It’s gonna be a peach :-)

A nice early night and a good long sleep had me waking up to a clear blue sky with no sign of the smoke that’s been lingering around Skye and Raasay for days. The ‘wall to wall’ sunshine promised for days has finally arrived Dunno if the heath fires are actually out but I cannae smell any burnt heather and the smoke isn’t blocking the sun  

Must have been cold during the night right enough cos the seat on my quad is soaking wet but my wee cherry blossom is looking lovely.

 

Yesterday was a pretty laid back day with the dugs and I walking over to Torran for breakfast number one and strong black coffee.

   

The path being adorned by primroses that you don’t notice when speeding along on a quad

  

After vacuum packing the chorizo, sausages and straining the brawn that was still warm six hours after the five half heads had been boiling for four hours .

 

I headed round to the neighbours to see how they were getting on and also to ask if they’d seen the missing half a head

 

My old house and garden looking lovely in the spring sunshine. There was no sign of the missing half a head right enough but after another coffee I came away with a black pudding, some Arnish and Raasay sausages and a fine piece of haslet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haslet which I can’t wait to try.

A traditional Lincolnshire meat loaf, I’ve only ever had it when I lived in Lancashire over thirty years ago and have never seen or heard of it since.

Eagles everywhere

Then it was home to just potter about, cleaning the shed putting the boiler away and admiring the eagles soaring above my house.

 

Perhaps they had found the missing half a head

  

So I went to check my ‘graveyard’ still no sign of the AWOL head but there were plenty of eagles

  

The Shiant Isles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiant_Islands (centre image) have never looked so close.

 

After that I turned my attention to the next major project on my list, fitting a whole new rear half chassis to the Disco I’ve have a few other things to deal with first but meanwhile I gave it a good spraying inside and out with underseal.

  

Smoke from the Moll fire blocking out the sunset, a fresh one burning to the north,

 

time to leave the dugs on my bed and head to Torran for dinner

A day of rest!

It’s 7:30AM, not the clear blue sky that was forecast but another lovely spring morn none the less,

 

with the rising sun’s rays escaping the veil of cloud to the north. Illuminating the hills behind Staffin who’s Gaelic names I’m not even going to try and spell but methinks the one on the right is the Table

   

To the south there’s a herd of hinds grazing on the first tender shoots of spring and to the west on a flat calm sea an early fisherman.

The Portree creel boat Mhari Bhan BRD 650 just about to set a fleet of heavy looking creels for an early lobster

Me, I’m just sat at the kitchen table watching the day unfold with the firm intention of doing nothing today Well I’m pretty sore, tired and I am on holiday after all and it’s been ‘full on’ to say the least.

Thursday

Methinks the first job was heading over to the Schoolhouse with two sides of Marmalade then going to drag up the long lengths of pipe Donnie the fisherman had towed uo north for us.

   

The hundred or so meters of 90mm MDPE pipe would save me having to join much shorter lengths together.

  

Once that was tucked up out of the way we set about cutting up the six sides of pig we’d killed on Wednesday.

  

Under Gavin’s expert instruction and the dug’s envious gaze

  

Well, Molly and Bonzo certainly got their fill, made the dog biscuits they got for dinner seem pretty boring

Friday

After yet another excellent meal, red wine and late night I arose early to catch the post and walk the dugs before more butchery.

 

It was not the ‘wall to wall’ sunshine the forecast had promised, not only was it raining lightly but the sky was blocked out by a thick combination of mist and smoke The pyromaniacs had been out on Skye.

 

Images taken by David Carslaw on Thursday night from the Raasay village hall and the old ferry terminal. https://www.whfp.com/2022/03/25/fire-crews-continue-to-tackle-skye-blaze/ https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/highlands-islands/4095497/public-warned-to-avoid-a87-on-isle-of-skye-after-firefighters-battle-wildfire/

 

Yup, it was pretty thick but by the time I’d got back home the drizzle had dried up and the smoke never reached the north end.

 

A couple of hours of chopping up back fat for salami was followed by an abortive attempt at sailing

The tide just never came in enough to launch my Mate’s boat So I left them to more salami and sausage making and turned my attention to putting the fence back up that I’d taken down to lower my wind turbine. Putting the gin pole away and tightening the 46mm nuts at the base. After that I headed over to the Schoolhouse apologised for my absence at the cutting table chopped off a length of pork loin had an early (alcohol free) night