What a journey! In real time, it has taken 6 months to
find and secure a croft site for our new Homestead, it seems like years…But our
long awaited ‘good times’ are finally here. Yipee!!
On the morning of December 27th 2013, we left
the final reminder of our time on Colonsay, our footprints in the sand.
We arrived at our temporary Homestead with a view to
settling somewhere ‘out West’.
The variation of scenes from our temporary homestead are
just amazing – including the myriad of wildlife – otters, herons, eagles, you
name it and it is here…
So what now! We have settled on the wonderful Isle of
Skye, but, we haven’t rested on our laurels while we’ve been here. There was
such a huge amount to do even just to regain our identities – Kapitein thought
I could be Demi Moore! I’m sure she would have been delighted with that!
Especially when I don’t look like her… I thought he could be George Clooney!!
Well, one does live in hope…
All of the paperwork during the aftermath of the fire,
takes time and effort, including the reporting of, several times a day, the
same story of how everything was lost in the fire. But, we have come out the
other side, and are raring to go…
So what about Skye! There is a shop here called the Co-op!!
It is such a novelty to us, it’s like being in a huge sweetie shop! Kapitein’s
eyes light up every time he sees the large selection of Pizza’s – we’ll have to
keep an eye on his waistline me thinks. He is notorious when he nips to the
shops, he always comes back with armfuls of goodies, not that I am complaining.
There is everything you could wish for and more, nearly on our doorstep, well,
far fewer miles than 2.20 hours on a ferry and an overnight stay in Oban. But,
I do miss seeing the wonderful yellow plane flying overhead on Colonsay,
especially when it was bringing freight for us.
We have visited many parts of Skye and beyond.
It was the depths of winter when we arrived with lots of
snow – brilliant if you own a snowdog like Wolfie!
The
Faerie Pools at Glenbrittle
Applecross
with Skye in the distance – it was very, very cold that day.
Neist
Point – where waterfalls traverse ‘uphill’ on windy days
I have also been very busy designing new products, the
inspiration here on Skye is fantastic. The Cuillin mountain range is just amazing, and at the
time of posting this blog, there is still a wee patch of snow!! And it’s the
summer!! I will post up more details on my latest designs soon…
Isle of Skye is our new island home, and we have been so
lucky. We have purchased an owner occupied croft where we are at the ‘edge’
too. It has shore frontage, with not one, but three slipways! Perfect for
Kapitein. And a huge acreage too, perfect for our ‘boys’ (the canine and sheep
variety) so it’s all go from now on.
We received the keys – well, to the wooden gate, on
Friday 23rd May 2014, with plans, plans and more plans in our heads.
So where do you begin when you own a bare-land croft?
Plant a tree, this is a native Alder – we thought we
needed to put down our roots as soon as possible.
Surveying the land, we noticed there is an inordinate
amount of Bog Myrtle on the croft – I see beer production, just for our own
consumption, will be a must… Anyway, we were put in touch with a young chap, Magnus,
an absolute dab hand with a chain saw. He cleared a path through the Bog Myrtle
so that Malcolm the fencer could get a paddock fenced off, ready for the Tups
arrival from Colonsay.
Malcolm
& Magnus fencers extraordinaire
Next was to get a hard-standing so we could access the
site with vehicles. John from K.Lee Plant came and started scraping away the top
soil in readiness for a temporary hard standing. Brilliant work!! More about
John and Willie aka the Bernisdale boys in a later post…
With all of this work there is a huge amount of
preparation now already completed. But one of our most wonderful moments ( and
there has been several) was the day the containers arrived from storage – it was
nice to see Gary from MaQueen’s storage in Oban, the last time we saw him was
the day he left Colonsay via Hebridean Air Services (as the ferry had been
cancelled) arriving home, just in time for Christmas. He told us he had a super
flight.
He offloaded the containers which had housed our few
possessions rescued from the shed, including all of last year’s wool clip, this
is so important, especially when starting anew. Plus Kapitein has some tools
again, and we all know that every guy needs a shed with tools!
Everything
arrived safely and in good order, what a relief...
Next on the list of things to acquire was, we needed to
get equipment for working the land – it has been neglected for a number of
years, but the ground is good. First and foremost on this list was a tractor!
And after an epic journey-it took just over a week to get here from the
mainland, the tractor, affectionately known as Wouter de Boskabouter, arrived.
Wouter
De Boskabouter with our miniature Macleod’s Table in the background – built by
a Macleod of course!
And Kapitein! Well, he is in his element with all things
tractor. What is it about ‘Boys and their toys’? He is often seen ‘flailing’
about in the field!! Well, that’s what he calls it!!
Next thing we found was that many years ago, there had
been caravans on this croft and that there was already a track down to the
trees. We spoke with John again from K.Lee Plant and what a surprise, he
arrived with his ‘even bigger’ digger and set too on reinstating the track.
This is very exciting to us, the old road, becoming the
new! And a bonus for us is we have a wee quarry which contains ‘rotten rock’ which
is rock that is perfect for the road. John got very excited when he saw this…
He’s nearly as bad as Kapitein! Especially when both could be found
‘inspecting’ rock!! John is an extremely professional person and what he can’t
do with his diggers isn’t worth knowing about. We are so very, very grateful
for all of his hard work and sound advice.
We also unearthed an old, working, septic tank and water
connection – which had serviced the old caravan, neatly hidden under the
undergrowth. There was also the old hard-standing where the caravan had stood.
I will tell you all about the excavations with Wouter de Boskabouter in my next
blog.
The flora and fauna on our site is exquisite, we have so
many Hebridean Orchids, amongst other wild flowers here, and they are truly
beautiful…
We have also taken time out from working to see even more
of our new island home. We headed off south to see the Glenelg ferry, it was a
glorious day to see the ferry with new livery.
The Isle of Skye has everything, even two way traffic!
Something very new to us having previously lived on such a small island with
only single road – and passing places. But once off the beaten track, there are
still many miles of single track roads here, with passing places that you never
know what you may have to pull in for!!
I am now off back up to the croft to do some more work, I
will keep you posted on our progress…
