Snow
The cold has come
In the race to get into the house before the highland winter really bit, we’re down to the wire now.
The weather over the last few days has been much colder as the winds have veered to the north east, and snow is forecast.
We are still at least a week away from moving in. Husband is trying to fit a toilet, sink and shower so that we have basic facilities in place, but it’s slow going. We have water to the upstairs bathroom now, we just need the fittings in place!
Mornings in the caravan are painful now. Temperatures drop to a few degrees centigrade overnight and even with the gas fire on full blast the caravan doesn’t reach more than sixteen degrees centigrade all day. I have dug out my fingerless gloves and thermals.
When it’s like this I retreat to the house and sit in the warmth of the bedroom whilst husband gets on with the plumbing. I can’t unpack anything whilst it’s still a building site, but I can sit and imagine. The solar gain from our big windows, combined with the underfloor heating are very efficient, and it’s warm!
I dream of hot showers and drying off in a warm room without having to do the shivering dance to race into clothes before anything freezes.
Not long now.
I popped into the polycrub earlier this morning to see how things were faring. The temperature gauge recorded that it had dropped to 0.5C in there last night, but everything seems fine. The kale is looking perky, the slugs are having a bean feast with my pak choi, and the beetroot is looking pretty bulletproof.
I am still awed by the miracle of my winter lettuces.
Electrickery arrives
Today was a big milestone.
We have electrickery!
At least in places. Upstairs, both bedrooms, landing, stairs and the bathroom, and downstairs in the kitchen.
I spent several minutes flicking the switch on the bedside lights on and off like a five year old. And grinning excitedly.
I felt quite emotional.
Husband connected zones to the distribution board and switched on and suddenly we had light. And power to the ovens, hob, fridge and freezer.
Just like magic.
I did my happy dance.
I’m quite beyond myself. Things that I’d previously taken for granted suddenly seem so important, and special.
We have a long way to go. But today felt like a big step forward to being in very soon. One bathroom with working toilet and shower and we’re there. It actually feels possible that we will be in before Christmas.
Happy tears. Thank you Hugh. You’re making it happen.
Snow, sills and orange cake
We have snow on the tops at last. I always compare the weather at this time of the year with when we arrived on the island two years ago in the teeth of a storm, and both subsequent years have been warmer. I was beginning to wonder if we’d see any snow at all, but temperatures plummeted a few days ago and we now have a glorious white dusting on the high peaks.
The MVHR and the heating are operating well in the house. It’s already significantly warmer and more stable in temperature than the caravan.
As we shiver and dress in the damp cold of 5°C mornings I hold onto the fact that we’ll be in the house in a few weeks time. No more icy mornings playing the duvet game trying to dress without exposing any bare flesh to the elements.
After a wait of several weeks the wood for the sills arrived this afternoon, cheerfully delivered by our local sawmill guy. In the end he decided that the pews would be rather wasted if we were to refinish them for sills, and that he would prefer to preserve the original patina, so declined to sell them to us and found us suitable 4m lengths of local Douglas fir instead.
I can’t say that I blame him, although I was quite taken by the idea of old wood having a second life in our new home. But at least that patina, burnished by the bottoms of the righteous as it was, will be protected.
Husband has been fitting sockets, switches and lights like a demon and will move onto one of the bathrooms next week. Once we are electrickified and have a working toilet and shower, we’re in!
The fact that the house is still stuffed to the rafters with building materials, tools, equipment, wood and boxes of everything that you can think of is another hurdle to get over. Once everything is connected up…
In the meantime I have tried a new recipe in my sloping caravan mini oven. This may be one of the very last cakes I bake in here, isn’t that such a strange thought. My new ovens await, sitting there, smugly level, shiny and pristine.
This is Nigel Slaters orange and poppy seed cake, sticky with a fresh orange and marmalade glaze which I hope won’t taste any less good for it’s signature 45° slope.
Grey, but beautiful
We’ve been struggling with very wet days for the last month. The croft is saturated and the burn is constantly in full spate.
It’s also bizarrely mild for this time of the year. Two years ago when we moved in around now there was snow on the hills and it was about 8°C colder. This week the day temperature has been hovering around 16°C , like a Highland summer, and my plants are all very confused.
I still pop into the polycrub a few days each week to weed, water and harvest what’s ready even though this is supposed to be the down season.
This week I transplanted thirty tatsoi seedlings (Asian winter greens) into larger pots and although I’m horribly late with them it will be an interesting experiment to see if they still grow. The pak choi has done well and it’ll be good to try fresh new green things over winter.
Even when it’s grey, it’s still beautiful. This is a snap I took of the cloud inversions sweeping across the Knoydart mountains this morning from the croft. I don’t think I’ll ever get blasé about this view.
The deer are here in such numbers now that it’s almost impossible to grow anything unprotected in our outdoor croft raised beds. We’ve been left with no choice but to fence off an area if we want to get any harvests next year. A job for next spring, I think.
The posts and wire have arrived already. When it’s built, the fence will be eight feet tall, which is far from great to look at, but is sadly necessary.
I can’t wait to curl up by the Woodburner in the house this winter and plan out the protected growing area. The orchard will have several varieties of heritage apple, pears, damsons and maybe we’ll try cherries too.
The last few weeks
Despite not having a joiner to finish the skirting boards, which are unceremoniously piled up in the living room, or the door linings and architraves, or a plasterer to finish the stairwell, we’re still making progress.
Good friends have helped with coats of paint in the bedroom, the upstairs bathroom, landing, dining room and kitchen. Andy is so much better at painting than I am, and so much more efficient, that a weeks work has resulted in a huge difference. It’s all starting to look dangerously white..
I’m hoping against hope that there will be enough rooms ready for us to move in over the next month. We’ve had surprisingly mild weather for the time of year, but it can’t last. We had snow on the hills at this point two years ago when we first moved here, so it may be delayed, but it’s surely coming.
Husband has been fitting lights and sockets in the house and will move onto the bathrooms next. If we can get basic facilities up and running we can move in and enjoy the warmth. It’s already a comfortable and constant temperature compared to the caravan.
As we continue the build and start making plans for our first family Christmas for the last few years, I’m aware of how much we still have to do to finish it, but moving in feels very close now.
Whilst all this happens, life also goes on. The deer fencing for the vegetable and orchard area of the croft has arrived. I’m not quite sure when it will get installed, but it will at some point. We have a friends birthday coming up and I’ve baked her a pear, brandy and orange pie.
Because why not.
Cauldrons, owls and many books
Today has been another milestone in our two year journey. Our boxes and furniture are now out of storage for the first time since leaving London and have been delivered to us here on the croft!
As the house isn’t quite ready (skirting and architraves to go in, painting needed, electrics to be finished, bathrooms and kitchens still to finish) we minimised what they moved into the house. They only took in the big things, like sofas, bed and bookcases, things that we would have struggled to lift on our own.
The rest (mainly boxes of books it seems!) have filled the new shed. They fitted in, just.
It seems strange to have our things back. Nice, but strange. The next few weeks will be busy trying to get as much finished off as possible so that we can start to unpack and move in!
The removals guys were a bit nervous about one box though, and on closer inspection I could see why.
This is what happens when you let your husband label things…
Anticipation vs. Reality
A blog friend I know has recently posted about the deep sense of disappointment that she felt after so many years of anticipating a move to a new life. How the anticipation and dreaming could never match the reality, and how she knew that this was normal but that the feeling that it left was an emptiness and a slight sense of depression.
She articulated a feeling that I think many of us can relate to. Many months, or even years, of dreaming and building up an image of something in our minds will never match up to the grittiness of reality.
I had been coming to the island here on holiday for about twenty years before the opportunity to buy a croft here came up. I was very conscious that my limited stays, filled as they were with delicious food, comfortable accommodation and short, curated snapshots of the island would be nothing like the reality. Especially as the reality for us was going to be a rickety old caravan perched on the top of a hill in a storm for a while.
We are two years into this adventure, almost to the day. I remember the long drive north with our dog Bertie in the back of the car. I recall the slight sinking feeling when I walked into the caravan for the first time, my senses assailed by the smell of damp and cold, and feeling, even if just for a moment, a huge wash of helplessness at what we had done. If it hadn’t have been for my ever resourceful and practical husband I think I would have been lost.
Arriving in the teeth of a storm isn’t the ideal way to start a new life, it has to be said. Almost unable to stand up in the gale force winds and horizontal rain, we started with no water, no toilet and only very limited levels of comfort.
Things got better. Husband connected up plumbing and the indignity of using a bucket as a toilet came to an end. The caravan dried out, and I made it more homely with cushions, books and blankets. An electric blanket made a huge difference to the shrieking horror of getting into a cold bed on the nights of a highland winter.
I remember the first day that we awoke to snow on the hills and being overwhelmed by the beauty of it all again, just like the first time I came to the island. The spell hadn’t gone away. The sense of magic was still there – it had just been temporarily beaten back by the weather and grim living circumstances. It was going to be ok. Better than that, it was going to be brilliant.
It seems appropriate to be reminded of all this as we prepare the final stages of the house ready to move into next month. The house won’t be finished, but it will have a working kitchen, a bathroom, heating and hot water, and space. It’s time.
Living a life with limited comforts lowers the bar of your expectations and makes certain things that most people take for granted seem like luxury.
Cooking in a space bigger than a postage stamp, for example. Having easy access to pans and utensils instead of having to perform improbable feats of gymnastic skill to get to the back of cramped and inaccessible cupboards.
A working, level oven that doesn’t spit your cakes out raked at 45 degrees like an ski ramp.
A shower that doesn’t force you into impossible contortions within its 40cm square plastic embrace.
I could go on, but I won’t. It’s been our reality for the last two years and for all it’s discomfort, it’s been completely manageable, and I know that there are people in the world for whom this would represent a world of luxury.
I’ve been careful not to build up too much of a dream of living in the house yet. I don’t want to be disappointed, to have that sense of anticipation shattered by reality. I know that we will still be decorating and building as we’re in there and that it will be many, many months before it’s finished and we’re fully unpacked.
But it’s coming. We’re so nearly there.
Life without floofs, and almost a kitchen
They’ve gone. Our friends have returned and reclaimed the step-floofs, Truffle and Tigger, and suddenly the caravan feels empty again.
No more tripping over discarded dog toys. No more being awoken by an energetic dog full of the joys of life leaping onto the bed. No more escape dashes or curtain dangling from the little grey cat.
It’s quiet without them, those funny and very distinct characters who have been part of our lives for a few weeks. It gives me hope that we’ll be in the house with our own cats and dogs again soon.
Husband is building out the kitchen, assembling drawers, cupboards and finalising the electrics and plumbing connections. The fridge and freezer have arrived and are lined up awaiting installation.
We’ve gone for an all- drawer configuration in this kitchen with the exception of the corner cupboard, an awkward slice of space which has a carousel. There are smaller drawers inside some of the big drawers to maximise storage, like the two sets of jaws on the Xenomorph, Alien.
The appliance wall, which will house the fridge, freezer and ovens, will be next.
The drawer fronts are Scandi ply with a fenix finish, which is a modern material that’s almost completely scratchproof. It will be really interesting to see whether it lives up to its reputation.
The induction hob is in. I confess to giving a little skip of delight when I saw it. After two years of cooking on three rather dodgy, rusty caravan gas burners this is going to seem like luxury.
The Truffle Diaries – infidelity and abandonment
Day eight of captivity.
I am craving the hunt, and fresh mice. Or even a mouthful of vole. I’ve been watching the birds on the feeders attached to the fence, succulent, fat little tweeters, but these fools won’t let me at them! The captors feed me cat food, but there’s no blood in it, and certainly no fun.
I have now made two attempts at freedom with fast dashes out of the door when my captors attention is diverted. Sadly hunger has driven me back on both occasions. I am a wild, magnificent hunter, but I do have a soft spot for a salmon yoghurt licky and I have not yet mastered opening the sachets. Besides, I have heard a rumour that there is fresh fish for tea tonight.
This mornings escape meant that I could hunt. I managed to catch and eat a squeaky in the tussocks of long grass on the croft before allowing myself to be tempted back inside. It was delicious.
I’ve been investigating the curtains as a possible source of distraction. They appear to be rather flimsily held up with little plastic clips which I frankly consider fair game. I may wait until my captors leave me alone next time and rearrange them for them. I feel sure that they would be grateful.
I saw some photos of my previous Floof Meisters on my captors phone this afternoon, and the emotions all came flooding back. My people! They were smiling in the sun somewhere, oblivious to my plight. And the final indignity – they were with another feline! A scruffy looking street cat was sharing their sun lounger. The horror.
I am devastated by their infidelity. I have made a double entry in my Journal of Retribution, the deepest of grooves scratched with my sharpest claw. I have traced a black border around the entry with harvested Tigger fur to highlight its gravity. This is indeed a dark day. This kind of entry is reserved for Those Who Choose To Live Deliciously Without Me. Traitors. Unfaithful beasts.
I shall not shed any more tears over them. I shall take myself off to the clothing pile in the bedroom to lick my wounds and plan my sad revenge.
I cannot bring myself to write more.
Ravencroft Skye 