Meanwhile in the ‘Village’ :-)

Well that’s it then, the first day at college out of the way, only another 67 to go I’m not going to whine for I’ve got a job, I’m getting paid and I’m quite cosy here in the little caravan A couple of glasses of red wine to help my back pain and a late start tomorrow at http://www.stc.ac.uk/ , things could be a lot worse, I could be in the ‘halls of residence’  

True to form I never slept well last night, or at least I slept just fine until around 3:30am when the Merlot wore off, after which I tossed and turned until 5:30 before getting up to go and shower in the ‘Village’ shower block.

Of course once I’d encountered the electronic combination lock on the toilets in the pishing rain, dark and north easterly gale my ageing eyesight failed to accurately  differentiate between  the numbers and I had to return ‘home’ for my glasses. Don’t get me wrong ‘the Village’ is probably most folks idea of a swell place to stay and I can’t fault it, clean, well run, central and secure but it’s just not my ‘cup of tea’.

 

Northumbrian Leisure’s http://www.northumbrianleisure.co.uk/ caravan park almost on the sea front at South Shields is just luvverly, but it’s just not what an ageing crofter with a 26 year old Land Rover and 40 year old caravan needs, especially at £25 per night   I wouldn’t even mind the £25 so much but after parting with £500 as a deposit the clowns even asked me for the £1165 balance on arrival !!!!!!! Aye that’ll be right I thought, it’s almost October there’s like three other caravans and motorhomes pitched here in the rapidly diminishing ‘season’ and these clowns want me to part with another grand or so    I know Raasay is out in the sticks but I’ve not just landed off a banana boat OK, their normal clientele may well drive new and expensive German marques but from what I can see there are precious few of them about at this time of year

 

In fact, from what I saw today there was precious little of anyone around at this time of year, the amusement parks being closed and the beaches deserted.

 

 

I know that I said I’d given up swearing but

 

you’d think that they’d be trying to encourage folk to stay here and not screw them before they’d settled in.

The ‘Hairy Bikers’

They’re not hairy and they are not bikers (at least as far as I know) but our first day at college was ‘eased’ by a pair of tutors that bounced of each other with an almost choral lilt peculiar to the industrial north east and Welsh valley’s Much of what they said (to some of us at least) was akin to teaching ‘granny how to suck eggs’  but it was delivered in such a way as to never seem dull or boring. OK, I now know how to use a micrometer and vernier calliper once more.

   

 

however it was delivered in such a fashion as to prevent the mind wandering off elsewhere

Gosh I fell asleep at the wheel there, it’s now 5:45 and I’m going back to bed for an hour, the wee caravan is rocking in the fierce onshore wind and the rain is still battering the windows. Radio 4 is telling me that there’s been a months rain here overnight but I have to say that it’s nothing compared to what we can normally  receive on Raasay at this time of year.