Everybody wants to rule the world

I can't change the world but I can change my world.

which is precisely the sort of sentiment that led us to be living here on Rum. When we left Sussex, nearly two years ago now to head off on our travels we had a leaving party. We decorated the walls of the hall we held it in with about a hundred quotes I had written out - some were old favourites, some were newly discovered but all spoke to us on some level and inspired and encouraged us to chase dreams, live life to the full, push boundaries and seize the day. I'm claiming credit for the one above on the basis I often say it and can't find anyone else credited for it on the internet (which is the best research tool I have access to) I'm sure it's been said before and by many others though.

It's been a busy few weeks here. Along with trying to crack on with the required research and learning and getting our heads round a house build next year, winkle picking , feeding the animals, collecting firewood, baking bread, parenting and facilitating education for Dragon and Star, ensuring we have food on the table and so on we've also been doing lots of community stuff. Attending meetings and training sessions, planning and emailing, reading business plans and minutes of meetings. In just seven months here I have gone from being the new crofter to sitting on various committees and steering groups, being a director of two different community interest companies, helping to keep the island website up to date, helping to set up and organise events. And I couldn't do any of that unless Ady was supporting me by being a sounding board for my ideas and rants, talking me down and building me up accordingly. Ensuring if I am not here he picks up the slack on the croft with the animals, cooking dinner, doing stuff with the children. We work as a team and we play to our strengths - meetings and planning and being gobby and pushy is my thing, enabling me to do all of the above is his. It's how we've operated for nearly 20 years and it works really well for us. 

It can be a full workload and of course it's largely unpaid, not always appreciated and certainly not one anyone should take on unless they are doing it because it ticks all of their own personal boxes. When we moved here we were very open about the high expectations we had on Rum to deliver - to provide our everything and the amount we were prepared to give back in return to help it achieve. Running an island, creating our own rules, having such freedom and writing our own agenda is a massive privilege and a huge responsibility. Being in control of your own destiny to such a large degree comes with the trade off of putting in the effort, the time, the care to ensure it is done properly. I can't think of any more important way of spending our time.

Lighter side of life

One of the things that strikes me most here on Rum is the difference in light. There are dramatic landscapes and acres of sky, stunning sunrises and sunsets, beautiful beaches and sea views. The stars seem closer here than anywhere else I have ever been, the colours of nature are so varied and breathtaking and the changing face of the river from gushing angry torrent to trickling musical meander never cease to have me stopping and standing in awe (after all, what is this life if full of care we have no time to stop and stare...) But it is the light that most pulls me up time and again and has us commenting so frequently. Murky cloudy low levels are mostly what we're having at the moment but today the sun shone, and lit up the hills, tonight the moon is hanging low in the sky so that even though it is not yet midnight it is as bright as dawn were creeping up already outside.

On Rum there are no streetlights, no light pollution so unless the moon is as bright as this evening once darkness has fallen at about 5pm torches are an essential piece of kit for outdoors walking. Jinty told me yesterday that she can pretty much identify islanders by their torch light - speed, height, pattern of up and down-li-ness. Funnily enough a comment from fellow small islander over on Eigg that has stayed with me was how he could tell if someone was from Eigg or not just by their distant silhouette and gait of walking. We watch from the windows these days as people walk along the nature trail and can deduce 'islander' or 'tourist' on the same basis even if we are not immediately sure who it is. We have wind up torches and head torches and both are essential bits of island life kit.

Indoors with our off grid lifestyle we have limited electric light as it quickly drains our leisure batteries so we tend to use candles and tea lights. There is a cosy charm to both, particularly now accompanied by the crackling of logs burning. It means reading or crafting is out of an evening though. which would be my preferred activities but it does mean I blog more frequently as I don't need light for using the netbook!

My favourite light just now is the glow of the woodburner when I open it to put another stick on though. I've been outside gathering fire wood each day and yesterday looked up across to the mainland and saw a hefty covering of snow on the peaks - the hills of Knoydart and the Nevis range beyond. Somehow they loom so much larger and look so much nearer with snow capped peaks clearly defining them than when they are lost in the merge between clouds and sky.

As if by magic...

the deliveries arrived.

I've still not got used to the fact I am no longer a Very Large Person. I could probably fit a friend inside these waterproofs with me! I'll settle for lots of layers of clothing next time I wear them.

But more excitingly than oversized oilskins was the arrival (finally! At last!) of the woodburner. And it got even better because within hours of it arriving our lovely friend Sandy arrived with his tools and ripped out bits of the static!

and we had it lit and emitting heat within hours. It needed to season but tonight we have had it properly hot.

Suddenly the world is looking a better place again. Warm and dry, two of the basic things I feel an utter responsibility to keep my children, so it's a huge relief to feel we are meeting those needs once again.

A few more glimpses of our life these last week or so:

getting outside. Long days spent indoors in limited space with a sibling make for squabbles (I call it 'squibbling') - wellied and waterproofed up suddenly they are best friends again drawing each others attention to the beauty around them once more.

Beauty like this, view from the top of the croft

and looking back towards the static

nature at it's finest, turning of the seasons

winkle stash :)

Logistics and crochet hooks

So on the plus side this week I have thus far (and it only Wednesday so I may be speaking too soon...) not spent any time on my hands and knees in salty water chipping my nails gathering winkles. I have sustained no bruises and have come into contact with no flappy flat fish or pinchy crabs.

I have infact been mostly sitting indoors wielding a crochet hook or pair of knitting needles and making Christmassy things. I have crocheted mini Christmas trees, snowflakes and a few circles of brown, white and red which may or may not turn into either a robin or a reindeer. I even had a go with my new rhinestone setter tool and put twinkly things on some of them. And I hand stitched a little bag as a present for a little girl who had a birthday this week. This was due to my sewing machine having lost a vital bit or itself and the results were rather painfully handstitched looking, full of rustic handmade charm rather like my cutlery organiser... I've also been knitting scarves. Gorgeous scarves inspired by the weather, landscapes and moods of Rum. All of this is for selling at the Christmas Fayre in a couple of weeks. Anything not sold will be adorning our own Christmas tree (location still under discussion - we don't exactly have an empty corner in the static!) or being gifted to friends and family - I won't know a single person with a cold neck this festive season!

Meanwhile the logistics of island life have been hitting hard. Deliveries going astray all over the place to the point where car hire and a road trip of a collection run to gather all the things we need is looking attractive. My log burner is somewhere between here and Scunthorpe with an unidentified courier. Our oilskins may well be testing their waterproof qualities and floating across the sea to us, my book order is in Llandudno which is certainly inbetween Sussex where I accidentally sent it and the west coast of Scotland where it is supposed to be but appears to be taking a rather more scenic route than I'd have recommended, we finally got a refund for the faulty powerpack but it is less than I paid for it and I haven't even started thinking about ordering stuff for the kids for Christmas. See this space for wailing about having to postpone Christmas until February due to lack of presents sometime in the next month or so. See also how we reach March before our waterproofs and log burner arrive by which point spring will have sprung and we won't need them anyway!

On the plus side a friend brought back a bottle of advocaar for me yesterday so we can still drink snowballs. Christmas will come to Rum yet!

winkle pickin' mama

which almost tied for blogpost title with all winkled out but just won.

I've been alerted that I have not actually made it clear why we have been picking winkles this week - it is to sell. They go off to Spain or France or somewhere where they are cooked, probably with lots of wine and garlic and then scooped out of their shells with little pins or sticks or winkle picking implements. I wouldn't personally want to eat them, I don't much care for shellfish generally, much less anything I have to 'mess about with' (a trait I get from my Dad who also is not up for using tools at the dinner table other than perhaps a steak knife). But they get sent off on the ferry to the mainland where someone takes them and pays us then they get shipped off to the next place. Lots of islanders make cash in the winter this way and it is just one of the ways we intend making our living here on Rum.

When we arrived we were already aware that crofters of old had employed many different skills to make ends meet - crofting alone is rarely a way to provide for a family year round. Our plan was always to have a variety of revenue streams at different times of the year. We'll be busy putting in crops in Spring, raising new livestock and gearing up for the summer. In Summer we will be selling produce, working at market day selling to tourists, in autumn we are gathering foraged spoils, fishing and stocking up, butchery as part of the venison processing, in winter we will winkle pick and make crafts to keep us topped up for the following season. Always thinking and planning ahead, always moving with the tide - a bit like those winkles!

So we're done with the winkles for this round and we've learned a lot in our first week of doing it. Learned where the good spots are, what the best techniques are. Learned that there are essential bits of kit - wellies, oil skin waterproofs (we've invested part of our earnings in a set each which should arrive tomorrow ready for the next round of picking in a couple of weeks time). We need two pairs of socks, knee pads and I need a scarf to hold my hair back but not a hat because my head gets too hot. Neither of us can work in gloves (Ady has sausage fingers, I have tiny child sized hands so normal gloves are empty at the ends of the fingers and hamper me) but we smother our hands in barrier cream before we start to prevent getting too wrinkled and sore. Layers are good but not if you get wet, one cup of tea before you start is warming, two cups means you need a wee while you are picking. There is a trade off to be made between wet knees and aching back (kneel down and your back is fine but your knees get wet, bend over and your knees stay dry but your back aches lots), accept that chipped nail varnish is an occupational hazard (maybe this is just a tip for me!).

The coming week will be about preparing for Christmas I think - we have various crafty things we want to do, some reading stories and snuggling up together to make up for the lack of time spent with each other this past week. Hopefully the log burner will arrive so warmth will also play a role too. There are lots of windy days forecast which along with the usual Rum rain should mean we feel utterly justified in staying mostly indoors catching up on paperwork, baking and things involving wool and glitter.

All hail the winkle

This week I have mostly been looking like this

While Ady has been mostly looking like this:

we've been mostly looking at this:

Tomorrow is the last day of the current round of daylight tides. People do winkle pick in the dark with torches. We won't be. So seven days of picking and we get to take a couple of weeks off before the next round of daylight low tides. Tomorrow will be a short day before we lose the light. We have a lovely big pile of full sacks to show for our week which will hopefully translate into cold hard cash.

We have both quite enjoyed it this week. It's mundane and mindless but it is outside, in daylight, nicely physical so you feel you had done some work at the end of each day and earned a beer, it is in the most gorgeous location with the sea in one direction and Rum in a panorama the rest of the way. We are kept company by gulls and crows, crabs and little fish and the headspace that being out in the open breathing fresh air and using your body gives you is amazing.

Today we were admiring the amazing colours of the clouds in the sky and the rather eerie light we were working in when the reason for it became clear and we got hailed on . Fortunately we were with our backs to the hail and with hoods up it was almost cosy working with it drumming on our backs and hoods, a bit like being in a tent in the rain.

It's been quite a week. Who knows what the next one will bring.

When it hurts

I cried today for the second time since I arrived here on Rum. I don't cry much. I cry at films, sometimes at books but crying for me, out of self pity is something I do on a very infrequent basis. The first time was during that awful week when the static was halfway between where it had been and where it is now. A bleak week. This morning was an accumulation of things; all fairly minor in isolation, all added together had me feeling like a camel with a rather sore back buried under a whole bale of straw.

The challenging side of living on a remote island doesn't often seem to impact on our little family. We tend to get our post and deliveries and although we accept we have to wait a wee while longer for things and maybe pay a bit more in carriage charges it tends to be something we anticipate and factor in. Having limited internet and limited phone signal and limited electricity to charge up devices to make phone calls, receive emails and get online makes it all the harder to chase things up when they do go wrong though. This week we've been pursuing the well known electrical retailer in getting delivery of a replacement order and refund of a returned order. The replacement finally arrived, the refund is still outstanding. I don't want to name and shame but they are pushing me close to that point. We sourced a log burner and have spent three days this week getting all the required details to arrange a courier to collect the item from the supplier, so it can be sent to us as they don't deliver. Finally yesterday we had all the information needed to make arrangements, paid for the item, paid for the courier and emailed the address label to the company. We now wait with bated breath to see if it makes it here - there is just so much scope to go wrong I am rather failing to be positive about the possibilities.

My knees are bruised. I'm enjoying the winkle picking, although I do see winkles every time I close my eyes and have been dreaming about them all week. But it is cold, wet work and takes us away from Dragon and Star. We're happy to be heads down getting on with it but with other stuff going on too it's hard.

We had a testing encounter with the local planning department to run past them our ideas for a house build on the croft. Much of what we came away feeling very low about has since been thrashed out or put into perspective but it was still another thing to add to the list of stuff we need to summon up energy reserves to deal with. We will, and it will be fine, I know that. I just need a little while to find my mojo with that again.

It's coming up to Christmas, before that Star's birthday. Friends are planning and plotting for an annual pre Christmas group holiday that not only have we attended for the last 6 years but I actually set up and made happen - for a while they were even called 'NicCamps'. It's really hard not to be going, hard to hear references to a party you won't be at. Tough to explain to Dragon and Star that no, we probably won't even be able to go next year because it will cost such a lot of money to get there, at a time of year when ferries are not always reliably running anyway, we'd need to get our animals all looked after and these are the sorts of things we talked about not being able to do any more when we decided to move here. We knew it would be the case but it doesn't necessarily make it any easier to hear talk of Secret Santa, Christmas carol practise, who will be bringing which cakes, craft items and so on.

Finally, the thing which made me cry this morning was a text from my brother who became a father last week. Of all the things I had anticipated and made my peace with being too remote to be part of when we decided to move here becoming an aunt was one I had never thought of. I am already Auntie Nic to Ady's brother's three children and I love my nieces and nephew dearly but not being there to have a newborn cuddle with my little brother's baby is hitting really hard. I want to give my brother a hug and see reflected in his eyes the thoughts that I'm now having about how maybe we actually really are grown ups too now we both have children of our own. Even though it feels like just last year we were plotting what time we could sneak into the lounge on Christmas morning to look at our presents and making secret camps together in the loft space of the house.

So it hurts. Knees hurt, head hurts from all the long lists of stuff I have to do for the various committments I have made, heart hurts from not being there instead of here.

You'll notice I have not moaned about the winter. It is true that it is still dark at 8am and dark once more long before 5pm. The days are so much shorter. The weather is grim; wind and rain. The croft is a mud bath and I've not left the static without waterproofs in weeks. The generator is running over time because with so little daylight the solar panels are not charging up the batteries. We are revolving three batteries with one always on charge while the other two run the lights, water pump and internet. This means carrying a really heavy battery up and down the croft hill most days. Doing my washing today was the usual weekly challenge of checking the washing machine is available, going back to swap over washing into tumble drier, going back to collect it, fold it all up, put it in a waterproof bag and walk it up the croft hill. The static is dripping with condensation; walls, ceilings, cupboards, windows. I am not moaning about these things because although they are tough I knew they would be. They were the trade off we had anticipated and accepted in exchange for all the amazing things about being here. The space, freedom, light, beaches, stars, sunsets, rainbows, autonomy. They are worth it. I'm just adjusting myself to this weeks challenges being worth it too.

Touching the stars

I walked home this evening and was struck anew by how spectacular the stars are. As I climbed up the hill to the croft it was like I was climbing further into the sky and the skyline was dropping so it felt I could almost reach out and grab a handful. I had a chance encounter last year with a woman on Skye where we sat for a few minutes, exchanged very brief 'how I came to be sitting on the side of this hill' stories and shared a few deep and philosophical thoughts. It brings that side of you out does Scotland. She told me about the idea of thin places -

 There is a Celtic saying that heaven and earth are only three feet apart, but in the thin places that distance is even smaller.

We decided we were in a 'thin place' right there at that moment. Tonight as I looked up at the millions of stars, to me just tiny pinpricks of light but somewhere else much bigger and brighter than me and my whole world will ever be I thought just maybe I was in a thin place, one where whatever it was that might have worried me today was all put back into perspective by those stars, that little box at the top of the hill with a light shining out and my family inside, cooking dinner, chatting, listening to music.

We picked winkles again today and Dragon, Star and Bonnie all came down to join in. We had a good day and got a fairly decent haul - we have nearly 2 sacks now as a result of 3 mornings work. We're hoping for a good few hours again tomorrow. Dragon and Star really enjoyed it - Star brought a bucket and her net and aswell as helping with winkle collecting she also filled her bucket with crabs, eels, sandeels and some little fish. She released them all back into the sea before we left but thoroughly enjoyed watching them and closely inspecting them. They both want to come again providing it's not raining. Well actually that is probably my proviso rather than theirs...

We had a very interesting chat about pocket money yesterday including why I don't agree with either pocket money as a concept or pocket money in exchange for helping with household chores. I often wonder whether our children will utterly rebel against our unconventional ideas, embrace them as their own or fall somewhere in the middle...

I had another meeting this afternoon. I must have been down to the village more times in the last few weeks clutching a notepad and pen and heading for yet another meeting  for one steering group, community interest company, community association or trust related pow wow than in months of working in proper jobs with Manager in my job title. This time it was for the Visitor Management Group, something I am very passionate about being involved in - both from providing a service to visitors and ensuring we make the most opportunity from tourism possible as an island, as a community and as an individual business with our croft. Interesting stuff.

Dancing in oilskins

which is ever so slightly restrictive so not necessary recommended. Mind you sparkly dresses and very high heels can only serve to hamper dancing too surely. Leg warmers and sweatpants it is then.

Dancing of course referring the quote at the end of my last blogpost.

Oilskins referring to today which has mostly been spent outside in the rain.

Another early up this morning for picking winkles. Dragon and Star are keen to come and join in with this activity but ever mindful of not using our children for cheap labour and not doubling the volume of wet clothes we need to get dry we left them at home today as it was raining and pouring. This suited them just fine and they were very busy indeed with activities including thumbing through various catalogues we've been gathering to create Christmas lists - beautifully written Christmas lists I might add complete with prices, which catalogues they are to be found in, item codes, page numbers and a very complicated star rating system to show which are most wanted. There are also illustrations and festive doodles. They have also been grooming Bonnie who is getting more soft and soppy and less Working Dog as days go by. She is at least being taught lots of tricks and demonstrating her intelligence. Star has been poring over a big animal encyclopedia to find the ten animals David Attenborough would take in his ark  which we watched at the weekend. Pangolins, Marvellous Spatutail hummingbirds, black lion tamarinds and other such weird and wonderful creatures. Dragon has been writing and illustrating a lego minifigure story in a book he made. Really we are utterly superfluous to this educating lark, far better we get ourselves winkle picking to earn cold hard cash to fund the purchases of said Christmas list!

They are very keen to come with us on the next fine day though, try their hand themselves, test their theories about how many thousands of winkles make up a bag (I had a bleak moment this morning when I started mentally working out a price per winkle and stopped before I depressed myself with fractions of coppers and started ranting to myself about how I used to be someone and wear a suit to work! I shared this thought with Ady and he reassured me that 'we're still *someone* just a someone on their hands and knees in the rain' and I guess an oilskin dungarees and jacket combo is still a suit of sorts!), see for themselves the rich biodiversity down on the shores of Loch Scresort and get some outside time. Maybe tomorrow.

The boat came in and brought with it most of the things we'd been waiting for; a replacement power pack to run our dvd player, a pair of bargain salopettes for me (won on ebay second hand), a new headtorch for me (mine had been shut in a cupboard that it was hanging on the handle of and the elastic had stretched so much that it kept falling down when I wore it and illuminating my cleavage rather than where I was going in the dark), some more thermal socks for all of us (we bought a couple of pairs to test and I told Dragon and Star that 'these socks are the business' which is a phrase my Mum uses. The socks have now been christened 'business socks' which tickles me every time someone asks 'have you seen my business socks?') and our animal feed and some udder cream as recommended for Ady's poor sore outdoor hands.

Lunch was a very delicious carrot and ginger soup I'd made last night in readiness for a cold mornings work along with some home baked bread. This afternoon I walked into the village to sort out some paperwork and this evening Ranger Mike came up and stayed for dinner. After a bit of a surprise at the initial news from the planning department representatives yesterday it has been really lovely to have support and general back up from so many fellow islanders. I'm sure I'll be blogging more about all that as it happens but in the meantime we have a whole lot of getting on with life to be doing.

Better a cold wet day on your knees on the beach...

than a shitty day in the office then sitting in a traffic jam on the way home. Or something equally bumper-sticker worthy!

This morning I arose at least an hour earlier than I like to do, donned several layers of clothing (too many as it turned out), covered myself with waterproof layering, bid Dragon and Star goodbye and then headed off with Ady to the beach. Not to sit on a towel with a trashy novel and soak up the sun, not to frolick in the waves in a bikini or play volleyball.

Armed with a bucket and a couple of orange mesh sacks we headed to the shore line, dropped to our hands and knees and began winkle picking. Within about half an hour we were soaked to the skin. Turns out layers are not good unless you are dry. If you are wet it's just more layers of wet clothes clinging to you and keeping the wetness locked in (like a sort of anti stay dry lining in a disposable nappy!). Not so nice. It wasn't cold though. My nails got very chipped. My biggest annoyance was my furry hood which the wind kept catching and blowing up meaning I couldn't see. But winkle picking is okay. Nowhere near as grim as I'd feared. It's actually quite theraputic and rewarding and you have unlimited head space to dream, to sing songs to yourself, to compose new blog posts. Mindless, mundane and requiring nothing from your brain at all.

It's bloody tough on the knees though. We took the approach of staying on hands and knees and crawling along, head down. When I got home and stripped off I discovered both lower legs covered in bruises. Maybe knee pads are in order tomorrow!

never let it be said this blog is not balanced. As well as gorgeous views, stunning landscapes, cute kids and fluffy animals I also post pictures of my 38 year old plump knees complete with much bruising. You get it all over here on Wondering Wanderers!

I'd have taken more pictures - of the gorgeous beach we were on, beautiful even with wind and rain whipping across it, of the simply stunning creatures we saw in the rockpools - sand eels, razor clams, mussels, anenomes, crabs, little floppy about fish (probably not their latin name!), barnacles, beautiful shells and pretty seaweeds. I'd have taken photos of our buckets full of winkles and Ady and I looking bedraggled and sodden on the beach but believe me if I'd taken my camera down there it would have been ruined in such conditions so you'll have to imagine it all instead and try not to be too disturbed by my legs!

We did just over 3 hours til the tide came in and then gratefully warmed up a bit with a cup of tea at friends who live on the beach front. The same friends who have lent us decent oil skin waterproofs to use tomorrow which we're hoping will make all the difference to the experience when we do it all again.

The boat was supposed to be early due to missing out Muck on the rounds because of bad weather. So rather than our planned nip home for some food and a change of clothing we went to the pier. The boat was actually pretty much on time so we sat in the car for far too long shivering and then there was nothing on the boat for us anyway. Very disappointing! We're waiting for animal feed (not desperate, just winter time cautiousness meaning we want to stay topped up) and a replacement power pack from a well known electrical retailer who are not being particularly good at their customer service or delivery promises but will hopefully remedy that fairly quickly. So that was a wasted wait.

All was made better by a hot shower, change into dry clothes, a hot cup of tea and some cheese on toast back at the static though. Ah, home comforts!

This evening we spent half an hour with some bods from the council planning department who were over and had a slot in their schedule to people in the community about planning issues. We went along with some questions and some ideas and were quite disturbed to realise that some of the things we assumed were givens may not be. I am confident we will find the way to build a home on our land but it appears we may have rather more of a fight on our hands than I had at first appreciated. Ah well, it's fighting for something we believe in.

Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we're here we should dance.
-- Author Unknown

like the deserts miss the rain

Every so often I have a moment or two of doubt about our move here. It is pretty darn extreme, both the day to day lifestyle we as a family currently live and the reality of living on a remote island. When we were planning our move here the biggest thing family and friends were concerned about was how we'd all cope without our friends. We are very sociable people and the idea of cutting ourselves off from people was a scary one which people quite rightly predicted would be an issue for us.

We were very confident that we'd make friends here. Unless the whole island was populated by nutters it would be hard not too. You are in the same boat as everyone else here which is after all the first step towards friendship - a common circumstance. It's why we make friends at school, at work, at parent and toddler group, at the school gates - shared life experiences and being in a similar place to each other. Rum has a very diverse community of people, a fairly wide demographic and although many of the islanders came here initially to work for SNH in some capacity people here now make their living from all sorts of different ventures and spend their days doing all manner of interesting and different things. It's not quite like Balamory but there are times when I think it comes close!

This means Ady and I have made some really good friends here, people who we feel we have properly connected with and really value the friendship of. People who we feel the richer for having in our lives. I adore popping in for a cup of tea at various houses in the village, exchanging banter with fellow islanders on facebook, starting to build up in jokes, catchphrases, little traditions, starting to forge friendships which will last a long, long time. I miss friends and I really miss family but the community on Rum are doing a fine job of meeting our needs and we are pushing hard to help along the sorts of things we'd like to see more of socially here on the island.

But what of Dragon and Star? We've always been very aware that taking them away from everything they know, their local friends, their cousins (to whom they are very close and saw pretty much weekly when we lived back in Sussex) could become a problem. Our children are also very sociable, like mixing with people, making friends, spending time with others. There are other children on the island  but the three girls who are older than Dragon and Star anyway are away to school for two weeks at a time coming home only every other weekend. The three girls who are younger than Dragon and Star (one is nursery age, the others are not even that old yet) are good company for a while but the appeal of 3 and 4 year olds when you are 10 and 12 is fairly limited and a different sort of company to peers and equals. The ninth resident child on the island just celebrated his first birthday... I cannot deny that this is a concern for me and one which I ponder regularly. I do watch the children being friends with various adults on the island and I know that these relationships are no less valuable than the friendship of children the same age as them would be, just different. Dragon and Star are very fortunate to have each other; they have always been close and chosen each others company over more or less anyone else even when lots of potential friends were available. Many of their friends are mutual ones and they have shared interests and passions and happily fulfil the 'best friend' role for each other admirably. All of those vital socialisation skills are more than covered in the sibling relationship - conflict resolution, cause and effect, bargaining and negotitation, give and take, reading social cues and just understanding how relationships with another young human work. As for their socialising they seem to be doing okay with the people available here on the island, happily spending time with various people here in various ways and they have regular top ups of friends and family coming to visit to bolster them when needed.

There is no question that this is a different life and the effects on them of having spent this chunk of their childhood in this environment will no doubt be evident in some way - I hope positive or at least benign.

This morning I was having a 'it would be nice to be able to just nip to...' moment briefly so I asked the others what 3 things they most miss about the mainland:

Ady -

• Retail therapy. I loved going to supermarkets for reduced to clear items at the end of a day and finding bargains.
• Electricity - I did point out that most of the rest of Rum has electricity but of course it is still rationed here rather than available on demand no matter how much you want to use.
• Being able to go out for a meal or get in a takeaway - either as a celebratory treat or just because it's easy sometimes to get in dinner from the chipshop.

Dragon-

• Toy shops
• Friends
• Home Ed groups and activities such as Badgers (St Johns Ambulance 5-10year olds), Wildlife Explorers ( RSPB kids group), Magic Lantern (film club), Forest School.

Star -

• Toy shops (She was not copying Dragon, infact she gave her answers first!)
• Friends and cousins and family
• Museums and days out like that. We used to go to London every six weeks or so to visit museums, attend lectures on Science at the RI, the theatre, cinema etc.

Nic -

• Charity shops - it is true that there is nothing we can't get here, internet shopping is amazing. But I have dropped a dress size or three and could really do with all sorts of new clothes to fit properly and am not really up for paying brand new prices or not being able to try stuff on. 
• Library - we do have a little branch library and can request items and get in books but it is not the same as being able to head to the library whenever you like and find a selection of fiction and browse the cook books, craft manuals and kids books for inspiration.
• Family and friends. Celebrating birthdays and Christmas is going to be hard without our usual family and friend traditions. We've missed various get togethers over the last few years with friends and that is hard. My brother is about to become a father and I won't be around to meet the new baby. We catch up on the phone and online but nothing compares to simply hanging out with my sister in law for several hours every week just being part of each others lives, or having my Dad call round for a coffee in the middle of the day because he was passing and saw my car there.

We did a lot of gallivanting about in our Home Ed life previously; if one of the children showed an interest or developed a passion for something then we would find the best place to visit and discover more - art galleries, museums, parks, zoos, cinemas, theatres, lectures were all part of our day to day lives. I miss that easy availability of finding the right resource to answer their questions, inspire and educate them (and me!).

Never ones to dwell on what we don't have my next question was 'what three things would you like to have a magic wand to wave and make happen'. I usually find the magic wand is not at all necessary and most of our wishes are perfectly possible to make true all by ourselves with a bit of time and creativity.

Ady -

• Electricity -I'd like to be able to charge up my phone, keep the internet on all the time, watch iplayer in bed whenever I want without thinking about where the power is coming from.
• An indoor toilet - I'd like to not be emptying the loos every few days and just have the waste gone once it's left our bodies!
• A log fire - I want to be warm without worrying.

Ady's answers demonstrate where he is struggling just now and are interesting because I'd consider them all modern conveniences (aside from maybe the log fire, but really that is a heating request which again is a modern thing).

Dragon -

• Enough electricity to charge stuff up and maybe run my Xbox console so I could bring it out of storage
• A bigger bedroom - I want to set up stuff to leave out all the time in my room rather than having to pack everything away every day.
• A playpark - grand plans for a trampoline, zip wire, climbing frame, swing, slide etc.

Star -

• A bigger bedroom so I can build a really big house for Humphrey (her hamster) and have a desk to draw at and bookshelves to put all my books on.
• Less mud on the croft so I don't get splashed every time I go out to feed the animals.
• Less condensation in the static.

Star was also pretty struck with the idea of the playpark.

Nic -

• I'd love a bath. A bath that I can soak in for an hour with a book and a glass of wine, then get out of, into my pjs and snuggle on the sofa afterwards.
• a washing machine, here at home. So that getting a load of washing done does not require allowing a couple of hours once a week and a roulette risk as to whether I get it home before it gets rained on as I carry it up our muddy hill.
• Indoor space I guess, space to store our food indoors so we don't have in the dark and wind and rain dashes out to the horse box because we've run out of gravy granules. Space to hang wet coats and waterproofs and put our wellies. Space to stash Christmas presents where no one can find them.

A really interesting exercise. I think it proves that six months in we are coping well with our rather extreme lifestyle but are ready to get into a proper house with some of the home comforts that will provide.

What would you miss if you lived our life? What magic wishes would you ask for now in your current life and could you actually make them happen all by yourself if you thought about how to do it?

Compost Loo update

So we didn't hit our target of £2000 for the compost loo :(  We were pledged £800 which was fantastic and is actually halfway to what we needed to raise to get the compost loo here - I had included the extra £400 to cover the cost of buying the wheelie bins required to put beneath the loo to catch the humanure, supplies of loo rolls and antibacterial handwash and various other extras.

I have been approached by various other crowdfunding websites and may think about putting together a pitch for one of them in the future but for now we are going to carry on quietly raising funds to get this project off the ground. Most of the £800 pledged was just that - pledged. This means that as the pitch was not successful no money will be taken from you if you did it through the crowdfunder website. Some people donated via the button the side of this blog though and that money is now held securely in a fund which will be used to fund our compost loo as soon as we have collected together enough money to make it happen. If you pledged funds via the crowdfunder website but would still like to help us please do consider sending money to us via the paypal account using the donate button or this link - all of the promised rewards still hold good and we may well add to them as time goes by.

I have reset the counter on the side to reflect the actual money raised so far - once we hit the £1600 required I will get the compost loo ordered from free range designs and I will of course keep everyone informed of our progress by way of this blog and email updates.

Once again, thanks to everyone who either pledged to donate or actually has already donated - please don't let this set back put you off - we WILL have that loo set up as soon as humanurely possible!

From tiny acorns

Last night saw the bonfire and fireworks happen. Isle of Rum venison burgers and sausages and steaks cooked on the barbecue, a towering inferno of a bonfire with the guy we helped make perched on top, fireworks whizzing and banging, kids writing their names in the air with sparklers and people chatting, laughing, sharing cakes they had brought along. I guess there were about 20 of us, so about half the community were there. It was a perfect night with a gorgeous moonrise over the sea and when we got home we sat on the sporran and gazed at the stars drinking a cup of tea laced with brandy and feeling content and at one with the world.

moonrise, the first I've ever seen over the sea. It felt as though you could walk across the ocean following the reflection like a magic pathway

taking a turn at turning the burgers.

watching the guy catch fire

There has been controversy over which night to have the fireworks - some said it should be at the weekend; we have the older children who attend high school on the mainland home every other weekend so they could have come, others felt it should be on November 5th no matter what day of the week that fell on. We have no such strong feelings either way not being school attendees or die hard pedants about calendars. We also are not much affected by what day of the week it is anyway - ferry timetables, vegetable deliveries and pancakes for breakfast on a Saturday are the only things that shape our week and the pancakes will be stopping now the egg laying has dried up. So we had a win: win situation of fireworks both last night and tonight. I think we deserved to see them two nights running after the crazy walk home from the postponed event on Saturday though.

Although we have Star's birthday as our next celebration thoughts are inevitably turning to Christmas and today we made our Christmas cake ready to be stashed and fed with regular drinks of brandy over the coming weeks. I made our mincemeat weeks ago and have been keeping that topped up, getting a burst of the scents of Christmas every time I open the container up to give it a stir.

We all had a stir of the Christmas cake and made our traditional wishes while doing so. I never remember what I wished for so can't tell you if mine ever come true, Dragon and Star tell me their's always do but I think they may be for quite specific acquisitions each year rather than the sort of wider reaching philosophical stuff I tend to come up with!

Christmas consumerism is not escaped even here on our remote island - Jinty's shop took delivery of festive booze last week; ginger Grouse, Baileys, the bottle of avocaar which apparently is older than Star was dusted down and brought to the front of the shelf. The Christmas signage has gone up and there is a stock of Roses chocolates with holly leaves on the packaging.

Meanwhile I am campaigning to get as many islanders as I can to join in with Secret Santa. I love SS - when done properly. By properly I mean rather than run around getting token, price governed tat for lots of people you are given just one person to focus on. Instead of having a long list of people to shop for you have the luxury of spending time thinking about what to gift to that individual - consider what they might like, quite possibly learning a little about them that you had not previously found the time or had the inclination to do before. What is their favourite colour, flavour, song? Making a hand knitted scarf, a little box of chocolate truffles, burning a cd of songs that remind you of them, framing a photo of their favourite place on the island, writing out a recipe for something you have made and they commented they enjoyed and making it the first entry in a beautiful notebook for them to start collecting other recipes in. The best gifts to give are those you know you have put love and heart and soul into, the best gifts to receive are those you will use, treasure and know were given in the true spirit of passing on a real present. I already have a third of the island signed up - I have further persuading to do...

I can't change the world, but I can have a bloody good try and changing my world :)

Who needs fireworks anyway?!

Firework night here on Rum will be a big deal for us. It will mark a year since we were over on neighbouring Eigg and fell in love with island life. It will mark a year since we were WWOOFing for the last time and one of our duties was helping build the bonfire for the island, a year since Dragon, Star and I helped make the guy to be hoisted onto the top of the fire. A year since people on Eigg were telling us their thoughts on Rum and what it would be like to live here.

This rather blurry and probably nondescript photo does not do justice to the memories it stirs up for me. Imagine a cold, crisp night with amazing stars. Crackling wood from a bonfire, cosy heat, sparkling embers. Mulled wine passed round, a gaggle of children sharing sweets and giggling, writing their names with sparklers. A bonfire built as a team, faces all aglow from the firelight. Fireworks working their own special brand of magic and echoing replies from neighbouring islands and the mainland in the distance. We retired to the tearoom after the fireworks ended and the fire died down. We played pool, chatted, somone started playing the spoons and the squeezebox. The atmosphere was like something from a film. We were aware of tensions, of annoyances, of politics within the community but the overwhelming feeling was affection, pulling together, working towards a common goal. We'd been adrift for 9 months from anywhere we called home, moving from place to place every few week, searching for the place to settle and put down roots.

Here's my other favourite picture from that time on Eigg. Infact it's one of my favourite pictures of me ever. I had it as my screensaver for ages. That corner of land on the right is Rum. I spent hours and hours pacing this beach on Eigg thinking through the idea of a move to Rum while Rum itself loomed large in the background. With every footstep I changed my mind about whether it was wise or foolish and this was before we'd even stepped foot on Rum. It's quite possibly the hardest I've ever thought about anything. My conclusion was that if it was meant to be then it would happen. As we know, a year later here we are having actually lived her for over six months now.

Today we learnt that Croft 2 has been let. We're really excited at the thought of having neighbours and new people coming to the island. Our turn as the new people is coming to an end, we'll be part of the welcome committee, the ones sharing tips on how to settle in and get to grips with island life. That feels pretty amazing just a year after the above photos were taken.

Tonight was supposed to be the Rum bonfire night. We were all set - Ady helped build the bonfire yesterday, I helped mix venison with herbs to make burgers. This morning Dragon, Star and I along with others built the Rum guy ready to set atop the bonfire. We left the croft and walked down to the village but it rained and hailed and rained some more to the point that it was called off for tonight and postponed til tomorrow. The benefit of living on an island is we get to decide such things between ourselves.

The walk back to the croft was particularly challenging this evening with the path more like a river. We had to carry children and dogs across parts and Ady and I both required a stiff drink once we got into the static although Dragon and Star considered the whole thing a big adventure. We definitely did our thing today that scared us.

And we haven't even had the fireworks yet!

The more I learn, the less I know

It's been a life in the spotlight this last week again. Life in a West Sussex coastal town prepared us to an extent for the seasonal nature of life here on Rum but this is to the extreme. In the summer the village and indeed the whole island is packed with thousands of visitors coming here during the season. We spent our first few weeks here saying hello to everyone we met unsure as to whether they were islanders or tourists. This time of year it can be like a ghost town here with nobody staying but us locals and even we are in depleted numbers with people off on holiday, seasonal workers starting to leave and some folk saying goodbye for this year as they head off to lead the other part of their lives - not everyone on Rum lives here all the time! Kate and Ian from the Tattiehouse have headed to the other place they call home for the winter, Claire who runs the teashop is off for a month catching up with family and friends and taking a holiday now the teashop has closed for this year.

But it being half term in England has meant a small flurry of visitors and elsewhere the red deer of Rum featuring in Autumnwatch has meant eyes are on us from afar. We enjoyed a Ranger event Coastal Otter Walk on Tuesday this week along with five visiting tourists. We never stop telling ourselves how lucky we are to live here but it's nice to have someone else saying it too. Reading the various coverage on the Autumnwatch stuff on facebook, forums and other online places and seeing the passion people have for our beautiful island makes me very proud to live here and very humbled at how little we still know about this place. We have a plan to explore a new corner of Rum every week and have been doing well so far pushing further out into places we have not been to before. This could easily take us forever, there are a lot of hidden corners and secret places to discover!

The run of gorgeous sunshine has ended very abruptly and we are back to rain again now with the first fall of snow on the peaks this morning. It is beautiful and the light here is amazing - walking to the croft this afternoon at about 4pm felt like the hours just after dawn with a clear and slightly eerie quality to the colour of the sky and the way light was bouncing off everything. The full moon and galaxy of stars reflected in the sea and the river this evening when we walked home later was equally breathtaking. But it's cold, oh so cold. We are having to re-think our plans to keep gas heaters burning to keep cosy as the condensation in the static is already creating problems and it is only just the beginning of the winter. The ceilings, walls and internal doors are literally dripping, not to mention the windows and external doors. Bedding, soft toys, clothes and curtains are growing mould and mildew before our very eyes and we are very aware that the impact on our health not to mention our belongings could be dire if we stay in these conditions for the next4 or 5 months. We're looking at woodburners having been told by everyone (literally, everyone!) that it's the answer to the cold, damp and condensation so that is next week's project.

Halloween was very comprehensively marked here with pumpkin carving and gingerbread biscuit baking and decorating in the morning, a party at the school (Dragon and Star dressed as zombies!) in the afternoon and the judging of the island Pumpking Growing Competition and some trick or treating in the evening. Mucho sugar, lots of silly games and plenty of wandering round in the dark with torches. Plans now are for Bonfire night - the good thing about this time of year is that you never seem to be more than a week or two away from the next celebration!