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This weeks Saturday surprise was a digger at the door "come to do the fencing". What? Nobody told us.
So that was the weekend, helping, re-organising, negotiating. It has taken months to get the fencer here, it feels a bit petulant to complain that he turned up without warning us he was coming. Now he tells us he doesn't need much of the stuff we bought for him (fencing, posts etc) but we don't have enough wire and other stuff. Mmmm.
Ailsa's birthday yesterday - great fun.
We have Malc and the gang coming at the weekend. And Mike and Sho are coming for a return visit the weekend after.
Today I'm driving south to Montrose, then picking up a male we are borrowing from Arbroath and a couple of kids. Returning tomorrow - so no blogging til Thursday at the earliest.
It's all go you know!
Hanging the washing in the wind is bad for your crotch. (When Ailsa is at school anyway). This is on account of the washing blowing away and you having to climmber over the barbed wire fence, on tippy toes, to retrieve said washing whilst being visciously molested by the washing that stays on the line.
Puts holes in yer scrotum so it does.
On Wednesday it costs £324 smackeroonies to get the car through it's MOT. Today we'll pick up the van which I put in for a general service in advance of the long trip to Arbroath to pick up more goats. I'm guessing it'll cost the wrong side of £500. Can't wait!
Meanwhile the nice lady at the garage where the car was sorted noted my consternation at the cost of the MOT and said "Well at least your money has gone to a good home [meaning the car I think] - I mean you don't want to leave it in a bank do you?"
The winds! the winds!
Ach well - for a moment there I thought we were going to declare war on Iceland. Imagine all those chip mums having to go without their 4 west country pork faggots for 75p, and having to put Bjork into some detention camp.
It amused me in a completely non-amusing sort of way that the UK Govt used anti-terror laws to freeze Icelandic assets. The Althingi is one of the oldest parliaments in the world, at their last election they had an 86% turnout of the electorate, but that wont stop our Gordon branding them all as terrorists. Excellent.
It is this abuse of powers that makes the whole 42 day debate so serious. Yes, perhaps, 42 day detention without being charged could stop a few terrorists. But the power to detain for 42 days could also be mis-used because if the Iceland Govt can be labelled as terrorists so can you and me.
Sign the petition here.
Now. Thank you.
Children often have the best answers. This is often exploited by campaign groups who will put a politician in front of children who ask them plain simple questions and refuse to accept obtuse answers.
We are all children when it comes to this financial mess. I understand nothing and I see no reason why we shouldn't scrap the whole dollar-based banking nonsense and return to the good old days of the gold standard. No hang on - let's go a step further - let's not return to the gold standard - that's pre-1970 for heavens sake - that wouldn't be progress would it? No let's create a new standardisation of wealth. Let's make it a Carbon standard - lets base our entire financial system on carbon in the same way as it used to be based on gold.
Suddenly you can make money by saving carbon. Suddenly throwing carbon away - making useless goods - just becomes too expensive to contemplate.
I'm far from the first person to propose something like this - and I think others who've suggested similar stuff understand what they're talking about far better than I do. But hey! - The worlds finances are kaput - it's a great time to sweep it away and start afresh with something that respects the fact that the planet is finite (as is gold, whereas the capacity to print dollars is limitless, or so it seems).
Fug. Fug of virus. Neither of us are feeling too bright, despite this morning being a bright and sparkling one. There's not much work going on around here. Now I don't want you to go off thinking we're self pitying lily-livers - cos we aint - and there's still the base-load of work being undertaken but some of the other stuff - fixing septic tanks, roofs, digging test holes for foundations of potential extensions, preparing ground for poly tunnels and and and aint happening. On a day like today it feels particularly bad. Days like this are becoming rare - we need to make the most of them.
Financial times
Meanwhile I run out of metaphors for the jaw dropping torrent of bad news from the financial markets. It seems we're there's some hard times ahead. But what? Has anyone found an analysis that understands what all this means?? I'd love to know.
There's many parallels to be drawn between this crisis and climate change. Not least that many were predicting the current chaos long before it happened but everyone seemed powerless to do anything about it. Governments should have regulated? But that would have hit corporate profits and national wealth. Individuals should have acted more responsibly? But what effect does my visa bill or over-optimistic mortgage have on the big picture? Everyone who looks at these things could see a collapse had to happen. Well we're seeing it collapse now and we'll feel the financial pain over at least the next decade or so.
In the climate change debate we're seeing the same inaction for the same excuses. And I'm afraid history tells us that nothing seriously will be done to stop it - despite overriding evidence - until it is too late.
Hope?
Unless perhaps, the way out of the forthcoming recession is a massive expansion in renewable energy applications. Let's spend our way out of this recession - get a solar panel on every house heat pumps and turbines everywhere we can - let's go for a major restructuring of the power grid and decentralise the whole thing, whilst also investing in tidal and wave power.
In the recession we'll be less able to afford stuff (from China) - which is good news for the climate. If there's money to be spent let's make sure that the investment is for the future of the planet and not on gadgets and gizmos and cheap clothes that hardly ever get warn. And while we're at it let's re-align our value system so that we appreciate things that will last rather than the transience of this years model.
I've no idea how this can be engineered on a political level. But it seems the days of laissez faire are over and now Govts are now buying back control of the financial systems and waking up to the need for regulation. So maybe they will have the power to do this.
This might make the whole financial chaos good news in the longer term. There will be the horrors of real poverty as the recession bites. But this is nothing compared to what mother earth has in store for us if we don't start behaving ourselves. NOW.
Wow! Look at this for a glorious October morn. This is Rebecca taking the goats out (It's not a very good picture but she wouldn't let me post a different one).
Unfortunately Jussi has come down with the cold I've had and she's tucked up in bed (though she was up at six to do the milking etc). Why aren't I doing the milking and stuff in the morning?
It's been lovely having Rebecca here - she's made all the right noises about the goats, the cheese and she's done a sterling job with finishing off the barrel of beer that needed emptying.
And just look at this:
| 1 | | | 7 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 8 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 1 | +11 | 17 |
| 2 | | | 7 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 6 | 2 | +6 | 17 |
| 3 | | | 7 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 8 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 6 | 3 | -1 | 14 |
| 4 | | | 7 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 8 | 3 | +8 | 13 |
| 5 | | | 7 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 6 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 6 | 7 | +2 | 13 |
| 6 | | | 7 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 10 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 7 | +1 | 12 |
| 7 | | | 7 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 10 | -4 | 12 |
| 8 | | | 6 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 3 | +4 | 11 |
| 9 | | | 7 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 6 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 10 |
| 10 | | | 7 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 7 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 7 | -6 | 10 |
a glorious morning indeed. Unbelievable. It really warms me cockles to see Hull City doing so well - anything coming out of Hull with any modicum of success is thrilling - but this is simply unbelievably unbelievable.
OK - it's hardly time to get the skis out but this morning we had half an hour of hard hail/sleet/snowy stuff and it didn't feel like anything to rejoice about. For the past week we've had strong winds and lashings of rain and even though it brightens up beautifully from time to time it still feels as though the interminable onslaught they call winter is setting in.
And already the wind has started to peel away the new roof we've put on the end stables. It has been windy - but it's not been really really windy as we know it gets up here. This isn't good news at all.
My sense of siege has been heightened this week by a wicked cold - the worst of which I now seem to be over. But it was a grim affair. Of course I battled on in a spirit of total self sacrifice and I don't think any of the family noticed I had a cold at all. Well maybe a little.
But it's been a busy week (all things are relative). We've had a visit from a man who's advised what to grow (try it and see!), a Govt Fella to check that we've been telling the truth on grant applications and a meeting with a Govt Lasssie about another set of grant applications we're planning for. The plans have arrived all ready to go of for permissions for renovating the house (although we've had to return them because there's things missing), we've sourced a male (in Arbroath) and some extra kids to keep Flavia company, and organised the van to be serviced before I go off and collect them.
And Rebecca is coming to see us this weekend. Yippeeee!
- Southerlies that drench you head to foot as you step from the door.
- Easterlies that bring water in spikes that drive holes through yer delicate skin
- Westerlies that drive the rain up yer trouser leg
- Northerlies that manage to combine all three of the above
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
Erm. B*ll*cks.
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'.
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!).
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.
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......
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.
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.
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.
One of this blogs regular readers has just become father to this wonderful looking little chap - so here's to Magnus! Congratulations to all.
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).
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.
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.
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?!)
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
Just be thankful no
one has invented smelly PCs. Ailsa, as you can see, delights in the smell and is very p
roud to reek. I drove Muppet (for it is he) in the van for 7 hours yesterday - almost retching the whole way because of the fumes. 
The two kids -Crystal (the one with the ears - like prepare for take off), and Trixy (the nubian) are cute as 
cute as cute cute cute.
Wow! Look at this for a glorious October morn. This is Rebecca taking the goats out (It's not a very good picture but she wouldn't let me post a different one).
OK - it's hardly time to get the skis out but this morning we had half an hour of hard hail/sleet/snowy stuff and it didn't feel like anything to rejoice about. For the past week we've had strong winds and lashings of rain and even though it brightens up beautifully from time to time it still feels as though the interminable onslaught they call winter is setting in. 
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. 
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. 
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. 
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? 
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.
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.
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. 
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? 
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'.
Yesterday morning was all dreich and drizzle but by the afternoon things had brightened beautifully. 
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.
