Brrrreeeezy!!! Again…
January 29, 2009 | 4 Comments |
Yes, again a very breezy day. And cold as well!! But without rain and at about 8:05 am I could see the red glimmering of a sunrise from the kitchen window. I got the camera out and took these rather amazing photo’s. I stood outside for a while as the change over from a “blood red” to a normal morning sky happens quite fast, just a couple of minutes. An amazing spectacle…
On another note… for all you Mac users out there, I bought the new iLife ‘09 suite from Apple. Really only because of the enhanced features of iPhoto which now has two cool new features: recognize faces on photo’s and geo-tagging photo’s. The face recognition is quite smart and works really well. The geo-tagging is a bit awkward but if you own a camera with a GPS chip you get GPS coordinates automatically with every photo. Otherwise you have to manually tag your photo’s. Also the new version comes with features to export to Flickr and Facebook. Cool stuff…
The price of a house
January 27, 2009 | 2 Comments |
A couple of days ago, while working at our property in Glendale, the former owner came by for a chat. I showed him around and told him about the things we are planning to do. He told me that his father paid £12.00 and 5 lambs for building the house. And if the brick layer assigned to the job would not do a full row of stones in one day, he would not receive any pay for that day.
Amazing….
Fire
January 26, 2009 | Leave a Comment |
A lovely day for a change! And well deserved I might add after the weeks of gales and rain. Blue skies, sun… it almost felt like spring.
We went of to Glendale and had a huge fire to burn all the scrap wood that was accumulated over the past weeks: doors, stairs, old beams, floor boards etc. That cleared things up quite a bit. It took a while for the fire to start going as the majority of the wood had been outside for months. But a couple of old and rotten floor beams did the trick.
We also managed to get rid of the old night storage heaters. They weight a tonne (due to the bricks that collect the heat) but we managed to shift them into the byre.
Claire took Jingles for a walk in the hills at the back of the cottage. He had a great time. I managed to rip out the old bathroom floor. By 3pm we were knackered and returned home for a late lunch…
Progress in Glendale
January 24, 2009 | Leave a Comment |
As I reported earlier we had some remaining challenges at our Glendale property. First there was the stop tap. The property is old and gets its water from a spring up the hill. To be able to remove the old bathroom and kitchen fittings, we needed to find the stop tap. Today we found it, closed it off and managed to drain the pipes. Tomorrow it’s hammer time again as the relic bathroom and kitchen fittings will find their way to the growing pile of junk in shed.
Second the property was on a token meter. A true pain. But after some back and forth communication with Scottish Hydro they will now come on the 2nd of February to install a proper meter. Apparently token meters are installed when people do not or irregularly pay their utility bills. And once installed, you don’t get a “normal” meter back that easy. Anyway, I managed to convince Scottish Hydro of our best intentions and… hurray, we have a proper meter soon!
The photo shows the old bath tub full of old glass wool insulation material. Stripping down of the ground floor is nearly complete now. Especially cleaning out the old fireplaces was a horrible, dirty and smelly job. A massive avalanche of an amazing amount of coot mixed with lime mortar and God knows what… Next is upstairs…
Golden oldies
January 22, 2009 | 3 Comments |
When the weather is horrible and not inviting you to do any outdoor things (like today), I love to browse my iTunes library. Especially the golden oldies: and then play the air guitar and the air drums….
There are always two distinct favorites. First “Dark Side of the Moon”. It was the first ever album (in cassette format) I got as young boy of 14 from my dad while on a holiday in London. I played it a zillion times on an old Philips cassette deck. Eventually the tape was worn out and I had to invest my pocket money in a vinyl version of the album and a proper record player.
The second is Tommy by The Who. The memory here is going to a birthday party of one of my classmates. As a highlight we were driven to Rotterdam (one of Hollands major cities) to see the musical Tommy (considered very “modern” in those days) in the cinema. I was blown away by the story of Tommy who was deaf, dumb and blind and messed about by all the people around him. And of course the brilliant music by the Who… Favorites are: Pinball Wizard and Acid Queen, in the movie performed by a very young Elton John and Tina Turner….
A clear view on things
January 21, 2009 | 4 Comments |
A couple of days after a pretty bad storm, things are back to normal. Luckily we survived without any damage. Not even a broken roof tile. But it was scary nonetheless, with gusts well over 100 mph. Although the days are noticeably longer, the weather is still very wintery.
One of the things long due was an eye test. So we decided to pay Specsavers a visit. They’re on Skye every 4 weeks, somewhere in Portree. A very smooth operation: got my eyes checked and I bought new glasses. It was definitely necessary. I think I’ll say goodbye to contacts for good now. Since reading is getting more of an effort as well, glasses are much more comfortable than lenses.
Last summer a professional photographer commisioned by SkyeHomes took some pictures of our house. Graham of SkyeHomes recently sent us a disk with the results and some of the pictures are amazing. Here you find my personal favorites…
Flock!
January 15, 2009 | Leave a Comment |
I’m a bit of a computer geek, to be honest… I already confessed that in earlier posts. So, I tend to leave the machine in stand by mode and have Firefox open for days on end. That’s wrong. Not only from an energy consumption point of view but there’s also a technical issue with Firefox if you leave it on. It tends to eat so much of your memory that it becomes unusably slow…
I found another browser which looks like Firefox, doesn’t eat memory like Firefox and in doing so does not crash your machine. It has some really cool features when you’re into blogging or social networking or run webmail like GMail or spend time on Flickr. It’s called “Flock”, and I’ve been using it for a couple of days and I think I’m hooked….
The Oil Defender
January 12, 2009 | 1 Comment |
There’s a new type of criminal roaming around. It’s the oil thief. Our neighboring house was visited a while back. Oil tank emptied. And a newspaper item claimed that a local hotel was robbed of 5.000 liters! Amazing if you think of it. It must be a well organized thing as you do not easily take off with large quantities of oil. And it takes a while to empty out a tank. So… should we watch out for suspicious looking characters in boiler suits ? ! ? !
As always, there’s someone with a solution! Check http://www.oildefenders.co.uk for the Oil Defender!!
Back to work
January 8, 2009 | 1 Comment |
Holidays are over, it’s back to work. I started work on our Glendale property again, which is now officially in a state of repair. This is important as you do not need to pay Council Tax. A definite bonus!!
So far, the majority of the old lime plaster is stripped and all the old wiring has been removed. A point of concern: I cannot find the stop tap for the water, so I still can not remove all the old plumbing: toilet, bath, kitchen, water tank. All really dated stuff that desperately needs replacement.
We have now decided to replace the rather ugly concrete tiles for Spanish slate. this also gives us opportunity to replace the existing roof windows, which are quite small.
All the timber beams are still in remarkable good condition. I only found one deteriorated cross beam which can be easily replaced.
I hope to finish the stripping by mid February. Then, the first step will be to put in new concrete floors with a damp proof membrane.
Some reflection…
January 7, 2009 | 2 Comments |
Two years have passed since we arrived on Skye. A good moment for some reflection. This is our second winter. People tell me that if you survive three Skye winters, you’re bound to stay or at least not likely to get scared away by what the weather throws at you.
Well, weather-wise the past year was great. We had a good Spring and an even better Summer. I remember May giving us weeks and weeks of non-stop sunshine. Even to the point that this part of the island was worried about the water levels! Amazing!! You’d think that water is the least thing we should worry about on Skye…
And 2008? I consider it a good year, although the world has probably changed profoundly by the current crisis. In January we drove to Cluanie Inn to pick up Jingles, our black lab puppy. He has now grown into a big, cuddly dog and - just like us - loves his life on Skye.
Business wise it was good as well. We started our holiday letting business and that kicked off remarkably well. The next challenge is to renovate the property in Glendale and get that ready for business as well.
We met a lot of new people and made some very good new friends. Without a doubt we consider ourselves “settled in” and this remarkable island now feels as our home.
In 2008 I endeavored on my shed project. I enjoyed it immensely and learned a lot of new skills. I must confess though, that without Simon’s help and good advice, I would have struggled and the final result would not have been as good as it is.
Some setbacks of 2008:
We lost three of our chicken, probably to a roaming mink. Apparently we were not the only ones as we heard that quite a number of people lost chicken to minks.
Jingles tore the ligaments of his left hind leg after two months, giving him a couple of difficult months with a slow recovery. Luckily he fully recovered. A difficult time for playful pup…
Already seven days into the new year. It’s amazing how fast each year passes by. Is it an age thing? Although I really feel we have left our busy city life habits behind us, it still feels that time passes by at light speed. Well, the good thing I presume, is that we are really enjoying our life on Skye!
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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