And so it begins. The builder has been sending us photos and videos of the emerging access track whilst it’s being excavated. Very exciting. It looks wide enough to be a motorway in this picture! Sadly building regs dictate that it has to be wide enough for a fire truck to get up to the house, so it does seem wide, but it’s the minimum width we can get away with…
As we suspected, the gradient is very steep in places. The builder has excavated a borrow pit on the croft for extra soil and rock for infill and will try and smooth out the most extreme parts of the slope, although it’s always going to be a steep climb up to the house.
As we also suspected, the boggy bottom of the croft at the base of the hill is actually almost a lake once the soil has been removed. You can see the water level clearly in this photo, right where the entrance bellmouth will be connecting to the communal village road. The video from the digger shows this clearly too.
There will be drainage into both the culvert and back onto the land so that we can remove enough water to make the road viable, but also further along in the process we can perhaps dig a wildlife pond in this area. That plus willow and alder planting and we hope that it will dry out enough to be useable. If not, it’ll be a big natural wetland area, which I’m sure will do wonders for the croft’s natural diversity!
The builders seem to have managed to circumnavigate the two big granite outcrops at the top of the croft and run the road between them. Which is good. Rock blasting and removal is another expense that we are heartily glad not to incur on an already massively expensive road.
But it’s progress! We are so cheered to see this. At last, for the first time after all these months of planning, specification and permissions, it actually seems real.
Ravencroft Skye 
How exciting for you!
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Thank you – it so is! 😊
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I am so happy for you! Oh my god, that view!
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Isn’t it wonderful? Despite all the challenges with this build we still keep coming back to that and the thought that we’ll be waking up to that every day one day soon 😊
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A dream coming true!
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It really is! 😍
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How exciting! So lovely to see you have some progress in these difficult times.
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Thank you Linda 🙏
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That’s amazing. So pleased the work is now commencing. Awesome. Have you received a timeframe on when other work will start?
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No, not yet. This can happen as the man operating the digger is working alone, but I suspect the builders will wait for further announcements before committing to the next stage
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Fingers crossed.
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It is going to be wonderful!
I thought builders were allowed to operate, keeping in mind social distancing?
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I believe they are, although more cautious guidelines are being applied in Scotland
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It really is a beautiful view and I am excited to see the beginning of your project.:)
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Many thanks Annie! 😊
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So exciting!
I hope you’ll be able to make the pond idea work. I look forward to seeing what you do!
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Ah, thank you. Once all the house stuff is over and we start on the grounds I’d definitely like a pond on the lower part of the croft. It’s boggy there anyway, so would be good for drainage, and fantastic for wildlife. 👍
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Yes, ponds are great for those. We’ve got marshy areas and ponds, and the ponds are clearly making a bigger positive difference.
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Exciting times! 🙂
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I am so envious of your water wealth. A small pond (we would say dam) with reeds and edible plants and some native fish or freshwater mussels would be beautiful. Your land is so beautiful.
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Awww thank you. Most folk in Britain wouldn’t dream of living on Skye as its considered too wet!
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We humans seem to be able to adapt to so many environments.
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