Cleggertwats

Surely it is wrong. Surely it is utterly wrong to try to strip the economy bare so rapidly just to pay off a debt. Last night Newsnight broadcast an analysis of the small print of the budget red book that showed that the Cammertwat alliance is attempting a huge, massive, massive massive massive shift in the balance of our economy in a very short time. Surely anyone with any sense can see that such ambition just simply cannot be realised within such a short time. It is bound to fail.

And in the process millions will lose jobs, public services will crumble and we'll all be left denuded.

Rain dance

It's been dry. Even warm and sunny. Time to get the hose out and water the veggies under blue skies.

Of course most of the time the air is loaded with moisture. When some of this moisture spots a hose pipe it rapidly texts, tweets, FBs and all the rest to tell all its mates that there's a water party going on in Simmys veg patch. They probably have a pirate radio station too - announcing the latest info on where the next rain dance will be.

So within minutes of starting to water the garden, grey - nay black - clouds gather and rumble their ways towards you. So menacing are these portents that the only wise course of action is to pack up the hose and retreat to the cottage for a cuppa.

"False alarm" "Party's cancelled" - texts and tweets across the cloudosphere. And the clouds dissipate. And still the garden needs watering.

Today we expect to sign a contract with a builder to get work started on the house. This is so jaw-dropping that I need a dentist.

Other lives

Each read pin is packed full of gloomy looking people going about their daily business. Sweaty and gasping for air in this summer heat. Oh my god - the lives of others eh?

Danger

We were warned, before we'd moved up here even, not to go charging in - as incomers do so often - and telling other people how to live their lives. Struck me as wise words - so I've held back from joining the community council and the like. I think maybe we've over-done this - I mean there are lots of committees and things that need help without them being involved in effecting change, so I guess on top of heeding warnings you need to add a good dose of laziness.

But now I've almost got a job (the funding for the post isn't quite confirmed). And that job is designed to bring about change - but at least it's over an hours drive away and maybe no-one here will notice.

I was through there yesterday - getting a sort of induction. Already I am encountering colourful characters, not all of whom strike me as particularly pleasant, and some of whom have most definitely decided to ignore any warnings about being meddlesome. As a blogger I feel in a very difficult position - my instinct is to rant and rave about some of my findings to date, to tear into some of the personalities I've already encountered - but I also know that such would be incredibly unwise - far more people read this blog locally than I hoped and this makes spouting personal opinions very dangerous.

What am I to do?

Liaisons

Lino floors, dark wooden furniture, fluorescent lighting; a typical Scottish bar. It was empty apart from the three of us. The man sitting opposite to me was spluttering with glee as he picked at his scampi and chips in a basket.

"Of course there's going to be some confusion..." he was saying.

Yesterday this man had been conducting job interviews. Today he was lunching with the two favoured candidates to assess if a proposed job share arrangement would be workable. He was conducting the assessment by talking non-stop leaving the only communication option for the two candidates to be nods and embarrassed glances. At least it allowed uninterrupted consumption of our basket meals.

Basket meals eh? Beige plastic 'baskets' stamped from moulds with fake weave. Always lined with paper napkins so that the last few chips pick up that extra chewy experience.

He was telling us some of the history of Loch Croispol bookshop and the Balnakeil Press (where is he going with this?).

Ah the punch line. Durness has a famous gay couple - Kevin and Simon - they run the book shop, they celebrated one of the first gay civil marriages in Scotland.

And where's the humour in that? Well, meet Kevin (no, not that Kevin), my job share partner for the post of Local Development Officer for the Durness Development Group.

"At least people will remember you."

All of which is to say that I have a job for 2.5 days a week, starting soon, with the overall aim of making Durness the centre of the universe. It is about consulting with the community, identifying opportunities, pursuing funding, creating jobs. My cup of Cocoa Mountain hot chocolate. Yee ha.

Culinary milestones

The last of the goats to kid this year has kidded. Margo is now the proud mum of two prancing curries which have been named, to keep the botanical theme of the offspring of British Saanens, Spud (standing) and Snowdrop. Finding male botanical names was a bit tricky. I thought of many excellent candidates, but Jussi didn't like them. Pah! Still, with Spud we keep up the link to Trainspotting (last year Rupert was nick-named Sick Boy on account of him being peely-wally). Today, Sick Boy thrives - his favourite pass-time is sticking his head through rylock fencing and getting stuck there - sometimes for hours.

Some of you will notice that this is the second consecutive year that Margo has kidded. She was put in kid this year because she hasn't been milking well and goat keeping wisdom suggests that a second kidding ups the milk yields. Her udders look fit to burst - so much so that she's been milking herself - and the strategy seems to have worked.

Anyway, meet the new arrivals - curries in the making.

Boasts

We enjoy telling folk that we don't get midges, it's too windy - and usually it is true. Sometimes, just sometimes, on a cloudy day, the wind drops and .... muuurrrrrrrrder. We are entering the third consecutive day of such weather and it's grim.

I got away from it yesterday though, I had a job interview in Durness and in that North West corner it managed to stay windy, and the sun shone. Lovely. Didn't get the job.

But on Saturday.... on Saturday the sun shone hot hot hot which was a good time to dust off the camera and bring you some goat piccies.

The other astonishing thing about Saturday is that we discovered that the google car has been and we now feature on google earth street view. They were round sometime late last winter. Oh the thrill of it.

Visiting Neighbours

...or the cat food is always greener on the other side of the fence.

One cow, 3 calves. Little beauties they are too. They came clambering through the fence and tucked in to my lush scythed lawn ... and the cat food. While we were waiting for the girl to come home I made an effort at fixing the fence, then the three of us shooed 'em out and back into the field.

We've thought about getting cows - we could put them on the common grazing and we might get some grants on the back of them - I've always been a bit reluctant cos I always think of cows as being a bit big and scary - like horses [eeeeek!]. But these are such gentle souls. Mmm.

I've not ben blogging cos I've been focussing on job applications. I had an interview on Wednesday in Inverness which I thought went reasonably OK - (but you can never tell), and I've got interviews on Monday and Thursday of next week. Three applications, three interviews - not bad eh? And then in the middle of all that I've been sent a tender for some consultancy work. Good work too. Busses come to mind.

The house deserves a post unto itself.

In between eating copious rhubarb we've been out visiting neighbours - very keen birdy neighbours. Noting remarkable there, but what is remarkable is that they tell us that there are loads of golden eagles around here - four nest sites within ten miles - and that I am utterly wrong to assume that every big bird of prey I see is a buzzard.

Must look more closely for those fingered wings.

And we have summer......