The builders are here - working away

The builders have been here faithfully working away come rain or shine. Simon doesn't seem to be keeping you up-to-date (he's got a job now, you know!), so I've put together a wee summary of what's been happening to the different parts of the house.

The builders are here - Kitchen/Dairy

These pictures are all taken from the back door towards the dairy. Except for one, which is from the dairy to the back door. They'd left a bit of a mess when they took their 2 weeks off, but now we have frames for all the walls and they've gone back to tidying every day!

The builders are here - Sitting Room

These pictures are all taken from the office towards the sitting room. In the final picture, Ailsa is standing in the dining room.

The builders are here - Office

These pictures are all taken from the sitting room area towards the office/spare bedroom.

The builders are here - Back

The roof of the extension at the back (dairy, kitchen, and bathroom) is all shiny and new, and we have a gaping hole in the main roof

The builders are here - Front

The porch has shot up and the roof disappeared

The builders are here - outside

Here's some shots of trusses, new and old

Random Plugs 2

Here's a wee missive from Dave - who once gave me a birthday present of the promise of a full bike service which I never cashed in. Fortunately, on his way north, he'll be dropping in for a coffee and general refuelling - maybe a good time to get him to look at my crankshaft? (ooh err). Probably not. So if you know him follow the link and give 'im a fiver, and if you don't, a tenner.

You probably didn’t know that my daughter Rosa, now aged 6, was seriously ill last year. She was diagnosed with a brain tumour last October and had a major operation a week later. The immediate response and exemplary care that she got from the Sick Kids Hospital in Edinburgh undoubtedly saved her life. It has been a long road, but Rosa has made a remarkable recovery and is now a happy wee girl starting back at school in Primary 2.

The Sick Kids Friends Foundation has launched a campaign to raise funds for new brain surgery equipment to give children in Rosa's situation an even better chance of recovery. So I have decided to do a sponsored bike ride to raise funds and try and give a little something back. I’ll be attempting to cycle the length of Scotland, from Gretna Green to John O'Groats the scenic way, at the end of September. 450 miles in 5 days through the rain, against the wind, up hills and, errr, up more hills.

Anyway – would you consider sponsoring me? Every little helps.

Please visit

www.justgiving.com/gretna2groats

You can also read my ramblings about my preparations and follow my progress during the ride itself at:

twitter.com/gretna2groats

Random Plugs

Here you go - look. It's in Edinburgh, at the Art School in case you were wondering.

And the poster has the name of the band covered up - how punk is that!?! Fresh from their Brazilian tour about - ooh 15 years ago, they're dusting down the zimmers and hitting the stage once more - and the band is called Bloco Vomit incidentally. Be there or keep a clear head.

That glamour in full

Bligging blogspot is giving me jip. Here is the true glory of gala day.

Goat + clamour = amour amidst the glamour

I think that traditionally village fetes and galas were generally a time to get off your face. But things are changing, albeit very very slowly. Very slowly.

But the goats didn't need beer goggles - they were in love. As soon as the bags puffed up and they scqulurched into action the goats knew that they and bag pipes were just meant to be.

It was a pleasant enough way to spend an afternoon - especially as Jussi and I had remembered to bring some beer and cider with us.

The goats were popular and we only had to run in front of the archery range to capture an escaped goat 4 or 5 times.

It seems lots of crofting wives would like to keep goats, but not crofting husbands. (I mean crofting husbands don't want to keep goats, not that crofting wives don't want to keep crofting husbands, though I guess that's possibly true too).

Chicken wire, Dr Peppers and recycling bins

This time last year the house and grounds were packed with visitors and we won the sandcastle building competition. This year we had no visitors and I was working so it was up to Jussi and the girl to keep up the record. The girl designed a magnificent picture of dolphins leaping from the sand. (Sorry no piccies!)but the judges awarded all prizes to sandcastles that looked like castles. Pah!

Saturday is the Gala Day itself and I think that's another post

.

Sunday is all about racing - rafts, ducks and sheep. We skipped the sheep racing but here are a couple of piccies from the others.

The chicken wire and

Dr Peppers bottles was the coolest but hopeless when it came to the actual race, though most hopeless was the REUSE of the blue RECYCLING* wheelie bin. But see next year? Me and The Girl? We're going for it.

The photo journalism is a bit thin on the duck race cos I had to throw myself into the river to help rescue the ducks - the north wind had kept all the ducks clustered together and when they eventually arrived the official race stewards were

overwhelmed. Jussi was too busy laughing to record my heroism.

*Crofters instinctively understand the waste hierarchy and correctly judged re-use to be more important than recycling

Three tales of Stirling

My consultancy work took me to Stirling this week. The most notable event was that I had a curry. A huge curry. So excited was I at the prospect of a curry that I ordered everything on the menu (well ok not quite) and found myself unable to finish it all. Shame on me.

The journey to Stirling was eventless. The car is poorly so I took the van to Lairg, taking the precaution on Saturday of removing all the baling twine which was holding the exhaust on and wiring it up good and proper. It was - ooooh - nearly half a mile before CLANG SCRRRRRRRRAPE and I had to stop and crawl under the van and take the exhaust off completely and chuck it in the back.

The train journey to Inverness was enlivened by an increasingly drunken oilman who used to work at Dounreay telling me about his experiences of the official secrets act and men in suits coming to his house reminding him that he'd signed it after he attended a consultation event about the future of Dounreay and said a little too much. What it is to live in a free society eh?

Anyway - three tales of Stirling

1 The keys

I was tired by the time I dragged myself into the Golden Lion hotel in Stirling. My head was still somewhere around Aviemore and I was still hearing the percussion of the rail tracks as I checked in and was handed the keys to room 357, on a clearly marked orange fob: '357'. The lift up to the third floor was, erm, somewhat 'quaint' but it got me there and I dragged myself and heavy bag (full of lots and lots of paper) to the room. The key didn't fit the lock. In my fuzzy state I was convinced it was just me being stupid, so I tried and tried. I knelt on the floor before the door and tried to ram the key home. No chance.

So I dragged me and my bags back down to reception again, again marvelling at the 'quaint' lift. The receptionist clearly thought I was a moron but found someone to go back and open the door for me. He took a spare key in the highly unlikely event that it was the key and not me. The lift even managed to lift me and bag and hotel boy.

The spare key worked. He checked the original key - "Nah - this is the wrong key. I tell you it what it is mate - we had a really busy weekend and quite of few keys came of their fobs so we just put 'em all back on as we found 'em, random like."

Great!

2. Golden Lion showers

On Tuesday morning I was sitting in reception and a be-suited woman came to reception to check out. As the receptionist was tapping his keyboard she said in a helpful non-complaining voice: "You know the shower in my room didn't work at all, I really think you should get someone to look at it."

The receptionist looked up:

"Is this stay being billed straight to the company?"

3 Cafe Culture

The weather in Stirling was fantastic. Having spent most of my time there (when not eating curries) couped up in an office the hour or so I had to wait for the train home was very welcome. I found myself a nice cafe with seats on the pavement and settled myself to a pot of tea and a good big piece of people watching. When it was time to leave I went inside to the counter. There was a woman in front of me clearly in need of refreshment. "Please could I have a large black coffee with milk."

It's good to be back home amongst the civilised where black is black and white is white.

Leave of absence

I mean what the hell does 'leave of absence' mean anyway? 'Absence' has to mean absence innit, but 'leave'? Does it mean permission? 'Permission of absence'? 'Permission to absent' surely. Does it mean holiday? 'Holiday of absence'? Can you have a holiday of presence? Ach!

Leave of absence 1 - weather

The sun. The sun has deserted us. Gone. Instead it's been rain, mist, fog, mizzle, drizzle. Not so much grim as just mildly crap.

Leave of absence 2 - truth

Weather forecasters keep harping on about how sunny and warm it is, and sticky, and oh good it'll be cooler tonight so 'you should all find it easier to sleep'. Aye pal, I've put an extra blanket on the bed. I often tell people that the weather forecasters get it wrong up here - they are often forecasting rain and it stays clear and bright - but not the last week or so. Pah!

Leave of absence 3 & 4 - family and erm overall cleanliness

Jussi and the girl return tomorrow night - so obviously I've got a lot of tidying to do. Left to my own devices I gradually disappear under a pile of pots 'n' pans 'n' cans 'n' bottles 'n' papers 'n' socks 'n' undies 'n' stuff. The big clean up has started - should be just about done by tomorrow. But Leave of absence 1 has made washing clothes very difficult (well OK - its drying them what's hard) so there's a bit of a backlog there. Though it does seem quite dry* today so maybe...

Leave of absence 5 & 6 - builders and blogs

The builders went off last week for a two week break. Leave of absence 1 has made it none too pleasant to step outside with the camera - but as they're away for at least another week I'll still be able to update 'the builders are here' - once the sun shines and I can take the piccies to reinforce your perceptions of rural idyll.

Leave of absence 7 & 8 - chickens and a sense of proportion

Chickens put themselves to bed at dusk. It's then a good idea to then lock them in, or more accurately - lock predators out. About a month ago they were staying out till around midnight - and often you'd find me out weeding at that witching hour waiting for the chucks to come home to roost. These days they're often in bed by 10 o clock - but if the news headlines look interesting I'll not go up until 10:30 to lock them in, by which time if it's cloudy and moonless, things is getting pretty dark. Thursday was one such night. I popped my head into the chicken coup and behold - two chickens short. Eeeek.

Chickens like to wander. Ours seem to be good at getting into fields via the gate, and then finding themselves unable to get through the fence, or relocate the gate in order to make their way home again. This is why it is a good idea to go check on the chickens before it gets dark. Many a time I've wandered our boundary fences to find chickens (usually two of them) sitting stock still in a clump of grass. They're always pleased to see me and make little cooing noises as I guide them to fences, pick them up and throw them over, and then guide them back home. But if it's dark you can't do that.

I went to bed on Thursday night a worried man - hoping they'd be back with us in the morning.

Alas not.

Fridays are important days for the village - for the bank comes to visit. It set ups in the local library-cum-doctors surgery (Thursdays)-cum-council service point-cum-community computer-printer-photocopier resource-cum-lets cover the windows with posters advertising events/anti-drug smuggling advice/agricultural pest notices/ fishing diseases/marriage banns-cum-soddit-that's-enough-hyphens-for-one-sentence, and I had a cheque to bank. So off I set eyes-a-peeled, ears erm whatever you do to ears to make them sharp - searching for the missing hens.

On my way up the hill about a furlong from our cottage I passed a field that's had some coos and calvies in for the last few days. They're cute looking beasts with that lovely rich brown that you see in Jerseys - and I suspect these are some sort of Jersey cross. The field is on a slope and is roughly undulated so that from the road you can sometimes see an entire coo and calf, and at other times you can just see a head, or a swish of a tail, or the flash of a comb or, no hang on, coos dunnae hae combs.

When it saw me it came racing over to the fence clucking its little chooking head off. It looked bedraggled though clearly well. I picked it up and carried it home. It didn't respond to any of my questions about were it's pal was but later in the afternoon I was able to find it in the same field and all chooks were happily re-united.

Leave of absence 22 - peas

The garden is harvesting fairly well - but nothing like the riches we had last year. There have been multiple rows of lovely prepared soil delicately planted with seeds that simply didn't bother to even try to give me something to look forward to. Mostly, the peas germinated - or at least the first planting did - and they grew handsomely. Unfortunately that's about all they did cos now they be more or less roting in the vine without maturing enough to be worth eating. We had a few meals with sugar snap peas and in the last week I've had a few meals with at least a token presence of peas, but what promised to be a bumper harvest is rapidly turning to a black slime.

Leave of absence 48 & 49 & 50 & 51 & 52 - Security, stamina and time, and exhaustion and an eco-value set.

Left here alone with only a white van to get me to an emergency shop should the need arise makes me slightly nervous that despite the solar battery charger that Chris sent us, the vans' batteries are going to be flat precisely when I need to travel. So on a few occasions I've rather naughtily, or is that irresponsibly, jumped in the van to pop to the village to buy something, anything, just so I'll at least get to speak to someone, anyone, while the van sits outside the shop pumping out exhaust fumes. As I drove away I noticed a rather disturbing sound, and came of the opinion that some of those exhaust fumes were rather close for comfort. I stopped on a bit of flat land at the bottom of the hill and noticed that half of the exhaust had taken leave of the other half and was scraping quite spectacularly along the ground. Ever the resourceful I tied it up with baler twine and returned home. But this can only be a temporary measure - I need to do a proper repair using fencing wire.

There were to be a number of more entries under 'leave of absence' but I've run out of enthusiasm for it, and anyway, I'm supposed to be working.

* I just know I'm going to regret writing that.