Life goes on :-(

Who knows when this will go into orbit around the blogosphere, I’m still minus an internet connection and just to make matters worse so is my mate at Torran So now I don’t even have the option of bumping along the Torran track at night to sit huddled over a freezing laptop with numb fingers and toes.

So it looks like another twenty mile round trip to the youth hostel and back to pick up my emails and post this  

The truth is I’ve not really felt like blogging, for after my last two hour absence from the house to post the last effort I arrived back home to six unanswered calls from wifey on the house phone. Of course I knew what it was before I even returned the call and was wracked with guilt for not being there for her. Sadly her father passed away at 7:00pm at the Accord hospice in Paisley after a short and painful battle with an extremely aggressive cancer.

Drew Stirling was just seventy when he was diagnosed with a serious brain tumour not that long after his last visit to Arnish and I always regarded him as a good friend as well as father in law. I don’t know how or why for we had little in common apart from our love of his eldest daughter but I know he felt the same way, despite me being English and having no interest at all in his passion for football   

He always enjoyed his frequent visits to Raasay and wasn’t shy of getting stuck in to work on the croft, his favourite task being splitting logs, though he was a dab hand at woodwork too and fixed many a rickety gate and door. Much as I hated being away from home  for over two months in South Shields, it did give me chance to spend the weekends in Barrhead with Drew and his wife Emma whilst he was deteriorating and for that I will always be grateful. The first few weekends when we talked carp, watched old black and white westerns and I found him some pictures of his first car were priceless

It was a Borgward Isabella coupe of 1954 vintage and a real glint came in his eye when speaking of it, no wonder, for even now it has a timeless sort of style about it and they fetch tens of thousands of pounds at auction. Alas the ‘wee drams’ we shared  only lasted a couple of weekends and just after my penultimate visit Drew was admitted to the Accord hospice where he was cared for until he died on Monday.

The humanist funeral will be on Tuesday 4th December and I’m indebted to my employer for rescheduling my trip to Holland at such short notice so that I could attend. I am not a religious person and neither was Drew but in times like this I have taken comfort from a ‘strange little book’ of only a few pages. It’s the most widely read book of the twentieth century and is called ‘The Prophet’ by Kahlil Gibran, I can’t find my copy or even look on line, but this I do remember and it came to me now.

We shall pass into the twilight,

Perchance to wake the dawn of another world.

But love shall stay and his finger marks not be erased. 

It might not actually be from that book but it was I’m sure written by Gibran and has always stuck in my head.

Some good news

After speaking to my wife on Monday night I decided to go to Portree to tell my son in person, or more truthfully my wife suggested it would be better coming from me than someone else. Guys, what are we like, imagine not thinking of that, anyway after pondering what would be best, the decision was made for me. At 8:30 the following morning the hostel phoned to say the Dude was ill so I went to collect him on what was a slightly better day.

Meall Dearg Arnish and the ruin of number 4, just check out that lintel above the fire place

A good day for hydro power down at the ‘secret cove’

 

A serious crane at the new water treatment plant This whole treatment plant fiasco is beyond belief, they’ve not long since spent millions on the one in that’s already there and now they’re building another Now don’t get me wrong I think this is great that they’re spending some of their vast profits on Raasay and the economy is being helped as the workers stay here and spend money. However in the two months I’ve been away the roads, both the top and bottom one have been totally trashed by all the heavy lorries, plant and equipment travelling to and fro. Huge cracks have appeared in the tarmac, drains have collapsed and all this before we’ve had any frost, the Raasay roads are going to by like ‘off road’ courses by spring time  

It’s not like the rest of Raasay gets water like us

Anyway, after feeding everyone, removing the early eggs and tootling south I caught the 10:55 for Sconser and headed into Portree to see my son.

On the way in I found out what the underside of a Honda jazz looks like Me thinks it was probably icy on Skye this morning, hope the occupants are OK.

 

From here on in the day went downhill, getting to the Hostel after loading up with pig feed I found my son looking and sounding pretty grim in his bed, being unable to shake off his sore throat. He looked even worse after hearing the news so I brought him home and we managed to catch the 13:00 ferry.

 

Whilst everything had an air of gloom about it my spirits lifted when I heard that Wilma Duncan had had a baby boy, OK, it was last week but I’d only just heard of the strapping eight pound something Calum Macleod Duncan who had been delivered by caesarean in Inverness last Wednesday (I think) Well done Nairn and Wilma, it won’t be long before he’s one of your pupils

Meanwhile on the MV Hallaig

All is on course for the launch of our new hybrid ferry the MV Hallaig in December and I’m overjoyed to have received, along with the rest of the crew, invites to the launch.

The Raasay newsletter arrived with some great picture from Seamus Nicolson,

 

nice big wide ramp so that even the worst drivers can get on

 

Space age wheelhouse, nicknamed ‘The Tardis’

 

 

And here it all is just a few days ago being lowered onto the steel hull

Many thanks to CMal for that last shot.

There was as usual much more information in the newsletter, from the latest on the community shop,

Plans for the Raasay Community acquiring the Shop are progressing. The
paperwork for Community ownership has been completed and sent off for
registration with the Financial Services Authority. The cooperative will be known as
(CORRA) the “Community of Raasay Retail Association”. Once registration has
been authorised a bank account will be opened which will be managed by the Shop
steering group’s Management Committee.  The Big Lottery’s grant award of
£6,500.00 from Investing in Ideas was received on 12th October this money will be
used towards costs incurred from setting up the Community Cooperative, legal
advice and valuations. We hope by December, to receive a positive outcome on our
application to Big Lottery’s “Village SOS” grant award scheme which would assist
with the shop’s operating costs.

to what the local primary have been up to,

Raasay Primary School
Poppy Day
As in previous years, the Raasay Primary School pupils have undertaken the annual door
to door collection on behalf of Poppy Scotland. The Raasay Community very generously
donated £138.30 which is up on last year’s total. The pupils were also visited by Mrs
Rebecca MacKay, Raasay Community Council, who took an assembly about the
significance of Remembrance Sunday and read from the poem ‘In Flanders Fields’. Mrs
MacKay also asked if the children would be willing to lay the wreath at the local war
memorial. The school undertook this task and the children respectfully stood for a two
minute silence at the memorial.

and copies are available from Lloyd or Joan on,

Remember, this is your Newsletter so if you have any
news, views, ideas or anything which you would like
us to include in future editions to share with the Community please contact Lloyd or Joan on 01478 660358.
Next date for deadlines is Monday, 17  December.

sorry not online so can’t access any links

Meanwhile on the Loch Striven

It seems very strange not being with my old ship when she’s in dry dock, especially when I’ve just microwaved some leftovers for dinner and I’m not living it up in the Victoria Hotel Rothesay Luckily I have my ‘man on the ground’ foreign correspondent if you like, Zak of  zak355 to help me out on that score. The good ship Loch Striven was replaced by the Loch Linnhe on Saturday morning, having arrived here on Friday evening. Early Saturday she headed south for the Clyde and arrived on Bute on Monday???? not sure about that.

 

The Loch Striven alongside the Loch Alainn at Rubh Bodach on Bute, the Hallaig will be very similar in size to the Loch Alainn, just a little taller, wider and longer, though not much.

Zak really has a good eye (and camera) and his photo stream is well worth a look, that Land Rover looks familiar

 

And here she is,

high and dry on the ‘patent slip’, the last one on the Clyde I do believe

Also from what I hear, work is already well underway for another big shed and slip to take the new class ferries next year, they certainly know the old Loch class boats well enough at Ardmaliesh boatbuilding

Wednesday

Still without internet and in desperate need of it for doing new house related stuff, receiving flight and hotel reservation info and a multitude of other stuff I wandered over to Torran first thing after feeding and breakfast. My satellite link is a definite hardware problem but the Torran one is most likely fixable remotely as all the indicator lights on the Hughes modem are doing the right stuff. The DNS server is just not responding, after half an hour on the phone without them doing anything apart from telling me to ‘re boot’ something I’d one several times before I gave up. I didn’t give up right away, no I froze for fifteen minutes waiting for Sean in Ireland to phone me back, then I gave up. No one EVER phones you back and life’s too short

 

 

No, I thought it was about time I did some work so went back and continued with my tree felling, not that you can actually see much more than Molly’s head from the picture However I finished clearing some stuff from around the wind turbine and set about taking down these old birch trees then I could alter the line of the fence. This part near the old Arnish net shed has always been troublesome so I’m going to move it back to where it used to be, along the cliff top.

That was about it really, I cut some bedding that had at last dried in the cool dry, well dry by comparison, north wind and did all the eggs and pig stuff.

The full moon rose over Creag na Gaoithe  before 17:00 and I called it a day, retiring to some mince and dough balls made by my daring wife several weeks ago  

It may be old outside but it’s nice and toasty in here

 

Once more I apologize for the lack of feed back but my time online is limited and I’ve still no word of when I’m going to get fixed. If you want you can phone up Niall Quinn on 08454340420 and bend his ear for me