Sharing our idyll

Very slack on the blogging front again, even with internet!

It's been busy here on Rum and the island has a whole new feel when it is awash with tourists. A particularly busy week this week with the levels of visitors meaning the actual islanders are outnumbered about 4 to 1. While the sun continues to shine here on Kinlochv village meaning we are all sunkissed, barbecuing and enjoying the summer the rest of the UK seems to be suffering all sorts of extreme weather conditions.

We've almost been having a bit of a rest from the stressy side of our new life here and I think after all the angst of the static move we probably needed that downtime. It coincided nicely with the arrival of our first guests - my parents. They came for a week and stayed here in the static with us. We explored some of the island with them, they had a castle tour, met the rest of the islanders and got a real taste of our life. It was fabulous to see them and share our new home with them and to celebrate Mum's birthday with her in person. Parting again and waving them off on the ferry was tough, as we have no plans to visit Sussex again any time soon so we knew it would only be on their next visit all the way up here we'd see them again.

Two out, six in though as we had a weekend to ourselves before our next visitors arrived - SIL Julie, her mother, Dragon & Star's three cousins (9 yo twins J&M and 4yo L) and their dog Mable. They are here for nearly 3 weeks and it's lovely for the kids to have playmates, Bonnie to have a rough and tumble puppy pal and us to have Julie around. More sharing our new life, showing off our island and merging the life we used to have with the one we live now. Watching Dragon and Star show their cousins the best places to swim in the river, to gather beachcombed treasure from the shore, where to spot the best nature and wildlife and introducing them to the other islanders makes me realise how very quickly this has become our home.

Life on the island for us continues alongside all of this hosting guests. We've been on the weekly boat trip wildlife spotting and been lucky enough to witness close encounters with minke whales and super pods of dolphins - weekly catchphrase 'The sea is ALIVE!' as we enjoy ever more spectacular scenery and nature spotting as the weeks go by. I've been selling cakes to the teashop, eggs to the shop and bartering for salad and sausages. Rum is holding a weekly Market Day on a Wednesday and I've been selling home baking and crafty bits aswell as enjoying the company of fellow 'traders' for a couple of hours in the village hall and chatting to the tourists.

Tomorrow, weather permitting we'll be playing host to all comers to our Croft Warming Barbecue, our way of toasting our new home and saying thanks to all those who helped us finally get it here.

In the meantime we are also getting to grips with 'infrastructure' type stuff on the croft. Sorting out water, power, toilet and starting to think hard about what is going where and longer term plans for the land, livestock, crops and buildings. We've been researching, reading and just walking the land getting to grips with what we've got, what we could have and how we're going to get it. Fruit bushes arrived last week and seem to be doing okay planted down at the bottom of the croft and we have geese arriving in a couple of weeks time. We've made a duck pond and got our first WWOOFers booked to stay. I have a whole list of projects to fit in and although our pace of life is the slowest it's ever been I can't ever remember being busier!