Letters from Mull: June 2017

Killoran House from Dervaig Late Evening

Weather turns cooler

Well the weather eventually had to turn a bit cooler and a bit wetter which was good for our water source. I went around to check it mid June and it was positively flowing – just like a proper stream. I was very pleased. Chuffed. Mull has a lot of weather and it’s always interesting. Never dull. Always something to see and talk about. A True Brit’s Dream!

Flat Tyre

A quick cautionary tale.

I was driving to Tobermory to go shopping and, becuase I’ve lived here so long and I know the roads so well I was going quicker (although not fast) than I should have been, when I was forced to go around an oncoming car in a passing place and went off the road. This was a well chosen spot for the steep sides of the road, as they fell away 15cm to a very sharp rock which proceeded to cut a gash in my tyre about 10cm long.

Well done.

Luckily we have a spare so I was able to limp to Tobermory and order a new tyre from MacKays. Took a week to arrive and cost me over £100.00

Lesson learned.

Walk to Langamull

Tash and I went on a few nice walks one of which was to Langamull Beach. It was a very easy and pleasant walk for us novices. Ruby enjoyed the water and we enjoyed the scenary. Don’t think we impressed the locals though.

Ruby at Langamull Langamull Residents Langamull from Afar

Garden

The garden is very beautiful, if somewhat wild, but that’s just the way it should be up here.

I wanted to start growing some vegetables so I needed soil, so killing two birds with one stone, I have removed soil from the side of the hill and used this, along with our composting food, to make some raised beds, along with a firepit. Pleased with that. Looks really good and we can use it as a barbeque.

Walk Over the Hill with Henry

Henry and I finally decided to see if we could get on top of the hill opposite and take some photos of the house and generally have a mooch. As usually nothing is as simple as it seems, but it was well worth it. Managed to get some great photos of the house and see how the land lies. The views of Dervaig and the Loch were incredible.

Henry and Ruby with House from Hill Opposite Killoran House from Hill Opposite Dervaig from Hill Opposite Henry and Ruby on Hill Opposite

No Television Signal

As coincidences usually cause me consternation this was a great one.

I was fitting new co-axial cable heads to a number of wires to ensure that all of our rooms had TV reception and the one I was testing went blank. No signal. “Bloody hell!” I thought. “DIY Disaster Craig strikes again.”. So after messing about with these cables with no room to move and kneeling painfully on the floor, it turns out that none of the TVs worked. Great. Now I have broken the signal amplifier. After another period of panic and pricing up of a new amp it occurred to me that it might just be that the TV signal was not transmitting. Unheard of I know. Of course there is no single source of information you can go to, and no telephone numbers, but after much searching (I think it was FreeView in the end) I managed to speak to a rather helpfull chap who informed me that he was sure the transmitter was fine but we would just check his internal system.

Turns out the transmitter went off. Broken. Never heard of such a thing. No TV? Sureley the peasants will begin revolting and thinking all manner of mutinous thoughts.

Never happened. The engineers sorted in after about 10 hours. Gracie-Anne did burst into tears when she came home after school to no TV. She did not know what to do.

Calgary Sports

During a particulalry wet and damp day there was a Sports Day on Calgary Beach for local children and their parents. Really good fun. I took part of course – never been able to before. Proudly I came 1st in the Egg and Spoon Race (adults only) and Henry and I came first in the 3 Legged Race. These are without a doubt my greatest sporting acheivements.

‘Till next time.

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