For a lot of people, I think that visiting Kintyre may also be a bit like going north of the Wall in George RR Martin’s, “Game of Thrones”. Certainly, their comments on arrival nearly always seem to contain something akin to, “It took us a lot longer to get here than we thought it would”. Having wall to wall rain for the entire journey from Glasgow certainly doesn’t seem to help. So it’s good to see the hardy souls who make it past Inverary, starting to appear in the village. It’s just a shame that they haven’t seen it at his best yet. Fingers crossed!
Last month got off to a slightly unusual start when we decided to go “off piste” for a day by catching the ferry to Portavadie and walking part of the Cowal Way. Nothing special but Castle Asgog was interesting and lunch in the marina was very nice. £14 return as a foot passenger on the ferry is a bit steep though but once in a while I suppose is alright. The restaurant in the marina was very busy and it looks as though whoever is bank-rolling the project may have a success on their hands despite the remote location and the recession.
In preparation for the planned trip to Jura to recce the race for and to do some kayaking, we bought some of the missing bits of kayaking kit. So we now have spare paddles, a bilge pump and a sturdy trolley. The best purchase was a telescopic ladder that allows us to get onto the van roof. Unfortunately, the weather for the planned weekend was poor and we decided that it wasn’t worth making the trip. We are still waiting for it to improve but I really want to get over before the race so that I can judge the cut off times.
The snow hung around in the garden for a few weeks but it was dry and sunny, so we pushed on with planking the oak tree. Our longest chainsaw bar is a bit short, so we had to make up a jig that allowed us to make two vertical cuts into the log so that we could remove a quarter. This allowed us to use a second jig to make the horizontal cuts which form the planks. Everything worked beautifully and we produced the 5 planks that Emily and Richard had ordered for their book shelves. It is long, slow work and we still have lots of timber left to process but it’s worth doing. The next project could be to build a hydraulic log splitter, run off the two wheel tractor, which isn’t really earning its keep at the moment.
Training for the Jura race has mainly been in the form of cycling home from Tarbert via the Kintyre Way and Claonaig. It was a good feeling the first time I managed to cycle all the way without having to push the bike up some of the longer hills (or phone Suse for a rescue). Still not 100% sure what will happen on Jura but I should be a bit fitter for the planned orienteering trip to Ireland although that didn’t seem to be the case when we went to Clunie for ESOC’s event in the middle of the month.
We were delighted to hear that our Dutch friends Ton Peters and Tineke Schoen intended to visit us. They brought the wet weather from the Lake District with them but we still managed to visit some of the local sites and had a great time. It was like having a holiday ourselves! The highlight was a combined walking and kayaking trip to the White Shore where the weather was kind enough to allow a lunchtime bbq. Suse got sunburnt!
The rest of the month seemed to be spent moving topsoil to the various beds that needed it. They look so much better as a result but quite soon after we moved the last of the soil, the heavens opened and seemed to have stayed open ever since. John is impatient for the garden to show more colour (apparently green and brown don’t count) so here is a white honesty. Does white count?
The garden is again behind schedule but you can’t argue with the weather so only potatoes, peas and onions have been planted with other things still in the greenhouse. On Gigha too things are running about 3 weeks late but we have watched the beech tree turn from nothing to solid green under the remaining oak.
The heron has been back and the deer have found a new route into the garden behind the felled oak but we are enjoying seeing all the small birds returning even if we don’t know their names.