Having barely caught our breath from our Cob course and visiting friends mainland visit in May / June we were off the island again, hence our silence.
With just one night to ourselves after we arrived home before we had a tag team off WWOOFers with us we packed ourselves up and left Rum again to visit friends and attend the Royal Highland Show - something we had been planning since last year when we intended to go but never quite made it. We have friends who live close enough to the showground to travel in each day so it was a perfect opportunity to spend time with them and go to all four days of the show.
When in Sussex we used to go to the South of England Show every year and it was a real highlight of our year - plenty of animals, agriculture, stands showcasing or selling the latest clothing, gadgets, technology and ideas in farming and working the land. It was always a long day of walking round the showground, rushing to take everything in and arriving home sunkissed (I think it was sunny every single year we went!) and exhausted. But a day was enough to take in more or less everything and I confess to wondering quite what we'd do with four whole days at the Royal Highland Show and how we'd possibly fill them. I was wrong! We could have spent at least four more days there and still found things to do. From food demonstrations and tasting with chefs, endless free plastic tat to collect, demonstrations of machinery and ideas, three different arenas with constant shows (falconry, sheepdogs, gundog training, stunt bikes, horses showjumping, cart pulling, cattle and horse and sheep and goat judging, donkeys, rare breeds of all descriptions, mini llamas, poultry tents, chainsaw sculptures, pole climbing, sheep shearing, farrier displays, craft tents, rural skills displays) and endless tents with quizzes, games, activities and giveaways. It was a fantastic four days and we're already looking forward to next years show.
Ady and Scarlett came home from the show and had a good few days home on the croft swimming in the river, barbecuing dinners, attending a couple of community events and generally tending to the croft. Meanwhile Davies and I continued on our mainland adventure and flew south to collect our new car, before taking a couple of days driving it all the way back up to Rum. An epic road trip of the type that films are made about. Not made any quicker or more straightforward by the fact that we had been advised not to take the car over 50mph.
I must confess that the final 48 hours on the mainland were the type which make me eternally glad I don't live there any more. All the worst bits - traffic jams filled with angry, impatient and rude drivers, supermarkets filled with expensive items and harassed shoppers, motorway services selling overpriced items of poor quality to an endless stream of autopilot people. Never have I been so pleased to sink into a seat on the ferry and catch my first glimpse of Rum across the water. I drove the new car off the boat and onto Rum flashing the lights and beeping the horn with delight! I have no intention of leaving again any time soon!
Normal blog service will be resumed soon - I have much real life catching up to do first but expect photos of the croft 3 creatures and our gorgeous scenery to be reappearing as soon as I have caught my breath.
Monday, 30 June 2014
Sunday, 8 June 2014
In the swing
In April just as the tourist season was beginning to get going we were all feeling a little overwhelmed. We didn't feel properly recovered from the incredibly challenging winter we'd just come out of, we are still grappling with uncertainty about what will happen to us this winter and we seemed to be running to stand still with all the various projects on the croft, along with our other commitments and things we are involved with on the island. Added to that we were missing friends - we have some amazing friends here on Rum and are very fortunate to live in such a community but there can be a tendency to exist in a bit of a bubble here - focused only on what happens here on Rum. Every visitor wants to ask yet more questions about life here, every conversation is based around some aspect of life here, it can be a pretty intense existence. Whilst we share our day to day lives with our fellow islanders and have much in common by virtue of living this rather unusual lifestyle on a remote island with the specific challenges that can pose we are also fairly exceptional in many of our life choices and philosophies - our low impact lifestyle and ambitions of self sufficicency, our livestock keeping, our parenting choices and educational philosophy, our politics, beliefs and ideologies mark us out as different. Some of the very things which define us most and are very big parts of who we are are the aspects of us which can make us feel the most isolated at times. We all miss being with people who get us, who have known us and supported us with our life choices, people who feel like us, who share our interests and passions.
Our mainland trip ticked a lot of those boxes for us. We had a soul feeding 3 days with a huge group of friends catching up on each others lives, talking about anything and everything, sharing in jokes and reliving past shared memories of holidays, parties, funny stories. Then to our cob building course where we were instantly among new friends, talking about low impact building, green ideas, permaculture, alternative ideas. A group of people brought together by a common interest, learning alongside each other, sharing life stories and dreams as we trod sand and clay and straw into building material and used our bare hands to build walls together. Within four short days we were parting as friends, exchanging contact details and arranging to meet up again, to help each other with future projects, to stay in touch.
Now we're back on Rum and meeting our very long held ambition to be WWOOF hosts. 3 years ago we were WWOOFers ourselves, just starting out on our adventure and thanks to the generosity, sharing and teaching from our various hosts we learned new skills, experienced a wide variety of lifestyles, traveled the country and ultimately decided what we wanted to do next. We knew then that we would one day love to be WWOOF hosts ourselves and 'give something back', pay it forward, spread the word, share the knowledge. For a long time we were really nervous of inviting WWOOFers here and although we have had a lot of interest we have turned people down, worried that our livestyle is too extreme, we are unable to offer suitable hospitality, we didn't have enough here to enable folk to have the sort of experience we'd like to be able to provide. But we remembered the more extreme places we stayed, recalled that what made a great WWOOF host was excellent communication in advance and during the WWOOF, something different and interesting and varied. So we bit the bullet and offered a small selection of WWOOFers the chance to come and WWOOF here with us. We put together a big document packed with information about us, about the croft, the island, the work you might be involved in, what we would expect from WWOOFers and what they could expect from us. We have been very clear about the facilities here, the challenges and issues.
On Wednesday we welcomed our very first WWOOFer to Rum. Rather poetically it is his first WWOOFing experience. So far it has proved to be an excellent match - he is up for all the tasks we need to undertake, we have struck a good balance between working alongside him and passing on skills and knowledge along with setting him up on tasks which are time consuming and prevent us from getting on with other things. His help has freed Ady and I up to get way more done than usual and having another pair of hands has proved very useful. It is very motivating having someone else working with you so our output between the five of us has been way greater than just a quarter more than we would achieve usually.
We have had a good tidy up in the polytunnel, sown more seeds, harvested plenty of things, potted on various seedlings and tended to some with added feeds. We have overhauled the herb spiral building the walls up a little, adding some fresh compost, created a netted surround to stop all the birds sitting in it, scratching it up and eating all the crops and then restocked it with this years supply of herbs all grown from seed in the polytunnel. It looks fabulous.
We have also built a mint circle nearby on the same design and have plans for a borage and nasturtium circle next to them too. The spiral has lemon balm, spearmint, oregano, majoram, tarragon, savory, dill, thyme, rosemary, lavender, coriander, basil and parsley.
It's certainly not all work though and in the same way as we had some amazing experiences while we were with WWOOF hosts we are making sure he gets the same chance to explore Rum and get a flavour of what life here is like. So far he has been on the Sheerwater boat trip with us (first minke whales of the season!), met most of the islanders, enjoyed Friday evening beers at the shop, will be coming to a birthday party with us next weekend and is spending tomorrow off exploring some of the hills with another islander to spot wildlife and the amazing scenery. He's eaten eggs, salad, bacon, herbs, strawberries and peas from Croft 3 and tomorrow will be trying our pork. Also on the menu at some point will be Rum vension along with plenty of home baking, jams and the chance to come foraging with us.
From our point of view we also wanted to meet new, interesting people who might bring us new ideas and approaches, look at our way of life here with fresh eyes and work with us to make our plans come to fruition. We're only a few days in but so far I think this is working out well for all parties.
Our mainland trip ticked a lot of those boxes for us. We had a soul feeding 3 days with a huge group of friends catching up on each others lives, talking about anything and everything, sharing in jokes and reliving past shared memories of holidays, parties, funny stories. Then to our cob building course where we were instantly among new friends, talking about low impact building, green ideas, permaculture, alternative ideas. A group of people brought together by a common interest, learning alongside each other, sharing life stories and dreams as we trod sand and clay and straw into building material and used our bare hands to build walls together. Within four short days we were parting as friends, exchanging contact details and arranging to meet up again, to help each other with future projects, to stay in touch.
Now we're back on Rum and meeting our very long held ambition to be WWOOF hosts. 3 years ago we were WWOOFers ourselves, just starting out on our adventure and thanks to the generosity, sharing and teaching from our various hosts we learned new skills, experienced a wide variety of lifestyles, traveled the country and ultimately decided what we wanted to do next. We knew then that we would one day love to be WWOOF hosts ourselves and 'give something back', pay it forward, spread the word, share the knowledge. For a long time we were really nervous of inviting WWOOFers here and although we have had a lot of interest we have turned people down, worried that our livestyle is too extreme, we are unable to offer suitable hospitality, we didn't have enough here to enable folk to have the sort of experience we'd like to be able to provide. But we remembered the more extreme places we stayed, recalled that what made a great WWOOF host was excellent communication in advance and during the WWOOF, something different and interesting and varied. So we bit the bullet and offered a small selection of WWOOFers the chance to come and WWOOF here with us. We put together a big document packed with information about us, about the croft, the island, the work you might be involved in, what we would expect from WWOOFers and what they could expect from us. We have been very clear about the facilities here, the challenges and issues.
On Wednesday we welcomed our very first WWOOFer to Rum. Rather poetically it is his first WWOOFing experience. So far it has proved to be an excellent match - he is up for all the tasks we need to undertake, we have struck a good balance between working alongside him and passing on skills and knowledge along with setting him up on tasks which are time consuming and prevent us from getting on with other things. His help has freed Ady and I up to get way more done than usual and having another pair of hands has proved very useful. It is very motivating having someone else working with you so our output between the five of us has been way greater than just a quarter more than we would achieve usually.
We have had a good tidy up in the polytunnel, sown more seeds, harvested plenty of things, potted on various seedlings and tended to some with added feeds. We have overhauled the herb spiral building the walls up a little, adding some fresh compost, created a netted surround to stop all the birds sitting in it, scratching it up and eating all the crops and then restocked it with this years supply of herbs all grown from seed in the polytunnel. It looks fabulous.
It's certainly not all work though and in the same way as we had some amazing experiences while we were with WWOOF hosts we are making sure he gets the same chance to explore Rum and get a flavour of what life here is like. So far he has been on the Sheerwater boat trip with us (first minke whales of the season!), met most of the islanders, enjoyed Friday evening beers at the shop, will be coming to a birthday party with us next weekend and is spending tomorrow off exploring some of the hills with another islander to spot wildlife and the amazing scenery. He's eaten eggs, salad, bacon, herbs, strawberries and peas from Croft 3 and tomorrow will be trying our pork. Also on the menu at some point will be Rum vension along with plenty of home baking, jams and the chance to come foraging with us.
From our point of view we also wanted to meet new, interesting people who might bring us new ideas and approaches, look at our way of life here with fresh eyes and work with us to make our plans come to fruition. We're only a few days in but so far I think this is working out well for all parties.
Thursday, 5 June 2014
Extremes
It's a bit cobwebby in here! Poor neglected blog.
I have a list of excuses for my absence, note from my Mum, dog ate my homework, midgey as hell, mainland was busy type stuff...
We've been off to MainlandLand and had a lovely 10 days away from Rum. For the first time since we moved here I actually felt ready to head off for a while and it did us all good. We are topped up on friends, on fast food, on meeting new and interesting people, on remembering what it is that brought us here in the first place. A splendid fix of just what we needed.
We left on a Friday ferry having dispatched Bonnie the dog with one set of friends, Humphrey the hamster with another set and left the croft creatures in the care of a rota of three sets of islander friends along with a full set of instructions. In our absence Bonnie has had a ball living at Kinloch Castle (and not sleeping in her crate at night!), the wee piglets have grown loads, the turkeys have become extreme free rangers and keep finding their way down to the village (they are currently a bigger tourist attraction than the castle!), everything on Rum has gone green. We arrived on the mainland, collected our hire car and drove through the afternoon, evening and a good chunk of the night to arrive at friends in Yorkshire around 3am on Saturday morning. We bedded down for what was left of the night and awoke Saturday to an ever filling house full of some of our dearest friends. The total head count for the peak part of the weekend was 65 - that is nearly twice the number of people who live on our whole island - all in one house. Our lovely hosts (with whom we have stayed many, many times) even put their hot water on so I could have a bath!
This group of friends have been in our lives for well over 10 years and we have watched each others' children grow from toddlers to teens. Many of them have made it over to Rum to visit us but we had not seen some of them for over 2 years so it was fantastic to catch up in person. I confess to crying at least twice when the time came to say goodbye to people at the end of the weekend.
From there we drove further south to Norfolk where we met up with my parents who had come up from Sussex to join us for the week and spend time with Davies and Scarlett while Ady and I were off during the day time attending a four day course at Edwards & Eve Cob Building. The course was excellent - informative, a great mix of practical and theory with loads of hands on opportunities, run by Kate the Cobbing Queen with fantastic lunches provided by Charlotte. I can't praise the course highly enough - both Ady and I came out brimming with confidence in our own ability to get to work on a cob build, inspired by the beauty and versatility but above all excited and delighted to have met so many new friends. The course was attended by 12 people including us and over the 4 days we all got to know each other and shared stories, dreams and plans for the future. I know we have met some folk we will cross paths with again and look forward to welcoming some of them to Rum sometime soon.
It was lovely to spend time with my parents during the evenings, and Davies and Scarlett had a fine time with them in the day off out on jaunts to various parts of Norfolk including joining us on our last day of the Cob Course to come and see what we'd been up to all week and there for our 'graduation' and presentation with a certificate of attendance.
We also managed to catch up with friends and fellow crofters for lunch, had an overnight visit and very lovely evening with more friends in their new home before finally making the LONG trip north on Sunday, clocking up 500 miles in one day and getting that first glimpse of Rum across the water on Sunday night. A last night on the mainland within shouting distance of home with the ferry trip back bringing us back to Rum and our 'real lives' on Monday.
I've yet to properly catch my breath but time spent sowing seeds, reaping harvests (peas and strawberries continue to do well), feeding the animals and walking with Bonnie at my heels is doing a fine job of bringing me quite literally back to earth.
I have a list of excuses for my absence, note from my Mum, dog ate my homework, midgey as hell, mainland was busy type stuff...
We've been off to MainlandLand and had a lovely 10 days away from Rum. For the first time since we moved here I actually felt ready to head off for a while and it did us all good. We are topped up on friends, on fast food, on meeting new and interesting people, on remembering what it is that brought us here in the first place. A splendid fix of just what we needed.
We left on a Friday ferry having dispatched Bonnie the dog with one set of friends, Humphrey the hamster with another set and left the croft creatures in the care of a rota of three sets of islander friends along with a full set of instructions. In our absence Bonnie has had a ball living at Kinloch Castle (and not sleeping in her crate at night!), the wee piglets have grown loads, the turkeys have become extreme free rangers and keep finding their way down to the village (they are currently a bigger tourist attraction than the castle!), everything on Rum has gone green. We arrived on the mainland, collected our hire car and drove through the afternoon, evening and a good chunk of the night to arrive at friends in Yorkshire around 3am on Saturday morning. We bedded down for what was left of the night and awoke Saturday to an ever filling house full of some of our dearest friends. The total head count for the peak part of the weekend was 65 - that is nearly twice the number of people who live on our whole island - all in one house. Our lovely hosts (with whom we have stayed many, many times) even put their hot water on so I could have a bath!
This group of friends have been in our lives for well over 10 years and we have watched each others' children grow from toddlers to teens. Many of them have made it over to Rum to visit us but we had not seen some of them for over 2 years so it was fantastic to catch up in person. I confess to crying at least twice when the time came to say goodbye to people at the end of the weekend.
From there we drove further south to Norfolk where we met up with my parents who had come up from Sussex to join us for the week and spend time with Davies and Scarlett while Ady and I were off during the day time attending a four day course at Edwards & Eve Cob Building. The course was excellent - informative, a great mix of practical and theory with loads of hands on opportunities, run by Kate the Cobbing Queen with fantastic lunches provided by Charlotte. I can't praise the course highly enough - both Ady and I came out brimming with confidence in our own ability to get to work on a cob build, inspired by the beauty and versatility but above all excited and delighted to have met so many new friends. The course was attended by 12 people including us and over the 4 days we all got to know each other and shared stories, dreams and plans for the future. I know we have met some folk we will cross paths with again and look forward to welcoming some of them to Rum sometime soon.
It was lovely to spend time with my parents during the evenings, and Davies and Scarlett had a fine time with them in the day off out on jaunts to various parts of Norfolk including joining us on our last day of the Cob Course to come and see what we'd been up to all week and there for our 'graduation' and presentation with a certificate of attendance.
We also managed to catch up with friends and fellow crofters for lunch, had an overnight visit and very lovely evening with more friends in their new home before finally making the LONG trip north on Sunday, clocking up 500 miles in one day and getting that first glimpse of Rum across the water on Sunday night. A last night on the mainland within shouting distance of home with the ferry trip back bringing us back to Rum and our 'real lives' on Monday.
I've yet to properly catch my breath but time spent sowing seeds, reaping harvests (peas and strawberries continue to do well), feeding the animals and walking with Bonnie at my heels is doing a fine job of bringing me quite literally back to earth.
Saturday, 17 May 2014
Taming the wild
Taking stock is something we do a lot. It has been a regular way of life for us in our family since the beginning - infact I think it may have always been something I do, which goes some way to explaining my serial job hopping in my younger days - evaluate, if something is lacking do something to find a solution. Our parenting and educational provision style has always been based on checking whether what we are doing is working or not and reshaping to fill the gaps while casting out what was superfluous.
In many ways our 2 years here on Rum have been slow moving. We have not had the injection of start up cash we anticipated and we have been faced with countless unforseen challenges along the way- not least our own ignorance and naiievity at what might be done when. There have been many times over the last two years when we have looked at what we have achieved and found it lacking when compared to what we had anticipated happening.
That said we have been looking at what we have here now two years on and are feeling pretty proud of what we have done. From a bare field at the end of a very rough track across a river two years ago I sit here tonight in a static caravan which was dragged down a hill, along that rough track, across that river and up the muddy hillside. It took helpers from all over our island and the neighbouring one, equipment borrowed and begged from both islands and the helping hands, manpower, machines and collective ingenuity of many folk to make that happen. It will never move from here in one piece and has had many modifications and improvements over the two years not to mention bourne the brunt of our famous weather but it's been our home and will hopefully house many more folk over the coming years.
That field of reeds and rushes, overgrown and boggy is now criss crossed with actual green grass - a result of grazing from our animals, strimming from us and cutting and harvesting some of the rushes for animal bedding. From a distance the croft finally looked worked and improved and green. There are paths and tracks and areas we have made good. The pigs have now worked their way across the entire bottom third of the croft from east to west leaving behind improved ground, with better drainage and trodden in compost. We have dug ditches, oh so many ditches and the land is beginning to drain.
We now have a walled (fenced) garden with 20 raised beds. They are not all planted, infact some of them are still awaiting a layer of mulch and filling with soil but some of them are growing crops - next year they all will be. There is the start of a compost heap and a tin bath for rainwater harvesting. The beds are netted with coppiced willow and hazel arches and the fence is constructed with brash gathered from the croft and surrounding woodland. All of the wood for the raised beds was repurposed, for free, from old building projects on the island and reclaimed pallets - even the nails holding them together were re-used.
We have a huge fruit cage (which is about to be extended) made from reclaimed metal panels. It houses loads of soft fruit and several fruit tress, many of which were gifts and all of which are doing really well and starting to bear fruit, leaves and blossoms. We have plans to double this space in the next month or so and plant up further fruit trees, particularly apples.
We are currently the only users of the community polytunnel which is sited on our croft. We have made full use of this, while keeping everything in containers ready to squeeze back into a smaller space should anyone want to make use of the space. It's looking fantastically productive in there for the second year running with peas, strawberries, tomatoes, chillies, peppers, cucumbers, salad leaves galore and stacks of herbs all doing really well.
Our animals are all happy and healthy and the pigs, chickens, ducks and geese have all bred with varying degrees of success. We have eaten chicken, turkey and pork / bacon from our own animals and sold eggs from all the birds along with a couple of turkeys, bartered and swapped meat and experimented with bacon and other pork products. We're starting small and have bigger plans for the future including goats and bees but for now are doing pretty well at the rearing and breeding.
Our infrastructure has gone from zero to a pretty impressive level, particularly given we knew nothing of such things before landing here. In our first year we sorted out a water supply to the static - we have today run piping down to the polytunnel off that supply and now have a hose with water trigger gun for watering the polytunnel.We have a compost loo installed in our horse box, various buildings and stores and animal houses, all built with cobbled together materials. We arrived with a generator but learnt as we went along by experimenting with alternative technologies and now have three solar panels, a bank of batteries, a small wind turbine, two invertors and a whole host of rechargable and solar powered gadgets and lighting. We run our electric pig fence, all our lighting, our water pump, charge all our electronic devices, watch dvds and run our internet from these. On the rare overcast, still days in the summer and the short winter days we rely on one of our 2 generators for back up - they also run our washing machine once a week. We don't have much in the way of home comforts but it's a pretty good set up that meets most of our needs - again done on a very small budget from scratch.
The road ahead paved with all the things we still want to do, intend to achieve and route to all our dreams, hopes and ambitions is still long and curves way out of view but it's good to look behind every once in a while and see all we have made happen and made work.
In many ways our 2 years here on Rum have been slow moving. We have not had the injection of start up cash we anticipated and we have been faced with countless unforseen challenges along the way- not least our own ignorance and naiievity at what might be done when. There have been many times over the last two years when we have looked at what we have achieved and found it lacking when compared to what we had anticipated happening.
That said we have been looking at what we have here now two years on and are feeling pretty proud of what we have done. From a bare field at the end of a very rough track across a river two years ago I sit here tonight in a static caravan which was dragged down a hill, along that rough track, across that river and up the muddy hillside. It took helpers from all over our island and the neighbouring one, equipment borrowed and begged from both islands and the helping hands, manpower, machines and collective ingenuity of many folk to make that happen. It will never move from here in one piece and has had many modifications and improvements over the two years not to mention bourne the brunt of our famous weather but it's been our home and will hopefully house many more folk over the coming years.
That field of reeds and rushes, overgrown and boggy is now criss crossed with actual green grass - a result of grazing from our animals, strimming from us and cutting and harvesting some of the rushes for animal bedding. From a distance the croft finally looked worked and improved and green. There are paths and tracks and areas we have made good. The pigs have now worked their way across the entire bottom third of the croft from east to west leaving behind improved ground, with better drainage and trodden in compost. We have dug ditches, oh so many ditches and the land is beginning to drain.
We now have a walled (fenced) garden with 20 raised beds. They are not all planted, infact some of them are still awaiting a layer of mulch and filling with soil but some of them are growing crops - next year they all will be. There is the start of a compost heap and a tin bath for rainwater harvesting. The beds are netted with coppiced willow and hazel arches and the fence is constructed with brash gathered from the croft and surrounding woodland. All of the wood for the raised beds was repurposed, for free, from old building projects on the island and reclaimed pallets - even the nails holding them together were re-used.
We have a huge fruit cage (which is about to be extended) made from reclaimed metal panels. It houses loads of soft fruit and several fruit tress, many of which were gifts and all of which are doing really well and starting to bear fruit, leaves and blossoms. We have plans to double this space in the next month or so and plant up further fruit trees, particularly apples.
We are currently the only users of the community polytunnel which is sited on our croft. We have made full use of this, while keeping everything in containers ready to squeeze back into a smaller space should anyone want to make use of the space. It's looking fantastically productive in there for the second year running with peas, strawberries, tomatoes, chillies, peppers, cucumbers, salad leaves galore and stacks of herbs all doing really well.
Our animals are all happy and healthy and the pigs, chickens, ducks and geese have all bred with varying degrees of success. We have eaten chicken, turkey and pork / bacon from our own animals and sold eggs from all the birds along with a couple of turkeys, bartered and swapped meat and experimented with bacon and other pork products. We're starting small and have bigger plans for the future including goats and bees but for now are doing pretty well at the rearing and breeding.
Our infrastructure has gone from zero to a pretty impressive level, particularly given we knew nothing of such things before landing here. In our first year we sorted out a water supply to the static - we have today run piping down to the polytunnel off that supply and now have a hose with water trigger gun for watering the polytunnel.We have a compost loo installed in our horse box, various buildings and stores and animal houses, all built with cobbled together materials. We arrived with a generator but learnt as we went along by experimenting with alternative technologies and now have three solar panels, a bank of batteries, a small wind turbine, two invertors and a whole host of rechargable and solar powered gadgets and lighting. We run our electric pig fence, all our lighting, our water pump, charge all our electronic devices, watch dvds and run our internet from these. On the rare overcast, still days in the summer and the short winter days we rely on one of our 2 generators for back up - they also run our washing machine once a week. We don't have much in the way of home comforts but it's a pretty good set up that meets most of our needs - again done on a very small budget from scratch.
The road ahead paved with all the things we still want to do, intend to achieve and route to all our dreams, hopes and ambitions is still long and curves way out of view but it's good to look behind every once in a while and see all we have made happen and made work.
Friday, 16 May 2014
50.
Scarlett was looking through some of my stuff earlier today and found a locket I have in my drawer. It was a present from my parents for Christmas just before I turned 19. Later that year Ady and I became a couple and shortly after the following Christmas we bought our house. The photo inside the locket is a very old picture of Ady. Scarlett was fascinated by the fact that I first met him when I was just 16 and have been with him for over half my life.
Our 10 year age gap has never been an issue for us at all but I do recall Ady being pleased when I reached 20 because we were briefly in the same decade. For all of 4 months. It happened again 10 years later when I was 30 and he was 39, and again this year when I reached 40 and he was still 49. This week that same decade thing stopped for another 10 years as Ady was 50 on Tuesday.
If someone had told us 21 years ago that we would be celebrating our 40th and 50th birthdays living in a static caravan on top of a windy hill on a remote Scottish island we would have discounted them as crazy. It was certainly never something we had planned. For Ady's 30th birthday I organised a large group of his friends to surprise us by arriving in the pub we were celebrating his birthday in. For his 40th I hired the pub across the road and had loads of family and friends ready and waiting when we arrived for a 'quiet drink'. Surprises were off the agenda this time - logistics of no ferry to bring folk here on his birthday coupled with not actually having a pub to surprise him in meant it would have been a challenge!
Instead we had breakfast on the sporran in the sunshine - croissants with home made jam. Then we packed up a rucksack and drove across the island to Harris, on the south coast of Rum, a wild and rugged beach. We looked for treasure - and found loads, fish boxes for growing crops in, a dolphin skull, lots of buoys. Set a fire on which to cook lunch and toast marshmallows, had a beer and enjoyed the stunning views.
We gave a lift back to the village to a friend who had been walking the ridge and met up with a fellow islander at Harris and caught up with another along the way making for a 3 car convoy part of the way home. I spotted a pair of sea eagles flying over one of the peaks so we all stopped to watch for a while.
Later we went to the shop for cake and singing with fellow islanders, before returning home for Ady's requested birthday meal of pie and mash - made with Rum venison of course!
Ady tells me it was a fab birthday. He is definitely my favourite 50 year old.
Our 10 year age gap has never been an issue for us at all but I do recall Ady being pleased when I reached 20 because we were briefly in the same decade. For all of 4 months. It happened again 10 years later when I was 30 and he was 39, and again this year when I reached 40 and he was still 49. This week that same decade thing stopped for another 10 years as Ady was 50 on Tuesday.
If someone had told us 21 years ago that we would be celebrating our 40th and 50th birthdays living in a static caravan on top of a windy hill on a remote Scottish island we would have discounted them as crazy. It was certainly never something we had planned. For Ady's 30th birthday I organised a large group of his friends to surprise us by arriving in the pub we were celebrating his birthday in. For his 40th I hired the pub across the road and had loads of family and friends ready and waiting when we arrived for a 'quiet drink'. Surprises were off the agenda this time - logistics of no ferry to bring folk here on his birthday coupled with not actually having a pub to surprise him in meant it would have been a challenge!
Instead we had breakfast on the sporran in the sunshine - croissants with home made jam. Then we packed up a rucksack and drove across the island to Harris, on the south coast of Rum, a wild and rugged beach. We looked for treasure - and found loads, fish boxes for growing crops in, a dolphin skull, lots of buoys. Set a fire on which to cook lunch and toast marshmallows, had a beer and enjoyed the stunning views.
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| A genuine Rum Pony :) |
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| Goddards on the beach |
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| message in wood |
Later we went to the shop for cake and singing with fellow islanders, before returning home for Ady's requested birthday meal of pie and mash - made with Rum venison of course!
Ady tells me it was a fab birthday. He is definitely my favourite 50 year old.
Dynamics
The increased numbers of people coming off the ferry for day-trips has meant the resurrection of answering the usual round of questions these last few weeks. How many children in the school? What do you do in the winter? What brought you to Rum? I never really tire of answering them but I am just as desperate to gather information in return - why are you here on Rum? Where are you from? Had you heard of the island before?
I was explaining to someone recently about how the community works. About how we all have a relationship which is almost sibling-like with each other. There is greater tolerance and acceptance of people's faults and foibles here than anywhere else I have ever lived or worked. No one is excluded or ostracised, there may be squabbles and whispers but there is a feeling of being in this together, of batting for the same team, or belonging to the same family. That is one of the great positives about life here but also one of the issues at times. In the same way that we tend to regress to our childhood or teenage self in the company of our family here on Rum there is a tendancy to become a caricature of oneself. With so few people here we find our role and fit it, often in an extreme and slightly one dimensional way. I have noticed on all the islands that folk get labelled with nicknames and almost become like sit com versions of themselves. If you are the only red head, resident teenager, birdwatcher, lesbian, rock music fan, overweight, underweight, bald, blonde, classic car fanatic then that one character trait defines you to the exclusion of anything else you may be.
It is one of the things I find most difficult about the lack of people here. Back in our old world we all had many interests and facets to our personalities and elements to our lives. I worked part time, home educated, did some volunteer stuff looking after sheep, was very active in our local Home Ed community, helped run the kids St Johns Ambulance Badgers group, ran a kids book group and was part of an adults book group at the library, had a wide and diverse circle of friends as part of a couple, as a parent and as an individual, I went swimming every week and did two big sponsored swims for charities, had an allotment, chatted to the neighbours, spent time with famil, kept up with my circle of online friends... I am still very busy here and have two different jobs outside the croft along with my various crafty pursuits and stuff on the croft but it's the same cast of people who I work with in every different role.
We're off next week for a 10 day jaunt - a weekend with friends; folk who have known us for 10 years or more. Back when we lived in a house, had jobs, went on holidays, wistfully talked of a different lifestyle. People who have been there with us for a big old part of our journey. I can't wait to sit with old friends who have known us in different times, seen our kids as toddlers rather than teens and catch up on their lives rather than mine. Then to see family and go on our cob building course - learning new skills, meeting new people in an environment where we are all new and inexperienced.
After that I have started to arrange our very first WWOOFers - I think the time has come to start getting support with the tasks on the croft, begin sharing what we have learned and teaching others what we can and gaining from the fresh eyes and new ideas of like minded people coming and seeing what we have achieved.
I have always known that the island cannot possibly provide everything, we will have to go seeking when it falls short. The time has come to start searching out opportunities and creating new ways of meeting needs. I think we are on the way to making that happen.
I was explaining to someone recently about how the community works. About how we all have a relationship which is almost sibling-like with each other. There is greater tolerance and acceptance of people's faults and foibles here than anywhere else I have ever lived or worked. No one is excluded or ostracised, there may be squabbles and whispers but there is a feeling of being in this together, of batting for the same team, or belonging to the same family. That is one of the great positives about life here but also one of the issues at times. In the same way that we tend to regress to our childhood or teenage self in the company of our family here on Rum there is a tendancy to become a caricature of oneself. With so few people here we find our role and fit it, often in an extreme and slightly one dimensional way. I have noticed on all the islands that folk get labelled with nicknames and almost become like sit com versions of themselves. If you are the only red head, resident teenager, birdwatcher, lesbian, rock music fan, overweight, underweight, bald, blonde, classic car fanatic then that one character trait defines you to the exclusion of anything else you may be.
It is one of the things I find most difficult about the lack of people here. Back in our old world we all had many interests and facets to our personalities and elements to our lives. I worked part time, home educated, did some volunteer stuff looking after sheep, was very active in our local Home Ed community, helped run the kids St Johns Ambulance Badgers group, ran a kids book group and was part of an adults book group at the library, had a wide and diverse circle of friends as part of a couple, as a parent and as an individual, I went swimming every week and did two big sponsored swims for charities, had an allotment, chatted to the neighbours, spent time with famil, kept up with my circle of online friends... I am still very busy here and have two different jobs outside the croft along with my various crafty pursuits and stuff on the croft but it's the same cast of people who I work with in every different role.
We're off next week for a 10 day jaunt - a weekend with friends; folk who have known us for 10 years or more. Back when we lived in a house, had jobs, went on holidays, wistfully talked of a different lifestyle. People who have been there with us for a big old part of our journey. I can't wait to sit with old friends who have known us in different times, seen our kids as toddlers rather than teens and catch up on their lives rather than mine. Then to see family and go on our cob building course - learning new skills, meeting new people in an environment where we are all new and inexperienced.
After that I have started to arrange our very first WWOOFers - I think the time has come to start getting support with the tasks on the croft, begin sharing what we have learned and teaching others what we can and gaining from the fresh eyes and new ideas of like minded people coming and seeing what we have achieved.
I have always known that the island cannot possibly provide everything, we will have to go seeking when it falls short. The time has come to start searching out opportunities and creating new ways of meeting needs. I think we are on the way to making that happen.
Sunday, 11 May 2014
'Tis the season
to be busy!
Busy with actual proper paid work - Ady and I have both been doing shifts at the castle hostel to add money to the pot for the Masterplan. It grates rather, working for 'the man' and anything that takes us away from the things we actually moved here for and love comes at quite a price but we are making it work for us by enjoying chatting to the folk staying at the hostel, learning a little more about the castle and limiting our hours to just a couple of four or five hour shifts a week. I am also doing my two shifts a week at the shop / post office -one morning and one evening. We are determined to move forward this year and do everything we possibly can to stay over the coming winter by getting a Rum winter proof roof over our heads.
The Honesty Larder is doing well with eggs and jam all selling, Davies has been doing a brisk trade in his postcards and the midges are back this week so I will be harvesting new supplies to get making my midges in resin bits and pieces. All is growing well in the polytunnel and I have spent time this week doing what will probably be the final sowings of various things. It is all looking very productive and we'll soon be taking our first harvests of salad, strawberries and herbs. I have various things ready to plant out in the raised beds too and the fence around that area is only an afternoon or two away from being finished. I was out there today and have made the start of an archway entrance in and dedicated an area to be the compost heap ready to dump all used animal bedding rich in manure to rot down and feed the beds over the winter along with some collected seaweed from the beaches.
We lost all the goslings - the raven and crows simply picked them off one by one. It is very sad. Having read a little about geese as parents it seems they may get wiser with subsequent broods but I think we may also try and assist with a pen if they go broody again. We have constructed a very temporary duck run to house the ducks over night so we can collect all their eggs.
The three wee piglets are doing really well and are very robust, curious and active. Barbara is doing a fine job of mothering them and is able to nimbly leap the low fence dividing her and Tom so she is happily spending half her time hanging out with Tom and the other half returning to her piglets to feed and sleep with them. So far that all seems to be working well.
I love this time of year, the days feel so long with daylight until 10pm and the island has a lovely buzz of busyness.
Busy with actual proper paid work - Ady and I have both been doing shifts at the castle hostel to add money to the pot for the Masterplan. It grates rather, working for 'the man' and anything that takes us away from the things we actually moved here for and love comes at quite a price but we are making it work for us by enjoying chatting to the folk staying at the hostel, learning a little more about the castle and limiting our hours to just a couple of four or five hour shifts a week. I am also doing my two shifts a week at the shop / post office -one morning and one evening. We are determined to move forward this year and do everything we possibly can to stay over the coming winter by getting a Rum winter proof roof over our heads.
The Honesty Larder is doing well with eggs and jam all selling, Davies has been doing a brisk trade in his postcards and the midges are back this week so I will be harvesting new supplies to get making my midges in resin bits and pieces. All is growing well in the polytunnel and I have spent time this week doing what will probably be the final sowings of various things. It is all looking very productive and we'll soon be taking our first harvests of salad, strawberries and herbs. I have various things ready to plant out in the raised beds too and the fence around that area is only an afternoon or two away from being finished. I was out there today and have made the start of an archway entrance in and dedicated an area to be the compost heap ready to dump all used animal bedding rich in manure to rot down and feed the beds over the winter along with some collected seaweed from the beaches.
We lost all the goslings - the raven and crows simply picked them off one by one. It is very sad. Having read a little about geese as parents it seems they may get wiser with subsequent broods but I think we may also try and assist with a pen if they go broody again. We have constructed a very temporary duck run to house the ducks over night so we can collect all their eggs.
The three wee piglets are doing really well and are very robust, curious and active. Barbara is doing a fine job of mothering them and is able to nimbly leap the low fence dividing her and Tom so she is happily spending half her time hanging out with Tom and the other half returning to her piglets to feed and sleep with them. So far that all seems to be working well.
I love this time of year, the days feel so long with daylight until 10pm and the island has a lovely buzz of busyness.
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