Flat on my back, again :-(

I thought it was fixed, a pain free month and three weeks off the Tramadol had lulled me into a false sense of security, I even had visions of me doing some ‘dry stone walling’, but that all went severely pear shaped yesterday The acute pain in my right buttock that shoots down my leg came back last Sunday as I got out of the Land Rover, but I put it down to a glitch, reluctantly took a couple of Tramadol and was fine for the next few days. I was even fine driving to Glasgow and back, in fact I was just fine until yesterday afternoon when I was pottering about with the old Thompson Glenelg, not actually doing anything physical but just tinkering about with the wiring. The constant bending, rising and twisting as I wired up the caravan seemed to go for the back ‘big style’ and four Tramadol later I was still in agony.

This morning it became quickly apparent that I’d not be doing very much, after feeding the pigs and clearing my tools away from yesterday I was once more flat on my back staring at the kitchen ceiling Ten minutes later I felt OK, but as soon as I started to move about it returned so I spent pretty much the whole of a mainly beautiful day inside, either admiring my roof beams or watching YouTube videos about sciatica relief

 

 

 

 

Here’s a couple of ceps that I found yesterday

 

This is from my brief encounter with the outside world at 7:00pm when I went to feed the pigs and check the hydro turbine at the Schoolhouse.

 

Here’s a perfect little amanita muscara  or fly agaric if you prefer, amongst the heather of the Torran path.

 

 

 

Slightly past their best but a real surprise, two chanterelles in our garden

 

How I can be tired after spending most of the day in the house doing nothing is beyond me, but I am, so here’s the weather, I’m off to bed

 

Poor wee dog :-(

Today’s priority was to get Molly to the vet as her ‘rear nearside wheel’ (left hind foot) was in need of attention. The ‘wee dug’ had been keeping weight off it since before I went away and would not let anyone go near it but yesterday it seemed to be much worse. In retrospect it probably wasn’t, it’s just that I’d spent the whole day with her out and about so noticed it more. The best I could do was to get a look at it whilst holding her close to me on her back, though the leg was shaking so much I could barely focus on the sore pad.

Anyway, after speaking to our vet http://www.rhonacampbellportree.co.uk/vetsportree.html Rhona in Portree we got an appointment for 10:00am 

and headed off.

Located in Lisigarry place just off Dunvegan road Molly knows it well and starts trembling on the threshold and will not cross it Every time the wee dug visits Rhona it involves a jag and Molly doesn’t like needles.

Here she is almost exactly three years ago having her first one on the car park at Sconser and she’s never gotten over it

 

Eventually the vet managed to inject her and we retired to the Land Rover for ten minutes for the drug to take effect,

 

after which it was ascertained that Molly had just lost a good part of one of her pads and it was very tender.

 

Some cream, a bandage, antibiotics and a jag to bring her round was all that was needed and we left about twenty minutes later with a very ‘chilled’ dog.

 

Returning on the 11:30 ferry with 3/4 of a ton of feed in the back and a load of shopping.

 

The park at Oscaig was busy getting a haircut, the driver himself not actually having any

Or at least not a great deal in the middle

 

It was a pretty fresh day with half a gale of south wind blowing onto the beach at Brochel

and I spent the rest of the day wiring up the old Thompson Glenelg with a 230v ring main and battery charger for the ‘back up’.

It’s an old dud battery off the Loch Striven with a dicky cell but I’ve used up all my good ones for the generators at home. I normally have a ‘deep cycle’ Exide Maxxima in here but I’ve left that for starting Cyril as I don’t want wifey trying to hand start anything whilst I’m away. This is just to run some 12v lights and a 350w Victron inverter when I’m not hooked up to the mains, which should be a novelty, my 1972 caravan was all gas until recently and I’ve never been anywhere with an electrical ‘hook up’.

 

I know, some period 1970’s flush fitting ‘Bakelite’ ones would have been better but it’s all I had.

I’d just about finished when my good mate Bill Cowie  http://isleofronalog.wordpress.com/ next door phoned “have you seen any kayakers” said he. There was a couple planning to paddle to Rona from Brochel and he was becoming a tad concerned, especially when I informed him that it was a pure 5hit of day at Brochel (see picture above).

So, just before my chicken and mushroom dinner the Dude and I went out to look for the intrepid (foolhardy) kayakers.

 

Just check out the wind speeds from when the must have arrived (around 16:00)

 

Fortunately the wind had gone more westerly so by the time we’d got there it was pretty flat and the car with it’s roof rack was parked out of the way on Calum’s road.

Anyway the Dude and I made the most of the unscheduled drive by searching in vain not only for canoeists but also rabbits

 

 

I reported back to my mate Bill that their car was here and they were gone, whereupon he went searching for them on Rona.

I just spoke to him now (23:00) and discovered that they’d phoned him as he was speaking to the Stornoway coastguard to report them missing so all is peachy