Oban bound :-)

That’s it, the holiday’s over, three weeks gone by like a flash, probably not most folks idea of a break but I’ve really enjoyed it and got plenty done 🙂 It started off with some phenomenal weather and ended with a week of rain, gales and ferry disruptions.

I started my vacation with rough heather, bog and peat on the way to our new barn site and finished it with a road 🙂

However work on the croft, or at least my part of it is now on hold, for I’m heading south, not for the ‘Jewel of the Clyde’ Bute, but Oban. For the good ship Loch Striven has been stuck there for a few days with the weather.

The Loch Striven and her twin sister Loch Linnhe swapped places on Raasay over a week ago but adverse weather has prevented her reaching http://www.ardmaleishboatbuilding.co.uk/ on schedule.

Here’s the pair of them at ‘changeover’ last week courtesy of ‘The Purser’ 🙂

Of course being up to my eyeballs in pig sh1t, mud and rock I’ve been oblivious to all this until Sue Mason from Cornwall mentioned it 🙂

“Just noticed that the good ship Loch Striven has still only made it as far as Oban – that won’t help with the tight schedule !”

Well, at least I wouldn’t have as far to drive to join her 🙂

Anyway, it’s been a bit hectic here the last couple of days finishing everything off and getting everything ‘shipshape’ back at the house for my absence. There is always some disaster befalls wifey when I’m away at dock, once a year I leave home for a week and it’s inevitable that something will go ‘tits up’. Last year the road was blocked for a week, wife and child were stranded and the water frozen. When eventually it did thaw and outside tap burst and emptied the water tank :-(  Another time, Ginger our 250Kg boar got stuck in a ditch and nearly drowned and one year the oil stove failed leaving both house and water cold.

Yesterday I did a little work on my hydro turbine and helped my good mate Hugh MacKay of ‘Grumpy Digger Driver’ fame finish off at the barn site.

 

It was only a couple of hours work but that was him leaving the north end after an epic bit of road building and site clearance. Well I say ‘couple of hours’, that was me on the dumper, he was at it until dark 🙂

The pishing rain was however no place for a ‘wee dug’ so I left her guarding the truck that would have to try and negotiate the decrepit cattle grid with a 7ton digger on the back 😦

Tuesday

I really can’t remember what else happened on Monday as my head is ‘full of mince’ at the moment. The Swineherd has the 26 year old Land Rover, which is bound to break down with three ‘not so little’ pigs in the trailer on Sunday. That is of course if the road is not blocked by snow or the ferry cancelled due to weather 😦

This morning had us both up early, feeding and then worming the pigs,

stuffed apples and banana being the delivery method of choice 🙂

After that wifey went to work and I went through the long list of stuff on my list of things to pack for the working week, topped up the oil tank, lashed down everything that was loose did a spot of path repairs by the feed store.

Though I had to do it by hand now the digger had gone 😦

That was about it really,

I fed the pigs, packed the car and headed off on he last ferry. I’m now on the mainland watching two pine martens eating peanuts at my parents house 🙂