Returning soon

Ladies, Gentlemen, and all genders outside and inbetween...I will be returning! After a long spell away, lockdown, child starting Primary school, and a whole host of other things, I'm coming back! In the meantime, I got a tattoo. There's a lot behind it, but the short version is the Mum elephant is me, and the little one is my little one. She's changed my views of the world a LOT.

Little one isn't so little any more! She's six years old now, and in P2 (Primary 2). She's absolutely loving school, and her Gaelic is impressive. She's now teaching me how to read her books.

The coos down the road are still going strong, new calves every year. Balemartine Fold. They got a new bull this year and he is a *handsome* chap!

Encountered a person making this on one of our beach walks. Rosemary gave them some extra shells she'd collected on the way. Next day it was done.

TMF was back this year. I volunteered to chauffeur!

Before that was Feis, the local Gaelic music week. Rosemary loved it, and on the second to last day I took her, and all the kids from our little area to the school in the new Trust electric minibus. It's a bit weird when you've only driven vehicles with a clutch...there's no clutch! But lovely and smooth.

Finally...our house is being built! After many years of back and forth and builder hunting, it's started. Hopefully we'll be in next year.

So, yep. Updates will be irregular, but they will happen again :)

Photo spam

Know what happens when you go everywhere with your camera?  Sometimes you forget to take the photos off for a few weeks.

So what have I been up to?

Well, one morning I got the school bus to the pier for some (very) early morning fishing.  It took me to the end of pier road so I happily trotted down there and paid a visit to the war memorial.



It really was a fantastic morning:


Look at this water!


LOTI came in later that morning:


Kite surfers were enjoying the breeze:


I didn't catch a thing, but I did enjoy the views and had a nice chat with a seal.  When I got home I rinsed all my rods and tackle and put them out to dry.  This led to a strange little scene:


A little crop of spinners:


I didn't use all of these, but they'd all gotten a bit wet and best to wash off the saltwater to avoid rust.

Pippa was passed out on her bed when I got back


I tapped on the window a few times...




Daft dog!  She could NOT work out what was going on for a good couple of minutes.

That afternoon I stripped, sanded and painted the study window.  Here it is stripped and sanded, note that the wood has silvered due to being exposed for years.


Post paint:


That's both front windows done now and we've had some weather to test them too!  We had 77mph gusts last weekend and both windows kept the water out.

Last Saturday was the school gala day.  The sun was out and so were a fair chunk of Tiree's population.


Jo and I sold his homemade ice cream and sold over 65 cones worth!  There were only a few dropped scoops which Jo was happy to replace and we were both amused by children and adults wondering around licking their ice creams.

I've done a spot of spinning for a future museum display:






I'll document that better once I've taken some more snaps and done the final step (using the home-brewed lichen dyes!)

Tuesday I went fishing with our Minister and while we didn't catch anything we did have a great chat with each other and some folk waiting for the ferry.  The sunset that evening was amazing.


The tide was pretty high that evening and the Clansman is a bit taller than LOTI, this led to the long footramp looking rather steep:

Looked more like an escalator!

The sunset truly was stunning.




Amazing skies!


Yesterday evening I was out fishing again, what can I say, I love the calm and the cast.  Saw a flock (want to say shoal!) of eider ducks:




The darker ones are the females:


After three weeks of not catching a fish I caught easily twenty tiddlers!  Little pollack, little cod, little sea bass, possibly pilchard and something with a very dark green back.  I think the heaviest was maybe 6oz.  All survived and were thrown back.  There was a seal out herding them around the pier and I fully admit to throwing one catch straight to it.  It sounded a bit out of puff a few times!

In the knitting world I am working on a jumper for my Mum after a bit of a saga with getting the dye and a mystery Kaffe Fasset afghan that's proving...colourful.  I'm to knit 7 squares of each colour combination and the mystery will be how they go together.  This is clue 2:


VERY colouful.  Fortunately my recipient (who doesn't know they're getting it) is fond of colour so should like it :)

Next year I plan to knit every day's highest and lowest temperature into a blanket.  The original plan is two rows per day; one of the high and one of the low but I'm wondering about that and it may yet change.  The first pair of rows won't be until the 2nd January 2015 anyway.  It's an idea that's been around a while, mostly resulting in scarves.  I'm not a scarf wearer but I do enjoy a blanket to snuggle under.

My parents have bought me the wool to start it as a Christmas present.  In order to make sure I had it in plenty of time they sent me the money early.  Yesterday saw this huge packet arrive:


So many pretty colours:


After having a good squish and checking I like the colour range I have packed those up and put them aside ready for next year.  That's only the beginning!  While there is a very reasonable amount of wool there it won't last the year, but as I cannot predict next year's weather or temperatures I shall just be ordering more balls as an when needed.

Think that's it.

TTFN.

Tiree Regatta 2014

Last year's regatta was cancelled due to bad weather.  This year they managed!  The day started overcast, windy, but dry.  Perfect sailing weather really.

I hadn't planned to go originally but when I heard Jo was going with his litres of home made ice cream I decided to go down too.

The refreshment tent (most important):


Scarinish harbour looking busy:


Mad, mad souls about to go paddling around:


I think this was "paddle to the other side and back so many times then run to the trailer".  Much enthusiastic cheering was heard anyway.


There was a children's event of home built raft racing:





After watching these for a while I trotted over to the beer tent and the other activities.

Pillow fighting!

(alas, cancelled shortly after due to wet pole)


My personal fave; welly wanging!  I think it was formally called "welly toss" but I prefer "wanging".  I did see one gent lose his grip on the welly and accidentally hit someone at the burger van, no injuries fortunately.

I had great fun with the camera trying to time my snaps!








I think I have about another dozen of either no welly or welly just about to leave thrower's hand.

The sailing competition also started.  A bit of confusion was had and I'm afraid I missed boats coming back in due to helping pack the tea tent.













Alas, by the time they started the wind had gotten up and the rain was fair belting down so I couldn't spend as much time as I wanted focusing the camera for fear of sodden lens.

So, that was the regatta.  The winning welly wanger got over 34m and I believe everyone who came enjoyed themselves.  Jo sold quite a few ice cream cones for the church funds and I was proven wrong about my assessment of the ginger flavour; people actually bought it!

Today is much better and the island is drying out again.

TTFN!