Goat curry recipes, Star Wars, improbability and fresh air

When I blogged a lot I noticed that if you put 'recipe' in the title of a post you got a lot more hits. So just to save the fury of recipe hunters I should admit now that there are no recipes in this post - but there is important news about a key ingredient.

Kidding has started. Rather late but it has begun. And we've had our first kids born in a field - which is slightly exciting. Although it was a funny sight to see twenty goats surrounding something in the grass - peering quizzically.

Goats give birth to slightly more females than males, unlike humans who give birth to slightly more males than females (because boys are weaker and less obstinate). We've had seven kids so far - and 7 males. Apart from being a lot of curry the chances of this are less than 0.78 % or 1 in 128. Who wants to bet on the sex of the next kid?

This years letter is T. You'll remember that we name goats according to their parentage (Anglo-Nubian have names related to Africa, British Alpine to myths and legends, and British Saanen to flora). The names aren't settled yet but the front runners thus far are: Taureg, Turtur, Tariq, Tablet, Troy, Titan, Triton, Thor, Tintin and Troll. Personally I can see a Star Wars character but that would be the wrong letter.

Timetables

I'll try that one again

Timetables

Ah-ha! The first cuckoo was heard this morning - and the swallows are back nesting in the goat house and boy oh boy what a spring.

And I've been working like working work work. Preparing a tender for our local community transport group - and gee whiz is it complicated. I've done tenders before, and I've experienced far more complicated tender processes, but the complication here is trying to vary timetables to suit what we perceive as local need, which adjusts driver hours and mileage (which has to be split into live miles and dead miles). It probably sounds straight forward enough - but there are a myriad of variations and the tendency is for me to be tied in knots most of the time. And to be honest the way Highland Council have written the timetables hasn't helped. Here is a typical example.

Meanwhile I return to blog cos I'm sick of staring at timetables. And here is the view from my home-office window. But I'm trying to keep the fact that I work for the Home Office a secret.

It's all fine

Jussi has taken the girl to Hamburg. I'm left with the goats the guinea pigs the chickens the cats the dog and a part-time job.

Took the dog to work on Tuesday - he doesn't like travelling in the van - squeaks a lot. Crapped himself. Smelly meeting.

BT have now disconnected the phone in the cottage. No contact with the outside world from the house WHATSOEVER. Managed to walk the dog to the phone exchange as BT Openreach sat there having breakfast and pleaded with the guy to do something about it.....he made no promises

Took the dog to another meeting today (and between times did this blog). I managed to rescue the tax disc but he's eating most everything else.

It's all fine though.

Three years today

Just a quick post while Jussi sits on the phone listening to Mozart courtesy of BT 'customer service'.

Three years eh? Where are we at? Well - not as far as we hoped but moving into the house has lifted spirits no end - despite the best efforts of BT. Jussi and the goats are thriving, The Girl is excelling at school, and I've got myself a job with ambitions.

Some of these ambitions, some of the good things noted above, some of the happy spirits are being tested by BT. Shall I tell you the story?

Their website promises people they can have their account moved in 5 days. Jussi phoned and we were promised connection in 3 weeks. Jussi phoned to complain and she was told about the telegraph poles being unsafe.

There are lots of stories about bad (not even poor, its BAD) customer service from BT around here. From other peoples experiences we know that nothing gets done unless you complain and complain again.

Jussi called again. No the telegraph poles are fine they told her. She demanded a superviser. Eventually, and man do they make you wait, average call times to BT exceed 30 minutes, if you are lucky about 10 of these are spent talking to someone. She got to speak to someone who told how hard it was to organise things where we live and on and on he went. He promised someone would call in a couple of days.

After the couple of days had passed Jussi called again. This time they promised someone from BT Openreach would call in a couple of days.

Yesterday the BT Openreach van appeared. The mannie looked around, said he needed to do some pole work but would be right back and he needed to get into the house. So we waited around for the day but he never returned.

Today we have a computer generated message (on the phone in the cottage which we have to use) saying that our appointment for connection has been put back by a further 6 days.

Jussi is still on the phone now, listening to Mozart, telling someone every 2 minutes that she is still there are she wants to speak to a superviser. But getting nowhere - except very very angry.

Now I know things are tough up here, and the sparse population makes service expensive to deliver. But compare with Scottish Hydro - a much less profitable company (but still profitable enough!) - who can fix all kinds of disasters in all kind of weathers. BT make an absolute bloody fortune and their customer service is seemingly deliberately obstinately useless.

Now she is speaking to someone - who are explaining that there is a problem which BT openreach has to sort. The superviser she is talking to now is being equally useless. She is now demanding to speak to the supervisers superviser. Oooh its getting louder. Superviser one is doing his best to get rid of her, but Jussi has learnt - keep trying - keep pushing....... The superviser is telling us that the work is being done as we speak. He doesn't realise that the exchange and the line to it is fully visible to us as she speaks. No one is working on this problem.

Of course BT wont let me talk about it to anyone, they will only speak to the account holder.

..... dot dot dot....

And then there were boxes

OK - so I'm a bit out of the habit of this - but people are screaming at me for piccies - so here's a few to shut them up.

Not very good piccies naturally. But I've not really got much time just now - if you really want to get a sense of what things look like : COME AND VISIT.

Look no radiators (downstairs) - underfloor heating R us - driven by an air source heat pump. Listen up people. This house is warm. Dry. AND Warm. capital wuh.

Probably the best room in the house is the upstairs landing. Not sure how we managed that. Almost all painted in Magnolia cos it's cheap and we're not proud.

We've almost emptied the sea container and most of our precious goods have survived. Now we are emptying the cottage and realising we have just way too much stuff. So we're gearing up for a car boot sale spring with the promise of losing a finger every time we buy anything. Sell sell sell.

Visit.

(But J&A are away from April 5th - 18th - sort of)

Happy New Year!

A bit late perhaps!

The winter onslaught continues - we've survived the snow, the minus 10C, and latterly splodgey splodgey rain. We feel thoroughly onslaughted - but somehow this winter has felt a bit easier - much of this is due to snow tyres on the van. That extra ability to get out when we needed to has made a big big difference.

Meanwhile the house build rolls on. The builders have been heroic - driving through from Caithness nearly every day when the snow was here - we only lost about a week. But the date of our moving in seems to be sliding inexorably away - almost within each and yet...

Here's some progress shots of the house - and it's really difficult to get decent piccies - especially on a dullish day with a camera low on batteries and still covered in dust from the chimney fire - oh the excitement you miss cos I've gotten out of the habit of blogging. Maybe I'll return soon.

New weather!

Wind - aye - I've told you about wind before.

Snow - yep - that one's covered.

Freeeeeezin cold - ditto.

So what could possibly be new on the weather front. Erm - have you guessed yet?

Hows about gale force winds, driving, and man I mean driving, snow and sub-zero temperatures made all the more grim by the gales.

Armour plated thermals for christmas please.

But I'm the lucky one! Most times I hide from it. Jussi goes out in it. Morning noon and evening feeding watering and shuffling the goats.

Grim up north. Aye.

We have over a weeks supply of hay. Gin and Whiskey. Pasta. Job done - heavenly so it is.

Gritless and grinless and ginless

I keep trying to blog - so I've a number of draft blogs not yet posted - but truth is things is tough just now, and it's quite hard to blog tough, blogging funny or plain observational is easy enough, but when things is tough, and nothing much is funny, or what you are looking at is grim blogging threatens to breach the walls of the rural idyll we are psychologically encamped in. And we don't like to do that.

In summary - we are nervous. Nervous because we have to get hay once a week, and we keep getting snowed in. Gritters do appear from time to time but they have a phenomenal habit of being the harbingers of heavy snow - so you have about ten minutes to try to get out, once that's gone the snow is too think again. Even with our new snow tyres.

We are nervous because we need to get a male to service the goats, and we need to get him quickly. But that's double trouble, somehow we have to plan a time when we an get out, and whoever we get the male from has access too. We've a choice of males to get - one is in Grampian - weather is v bad there, one is in Caithness - the owner seems to be impossible to contact, one is on Orkney and ice bound. The idea of arranging for them to put a goat on the ferry and then us not being able to get to it is more than daunting.

We are nervous because the builders have disappeared. Not through neglect - but they can't get through from Caithness, our heating engineers cant get up from Tain and progress on the house has halted. So close and yet so far. We really would like to be warm for a few days this winter...please.

We are nervous because we are running out of wood. The open fire is more a psychological fillip than any source of warmth - but there's something comforting about the red and yellow glow of it, and the house full of smoke.

We are nervous because the scaffy van hasn't got to us for three weeks. We are nervous because the post hasn't got to us for two weeks. We are nervous because we seem to have a sick puppy. We are nervous because we are lacking any Christmas spirit.

And we are nervous because we have no gin.

Snow

I thought long and hard for an original topical title. This was the best I could do.

Yes it's been snowing. A lot. And it's been freezing. Heavy frosts.

In the last couple of years we've got used to water freezing up at the croft - where there's a sort of standpipe arrangement for getting water for the goats. But most times when that's happened we've able to get water from the house. This year though - with the house under renovation - when water freezes up at the croft we have to carry the water up from the cottage. And 24 goats need a surprising amount of water. So every few hours we have to load a sledge up with water and drag it up for the goats.

Last week we managed to get to Caithness for hay - so at least that's sorted for a week or so - we had to ask a friendly neighbour to get a tractor to take the hay from the van, which was parked by the cottage, up to the croft though - cos the track up to the croft is too snowy and icy for the van.

The chickens seem to think we should be letting them into the cottage when it's cold - so there's a bit of a fight to get outside sometimes - though usually the puppy scares em off. But really, we are so cruel to not let the chickens in.

Driving to and from work has been a bit, erm, hairy. But let's face it, FUN! Going up hills is best cos when you lose control you sort of feel that gravity will stop you flying too far off the road. But what goes up must come down and that's a bit more scary. BUT FUN! On saturday the car got stuck coming up Paddy's Brae - but with the help of another neighbour we managed to push and skid our way up to the top, Hard work but FUN. We've spent the last couple of months saying we should ge

t winter tyres, but now the snow is here we cant get to the garage to get em. Oh the irony.

Just for Mike

Oooops - halloween!

Of course this is weeks ago now. Much more happening. I mean now, wellll, the stairs are in, the kitchen floor is going down, walls is plasterboarded - eeeh lad it's all go.

Mike wanted us to build a steel frame over the north of the house to extend it upward - it would have been a good idea but too expensive. We also used a cheap architect to cut costs. Pants. Pay the money people. But the builders are doing their best. Latest estimate is early December.....

Conflct

Deer kill.

Deer are an increasing problem on the roads around here. And they are dangerous. Sheep are more or less predictable when they are on the roads - and at least they do their best to get out of the way. Whereas sheep run for their lives - deer have a predilection for attempting to confuse predators by jumping across their path - and this is what makes them so dangerous.

So deer jump in front of cars rather than away from them. If you survive that impact the danger is that the deer has come in through the windscreen and the occupants are then kicked to death as said injured deer, somewhat understandably, panics.

Over the last couple of years the number of deer around the roads has increased dramatically. At the same time the big shooting estates are reporting sudden falls in deer numbers - partly because of last years severe winter - and this is affecting their income streams. But around here people fear for their lives driving at night.

I was at a community council meeting last night and a conversation has been had with a Head Honcho in the Deer Management Group who are responsible for looking after the deer in this area. I'll not name the woman concerned, but she seems to be responsible for running quite a large shootin' estate in the area as well - so there may be some conflict of interest there? Maybe?

The concerns of residents were put to her.

She said - well people shouldn't be driving fast along those roads anyway

The meeting said - aw fae fucks sake

She said - People could always put up electric fences, or deer fences

The meeting said - And aye - who's paying for that?

She said - Hanging unwanted CDs from trees can act as a deterrent

The meeting said nothing. Mouths were agape however.

The meeting gathered itself into a lather. Uproar - this is what we are up against - here we are with a life threatening issue, quite apart from the destruction of crofts and gardens and here is this arrogant woman (the language has been tempered to spare your delicate disposition dear readers) spouting utter ****** ***** ** ** ****** *** ** ****. The anger was very real, as is the threat, and the incompetence... and the arrogance.

Four nights, fifteen knights and a funeral

Prologue

So the plan was to drive down to Edinburgh - then to Whitby - home of the award winning but no more Little Beck cheeses, pick up some of their unwanted cheese making kit, swing round and stay at Durham for a couple of nights for The Girl to get some serious auntie time, and then hoof it home.

The plan was scuppered by the realisation that the van brakes were seriously dodgy. Off to the garage for a £400 'investment' in new master brake cylinder and front brake discs.

Night one

Having had to mess everyone around the first night was now Dunbar. We left Reay (the garage) about 2:30 and headed south. It was raining. The windscreen wiper wasn't working properly.

At the Country Store (On the A9 just north of Inverness) we stopped for refreshment and I decided to get a temporary fix on the wipers by switching the blades - not the wipers - you cant switch the wipers cos they are different lengths. It was a botch - but it worked. Top up the water in the van. Head south to Perth, add diesel, top up water. Arrive Dunbar about 9 ish - to a superb and I mean superb home cooked chicken Korma from Tadg. Superb.

Night Two

The day began for me in the Shoestring cafe (as was, it's been renamed but it'll always be the shoestring to me) - for a bacon roll and a coffee. Oooh that commuter vibe - tee hee. Then on to the Crunchy Carrot for a cuppa, lending a hand to set up shop and a reet old goss.

We left Dunbar about ten and headed south. Stopped in Durham for food and to top up the van with water. Employed 'Sat Nav' aka The Girl to read off the print out from the aa routeplanner to negotiate our way across to Little Beck and pick up the gear.

Return to Durham, stopping along the way to top up the van with water. Arrive Durham about 5pm to a wholesome leek and potato soup.

Night Three

Quality sister time with lots of shopping and museuming. The Girl bought an I Ching fortune telling kit and immediately wished for a Chinese takeaway for tea. I Ching said it would come true - and behold it did. Invested in new windscreen wipers for the van.

Night Four and fifteen knights

Left Durham about 10am and headed for home. Stopped for diesel in Dunbar and never started again. Kapput.

Knight one was a young chap with patient wife who helped me push the van away from the petrol pumps and with a swish swosh swush swaggered over with jump leads. No amount of me telling him the battery was fine would dissuade him from trying. Failed. He gave me the number of the RAC, they would welcome my membership if I (I mean the van) was less so many metres long and so kgs heavy. Doubt - indecision - I'll think about it. I tried to phone a couple of Dunbar friends and went straight to voice mail. I seemed to be losing battery power in my phone. I phoned Jussi.

The Girl rooted round and found her I Ching and wished to be back to school on Tuesday, I Ching said "Your wish could come true but you will have to work very hard for it". My turn, I wished for the van to be fixed - I Ching said "Your wish is unreasonable."

Minutes later Jussi phoned back with promise of knights 2 3 and 4. Shaun and Claire had Matty the Mechanic staying with them and they'd be over as soon as they'd finished their sandwiches. They arrived all grins and groans and grimaces and Matty set about his magic. The electrics seemed fine. Hitting the started motor as the ignition was turned looked and sounded impressive but did nothing. Taking various covers off and sucking teeth had little effect. Trying to turn the engine by hand, involving crawling under the engine in designer shirt with wrench and contorted face did nothing. "So", said Claire, "what should he do?"

"Scrap it." Matty had many strengths - empathy not being one of them.

Knight 5 appeared, in the shape of a Green flag breakdown man. He repeated Matty's tests and added a couple of his own. He told me how old Mercedes Sprinters often lost the top of their pistons and these fell in the engine and jammed it. Not terminal - but it'll cost more than the worth of the van to fix. If it's not that - it's something seized which for a van this age is as near as terminal as you'll ever get. He kindly gave me a quote for towing the van home. £956 + VAT.

We deserted the van and headed for Shaun and Claires abode. Knight 6, Rachel, was patiently waiting. She qualifies as a knight because it was her and Matty's wedding anniversary and she had tolerated Matty speeding off to help me. Now they were back it was time to put those romantic plans into effect. Matty went climbing with Shaun, Rachel and Claire went to Ocean Terminal. Brings a tear of warmth to yer eye so it does. Rachel and Claire took the girl - so I was free for the rest of the afternoon.

After one of the best pints of my life in the Masons Arms and finding the place devoid of potential knights I headed for Knights 7 and 8 - Lennie and Simon and copious tea and sympathy. All this despite being up to their necks in the final preparations for the teenage daughters halloween bash.

Knight 9 was Tadg, who'd driven by and thought there was something remiss with my posture and set out to find me on foot, despite only suspecting it was me and not really having much to go by that I needed assistance. More tea, more sympathy and a knighthood for Margaret (Knight 10). Knight 11 phoned knight 9 and arranged for us all to go for a pint. Chris (for it was he) bought beer and jollity and the offer of borrowing his car the next day for all the running about I was destined for. He also loaded my phone with useful numbers - local garages and the like - while I extolled the virtues of a board game I played as a kid (Nile - great game).

Back to knight 2 and 3's for a romantic Indian Takeaway - knight 6 alarming us all with her accompaniment of chips and garlic rice, followed by a game of Cranium. Bed was floor - but none the worse for that - though I cant pretend I slept all that well.

In the morning knight 2 gave me a lift to knight 9s where I dropped off the girl, and then drove me on to Knight 12. The oily fumes of reputation envelope Ford Ferguson - a mechanic of almost mythical standing. If it's possible to get back on the road, Ford Ferguson is your man. But not on this occasion. He listened to my story - threw in a good few stories of his own, and gently told me that it was extremely unlikely that I could be helped - and the best he could offer was a business card for knight 13.

Knight 2 drove me back to the van, and I phoned knight 13. Within minutes he appeared with his breakdown truck to carry my faithful little (bloody enormous) van to Haddington, the final journey before white van heaven where they can hassle innocent car drivers with impunity on fluffy clouds amidst blue skies. Knight 13 was being paid - does he really count? Well he gets my swish of the sword for his humour. To pick up the van he had to block a side road off the A1. And his gentle cussing of all the enraged motorists this was inconveniencing was almost the highlight of my day. Perhaps the highlight was when he scared the daylights out of a rather wanky looking white Audi driver when he reversed the truck, at some speed, straight at the rather impatient looking pillock. Knight 13 - Scott of Randy's Garage Haddington.

Knight 13 dropped me off in Dunbar and I grabbed breakfast from the butcher in the High Street. A quick call to knight 11 confirmed that the insurances were in place. I found where he'd hidden the keys and headed to Haddington to hear what they thought of the prospects for the van. To be honest they were a little too quick to try to sell me a new one for me to really believe that they'd looked at it at all - but I'd heard enough from knights 4, 5, 12 and 13 to be pretty convinced it's time had come. So I looked at one van and made an offer on it.

My offer was too low - I'd have to wait until the boss came in - he was due about 1pm. It was now about 11, and I returned to knight 9 for extra strong coffee and to reassure The Girl that all was well.

Then I went to knight 2 and 3s to pack our bags and leave them the key they'd lent me, and head on to Haddington. I got there about 1:30. Boss was on his way. He arrived too long after 2.

There's things to do when bargaining. Shake his hand at the beginning. That physical contact makes you more human to the seller. Establish his name and call him by it - again reinforcing that human touch. Don't be afraid of silences. Let them hang. Open your bidding low, but don't be insulting. Gently point out the limitations of the vehicle on offer. Squeeze the sympathy - jovially telling of the fix your in.

I did all this - but felt totally out of my depth - this guy "Ronnie" to all but his business card ("Roddy") - or am I going deaf? - had dealt with more suckers like me than I'd had bacon rolls. Still I got the van for £500 less than I'd originally been asked so we were both happy. Never before had I parted with £2700 so easily. It was the first and only van I'd looked at in the first and only van vendor I'd visited. Just like that.

Paperwork and chit chat. Ronnie knew my home village - had played golf on the beach before he was married - before all the bridges made the journey north so much quicker...

Payment. Cash only. Sh*t. More rushing around - withdrawing three grand in cash at the bank prompted more security questions that I'd ever have imagined. Meanwhile Jussi, (who deserves a knighthood too yeah? Arise Knight 14 (actually she should be knight 2, but that would mean going back over this whole post and renumbering everybody)) was back at home trying to sort out the insurance. For some reason it was all rather complicated and, it seems, the old sprinter had never been properly insured - I mean we'd paid the insurance premiums and all that but the insurance had been in the wrong name to merit the no claims bonus they were giving us and so had it come to it, they would have refused any insurance payments. How the hell did that happen?

The upshot of that was that at the last minute Ronnie had to phone his secretary who by this time was standing by the post box and tell her NOT to post the letter to DVLA, so that the vehicle could be registered in Jussi's name rather than mine.

Ronnie gets a knighthood. Not only was he very nice as he counted at the £50 notes totalling £2700, he also got one of his guys to pump out the 90 quids worth of diesel from the sprinter into the 'new' van, had other people help me load one van into the other, and offered me copious help with other bits and bobs that needed sorting out. This guy made money out of me - make no mistake, but arise Knight 15, Ronnie (Roddy) of Car and Van Hire Haddington.

So fully equipped with a 2003 long wheel base transit, I drove to knight 11's car and removed our bags and then on to knight 9's where I dropped off the keys to knight 11's car, drank gallons of tea and picked up the girl. And set off for home, leaving Dunbar about 4:30 - timed nicely to hit the rush hour on the Edinburgh By-pass and Forth Road Bridge.

We got home about half past midnight. Slower than you might expect - even accounting for the long break we took in Inverness - but the road between Lairg and Tongue was overrun with stags - 'unnerds of 'em - leaping about all over the place. But traffic was light - I was on full beam all the way from Lairg.

Rarely have I ever been so grateful to crawl into my own oh so comfy bed.

Epilogue

You knights you knights you saved us. Thank you so very much.

It was an incredibly lucky series of events. Most astonishing of all is that the van should pack up in Dunbar. It was a nine hundred mile round trip - if we'd broken down anywhere else that whole thing would have been a heck of a lot harder to deal with. How lucky is that?

It was incredibly lucky that the van died in Dunbar. It is a whole lot easier and cheaper to get a 2nd hand van in the central belt than it is in the north highlands.

I Ching is scary. I've used it a few times and it has never been wrong. Not only does it seem to be able to predict, but it can also offer advice on how to overcome, and it can seem amazingly perceptive and accurate. But I don't believe in that sort of thing so that's alright then.

In dull moments, waiting by roadsides, in sleepless moments on floors and wonky beds, this has been my refuge - it's brilliant - go buy it - here.

The new van has the best sound system in the house (apart from iPod and Sony cans) - and I've wished for a sound system in the van ever since we got the old sprinter.

The girl never made it to school - we gave her the day off- no need to work so hard just for a day at school.

The art of no where

Moine House is a derelict shell of a building in the middle of, erm, nothing really. It was built as a half way house, high up on the moors between Tongue and Hope. A superb spot for a wee summer cafe perhaps, or an art gallery....

Saturday

Hey! It's a Saturday and all things exciting gonna happen cos that's what Saturdays are for. And for those of you who are persevering with this blog - here is a real treat - as far as I'm aware the pinnacle of German pop...

And if you are going out tonight - crank this up REALLY - and man I mean LOUD and immerse yourself in this fabulous ditty.

Walkies

It's a beautiful day and The Girl wanted to take Rupert for a walk. Walking Rupert is more like standing and waiting while he devours all the lush exotic vegetation .... like pine trees.

But we have have to get him in training - he's due to have a starring role in the school nativity play....