As winter bites, we are settling into a kind of routine for survival in the caravan.
Our lovely but ancient spaniel was very confused and disorientated by the move to the croft. It’s not surprising really, as he was essentially an urban dog.
Here he forgot his house training and when he did go out, he’d stand in the wind and rain, ears streaming out behind him, rooted to the spot, seemingly not knowing where to go or what to do. He’d taken to leaving puddles on the carpet during the night. Not good.
Husband has been getting up in the wee small hours to let him out, which seems to be working. Bertie (!) is settling into new routines gradually and has even been seen bounding around in the horizontal rain as he accepts this new “normal”.
The mornings are the most challenging of times here. The static is cold from several hours overnight with no heating, often only a few degrees centigrade in temperature, and the bed is at its warmest and most comfortable.
When I can avoid it no longer, I get up. I layer up as swiftly as I can and wrestle myself into a warm robe, trying to expose as little skin as possible. Then it’s through to the tiny kitchen to put the kettle on for a pot of hot coffee to nudge us into consciousness.
Breakfast is my domain.
It’s usually a bowl of porridge with banana and maple syrup, or eggs and toast, or if we have good fresh bread, a butty with local cheddar (that’s a sandwich for those readers not from these shores).
It takes us a few mugs of coffee to get going enough to enjoy joined-up words together and be able to plan the day. By now the temperature is usually up to around twelve to sixteen degrees Celsius and it’s feeling less arctic.
We watch the weather and sip our coffee, chatting about build plans or deliveries for the day. We read the news online but at the moment are more absorbed by our own new, little world as we work together to start to establish our place in it.
It may be like living in the cold wash, fast spin cycle of a washing machine at the moment, but with every day it feels a bit more like home.
Ravencroft Skye 