Two firsts

Last night I saw bats here for the first time. I welcome them - though I cant hear them like I could in my younger days - possibly due to the lack of hot water and general cold making the ablution of ears a luxury to be undertaken only in times of need. Such as the unexpected appearance of small trees on the pillow in the morning.

This afternoon we heard a cuckoo. This is delightful is it not? I have a friend living the crofting life on the west coast who hates cuckoos cos they never shut up. I can well imagine and think it is time to start planning my aural arboretum. It could be a good wee money spinner too.

Despair

Jussi seems to be very worried about my grasp of dairy farming. When I proudly showed her this and announced we'd be making cheese by the autumn she ran off in tears. Is there something I should be told?

I'm desperately trying to get stuff planted - it feels late to be planting - I should really have had stuff in cold frames to get them started. But I'm still trying to get the ground dug.

Yesterday I planted broadbeans, carrots and sprouts. Like many things in our kitchen some of these seeds were well past sell by date - so I've planted more densely expecting many to fail.

A couple of weeks ago I found sheep on this garden so I've strengthened the defences. But yesterday there was a rabbit in there - and I cant see how it got in. Very worrying. There might be a war situation looming.

But there's lots of rhubarb. I think we'll start eating this before the week is out.

The urbanisation of tweetie pie

All these bloody twittering birds. Drives you bleedin mad. What they need is modernisation. I mean it's embarrassing them all living out in the open in a modern progressive society.

So in our first step I brought our bird house up from Dunbar. Amazingly birds seem to like it and many like to drop in and grab a seed or two before heading off again.

Hoodies in the 'hood
I met a man yesterday. A notable event in itself. He was a bird ringer and had been up in the hills behind us plotting the location of hoodie
nests. He gives this information to the game keeper who then goes and blows them off the face of the planet. This somewhat extreme social engineering is due to the fact that hoodies peck the eyes out of lambs. I'd heard this before but thought it was an old wives tale - but he assured me it was true. I asked him if buzzards were a problem too, he assured me not, as rabbits are so dumb they make much easier pickings.

The gamekeeper is out every night this time of year lamping foxes - though I've not seen him. I want to meet him though cos I'm dying to try fox pasta

FREEDOM!

To be honest, there's not much use for an old Belfast sink up here. But in Dunbar we had a sink with a tree (Scots Pine) trapped in it. We don't know how long it's been there - but it is at least ten years old - stunted, trapped and unhappy.

So I wanted to treat it to a new life - and here it is. On the long shot it's in the left hand corner - wont it look magnificent at the foot of the drive in about, erm, twenty years time or so? If it survives the sheep, the rabbits, the deer and the wind of course.

The original plan was to put it on the right hand side where the wall would give it some protection from the winds. But the soil there was less than a spade deep and right on bedrock. At least where it is there's a tad more than a spade depth of soil sitting on (what in my archaeological days we called natural) undisturbed glacial sands. (I'm no soil scientist, but it was red (iron panning?), sandy and I reckon glacial - what else could have formed it?).

Changeworks
bought me some fruit trees as a leaving present (when we're ready for them). The biggest challenge is finding somewhere where they stand half a chance of surviving. Along the line of this fencing behind the scots pine is one option. At least there's a half decent depth of soil there and the line would more or less follow the prevailing wind, so they'd protect one another.

It's not a great option though. I'd rather have a clump of trees - but where?

Crunchy things

Did I mention how good the crunchy carrot is? The Crunchy Carrot in Dunbar. And they have a really fab veg box delivery scheme and you can specify things that you like to have in it and things you don't want and you can even ask for local organic meat to be included. Fab. http://www.crunchycarrot.co.uk/

How's that Sarah?

Wheatear

My dad was a birdwatcher. He'd wander the fields and woods of the East Yorkshire village where I grew up and report back what he'd seen or heard. For some reason there's a couple of birds that in my memory have a strange mythical significance - the fieldfare and the wheatear. I can almost conjure the memory of him coming home and announcing that he'd seen one of these birds.

I saw a wheatear yesterday on my adventure with Ailsa. It's the first time I've ever seen one. And a magnificent little bird it is too. Worthy of a mythical status.

It has rained all day today. Very little wind - just constant rain. It's given me a fine excuse to do nothing. Great.

Jussi has spent all day unpacking and repacking all the boxes I brought up from Dunbar. New things are appearing all over the cottage - spice racks, notice boards, bath mats and lots of pictures. Good stuff.

Tomorrow will be more productive for me.

Dunbar

I found the whole being back in Dunbar thing quite stressful. Not in an Aaaaargh there's too much to do sort of way, but in a 'everything feels very difficult' sort of way.

• It took most of the week to pack the van. It took about an hour to unload it. That's not fair.
• Tadg had five kittens. Or perhaps his cat did.
• It's exactly 200 miles from Dunbar to the Country Store thingy place near Evanton on the A9. A good place to stop though it closes around 5:30.
• I'm glad to be back. The weather aint so good today, but yesterday was glorious, and me and Ailsa went on a couple of adventures including the beach and hills and sheep and bogs. We encountered a woman who is thinking of buying one of the local pubs and making a successful restaurant out of it. It put me in the position of being mildly encouraging but seeing all the drawbacks and naivety and not mentioning them.
• We are still agonising over the design of the house. We just have to go for it - even though it falls well short of an ideal solution.
  

A visitor from Auchtermuchty

Well done Rebecca for coming to see us this weekend, all the way from Auchtermuchty. Auchtermuchty is one of my favourite Scottish place names. It means something like 'the wooded hills with pigs'. I've been to Auchtermuchty and I can vouch for the hills....

Rebecca made us some cardboard scale models of what the house would look like - really really good. And she left her laptop at home so she couldn't do any work, and I think, I don't think she even thought about work, once she'd mentioned the ministerial briefing she had to write by Tuesday, a few times like.

It was lovely to see you Rebecca - come again soon.

Comedy body

One of the dis-benefits of being up here, living a life of idyll, is the time you have to dwell. Hypochondria is never more than a finger prick away. Here is my current catalogue of woes.

• Regular readers will know about my sore thumb. This continues to be exacerbated by my manly refusal to give it a rest. But thumbs are things you use a lot and the times when I notice my sore thumb most are - putting on shoes, and switching off lights This latter may seem strange, but all the light switches in the cottage are really stiff - and they hurt my po liddle thumby whumby.
• Right knee - giving me jip like. I like to think this is a recurrent injury I've had since cycling the Pyrennees, but maybe it's just the knee giving up on having to carry all my excess weight.
• My right heel. What's that about?
• The ball of my left big toe. Ditto.
• I've pulled a muscle at the top of my back. This is self inflicted by my insistence that nothing is too heavy - it's all about mind over matter, or if that fails, brute aggression.
• Very stiff shoulders - especially my right shoulder. This I attribute to driving the van all the way down and then all the way back in under a week.
• And I so need a haircut.
  

Wow

Chocolate with bacon bits........

Fug

In Edinburgh with the boys last night. Drank too much. Fug. Had a man coming to see me about a chimney - we'd arranged between 9 and 12. He turned up at 8 - he had to phone me to get me out of bed. Fug. ........

A day in Edinburgh

0738
Oh the joys of the train from Dunbar to Edinburgh. But the coffee and flapjack from the Shoestring fortified me for the challenges of the day ahead. Good to see Lennie and Ewan and Chris and Richard again, however briefly. I forgot to ask Lennie how the crazy golf was going.

But how lucky I am that I'm not catching that train every morning anymore.

QUESTION
When in life are you able to talk about yourself for an hour with three people hanging on every word you say?

ANSWER
The job interview. Fantastic - what a great opportunity - thoroughly enjoyed it but I think on reflection I wasn't what they wanted. I also used the F word - not a good idea for that sort of interview. (Fun).

Changeworks
Great to see people at Changeworks again. I didn't get chance to see everyone I would have liked. Met Teresa, then lunch with Liz. Changeworks continues to face a surfeit of challenges and opportunities - exciting stuff, but I'm glad I'm out of it.

I spent most of the afternoon on Princes street - shopping (not very successfully) then to Laura and Daniels for tea - thanks guys. Daniel's home brew is a of a standard to aspire to.

Back to Dunbar on the 2100. A brief call from Tadg - I think to tell me the cat was having kittens, but you can never really tell with Tadg.

Then a catch-up with the Apprentice via BBC iPlayer. I think firing Lindy was right - Jen wont last long though.

And bed - kenacked. Can't keep up with the pace of city life anymore!

No fuel queues at Asda

Quick - get down there - no queues for fuel at Asda Dunbar - and it's only £1:15.9 per litre for diesel. I spent £63 quid - on top of the £50 I spent in fuel in Dalwhinnie (twinned with Las Vegas).

Sunny Dunny

Interesting fact
It is exactly 200 miles from Lairg to the Forth Road bridge - at least it is if you divert via Dalwhinnie (twinned with Las Vegas).

After feasting on the lettuce and tomato sandwich (with marmite) that Jussi made me I didn't need to eat again. Curry.

We'd left the curry - I mean house sorry - in a hell of a state so I did a lot of wandering round scratching my curry - head - wondering where to start. So I found Ailsa's nintendo DS and played Zelda and the Phantom hourglass. Curry. I got the radio on - a real treat Curry.

Curry curry curry curry.

Around 8pm I gave up and went to get a curry.

FAAAAAATAAAASTIIIIIIIC

Heavy van man

Not sure how - but I seem to have a wireless connection here in sunny dunny. Though it's a bit flaky.

So the big day dawned - my return to Dunbar. Feeling quite strange about it - but there are things to be done so no alternative. So off we go.

Well. Not quite. Battery on the van was flat as a cow pat. Fortunately I'd half anticipated this and the van was parked atop a hill at the house. Well when I parked it I thought it was the top of a hill. Actually there were several two or three inch rises to overcome before the downhill. And man is that van heavy. Still with a bit of teamwork we got the van going. Jussi's last words before I set off were something like - Gawd that engine sounds awful - not what you want to hear as you embark on an 8 hour drive.

Journey without incident. Did see the aftermath of a recent accident at Coldbackie - motorbike and small car. Bikes have great fun on the single track roads around here - but really guys - whizzing round narrow blind corners aint too clever.

And at Tongue I had to wait for 10 minutes while a shepherdess coaxed a ewe with two itsy bitsy cutey liddle lambs down the road. Awwwww.

Lunch at Dalwhinnie (twinned with Las Vegas) and fuel - £1:26 a litre!!!

Moonrise over washing

Well it was funny at the time. I think the wine helped.

Heading South

Going to Dunbar tomorrow - and phew what a busy schedule of meetings, an interview, lunches and beers. Looking forward to it - but it does feel very strange to be going back. There's a long list of things I have to bring back from Dunbar - here are some highlights:-
Corkscrew
Wine rack
Scissors
Cat brushes
Muffin tray
All blankets but no duvets
Washing Machine
Bricks
Belfast sink
Coal glove
Sea Buckthorn bushes.

Obviously I've been very selective - pulling out only the things that'll get you rolling off your chairs with mirth.

I doubt I'll be posting again until I get back up here in about a weeks time. If Scotland runs out of fuel next week it'll take me a bit longer. It's clear that all journalists are lusting after a crisis - The Sunday paper I bought today was like Dad's Army or something - Don't panic buy - there's no need to panic buy - don't panic buy - don't panic. The net result will be panic buying. Hey ho.

Village People

I think I need a hard hat. I'm taking out the upstairs ceiling - tongue and groove (baby!) - and this leaves the low beams with nails jutting out all over the place. Jussi likes to tell me my memory is sieve-like but this is ridiculous.

Parties

I hope all you Changeworkers enjoyed the multiple celebration last night......and that Zoe didn't disgrace herself too much.

We had our first Ceilidh up here. I guess we should have guessed but it wasn't anything like what we expected. More an evening of musical entertainment than the mad hurling whirling we'd imagined. But good nonetheless. The highlight was a couple of Shetland fiddlers - Jenna and Bethany Reid
http://www.jennareid.co.uk/biog.htm
man the noises they could make! I see from the website that Jenna often plays with Kevin Mackenzie
jazz guitarist (who played at Angus and Susan's wedding party in Claremont Crescent ?15 years ago) - I'd love to see the two of them playing together.

There was a very pregnant woman who kept standing up and playing the bagpipes. You had to feel for the poor wee mite - I mean bagpipes are LOUD.

BE QUIET!

It's spring and the daffs are being very noisy. I think this one is the leader.