It's starting to get colder particularly in the evening and early morning. I've started to light the fire first thing while Rich makes our first cuppa. Because we're lighting the Rayburn once a week it's making a dent in the wood we've put away. Luckily it's now over a year since the piles of gorse we've got scattered around were cut down. There's a load in the croft which is dry and ready to burn. Some pieces I've managed to snap, I've spent time over the last few days sorting through and putting the large pieces to one side. Rich then used his electric chainsaw to chop them and I brought them down to the log store in the wheelbarrow. We've managed to get a bit put away, not enough to last the winter but at least we've made a start.
We've had a problem with one of the springs in the car. We went to the garage in Inverness to get it sorted last week. I discovered as we got the boat into the water that my wellies had sprung a leak. Luckily I managed to get a new pair from Inverness. Had to have a size 6 as that was the smallest adult size they did, the child's size 5 was too short in the leg. We did a food shop on the way back and then picked up the very large window frame we'd left in the car park at the jetty. It had been a particularly high tide when we'd sailed across in the morning. So high that there was only just enough beach showing to leave the boat on. We were forced to come back at low tide because of having to wait for the car. I assumed low tide would be higher than normal but it obviously doesn't work like that because it was lower. This made things difficult as we couldn't get the boat to the jetty and load it from there as the water wasn't high enough. We pulled the boat down until it was just at the waters edge then went back to pick the window frame up, struggled over the rocks with it and managed to balance it on the top of the boat. By this time the wind had increased and it was getting a bit rough. We pulled the boat into the water, got in and tried to row out so the water was deep enough to put the engine down and start it. We couldn't row out though as the waves were forcing us into shore again. I decided to get out and push the boat out enough for Rich to start it, ending up in water deeper than my new wellies! But Rich managed to start the engine and we finally got across the Loch. I tipped the water out of both wellies once back on dry land.
Just over a fortnight ago I finally plucked up courage to have my tooth extracted. I've had an abcess for the past year but due to my fear of dentists didn't go back after my check up to have it out. I feel so much better and having it pulled out was really quick and not nearly as bad as I'd thought it was going to be.
Work is continuing in the garden. I dug up our second lot of potatoes and weeded the area where the first lot had been, I then planted some garlic. Our cooking apples are ready and have started falling off the tree so I've kindly been collecting blackberries for Rich to make fruit crumbles. Got a bit too enthusiastic today though and over reaching managed to knock a dry stone wall over at the bottom of the garden.
I've also been picking Rose hips, we've a couple of rosa rugosa bushes which are brilliant because the hips are really big. I've been using them to make tea. Apparently they've more vitamin C than an orange.
So overall feel like we're making good progress, we've made some important steps forward this year. The solar panels, the Rayburn and the bath have made big improvements to our quality of life. I've realised over the past couple of weeks that I feel more settled here, there's so much potential and so many things I'm looking forward to. We're going to try and get a polytunnel up and running as soon as finances allow as that will increase the variety of what we can grow and also lengthens the growing season. Good times.
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