Jamie’s fine :-)

The panic is over as far as our Gloucester Old Spot sow Jamie Lee goes, by the time I was ready for setting off down ‘Calum’s road’ for work both she and Ginger our Tamworth boar were waiting to be fed. Normally I would leave it too wifey as 6:30 is far too early but I wanted a good look at her back end and the only way to gaurantee her cooperation was to feed the pair of them. All seemed normal in the sows naughty bits so I hastened to work with a spring in my step seeing three large stags in the woods past the youth hostel and a group of about 6 hinds on the road in the village! They were just by the gates at the entrance to the old gravel pit and I stopped to watch them jump over it one by one, each waiting patiently for the other to leap nimbly over before doing so itself. one of the younger ones had to have two attempts and one gave up and ran straight towards me disappearing into the woods to my left at the last moment. The day at work was pretty quiet on the traffic front yet again but to wet to do any painting outside so I busied myself with month end paperwork and stock checks.

Atlas marine tug Hermes

The ex Swedish navy icebreaker tug Hermes headed south in the morning

Cement 'pig'

towing this ex US army barge with a container on board for cement.

During a dry spell which coincided with my lunch break I headed over to the village hall to remove a few more aluminium sheets off the old caravan there. The site was closed for the weekend but Lachie and his team had obviously been very busy since my last visit a couple of days ago.

Gabian baskets

The Gabian baskets were nicely filled with some nice top soil behind

weekend break

and the road/car park foundations were looking good. Other things did happen involving returning exiles,wifey taking the ‘Old girl’ to Kyle and then chasing piglets around the croft but the satellite broadband seems to be in a bit of a mood tonight and it’s taken me over 2 hours just to write this so I’m going to call it a night and settle down with my first glass of red in a week

Straight into the pier!

It was up bright and early this wet miserable morning to check on the poorly pig.

The happy couple

The two lovers seemed fine and cosy so I left them to it and went to work.

Heavy traffic!

Only to get stuck behind some slow moving traffic for the last half mile! Apart from the snow plough I think this is the only vehicle I’ve every been stuck behind in 7 years of commuting the 11 miles to work on the ferry!

More familiar traffic

I see more of these than I do other vehicles!

The day was remarkable only in it’s lack of traffic with not even the usual mass exodus of harbour workers heading home for the weekend. I think due in part to a big pour that is planned for early Monday morning so I suspect the Sunday ferry may be busier than usual. The fish farm at Braes on the other hand was busy, it’s been left fallow for a few months and it looked like they were putting fish in today from the Irish ‘well boat’ Solundoy from Skibereen.

Solundoy of Skibereen

She’s obviously of Norwegian design much like a smaller version of the Ronja Viking, Ronja Pioneer and Ronja Skye, all of which are regular visitors to these parts.

Clean Norweigian lines

Her original Norwegian name is painted out on the stern but I couldn’t make it out.

Kingston Lacy

The only other vessel I saw of note apart from the usual Portree fishing boats and fish farm craft was the Atlas Marine tug Kingston Lacy that was heading for Kishorn with a barge, probably for aggregate for the new harbour. Like I said the day was exceptionally quiet for a Friday and the last sailing from Sconser at 6:00pm was empty! so we headed straight into our berth at the pier and I headed home to my wife, child and pigs! Jamie Lee seemed to be OK and her swollen vulva made me think that she’d probably just been served so was probably worn out last night. I took her temperature which was normal, had a bath and now I’m going to bed!