Where did that Summer go?
June 26, 2008 | 2 Comments |
It looks like we’ve skipped Summer and got warped from a nice Spring into Autumn. Loads of rain and heavy winds at the moment here on Skye with grim looking skies and horizontal rain. This prevents me from working on the roof of the shed but there’s really no excuse for doing nothing as we also have our Glendale property (see picture) which needs a good doing up.
We went over there today and the first step will be to strip the house of all the old floors, v-lined decorations, wall paper, doors and much more. There’s also a pile of old furniture to be removed. I think we’ll have a big bonfire soon…
Our guests staying at Eilean Mor came by this morning to report that a sheep had delivered a dead lamb. So we removed it. Quite a sad sight, but such is nature.
Tomorrow: sledge hammer time at Glendale and starting to strip down the old rubbish…
It’s up, but wrong…
June 24, 2008 | 2 Comments |
Today I got the delivery from Caley for the roof of the shed. A massive pile of timber and a 3.60 meter lintel to cross the door opening of the front wall. Ian, who drives the Caley truck, has this handy fork lift attached to his truck which he uses to off load materials. Ian was so good to lift that lintel up the wall. That was great and really much appreciated. Shame that it’s positioned the wrong way (it’s a 6”x4” lintel which should be on its 6” side and now is on its 4”)… I noticed this when Ian was long gone but luckily he’s back this week with some more stuff, so I’ll ask him to help me out a second time.
Stardust
June 23, 2008 | 6 Comments |
I watched that movie last night. Apart from being a very funny movie with a number of famous faces in it (O’Toole, De Niro, Pfeiffer) it had some cool special effects and some pretty scenery: it was filmed on Skye. I think I recognized the Quiraing and shots of the Cuillin. Enjoyed it. Especially the performance of De Niro was extremely funny. 4 out of 5.
Weather: lovely day, bright, sunny, moderate wind, no midges…
Stop dreaming
June 22, 2008 | Leave a Comment |
It was great while it lasted but yesterday the Dutch dream was shattered by the Russians in the quarter final of EURO 2008. And they deserved it, both teams. Russia played inspired football. Holland showed not even a glimpse of an inspired team dedicated to win this tournament. And then you get what you deserve… a 3 - 1 knock out. Kudos to the Russians, they did really well…
Just before writing this, I read an item on the Times Online about electric cars and how popular they’re becoming due to rising fuel prices. Oh, and how about the government losing their billions of tax revenue when we all drive electric cars…
Final blocks
June 20, 2008 | 2 Comments |
Today I laid what is hopefully the final row of blocks, at least for now as the gables will need to be laid as well. But that will be done after the roof has gone up.
All timber for the roof has been ordered: 6”x4”, 4”x2” etc. in various lengths, nails, screws, sheets of plywood, sarking boards and an additional power tool. A mitre saw to cut the rafters and the joists.
It’s a good thing that the block laying is done for now as the height of the walls was making it a back breaking effort to put the blocks up there without a scaffold. The remaining challenge for now will be the big 3 meter lintel which has to cross the door opening of the front wall. The bloody thing weights a tonne and I have no idea yet how to get it up there. Will have to put my thinking cap up for that one….
Weather: on and off, mostly off with some strong winds, sunny spring is gone and summer hasn’t quite arrived!
Oh…. and a hint of peat…
June 14, 2008 | 4 Comments |
We had a great Whisky tasting evening last week at our neighbors down the road. To prevent starting with an empty stomach they cooked us a delicious dinner and so, after dinner with our bellies ready for some serious tasting, we started off with the first tray of five.
The tasting was anonymous and there was a wide array of Whisky brands available. The results were amazing and the tasters had their preferences (some liked the peaty whiskies more than others). In the end the different brands were revealed and we could check whether we had recognized our favorite ones.
With the first samplings the comments were remarkably exuberant and I remember remarks like “A hint of peat…”, “Apples and spring grass…” or “Peaches and faint chocolate”, while towards the end they ended in an unclear murmuring of “Nice…” and “Not too bad…”
We had Smokehead, Glenmorangie, Bruich Ladich, Bowmore, Auchentoshan (my favorite but not recognized by me, shame!!), Laphroaig (a favorite with the peat lovers), Oban, Tamdhu, Old Harry, Glen Livet, Cu Dubh and Bunnahabhain. The last one (with the sailor on the bottle) got really good reviews, Cu Dubh (weird coffee taste) was not appreciated.
It was a great evening with lots of fun although the morning after was painful which was probably due to not only the sampling of Whisky but the combi with beer and wine during dinner. The headache was definitely worth it though….
Busy
June 14, 2008 | 1 Comment |
Lately it has been really busy in our house. Lots of people coming and going. To be honest I can’t keep track anymore who is who. And Roger and Claire seem really busy as well. Roger has this stacking game he plays every day. He’s piling massive stones on top of each other and gets really sweaty and dusty. I don’t like it when he plays that game. He gets very grumpy when I try to do something funny like hiding his tools.
Claire is also very busy. Every Saturday we go to the other house up the hill. She cleans the house and that’s not too bad. The bad thing is that I have to stay outside. I don’t like being left alone so I generally have a lie down in front of the door.
Luckily Doodle is back from holiday! That’s super. We’ve had some good romps since she’s back. Doodle developed a new game, which is called “chase Doodle-around-the-shed-and-confuse-Jingles”. Roger enjoys it when we play that game but after a number of laps around the shed I always seem to lose Doodle. Roger yells at me that she’s behind me, but I don’t quite understand what he means so I end up all confused…
Every now and then I try to help out Roger with his stacking game. On below photo you can see me cleaning up one of the big bags. He can be so sloppy at times. Luckily I’m there to clean things up a bit although on this specific occasion it did not work out too good as the wind kept blowing that bag away which made me quite excited and I decided it needed a good barking.
I’ll have a lie down now on my new posh pillow Claire made for me…
Quiet
June 14, 2008 | Leave a Comment |
It’s been quiet here for a while now. Due to several reasons. First we’re quite busy. Work on the shed continues and block work is nearly done now. Weather continues to be good, and every hour is spent outside so the shed will be ready before the bad weather is back upon us again. Second we had a batch of four Dutch guests which needed attention, so the house was quite full of life.
And there’s football of course… Last night was a true feast when we butchered the French. It’s been a while since their national team had a good trashing (I read somewhere that it was in the late 50’s but correct me if I’m wrong). Anyway, it was good fun nonetheless and 16 Skinidin cheered loudly for the Dutch team. It was a tense match and at times we were lucky, but then again… luck can be enforced and I think that’s what the Dutch team did.
Enough on football. We can now sit back and wait for the quarter finals.
Last, we had a bad disturbance in the force… the internet force that is. A fault taking for as long as 2 nights kept us away from anything internet. First we thought it had to do with the laying of cables but the moment the phone went dead I decided to pop over to our neighbors to see whether they had the same problems. They didn’t so we called BT to see whether they could help. Within 2 hours an engineer from Dunvegan was at the pole checking the wires. It appeared that the internals of a little grey box up in the pole which actually connects the wire from the exchange to our phone cable were completely disintegrated due to rain and salt air. The box was replaced and the problem was sorted.
By the way, the engineer did confirm that the Glendale exchange was upgraded and now supports up to 8Mb speeds! We’re not getting that as we live too far from the exchange, but still a 2.2Kb is not bad compared to the 0.5Kb we were used to. So the speed upgrade had nothing to do with the cabling which is going on.
What’s the forecast?
June 7, 2008 | Leave a Comment |
No, not the weather this time! But a midge forecast… There actually is a midge forecast site on the web showing a Google map of Scotland and icons over several areas indicating the midge nuisance levels. I’ve been tracking the site for a couple of days now and I’m not yet impressed. While sustaining heavy levels of midges last Wednesday, I’ve never seen the indicator go higher than 2 (low level).
Well, the site is here and I’ve added it to the links in the side bar as well…
Painter of Skies
June 2, 2008 | 6 Comments |
Yesterday evening was spot on with one of the prettiest sunsets I’ve seen here. The colors were absolutely amazing and the whole scenario unfolded during an hour or so…
When I see the eventual result of the picture I took, there’s still always a bit of disappointment. For example, on the photo here you do not see the light purple tones of the hills of the Outer Isles. I experimented with shutter speed and aperture but was unable to capture it…
Anyway, this one is nice and gives an impression of the spectacular colors…
The full size picture is on FLICKR.
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Latest music...
Hair (1968, Original Broadway recording). Some naughty lyrics for that time!!
An Rathad a Bhatarsaigh, by the Vatersay Boys