their lives the jigsaw pieces of face recognition aren't sufficiently hard-carved to survive a thorough alcohol wash**. But things were jolly enough after we'd explained who we were, where we were living, what we were doing, where we were from and the name of that shopping centre in Hull that is by the water and they'd apologised profusely. Some even asked for cheese - even a sober one!

Massively enjoyable in a get away from the house sort of way. And we'll get a night out next week too. Not sure if I can cope with this level of excitement.

**And yet I suspect they could still identify their sheep.

090909

Last night, on the BBC news, this date was described as a palindrome. It is not. 90909 is a palindrome but who gives the zero to the month if they're not giving it to the day? But I'm not about to get the green ink out. Bah humbug.

Saturday was mainly wet and horrid. I've spent some time trying to upload a video to entertain you on your horrid days but YouTube is giving me jip and now the weather has improved I've given up.

Yesterday a man from the ministry came out and measured our fields. Apparently they are smaller than they were when he measured them a few months ago. Every year we have to fill in a form saying how big our fields are as part of claiming a grant to help po' marginal farmers like us. We don't get the grant ever - because no one applied for a grant in 2006. Makes sense huh? But we still have to complete the grant form because eventually they'll shift the base line year and if we haven't applied for a grant in the base line year, irrespective of whether or not we get a grant in the new base line year, we'll not get a grant. I hope you're following all this.

Honestly - it's enough to drive you to sheep farming. Crofters who keep sheep are fond of telling you how busy they are. I've often wondered what keeps them so busy - as actually you don't see them out all that often (usually at odd times at the weekend). I now realise that they are busy filling in forms.

Fare dos

Yesterday I mentioned that I went to a meeting on Sunday. The meeting on Sunday was in Eddrachillis, a detail I mention because I like the name. It's about two hours drive from here. The meeting lasted about two hours and decided little, but we all felt better afterwards.

The highlight of these meetings is the lunch. Clearly aware of the distances people travel to attend, the lunches have become a ritual whereby everyone contributes. The only rule is that all offerings must be home made and preferably home grown to boot. So on Sunday we had beetroot soup and marrow soup with bread, and goats cheese. There was also marrow chutney, gooseberry jam and rhubarb jam, all of which complemented the cheese very nicely, and afterwards we all had fresh apples. All homegrown/home made.

And then the two hour journey home. We lift share of course, so the journeys are jolly enough with much swapping of gossip and scandal - most of it, I imagine, grossly exaggerated.

I arrived home in time to dash up to the garden and pick a selection of broad beans and runner beans to lightly steam for tea. The veg plot has been providing nearly all our veg needs for a good few weeks now, and by jimmeny it's been grand!

At the moment we have plenty* of broad beans. I've always resented buying fresh broad beans cos you buy more pods than beans, but I love them and will never tire of them and I am hugely enjoying the luxury of having broad beans every other day. In between we're getting peas, runner beans, cauliflower, cabbage and the odd courgette and lots of parsely, and onions and carrots.

The next meeting, in October, will be in Skerray. Much closer to home. I'm wondering about goats cheese and broad bean jam. What do you think?

*Millions and millions and millions and millions

La raccolta della patata

I've been reading. I go through phases, reading and not reading. Just now it fits with the schedule - Jussi awakens me in the morning with a cuppa before she goes to the goats and I have half an hour to read before getting up and getting Ailsa up and ready for school.

By chance, the last two books I've read were based in Italy. And it has unbalanced me - my senses seem to be yearning for the scent of carob, the whine of moped and the crunch of sunflower husks under foot. And the light! And the heat - that almost lightly grilled lamb scent of skin in hot sun. Mama Mia!

Instead I've been in wind and rain, or when they relent, midges, digging up the tatties.

And here is the harvest. Not as much as I hoped - even allowing for the fact that much had already been harvested as black leg threatened - but not bad - and I'm quite pleased. I've dug them up early - they'd died back too quickly and I suspected blight so best to lift them asap - and indeed there were a few distinctly mushy ones. I'm hoping that with the obviously infected ones removed, these will last long enough for us to eat them - if the harvest had been more prolific I would have doubted our chances.

But there is so much to do - and so many interruptions, delightful and otherwise. I was at a meeting on Sunday and someone used the phrase 'time management' - the first time I heard that for 18 months or so - and it echoed inside like the jangling chains of a ghoul. Oh yes - time management - prioritise what you have to do and do things at the top of the list. Stop fannying about, stop faffing around and hiding in the things that are easy or heaven forbid, enjoyable and do the stuff that needs to be done.

È tempo di vedere un uomo riguardo ad un cane!**

**Hopefully, there is someone out there whose translation skills are better than Babelfish. This isn't quite what I meant!