Pear shaped on the croft :-(

If it’s going to go ‘t*ts up’ you can guarantee it will happen when I’m away, it’s not unique to me, as anyone who works any kind of ‘week on week off’ or ‘fortnight on fortnight off’ shift will tell you. If the pipes are going to freeze, the car break down or the cow have a prolapse it will happen when your away. Sure enough when the phone rang this morning at 7:30, just as I was tucking into my smoked haddock and poached egg I knew there was a problem. I knew because the number that came up was ‘swineherd mobile’ Wifey does not speak to me before 9:00am unless something is wrong It was of course Monday so the gritter wouldn’t have been north on the Sabbath so I braced myself for the worse, there’s no reception at the house so I knew she must be on the road with ‘Old Girl’, Dude and ‘wee dug’.

The problem was one of traction, the family were stuck on a hill and going nowhere on the black ice as she headed south for the 7:55 ferry. A conversation with the driver soon ascertained that the transfer box must have been put into neutral as she tried to lock the centre diff, so she sorted that and battled on A few minutes and miles later another call, the headlights had failed

 

The four big Hella’s on the roof were working but everything else was out and she couldn’t see the road in front

Switch on the hazard lights says I and then you’ll be able to see the verges, so she did and all was quiet on the Nokia for a good ten minutes That was until the phone rang once more and I was greeted by a blazing and panting wife with the sound of a gale roaring in the background. She was not a happy bunny “ I’m half a mile from the friggin Land Rover, there’s no phone reception, the lights have gone dim and now the fecking car alarm has triggered and won’t turn off

“Ah, the lights have gone dim, why didn’t you say”, says I, “that’ll be the big red key under the passenger seat”. The ‘big red key’ being one of these

that isolates one of the batteries, turn that says I and all will be ‘sweetness and light’, one of the boys must have knocked it with his feet. Another ten minutes silence on the phone before it shrilled once more, this time it was obvious all was not rosy as I could hear the alarm Lights good says she but I’m not driving into Portree with the alarm going off

Eventually battery charged up, alarm re set and the boy got to school two hours late The wife really is a saint putting up with this cr4p, any sane person would have left me years ago You know, for the kind of place where the phone works, the AA will come out and there’s a bus service for the wains

Anyway, stuck as I am 200 miles away the best medicine is to just get ‘stuck in’ the day goes faster and less time to dwell on possible problems at home.

 

 

The other 25 year old girl in my life was starting to come together after her 10 days in dock at http://www.ardmaleishboatbuilding.co.uk/. The Loch Striven had had major surgery but a squad of dedicated and conscientious employees

 

had helped transform her form a midden into a pristine passenger carrying ferry in just a couple of days

 

Electricians, instrument technicians and hydraulic engineers sorted out a few wee jobs in the engine room

  

I changed a ‘suspect’ hydraulic hose

and the anchors got housed correctly.

There was more but most of it is unprintable so I’ll just leave you now and go to bed.