Right, I really need to calm down before I start writing tonight, the day got off to a brilliant start and I was in a great mood for long enough. I was in a great mood until the Council pickup left Raasay on the 14:30 ferry. That’ll be the 6 or 7m long pickup that comes over once a fortnight to pick up all our litter and repair the potholes. This is the vehicle that costs damn near £100 on the ferry when a £15 one would do. The council have stopped sending over the skip lorry every three months because it’s too expensive but they send this ‘white elephant’ over to do sweet FA every fortnight. OK, I need to chill so I’ll move on 
So where was I
Well it was a fine morning when I arose at 5:45, the ‘wee dug’ was on the covers of my bed, wifey was snoring downstairs in the spare room and Tam was fast asleep in Molly’s bed
Ali the alligator was keeping Tam warm, but by all accounts he’d had been up every hour wanting fed and the swineherd (wife) was pure shattered. Before leaving for work at 6:45 I gave the ‘wee chap’ a drink then headed south.
The heater on the Land Rover wasn’t working so I took wifey’s Nissan down the 11 mile single track to the ferry terminal, driving, as usual slowly to avoid the potholes. Highland Region had, under pressure from MP’s, MSP’s community councillors and the general public made a half hearted attempt at repairing the Raasay roads. It was certainly an improvement but the road still needed approaching with caution and I arrived at work in one piece. The day was good so I got on with some ‘aerial’ jobs whilst the wind was light and the sun up
Well, not actually up but threatening to
The aerial jobs being greasing the ramps and replacing a floodlight bulb on the wheelhouse roof. It was whilst up here, many meters above the car deck that I was greeted by the sight of the council pickup arriving on the 9:25 sailing from Sconser. Oh goody me thinks as I look down and spot a Transit truck full of tarmac and two ‘enthusiastic’ council employees, they’ll be repairing the roads.
NOW IF YOU’R EASILY OFFENED READ NO FURTHER
Please please please go no further if you’re offended by foul language but I’m of ‘working class’ stock and the nearest I got to university was a couple of eastern European girl friends studying at Oxford and Ljubljana Like I said the morning was fine, though I missed much of it buried in the engine room with an electrician who was looking at our transformers.
Imagine my surprise, after bouncing 11 fecking miles down the road in wifey’s Almera to find the council pickup truck on the 14:30 ferry still full of tarmac 
My compatriot on the ferry was equally puzzled and enquired of its two occupants why they were heading off the island with as much tarmac as they’d brought over. “We couldn’t find any potholes” was the reply. Well I’m fecking stunned, six friggin hours earlier I’d been scraping the arse out of the wife’s Nissan and now these fecking clowns “couldn’t find any fecking potholes” . I’m sorry, I’m really fecking sorry if I’ve offended any one but this is a friggin joke, I have to fit heavy duty suspension to my Land Rover to cope with the road, I have to change the fecking ball joints and bushes on the wife’s car every year and these fecking eejits can’t see the friggin potholes.
I was nearly purple with rage, I pay my council tax, I don’t complain, I take my bins down to the ferry whenever possible and the numptys at HRC send a load of tarmac over then take it away, I’m fecking speechless!!!!! By the time I drove home the wind and rain had displaced the balmy weather of the morning but even in the dark I could see the friggin potholes.
And this will be just the potholes that were not full of water,
this will be just a tiny selection of the ones that I could not avoid on the way home.
Not a great picture I know but enough to drive you to drink but that can is sitting on the ‘sub base’ below the tarmac
Again, not the best of photo’s but it was pishing with rain and blowing a gale, something it was NOT doing when the council came over at 9:25
But this ‘fecker’ has to ‘take the biscuit’, just before Brochel and totally unavoidable,
right in the middle of the road,
with just a few millimetres clearance under the Nissan and “ we couldn’t find any potholes” I’m seriously pi55ed off.
Times are hard, I know, budgets have been slashed and we all have to tighten our belts but what is the point of sending a load of tarmac over to Raasay and not friggin using it. Especially when you could have sent it over in a van that was less than 5m long for less than a quarter of the price, I despair
The curly tail
I’m really sorry about that ‘wee rant’ but I just had to get it off my chest, anyway, I eventually got home half an hour late due to all my photography to find Tam much improved.
He had in fact got a wee curl in his tail for the first time in over a week, if a pig has a curl in its tail it’s generally happy OK, he was by no means ‘cured’ was still panting but at least he was on the mend
And just in case he had worms I gave him 1ml of ‘Panomec’ Poor wee Tam, he’s like a pin cushion with all his medication but I really don’t know what else to do. Rhona Campbell, our vet has been brilliant and by rights wee Tam should have died days ago, but he’s such a little ‘fighter’ that we’re reluctant to let him go. In all honesty he’ll probably never amount to much and will have cost us a fortune but the wee piglet deserves a chance
