On the campaign trail :-)

I know, it’s been a while but it’s been very much a case of working and sleeping this last few days, the excellent weather bringing the tourists and paint brushes out in equal measure 🙂 Not even sure when it was that I last posted but it’s Sunday now and this is going to be a ‘quickie’, already it’s 15:00 and we sail in an hour after what has been a mainly lovely and extremely active day.

However I’ll try, with the aid of some pictures cast my mind back to Friday

which started off early on account of me needing to get my bowser down to the pier to have it filled with kerosene for my mates heating oil tank. This may seem like a lot of  messing about when there’s a road right up to the house but the local depot refuse to deliver to Arnish. The bin lorry can drive up, the coal lorry can drive up, Hooky’s beaver tail complete with 7t Hitachi digger can drive up, Colin with his friggin articulated lorry can drive up but the local oil depot can’t 😦

A stunning drive south with the sun rising over the Applecross peninsula and silhouetting Brochel castle helped ease the chore 🙂

A busy day of painting the foredeck punctuated by ‘the man from Gourock’ making a fine lunch combining various salamis with chillies, cheese, guacamole, pepper, humus and olives. Bit of a change from the normal warmed up leftover or cupasoup and toast 🙂

The afternoon came around soon enough and I had chance to thank Councillor Drew Millar

 

 

for all his help in securing a place for our son at the hostel in Portree. Four months of emails phone calls and letters it took to get the Dude into the hostel, the authorities insisting that it was perfectly reasonable for a twelve year old to spend almost four hours a day commuting. As ‘vice chair’ of the education, sports and culture committee I know that Drew played a crucial role in making them change their minds. His many emails to ourselves arriving often well into the night and on Sundays when most peoples thoughts of ‘work’ are on the back burner so to speak    http://www.highland.gov.uk/yourcouncil/yourcouncillors/councillorscontactdetails/ward11/ward-11e.htm

Drew had come over to Raasay on the campaign trail for the local elections on May 3rd, the only candidate to do so, or so I thought

for Moira Scobbie turned up the day after 🙂

 

After finishing all my painting of the deck and windlass it was time to make sure that it still worked and was not clogged up with black gloss.

Yup, that works just fine 🙂

Friday ended with Glamaig wearing a hat

a rainbow over Raasay

and a roof on my shed thanks to Lachie and Angus 🙂

Saturday

That was me pretty much straight to bed on arriving home and the less said about Saturday the better, for I woke up with a splitting headache that refused to budge all day and did the bare minimum to satisfy my ‘job description’ at work 😦

We had an unusual visitor during the afternoon who, with her master was walking the very same route that Bonnie Prince Charlie did after the 1745 uprising.

 

Despite being protestant 126 Raasay fought with Charles at Culloden and paid dearly for it.

Again, it was straight to bed, though this time well after 22:00 due to the late ferry and I awoke this morning feeling like a new man.

Molly and I going out early to feed everyone and check on the piglets, Molly said they were fine 🙂

We also went to admire the ‘egg lady’s’ hard work, how on earth she and the boys managed to move these hen houses for the soon to arrive flock I’ll never know.

This is the new chicken run that wifey and the boys have fenced off for the thirty hens. The deer fence was already there but they enclosed a large area within it with chicken wire and the housing is on this side of the fence so you do not have to go into the run to collect the eggs and clean out the coops.

As I drove to work the NLB Pole Star was cleaning the navigation buoy at the Black Rock in Portree but by the time we sailed at 10:00am she was doing Macmillan’s rock and later the Penfold.

Just look at the north going ebb pressing on the buoy 🙂

 

Not so much tide here but a lovely view and one I saw many times when diving for clams, for this area was always very productive.

With the DOTI boat in the water and the weather fine we decided to do a little painting

and that’s about it. It’s 16:44 now and I’ve got things to do 🙂