I got off lightly :-)

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.

  

Off the key :-)

Half past five in the morning, still well dark outside but a clear starry sky makes the fog on the sea just discernible. Hope it clears for the 10:00 sailing, gotta be elsewhere today and whilst yesterday was beautiful, the fog was at times thick and the first ferry at least didn’t sail Not that that bothered me as apart from pig and hen duty I barely stepped outside until after nine. Since I broke my rib my body seems to have adopted a new regime of early to bed (even for me), up at ‘stupid o clock’ and plonking away on here for hours whilst drinking hunners of cups of coffee before venturing outdoors.

Wee dug’s routine hasn’t changed right enough, she stays in bed until she can (or thinks she can) here the rustle of biscuits whatever the time is  

The first and pretty much only task yesterday was attempting to make sense of the Land Rover wiring and before even contemplating the multi coloured spaghetti I added half a dozen extra earths and another positive busbar. The earths cos most, or at least many vehicle wiring issues are a result of poor grounding. After spending much time finding suitable connection points on the chassis, engine, body and fuse box I made up several leads and fitted them.

  

The busbar I made up from more beaten copper pipe some stainless bolts and thick nylon sheet.

 

This I added cos the one I’d made for the starter motor was getting crowded and I had a 50mm square winch cable hanging loose. It would provide an ideal connection point for the 4 ton winch and keep the cable out of the way as well as providing extra positive battery connections. As I was in effect utilizing parts of two engine room wiring harnesses I’d left the extra heavy main feeds in place from both starter and alternator. It’s a big 120A alternator so the thicker cabling equivalent would not go amiss.

It went really well, if not a little slowly as before I knew it my stomach was rumbling and ‘Woman’s Hour’ on Radio 4 four was over and ‘World at One’ had started Not that I usually listen to Woman’s Hour but Alan Carr and Melanie Sykes were being particularly annoying, though what did surprise me was the number of people telling Alan and Mel that they were listening to their show travelling to Scotland for a holiday

Anyway, after lunch, much head scratching, wiring diagram consulting and wire splicing I had the engine starting off the key with the heater plugs and their timer working a treat.

  

Of course by now it was nearing pig feeding and mouse/vole releasing time, my ‘humane’ trap having bagged another four.

  

Molly and I driving them a mile or so down the road to release them into the wild.

  

It turned into a bonny evening but that boodly fog came back in

being particularly thick by bed time.