Home early tonight thanks to Erik who’s 60 knot winds put paid to the last two sailings. He was late in arriving right enough but the pishing rain was well ahead of the blow. It was so wet this morning that I put my wellies and oilskins on just to get to the car and open the gate !!! In all my years working on the ferry I’ve never done that before, sure, once or twice I’ve wished I had but today is my first day with CalMac when I have spent the entire day in wellington boots and waterproof trousers. I didn’t even take em off when down in the engine room working on the sewage plant, though that would probably have been a good move even on a sunny day 
The drive down the road to work was something else, I swear I’ve never seen so much water. I know I say that every year and today I figured out why, it’s cos the frigging council have stopped clearing run offs at the side of the road so the water just lies in the many hollows and pot holes. The whole stretch from Holloman to Oscaig is like a river, purely cos there are no run offs through the grass at the side of the road to let the water away. Every summer the verges at the side of the road get higher and every winter the puddles get deeper. Sure, occasionally they’ll pay someone to patch up the holes in the road but why can’t they just pay someone to clear the water off first??
Whilst Erik was well predicted, we were supposed to be ‘in the eye of the storm’ with average wind speeds of only 19knots, well they got that bit spectacularly wrong. The solitary sun that XC placed in one of its hourly predictions did appear, albeit only briefly but it was a welcome break in the relentless rain. Not enough to remove the wellies right enough but bright enough to produce a nice rainbow or two in-between the gloom.
The Spindrift decided to leave her mooring in favour of a sheltered berth astern of Hallaig
and that was it really. We put extra ropes on Hallaig and bade her farewell, I even got halfway home in daylight. Once home I locked the hens in, collected the eggs, cleared a blocked drain, finally removed my wellies and ‘called it a day’.
You call that an egg!!
Look what one of our chooks laid, probably in protest of me forgetting to let them out this morning 
Luckily I remembered before lunch and one of our neighbours let them out
Stir fried monkfish
It may have been a stormy day but the fish van managed to make it safely over with some lovely haddies, smokies, cod, salmon, scallops, prawns and much more. I came away with a nice piece of monkfish that darling wife stir fried and boy was it deelish. The lovely glass of McGuigan Back Label is washing it down just right Sure they say white for fish, me, I say white for cooking, red for everything else
A wee night out
Tomorrow afternoon it’s ‘Pie, beans and a pint’ all for a tenner at the Raasay Distillery https://raasaydistillery.com/. Actually it starts with the rugby at 14:00 and finishes at 23:00 but I’ll be popping in for the ‘pie and beans’ after the 18:00 sailing from Sconser. Methinks they stop serving food at 19:00 so I’ve booked my pie already perhaps I’ll go back for my pint after the late sailing Might even have a few more and stay in the ‘toon hoose’
Indeed it was so peaceful when I got home that I removed the battery from the clock. Do you really have any idea how uplifting total silence can be? 
