Sunday 13 April 2014

Ready, steady, go


There are lambs. But not here.   Some farms and crofts have already started lambing.  Our ewes are due to start next week.  The Farmer is ready. As ready as he can be.  His lambing bag is in the porch.  He has his medicines, his ropes, his spray, everything he needs to assist in deliveries, and something to carry a lamb home in, if he needs to bring one back from the hill.



The cottages are ready too.  The guests arrived for Shian to the smell of fresh paint.  We had finished painting the day before, but the transformation from building site to lovely welcoming cottage took until five minutes before arrival time.  Phew!


These two photographs were hurriedly taken on my phone - I will put some better ones on the website soon! Above is the kitchen, with the new window in the end wall.  Below is the sunroom looking out to the sea.


Farmer still has about 200 sheep being fed every day.  These are the older ewes who are expecting twins.


We had an hour off one lunchtime to retrieve something from the beach I call the Donald Sutherland beach, as he starred in the film 'The Eye of a Needle', a large part of which was filmed here in 1981.  People still talk of the amount of money that was handed over by the production team to locals for helping out.

East, Middle and West were wired for generators and used as the actors' changing rooms. The generators were taken away at the end of the filming, and the cottages reverted to paraffin and gas lights, until we had mains electricity put in in 2005!



This is the Middle Cottage fish box garden.


Along the coast, it was grey and misty as we took a visitor to look at the Treshnish Isles!


The next day it was sunnier, and the celandine were flowering in full force.


It was an absolute delight to see my first viola. 


As well as the islands, in the brightness of the early afternoon.


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