Been a while hey, well, with the whole kingdom spiralling towards another ‘lockdown’ I thought I’d go and see my Son whilst I still could. Who knows where we’ll be at Christmas and it was a good job I did. I mean, if that halfwit and the baldy Yorkshireman that’s pulling his strings think COVID is serious enough for another lockdown then it must be bad hey. With a pure carp forecast ahead the sane thing would have been to stay put but I’m not known for my sensible decisions hey. If I were sensible I’d be driving a Land Cruiser or L200 and not a fleet of Land Rovers. Still, I suppose there is some logic in having a Defender, Disco and Range Rover, at some point, at least one of them will work
Before leaving on Friday I spent Thursday inside the Land Rover fitting some trim and carpet before installing new seat belts and removing all the seat brackets for cleaning up and painting. One of those jobs that takes hours and leaves not much to show for it.
A long way for a takeaway
Friday looked like ‘the calm before the storm’ when I departed Sonas I caught a glimpse of the ‘royal’ stag before taking ‘wee dug’ for a final wander on the way to the ferry. She would be staying with my wife and my neighbour would be house and pig sitting. The pigs I wanted to be fat, the dug I didn’t
The next few days I spent with my son and MiL in a rather wet and windy Girvan and Edinburgh living off Indian takeaways and out of Chinese restaurants. This was great at the time but left me longing for a good salad. All the time checking the Raasay Facecloth page and weather reports from back home. The ferry was off and trees were down closing the road to the north end. Sure it was only a small tree and was soon cleared but the alternative route had already been closed for a week due to a rockfall or something.
Rather than risk returning on a stormy Sunday I checked into a hotel in Fort William. The Travelodge there was only £25.99 for the night and easily bookable online. The last thing I wanted was to arrive on Skye in the dark to find the ferry off and try to find an extortionally priced room at short notice. I’ve stayed in a few Travelodge hotels recently and for an overnight stay they do exactly what you need, provide a clean room, comfy bed, hot shower and no frills, my days of sleeping in the car are done
It was a very different Raasay that greeted me on Monday morning, a more pronounced brown hue replacing the golden one I’d left behind three days earlier.
Just as I’d departed Raasay seeing a 12 pointed stag, an 8 pointed one greeted me at Glame, the Torran aspens however had shed all their golden foliage during the weekend storm.
The lone holly near my house being thrown into sharp relief against the withering birch leaves.
Despite the 77MPH winds recorded by George Rankine at Eyre on Saturday and the 64MPH on Sunday, damage at Sonas was light. A basket full of clothes pegs strewn about the drive, a small 12V solar pane off the shed roof, my tractor wheel blown over and bins displaced.
That was it really, Molly found a bone and we were both glad to be home
Going backwards
Despite being home for 11:30 on Monday morning I did very little bar tidy up stuff displaced by the storm and tidy up around the croft. Tuesday saw me attack the ‘Old Girl’ with a new vigour, having left her with some unresolved issues. The heater motor had failed on the day I’d left, the ignition light had failed as had several more dashboard lights which I’d left in working order
Still, I managed to get most of them back on and the rear lights working before turning my attention towards the more cosmetic task of removing and restoring my seat brackets.
It was a peach of a day with a fine close to it.