Home Sweet Home...

We have found it! Our new home for the next 2 years or so.

With a huge amount of searching - the whole of the UK to be exact, we found a suitably sized caravan. We were contacted about a rather ‘individual’ second hand static caravan for sale. The only problem was that the 35 feet x 12 feet mobile home was situated in Dumfries and Galloway. But the young chap, affectionately known as JJ, said he could organise the transportation of our new abode. Little did we know at this point that the delivery wagon would require an ‘escort’ due to the width and length of the load, but that wasn't a problem for JJ.

K.Lee Plant, the owner John who is a dab hand with a digger, was then contacted to excavate a suitable, flat, area to site the caravan. He duly arrived with an even bigger digger and this time he brought along his sidekick – Wullie. What these boys can’t do with a digger, isn't worth knowing about.

The even bigger digger.

Once again we also needed to enlist the help of Magnus. When he isn’t fencing, he will help with any kind of ‘land’ work, we can add strimming and cutting down trees to his portfolio of skills.

In the meantime, I have been pining! Yes fretting for my 3 boys – No, not some ‘hunky’ chaps, but my 3 handsome Tups who were still on Colonsay!

So, how do you get 3 Tups from Colonsay to Skye?

It started with a flight with my favourite airline – Hebridean Air Services, the plane was piloted by Julie, it was fantastic to see everyone, especially Dixie, and have a good ‘natter’ with Julie on the fabulous flight over.

My favourite plane

Our dear friend Annie collected me from Colonsay International Airport and we went to find the Tups. They remembered me (well ish) but they were running with another 3 tups who are renowned for being mischievous. They didn’t disappoint us, it took Graham, Joe (with his two dogs) and me to get the tups into a secure corner of the field so we could grab my 3 and put them into the trailer to take them to the pier.

Graham with the Tups at the pier.

Kapitein in the meantime had put our unaccompanied trailer onto my other favourite mode of transport, the Calmac ferry LOTI. The tups were safe and sound down at the pier which gave me a wee while to catch up with Annie and of course visit GavalusGavalar in the Pantry. ‘Nice coffee Gav’! Meanwhile, Kapitein was enjoying himself in Oban, he’s grand at shopping, he even bought me some presents! Some fabulous Jura whisky and a bottle of ‘dog’!

The ferry duly arrived and with the help of Phil on the Hill and Will, our trailer was hastily towed off the ferry, backed up to the holding pens, tups loaded and then re-loaded back onto the ferry. With fond farewells my tups and I sailed onward to Oban, all in a mornings work!

The 'Big Fella' quite happy in the trailer

Kapitein collected me and the trailer and we headed home to Skye. We offloaded the tups safe and well in their new field all within the regulated time for transporting animals.

Meanwhile, Magnus had started with the chain saw and the strimmer to clear a path through the undergrowth, cutting down an abundance of Bog Myrtle. Bog Myrtle is reputed to repel the dreaded Midgey but in my experience, the Midgey seems to thrive in the Bog Myrtle bushes! These ‘wee beasties’ have a nasty habit of getting into small places, especially eyes and ears and for such a small insect, it has a nasty bite. So the less bushes we have, the better it might be!

Following Magnus’s run in with the Midgey, the Bernisdale boys began to excavate for the caravan, the area was covered with years and year’s growth of weeds and grass. Then, low and behold, on a balmy summer evening, we came to the croft and a ‘site’ had appeared!

Amidst all of these jobs, we have had little time to go out and explore Skye, but we heard news that some friends of ours were coming to the island for a wee stopover before heading out over the Minch to Harris. They were due on the Friday evening and would travel, the next day on the early morning Calmac ferry from Uig to Tarbert. They duly arrived and we had a wonderful time catching up on all of our news.

I digress…

We finally got word from JJ, that our caravan could be delivered, complete with escort. Ironically, it would arrive exactly 6 months to the day after we had left Colonsay.

We headed up to the croft to see how progress was coming along with the site, and what a surprise, everything was ready, including a protective bund (a miniature man made hill to protect the caravan from the prevailing southerly winds)

The excavated site ready to take delivery of the caravan

On the day of delivery, we received a phone call to say the transport was running late, their estimated time of arrival was 11 pm! But the weather was on our side and it stays light until late in the evening during the summer months.

At exactly 11.15pm, the wagon and escort vehicle with JJ duly arrived with our new home.

The caravan being offloaded from the wagon.

At precisely midnight our caravan ‘touched down’ onto our land a very significant and emotional moment – we had our new home, at last.

The following morning John came to help Kapitein to site the caravan, quite a difficult task to get a 35ft long and 12ft wide caravan turned and positioned exactly where we needed it to be. But they both did a magnificent job, I was so proud of both of them.

With the aid of Kapitein’s landrover, the caravan was sited.

We had only seen photographs of the caravan, so we were very excited to see the inside! It was all JJ said it was – very purple, but in splendid condition, a much loved caravan indeed, we are so grateful to the previous owners who obviously took good care of it.

In the meantime, I have sent off my remaining Hebridean fleeces to the mill for processing and expect the wool back during October. I will be producing fabric this time with the help of Andrea and Roger from Skye Weavers – I can hardly contain myself - and will keep you informed of some rather exciting new designs which will be made here on Skye during the coming months.

Now then, the next thing on our list was to install services to the caravan, in-between preparing it for the winter. We installed a wood burning stove (our thanks go to Neil from Skye Finishing Touches – well done) anchors and chains – to stop it blowing away in the gales, skirting, to protect the chassis and add much needed insulation in the form of thick carpets – courtesy of Paul & Tasha at Harris Home Furnishings. 

The boys enjoying the comforts of the caravan.

Water was eventually connected, BT finally put a pole up and Kapitein and I trenched in over 200 metres of phone cable – it’s brilliant when communications are up and running, then Billy came to connect the gas for my new oven and hob! But, no electric! SSE tried their utmost to get the wayleaves signed so mains electric could be brought into the site, but to no avail – Ian was marvelous, he tried everything, but no was still the answer. So we have had to re-think how we can live and work here without mains electricity. But aha! It’s solved… We will be going ‘off grid’. I will tell you all about Kapitein and I becoming ‘eco-friendly’ (no not hippies) in my next post.
So that's me off up the croft to see how the Tups are and how other vital work is progressing, I will report back very soon.

Home - at last...

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 27^th 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 23^rd 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…

Where have we been???

It’s been quite a while since I have written my blog, primarily due to the fact that on the morning of Monday 9^th December (2013) Our wonderful Homestead, burned to the ground.

Col Na Sithe

At the height of the fire

The aftermath

Kapitein, Sampster, Wolfie and I escaped unharmed (other than a wee bit smoke inhalation) in only the clothes we stood up in and feel truly blessed to be alive.

The fire had started in the Attic, Captain Flack and his team came to the rescue and donned breathing apparatus to source the seat of the fire – which they did, however, they ran out of water (as there isn’t a Hydrant nearby) by the time they returned from filling the tender with water, the fire had spread through the fire wall and the roof was well alight.

Sampster, Wolfie and I had been evacuated to safety with our dear neighbour Anne (whom we will be eternally grateful for everything she did for us) and we watched on as the Homestead was decimated by the fire.

Captain Flack and the Colonsay fire crew did everything in their power to save the Homestead, their determination was amazing, we will never forget what they did for us, and we fully understand their frustrations, but we never doubted their ability. They are truly amazing…Thank you.

I visited the site as they dampened down and each and every one of the fire crew apologised for not being able to save the Homestead, but as we said then, and now, Kapitein, the dogs and I got out and that is the most important aspect.

We cannot stress enough, please, CHECK your smoke alarms regularly and ALWAYS have a practiced fire plan/escape route, as you can’t see anything for thick acrid smoke, but if you know where you are going, this makes your means of escape very effective. The UK Fire Service will offer advice and practical support (ie: fitting smoke alarms etc.) so do it!! If it hadn’t been for the smoke alarm, I wouldn’t be writing this now!!

 What was anticipated to be a short stay with Anne, turned out to be two and a half weeks!! And a better hostess we couldn’t have wished for – we were made to feel so welcome and we did have some laughs. I even found some tools to knit with and produced a wee 'lug muffler' to keep Anne warm whilst walking the dogs with us.

Its amazing what you can do with a wooden spoon and a poker!!

I think Anne looks lovely... Don't you...

 Sampster thoroughly enjoyed being 'de-haired' by Anne!!

Our heartfelt thanks go to those members of the community who helped us in our hour of need, bringing us much needed clothes, toiletries, dog leads/bowls, waterproofs etc. We will be eternally grateful. Also our thanks go out to our families and close friends, they have been fantastic...

We do still have one endearing thought – Gavalus Gavalar (who was on the mainland at the time) shopping for ‘undergarments’ for Kapitein and I, dashing between the Lingerie and Mens Wear departments, it must have been a sight for sore eyes!

As our ‘wardrobe’ was interesting to say the least, we contacted various businesses in and around Oban to restock items such as waterproofs, shirts etc., and low and behold, our ‘shopping’ arrived on the next flight from Oban. We will never forget all that Oban Airport, Hebridean Air and those business outlets that helped us – thank you.

Now it was the onerous task of packing up our few possessions that remained in the shed, primarily, Kapiteins tools – we know how important tools are, don’t we! And thankfully, the Firecrew and Kapitein had managed to rescue some unusual items from my workroom before the roof collapsed. Namely, the original Colonsay Gansey and my Grandmothers circa 1948 sewing machine, a couple of chairs and some books. With everything packed, McQueens from Oban sent over their trusty driver, Gary, on the Friday (before Christmas), with a couple of small containers to store our things. He duly arrived amidst rain, hail, snow and sunshine, we packed everything in double quick time and watched on as he loaded the containers back onto the wagon. Then… News came that the Saturday ferry was cancelled! And the weather wasn’t looking good for the Monday ferry either! Oh dear me… what to do…and how to get Gary home in time for Christmas.

Saturday morning came and Kapitein had a brainwave, he asked me to contact Hebridean Air Services to see if there was any chance of booking a charter flight, poor Gary needed to be with his own family for Christmas, even if this meant leaving the wagon to go on the next ferry unaccompanied.

Andy, at Hebridean Air, said no problem, but we had a tight weather window. As it turned out, there were 3 folks who wanted to get back to Colonsay and a total of 5 wanting to leave – including Gary and another stranded, wagon driver.

At 2.00pm, Sebastian arrived (a perfect landing) with the 3 folk from Oban, and then took off again 15 minutes later with the passengers wishing to leave, so everyone was where they wanted to be for Christmas. Brilliant!!

Sebastian taking everyone home for Christmas.

The ferry managed to make it into Colonsay on the Monday, McQueens and the other two wagons were on their way to back to the mainland.

So, what next!

We had, through sheer luck, managed to source an available letting property, which was vacant, on the Isle of Skye. And as Christmas Day arrived – which was superb; Kapitein and I had smoked bacon sandwiches for our Christmas dinner, just what we wanted, Kapitein spoke to Cameron and Struan from Coastal Connection, as our only weather window to leave Colonsay, was Boxing Day and sure enough, they were more than happy to come over.

As it turned out, on the morning of Boxing day, the weather was wonderful. We packed our cars with our few possessions, hitched up the sheep handling system and headed to the pier – our vehicles would leave Colonsay on the next available ferry.

Anne came to see us off and off we went on a fabulous journey on the Coastal Connection RIB.Even Sampster and Wolfie enjoyed the ride, they are following in Kapiteins footsteps and becoming salty sea dogs indeed.

Leaving Colonsay

Arriving in Loch Feochan

My 3 salty sea dogs

Coastal Connection - Cameron and Struan

We arrived at Loch Feochan where Cameron and Struan’s father met us to take us onwards to Oban, what kindness, we can’t thank them enough either. We highly recommend Coastal Connection a very professional service indeed.

The following day, the ferry brought our cars over and we headed North to the Isle of Skye to our temporary accommodation - a very warm house, overlooking the sea, what more could we ask for...

So now it is onwards and upwards - working our way through endless lists of things to do, amidst replacing commissions! I managed to complete a Braveheart Waistcoat in double quick time and posted it off to the customer - they are delighted with it.

Back to the knitting needles to finish the next...

We couldn't start our new lives without offering our heartfelt thanks to all those who supported Hebridean Isles Trading Company during our time on Colonsay.
We would like to thank Pauline, owner of Colonsay Cosmetics who supplied us with the most delightful toiletries for our guests. 
Then we needed to think about quality food for our guests, that's when we sourced as much 'local' produce as was possible.
We must thank:
Forteiths -Oban
J.M. Breckenridge - Oban
Booker - Oban
Jackson's Butchers - Oban
D. Watts Fishmongers - Oban
For the best locally sourced produce in Argyll...

Knitting courses took off at an unbelievable pace, we would like to thank all of the participants and our wonderful sheep for adding to the whole 'woolly' experience, including, of course, their wonderful fleeces.

But how to get products to Colonsay?
Helmut & Michelle of Etive Taxis were just the best, they went over and above our expectations, collecting orders from the Oban businesses and taking them up to Oban Airport, we highly recommend them, they even transport people too!!

Oban Airport.
The staff at Oban Airport are the most professional, courteous and obliging group of people I have ever met. Thanks go to them for everything they have done for us. From the delightful Dixie at reception, to the 'big fella' (wor Tom) and all of the fire crew/freight handlers, without whom, all of our hard work would have been in vane. I cannot recommend this establishment highly enough. If and when Skye gets its own Airport - I hope it is as wonderful as Oban, thank you.

Hebridean Air Services.
What can I say, as a 'frustrated' Pilot (or so they say) my first few times flying with Hebridean Air Services had me perplexed! I couldn't understand why no-one was using the plane to bring in freight! That is where it all began, with the first air freight regularly coming into Colonsay...
The three pilots, Julie, Allan and Sebastian are just brilliant, our thanks go to them all, to Andy Jolly, and of course, the owner, George Cormack. It has been a privilege, flying and working with you all - I do miss seeing that lovely yellow plane flying overhead...  

Last, but by no means least, we would like to thank all of our guests, customers and stockists, we have met some lovely people and we do hope to meet customers old and new in the very near future.

So what now...
As the search for our new Homestead continues. Hebridean Isles Trading Company is beginning to 'rise from the ashes' and with new designs hot off the needles very soon, there are very exciting times ahead, I will keep you all posted - watch this space...