Fat Geese

Like it or not the festive season is hurtling towards us. Before Christmas hits fully it's Scarlett's birthday and of course living here on Rum we are properly shielded from mainland Christmas craziness where there is tinsel in the shops from August!

We're feeling edgy about not having gotten hold of our contact from last year for winkle picking. He did tell us last year that he might not be doing it again and judging by the lack of response to several answerphone messages we've left that may be the case. Sadly we just don't have any other contacts and no real way of finding anyone else who might be prepared to collect winkles off the ferry if we send them off. That is a real shame as not only was the money we made going to kickstart our Shelter Fund I was actually looking forward to winkle picking again for a few weeks. We'll try a couple more times to get hold of Winkle Man and have put the word out that we are keen to pick but I suspect we may not do it this year. We had already started by the end of November last year.

Meanwhile we are doing various Christmas making activities - Scarlett has some fabulous sparkly candles and Davies' Christmas cards arrived in the post today, I have some crocheted decorations and will make some chocolates and sweets all for sale this weekend at the Christmas Fair on Sunday. It is also Ady and my turn to do Community Teashop so we'll have a festive theme with some seasonal food and drink on offer. We are all four in the nativity play and today I spent some time making a Christmas song playlist on my phone. Davies and Scarlett asked for advent calendars (Lego and Playmobil) from Granny and Grandad as Christmas presents to be given early and they arrived a few weeks ago and are stashed ready to come out this weekend.

After several very still days the wind came back today so we've enjoyed lots of power from the wind turbine - it felt very appropriate to watch Twister on dvd this evening! We have mostly been ensuring we get some fresh air and exercise every day when the weather is kind enough to be out in, keeping the animals fed and looked after and then coming back indoors to read, craft and listen to the radio.

And ooh, rather excitingly I have just learnt a new and very relevant word:

pluviophile -
A person who takes great joy and comfort in rainy days.