Erm...?

Last week I was due to fly to Glasgow.  Nothing new there.  What WAS new was the weather I woke up to!



Erm...  April...snow?  Funnily enough, the morning plane was cancelled (no visible airstrip), but the evening plane was delayed enough that I got to fly.  But not before I got these photos:





The airport staff had somehow managed to clear the runways.  After living here for over four years, you forget about things like snow ploughs, we just don't need them.  But apparently they keep something that can do the job, just in case.

And just to really confuse, I took this photo of Mummy song thrush and her babies the day before:


Today is bright, but windy.  Perfect laundry weather!

TTFN

Lots of new

New house, new camera, new beach, lots of new.

New house:

Yep, we moved.  Hynish View has been sold and so we have moved to one of the school houses.  It's huge, centrally heated, and has stairs.  And a lovely set of gardens with hedges!  I can now hang out my laundry without everyone who passes by seeing what colour our underthings are.

In the hedge near the laundry poles we have a nesting birdy.  She's a song thrush and has at least three little peepers to raise:



I check on her (from a distance) when I hang out laundry and she doesn't seem fazed by it all.

I've got my own room!  No longer am I camping in the living room, I now have my own room to make a mess in.  I have treated myself to a shoe organiser thing to hold all my wool fibre for needle felting:



and I also treated myself to a painting by Grom that I collected after we moved and now lives above my desk.  On the left is Grom's lighthouse, on the right is a mixed media that I got for my 30th from Blue Beyond.



Somewhere, I have a framed painting from when I went to Paris with my parents; that will go in the middle when I find it.  It's very nice to actually be able to hang things here.  So long as we neatly fill the holes before we leave, it's allowed.

I'm working on something new for the babby.  It involves some sticks:


and needle felted bits:


It will be a mobile of sheep, but I need to make the heads and feet which is waiting for my urge to felt to come back.  Baby is waking me up at all hours and making it hard to sleep because of limited positions, so my energy levels are a little low.  It's lovely, and weird, to feel and watch your belly moving about, but Silly AM is not a time I wish to be awake.  Still, it's good practice.  Baby will be here in less than ten weeks.  Yes, we are down to single digits!  I have two washes to do and all the baby-related laundry will be done.

My little oak sapling has some lovely green buds this year:


I was worried it might not revive after last year's rather lack-lustre weather, but it's doing fine and has a sunny, yet sheltered, spot in the new garden.

and we have a new beach to roam!




The route we found to it takes us to the top of dunes, but I have been assured there's another route.

So, yes, new, new, new!

TTFN

Hello 2016!

Yes, I know it's the twelfth already but well, we've been busy!

October saw the Tech Wave but I was a tad "off sorts" so this is the only photo that's worth sharing:



Family of makerbots!

In November Jo baked a HUGE parkin, weighing the ingredients proved...inventive.



But those aren't the reasons I've been absent.  At the start of October I went to the nurse with some odd feelings and we did a little test.  One that comes back with either one line or two.

Two came back!

A few weeks later we had a bit of a scare, so Jo and I went to the early pregnancy unit at Glasgow.  After some anxious waiting and a lot of scanning...



That is an eight week old fetus!  It's little heart was going crazy and it already had the wriggles.  We are very much overjoyed.

Then in December it was time for the 13week scan.  Unfortunately, due to the rains and havoc that went on around Cumbria my Mum couldn't make it up and Jo wasn't going to try and get a work day off, so I went alone.



Talk about wriggly!



The little dear was doing kangaroo impressions and refusing to pose for the midwife scanning it.  But she was very happy with how it looked and I went home with more photos.

Today the pram arrived, Pippa is NOT impressed that she won't be the baby all year.



I must say though, even as an engineer, I canNOT fathom the waterproof cover!  I shall be Googling that one.

So, yeah, updates are going to be a bit sporadic this year.  Baby is due in June and we are attempting to pack things we don't really need because we dearly hope to have our own Tiree house this year.

It's all go!

TTFN

Big skies

One advantage of living on such a (relatively) flat island is the huge skies you get.  This evening saw a gorgeous sunset over Beinn Hough and me stood on the verge across the road snapping shots.

I did try to turn these into a gif but the quality was terrible, so you'll just have to scroll down to see the clouds shift across the sky and the colour drain towards the horizon.



























Just so you can see the difference, here's the first and last of the series:






There was a blood moon last night; amazing to watch the moon slowly get eclipsed and then go red.  Alas, I didn't have my camera in focus so I got blurry blobs.

It was weird to see a moon that wasn't white!




That's it for now, we've had the school gala day but I failed to take photos due to having my own stall to man and managing the money from Jo's ice cream stall.  Talk about busy!  The school did well though, they made roughly £2k.  Not bad for an island with 650 population and 330 of voting age.

TTFN

Odds and Ends

I've been busy with getting The Woolly Ferret going on facebook and Etsy, and getting more stock ready for the school gala day and going to meetings and doing the two treasurer jobs I volunteer at.  So much work for no pay!  I may not have a full time job, but I put in the hours.

So, here's a load of photos that have backed up in my album and the odd explanation.


"bee-ring"  I'm experimenting with doing Tiree bee colourings.




Dinosaur spheribeasts snacking on my basil.


The various types of beasty I now make


I finished the Týrvist shawl!  Need to neaten the pattern, get a nice day for a photo and I can start selling the pattern.


Stray tent, full of holes and most likely still flying about after TMF


Jo was doing trike maintenance and wanted me in ear shot, so I took my critters out into the grass.


Nearly knelt on this frog!


This huge bird pops by our back garden sometimes, handy fence.  Turns out it's a female hen harrier.

Oooh, yes, it was the Tiree Ultra Marathon last Sunday.  I volunteered to do finish times and had a *really* good day!  It was great cheering people and watching them perk up knowing the finish was finally there after just shy of 35 miles.

Last year there were about 50 runners, think it was less.  This year over 200!  Some were in teams, most were doing the whole stint.  Will, of Tiree Fitness, organised the whole thing and can be seen here on the phone finding out who was pulling out, times, how it was going, etc.


His lovely wife, Becky of Chocolates and Charms, ran the cafe, and oh, what a cafe!


Sitting at the finish line you were repeatedly wafted the smell of amazingly delicious lasagne.  Wonderful!

I think I shall forever remember the gent who finished and said, very honestly, "I never want to see another beach again in my life."


The winner won it for the 2nd time in a row, they went the other way round this time which added 15min to his previous time but he still finished around the 4hr mark.  Scary!


There was a big group called "Cani sports" I think, who usually run with their dogs, but this time the dogs got the day off, except this one:

"You've rolled up your paws!"

His little dog was VERY happy to see him complete.


Know how a lot of these people were running nearly 35 miles?


They were also cycling to and from their accommodation AND danced that evening!

With that, I am going to go snap the amazing sunrise. 

TTFN

Very busy July!

I can't believe it's August already.  I swear it was only last week I turned 32.

So why have I declared July busy when the weather report says it was damp and cool?

Because I've reopened The Woolly Ferret! 

I've expanded the kinds of things I sell and removed things that didn't.  This meant an evening of dyeing:



And many hours spread over weeks spent sticking tiny, barbed, needles into wool to create little creatures that sell quicker than I can make them:









The round ones are called Spheribeasts(C) and are my latest creation.  I've got about 35 designs sketched out to try too.

Nearly three weeks ago I caught my first Wild Tiree Haggis!



They have two legs shorter than the others so they can run around hills easier.  They also hunt tumshies.  If you want the full details you'll have to buy one from my shop; it comes with a little card explaining their habits and habitats.

During July a group of us who do crafts but have no shop have been running the "mini handmade market" at the Rural Centre, every thursday from 11am to 5pm.  Originally it was 11-3 but we added the two hours to catch the tour bus crowd.

I also had a stall at the agricultural show this year:



I had a few guests. 

One was this little spider that was *determined* to build a web between my felting needle and a roll of yarn:


The other is a gift for an artist who's work I love called Amy Vale



He's called Horace and I made the felt version based on a badge of him I bought before Amy went on hols to Sweden.  As I don't want him getting lost in the post, he's having the odd adventure here until she gets back and then he will fly off the island to a new home.

The show had a good day weather-wise and was pretty darn busy!  So busy that I didn't really get to go explore this time.  What I did manage was to get photos from the first session done by the The Clan Stunt Team.

They warmed up with a jumping challenge.  One rider (Ross?) did sideways "bunny hops":






While the other rider, (Dan?) did a run-up-and-forward-fling:





Ross managed to give himself a huge bruise during the second session so Dan showed off by doing a bunny hop higher than Ross had managed the first session:


I think it was 1.25m or some insane height!

They were both hopping about like springs, including on this scaffold with it's "ladder":




Clearing an 8ft gap:


And here we have Dan about to mercilessly murder a can of Pepsi:




If I recall correctly, this was an 8ft or so drop, aiming for something that's maybe 3" across?!



Poor can!

 So, yes, between the making, the ordering, the planning; the markets; doing half a day at the museum on Fridays; and resting an injured hand, I have been B.U.S.Y!

Combine the above with the weather not really being going-out weather and I'm a bit short on photos, sorry.

Anyway, I have typed enough.

TTFN and do come visit the mini markets if you're passing Tiree on a Thursday, we're doing them all August.