Pas d'elle yeux Rhone que nous!

Last Thursday Bill the Diver called to say that he would be round to see to the mooring that we need fixing for the RIB - we had one for Lily (I still haven't told you about her have I?) but it has disappeared, along with two creel marker buoys. I decided to take the canoe ( 'Better Drowned') out and see if I could find any mortal remains - the water is so clear in the bay. Could not find the mooring chain (obliterated by weed it later transpired) but did find one of the buoys, so hauled it aboard the canoe (wet, weedy and heavy, being weighted by an ancient creel) and brought it ashore. Paddling round the bay is great; you can get really close to the seals on the rocks, and they come and gather round the canoe as you move along. Bill, Liz and Colin arrived later to inspect the old mooring, and then came up to the house for tea...

On Friday I went down to the jetty to bring the canoe up to the house; the water was so still, and the cloud so low, that there was an eerie beauty about the bay. Went for a paddle (without a buoyancy aid, oh sinner) and got within ten feet of the seals on the rocks - they then gave me an escort back to the jetty. Used the trolley thing to bring canoe back to the house, so much easier than on the shoulders, which I can do on my own, but I swear it shortens my stature by amounts I cannot afford to lose.

Saturday, had to head back to the mainland, but compensation in seeing three otters on the way to Feolin. All the time I spent lurking by the jetty in the drizzle on Friday and not a sighting.... Really sad to leave the Isle this time, but will be back in a few weeks, with a nice list of dinghy repairing and quilt making jobs to be getting along with. Plus, we will have the RIB to go exploring in. Corrywreckan, here I come............

Inverlussa and the Faithful Hound

We drove up to the 'end of the road' to show Mum the whole of the island, and then went to Inverlussa to picnic. The pics show Mum and Dad on the beach (note the sea serpent attacking Mum from the rear!!), Dad looking south towards An Dunan, and the Faithful Hound who 'dogged' our footsteps and was a miasma of midges.

Harness the Sledge Dogs, Amundsen!

i am my mother's daughter, and the lure of a bit of beachcombing was too much to resist. We went down to the jetty and pottered about, finding a lurid pink buoy for Mum and Dad's new boat ("Flo", as in "Go with the...") and other small things. We then went down to the flats at An Dunan, where the winter storms had washed up some fantastic driftwood - we limited ourselves to looking for attractive pieces, utility for burning waits for a later trip. One piece was so wonderful to look at that we had to have it for the garden, but it was too heavy and awkward for us to carry. Mum then found a good length of rope washed up on the rocks, so we made a harness and I dragged the log up the hill, carrying two long thin pieces (destined for quilt hangers) under my arm, with a twisted root bit sat on my hip. Mum dragged an Ikea bag full of other (equally heavy)bits. As I was dressed in a desert storm camouflage shirt (£2.50 at Land Rover show) I must have looked a bit like Burnham Wood coming to Dunsinane. Dad had hysterics as we trolled in through the bottom gate with our booty....

The Latest Journey (and Before)

James and Peter were up here on a Boys Own holiday the week before last. I could not come because I had to be available to see examiners and what not. We could not get a car place on the ferry, so they left the LR Disco on Jura, travelled as foot passengers and stayed the night in Glasgow with friends (planned to use hostel, but hostel booked them for the wrong night - when they arrived the place was heaving with a wedding party). Mega Thanks to Ros and Martyn for rescuing them from the A82, feeding and watering them, giving them beds AND taking them to Glasgow Central on the Sunday...

I collected them from Rugby station and took Peter straight back to school, where my car was broken into by varmints!!!!! ( Not from the school!!!!) Lost wallet and phone (all numbers, photos etc). They got away with precisely nothing really, since the phone and cards were immediately blocked, and there was only 20p in the wallet. The wallet had been a present from Mum and Dad, and the thought that it would just have been thrown away makes me SO MAD. Prayed hard for the stinkers. In Jura you could leave a car unlocked with the crown jewels on the back seat and they would still be there when you got back.

All this preamble leads to the fact that I travelled up here on Monday with Mum and Dad, and that we came by train from MK, with a cunning plan to catch the bus to Kennacraig, travel on the big and little ferries as foot passengers, pick up the Disco at Feolin and drive to the house. Ha! All went well as far as Crewe - first class seats, breakfast, free paper - where we were unceremoniously bunged from the train because of 'flooding at Warrington'. Five train loads of people were being put on buses. It was complete chaos, but the Virgin staff were helpful, calm and polite throughout. Fell off bus at Preston and caught next train north. (Incidentally, train was full of Punky Goths on the way to a music festival, they looked terrifying, but were letting others on the buses first and helped us with our luggage at the other end. Stars!) The upshot was that we missed our bus connection by 90 mins because we were so late. Virgin agreed to fund a taxi to Kennacraig, so we fair sped along the road, catching up with the bus just before the ferry port and being there in time after all. Much relief (except to Virgin with a £148 taxi bill) Good for them I say. I cannot fault their service - the thunder storms were hardly their fault. We finally got to the house at 9.30 pm as planned, drank hot chocolate (although I forgot the vast supply of marshmallows that we have here) and collapsed into bed.

Cuckoo Count and That Thrilling Rescue!

On Saturday I heard a total of four cuckoos (presuming it was not the same one following me about Scotland!)
First at Rowardennan, then Loch Chon (site of the thrilling bog rescue, which I will come to soon), Strone Hill (A85 near Dalmally), and finally in the woods by Ardmenish burn (see pic) on Jura. If you have any idea of the geography you will see from this what a circuitous route I took from Loch Lomond to Jura! Worth it to see such gorgeous landscapes. Short stop at tea shop (The Wee Blether) at Kinlochard where I had my first taste of clootie dumpling. Yum.

And so to the thrilling bog rescue. Am I in danger of overstating things? Never! I set off from the YH on saturday am without looking at the map (unusual for me), but knowing I needed to turn left at Aberfoyle. Did so, but realised after some miles that I might have taken the wrong left turn. Decided to stop and consult map, so drove into a car park at Loch Chon (Chan?). As I was rummaging in the glove compartment (which necessitated the removal of the electric cool box, cat litter tray and spare seats for Molly the Jura landrover) a lad came running out of the woods shouting "Have you got a tow rope?". He had driven his car into a bog trying to reach the tents where he and three friends were staying. I did not have a tow rope, and would have struggled to get one out of such a laden car anyway. How frustrating, to have the power to pull someone out, but no way of connecting! [With my lay preacher hat on I can feel a sermon illustration coming on] I said that I would go and try to find a tow rope and come back - bear in mind that we are 15 miles from a town here. I toddled off and found a fisherman a mile or so away. He did not seem remotely surprised to have a pink haired woman leap from a landrover and ask for a rope! What is more, he had one, AND was willing to lend it to me. I returned to the lads (who had seen another car flee from the car park when they approached - "Maybe they thought we were going to kill them" they said) We attached the rope, engaged low range and heave ho, one Honda Civic out of bog and back on the track. Yippee!! I had never done this before and was SO proud of success. I love our landy! Mental note to acquire own tow rope having returned (slightly muddy) one to owner.
Thinks, my 'wrong' turning meant that I was in the right (isolated) place to help someone, and found someone willing to lend a rope to a stranger. God is very good!

The View from Here

This is a view of the Paps of Jura 'over the garden wall'. As you can see it is a fine day, despite the howling wind. I was trying to use this as my profile photo, but, despite being small enough, and a jpeg, the system keeps telling me it is not ( a jpeg that is). Computers, don't you love 'em? The cat is sunning herself on the windowsill and the seals have all taken to the water. The cows have hoofed off to the other side of the bay. It was oh so different this time yesterday...

I had opened the big gate to put the landrover in the drive so as to minimize the homicidal (what is the latin for woman? Femina? feminacidal?) tendencies of the aforementioned mattress. I fought the mattress, and I WON! I then left the gate open with only a 12 inch gap between the post and the car and went off to sew a jacket, talk to mother on phone, drink tea etc. Looked out of window to see garden full of cows. Big black cows. With babies. (Cows, like bears, are very protective). How did they fit through such a small gap? Can they dislocate their ribs like pythons do their jaws? Sinister behaviour of cows. I tried to shoo (or 'shu' as they say on the islands) them out but they like our overlong lush grass too much. Eventually I opened the bottom gate, and took to banging the ground with my Leki pole and shouting "shu!". It took twenty minutes, but they all left eventually. Breathed a sigh of relief until I saw that they were circling the walls and mooing balefully at me. First malevolent mattresses and now psychopathic ruminants. I swear that one of them stood still for ten minutes just looking through the kitchen window at me. I suspect that the pantomime might have been watched (through bins) by the farmer. They would have come to save me eventually. I hope. Decided that bringing the mattress upstairs was a job too far, so went and drank wine instead.

Flying the Flag

This is a copy of the flag of the Northern Lighthouse Board, who originally built this house as a shore station for the light at Skervuile. We have the original flag, but it is rather tattered - as anything would be strung up a pole in all weathers! Peter and I made a new flagpole for the old site, using the mast from Lily. As I write this , I realise that there is a lot of history to fill in. Who is Peter? Who was Lily, and why can we scavenge her mast? What was the Beathach Dhiura? Why did I think my husband was trying to kill me? Who are the Crones of Jura? Maybe, dear reader, I will tell you one day...

The Journey

As I sit here, gazing across the bay to the south, the wind is howling and making something on the roof rattle. The sun is shining, I can see the Paps (that is how we measure the weather in the morning; "How much of the Paps can you see?" is the daily cry) and I have counted six seals on the rocks. This is my first blog, and may be a bit of a stream of consciousness as I muse over the last couple of days...

I left the midlands on Friday morning, in a Landrover full to the gunwhales (or the roofline!) with stuff, as usual. Loading the car is a story in itself, as James and I heaved a double mattress through a GAPWHICHISNOTWIDEENOUGH at ten at night. Thankfully our neighbours are used to our strange behaviour by now. Preying on my thoughts was the issue that I was going to have to unload everything ON MY OWN. I was once trapped against a wall by a rogue mattress for an hour, waiting for someone to come home and rescue me, so am deeply traumatized on the subject.

The drive north was uneventful, apart from the matter of having to backtrack nine miles in order to fill up with diesel. I stayed the night at Rowardennan youth hostel (YH are great places to stay; fab locations, interesting people, yha.org.uk) on the east side of Loch Lomond, beautiful. Shared a room with two girls who are walking the West Highland Way (we hope to do this next year, so I listened to all the tips!) As I had the whole of Saturday to kill, I decided to go the long way round to Kennacraig to catch the six p.m ferry to Islay.

The next instalments: A Thrilling Bog Rescue, Cuckoo Count, Herding Cows