Well it’s a pure stunning evening and I’ve just demolished a fine offering of pot roast venison in a divine sauce made from its juices, veg, parsley and blackcurrant jam!!!!!! I kid you not, darling wife tasted the sauce amidst its lumps of onion, celery, flat leaf parsley and heaven knows what. Then she declared, “it needs something else”, as far as I was concerned, all it needed was putting on a plate with the roast sweet potatoes and peas, but I didn’t want to argue. She delves into the fridge, produces one of my mums jars of blackcurrant jam and deposits two large spoonful’s in amongst the now cut venison and its sauce.
I wasn’t convinced that this was going to work along with the fresh green peas and the sliced, roasted and chilli covered sweet potato but work it did. Following it with some ‘sticky toffee cakes’ and ice cream I’m now melting into a glass of that fine ‘Montepulciano D’ Abruzzo’ donated by my good friend Sue and her companion. Truth is I managed a glass last night too then collapsed into my bed shattered, after what has been a pretty full on week and more aboard the Hallaig.
The Macleod Parliament
We had a few sailings last week ferrying the ‘Macleod Parliament’ gathering to and from Raasay, our ‘PC’ (passenger certificate) of 150 not being enough to carry all the 170 delegates in one go.
http://www.clanmacleodparliament.org/index.html
It’s a four yearly affair with the clan chief and his wife travelling all the way from Tasmania,
that’ll be John Macleod centre with Rosie Macleod just behind him preparing to pipe the first batch onto Raasay. The other gentleman is, I think, Donald Macleod, chief of the Lewis MacLeod’s and I do hope I’ve got that right. Though I think they’re referred to as ‘Lewes’ Macleod’s
http://www.clanmacleod.org/about-macleods/
Anyway, they certainly saw Raasay at its best and had a great day out by all accounts.
My crewmates and I spent most of the ‘in between moments’ making the best of the good weather to finish of Ferguson’s paint work 
We also had the company of the Ullapool registered clam diving boat ‘Lady Nicola’ UL 584
who were kind enough to donate some scallops to the MV Hallaig. They were the freshest and finest clams I’ve had since I gave up clam diving myself some 12 years ago.
This will be Tarbert in Loch Arnish with Skye and the Storr in the background, it really has been a pleasure travelling to and from work this last fortnight.
It’s been busy on the ‘seaways’ too with the usual fish farm boats, The SD Raasay and several ‘well boats’ to name just a few.
Charlie (on the left) headed back to Barrhead along with MiL so Molly is looking a bit lost at the moment and is once more pestering me to take her to work every morning.
The worn out wren
A week or so back I was walking down the drive with the two dogs when Charlie found a wee fledgling wren it the middle of the road.
It was pure knackered and hadn’t quite got the knack of flying, expecting visitors in a vehicle I moved it to the verge. The wee thing must have been OK, for when we returned it had gone.
Sunday
Today started a little grey and damp,
perfect weather for the monthly ‘deck drencher’ test,
you really do not want to be on the car deck when that goes off
Then later in the day we had a fire in the engine room and an unconscious motorman who had to be rescued
Can’t have been anything serious because shortly afterwards he was making a new top for the engine room work station
Now we can fit the logbook and the notebook on there at the same time
All this being done with the emergency generator ‘back feeding’ the main switchboard in ‘harbour mode’. Normally we’d be on ‘shore power’ during the Sunday ‘tie up’ but this is a good way of testing and loading up the ‘EDG’ as part of the weekly ‘planned maintenance’.
That’s it really, it’s my last full day tomorrow then it’ll two weeks hard labour on the croft, or should I say under the Land Rover, getting ready for the MOT and fitting the ‘Disco’ 200TDi. There was more, much more but most of that involved cursing and swearing about inept surveyors, legalized robbery by mortgage brokers, Crofting Commission idiocy and being shafted by the bank. Why, of why do we put up with these charlatans, you lift a pair of knickers from Tesco and you’re a criminal yet these ‘professionals’ can quite legally screw you for the last penny and leave you out to dry.
I despair!
Well cool by comparison, I dunno what the actual temperature was but the air conditioned battery rooms felt like a fridge and they are set to 20 degrees.
Methinks that by the time it finally arrives the winter will be here.
