Hello to everyone out there who is still interested in our extended adventure up here on The Loch of A Thousand Winds. We hope that you are all doing ok and surviving these insane times we’re living in. We have had it easier than most up here and are very grateful for that – despite being flung into Tier 4 from Tier 1 at a few days notice!
On the house front, it’s been a frustrating time as our building warrant wasn’t awarded until September – a full 13 months after we applied for it. However, we now have an expensive hole in the ground/quarry thanks to our good friend and digger driver, Alan, and will hopefully have a sewage treatment plant in situ and block foundations before Spring is out.
When digging out the back wall, part of a drainage ditch, that Mick had dug out by hand a couple of years ago, was damaged so we had a waterfall coming down onto the site for a while which was very pretty but not great in reality. When Mick managed to get up and spend the day re-digging the ditch, he had a momentary loss of balance at the top and nearly ended up at the bottom of the hole! We’ll definitely get some fencing at the top there in the very near future!
Mick has continued planting trees and bushes this year – some are cuttings of willows we planted a few years ago that have really taken off this year, others were gifted by friends. Mick completed a circle of oak seedlings with an ash at the centre and we erected ‘the small god of things’, who faces the sunrise on the winter solstice, just to the east of the ash. The community we live in has also successfully completed a community woodland project which means we now have several blocks of thousands of young trees totalling 20 hectares growing throughout the township that will provide future shelter for livestock, better quality grazing over the long term, help to prevent erosion and promote stability for the hill whilst encouraging the development of greater biodiversity in our environment.
More wonderful people have arrived to live in Badrallach, all with the same agri-environmental/green agenda which bodes well for an ever more harmonious future for the township. If there was anywhere to be this year it felt like it was here, a positive oasis of calm and hopefulness in an apparently mad world.
During lockdown, it was wonderful to have the time and space to observe the massive increase in birdlife that now visits our croft as the plantings of previous years are reaching a level of maturity that proves useful for perching and foraging. There was even at least one scurrying lizard and the troll (toad I think) that lives beneath our bridge plus frogs a-plenty and too many mice! I planted a few veggies and had grand plans to have flourishing vegetable beds come Autumn, however, I ended up spending most of lockdown developing another blog about overcoming comfort eating instead. It was information I had, that I wanted to make available to as many people as possible so took the unexpected gift of 3 months off work to do that instead. You can take a look at www.overcomingcomforteating.com if you’re interested.
After my abortive attempt at generating rush light candles as a saleable product from our croft last year, I looked again at what we have an abundance of. After planting a single mint plant a few years ago, we now have a mint forest. We also have a beautiful rose bush that flowers for about 9 months of the year with no input from us at all! After a little internet research for what to do with these ingredients, I made lots of lovely mint sauce and dried rose petal and mint tea. Both of which are delicious and a possible viable small business product for the future. I’m all in favour of working with nature and what is bountiful in your surroundings rather than trying to force a crop that really doesn’t want to be there.
Mick’s lockdown projects were many and varied – he has been literally shielding and, as a result we now have a significant collection of historical shields in the barn ready for when his Historical Fencing (HEMA) group can restart. The shields are stunning to look at but I haven’t had a chance to take photos of Mick modelling them yet so here is a picture of his first project, which was to repaint our post box. It is quite something and we love it!
Joe found lockdown a generally positive experience and thoroughly enjoyed virtual schooling as it meant he could get up at 8.30 am instead of 6.15 am and still be at school on time! He turned 15 this year and his circadian rhythms appreciated the later morning start for sure. He is growing into a fine, articulate young man, with excellent wood chopping skills, who doesn’t hesitate to remind us that we uprooted him from a cosy little cottage with all mod cons in the Borders to a windy hillside in the Highlands with few facilities and that he’s now spent nearly half his life without living in a proper house! This makes it all the more important for us to make real progress on our house in 2021. Thanks to Brexit, we are looking at around a 20% increase in the cost of building materials apparently, so that’s fantastic news!
We are currently having a couple of months reprieve from our rustic accommodations and have gratefully moved into a friend’s flat until the end of February. Central heating and hot water that comes out of a tap is a real gift that you only come to appreciate when you don’t have regular access to it!
After 3 months without working, I was able to return in July. I have been working flat out since then and am grateful to be able to do so, even though I have to dress up like an oversized crisp packet to do it safely and make sure my insurance is valid. I am also doing more cleaning than I have ever done in my life before! Wearing full PPE allows me to continue helping my clients get better, but is taking a shocking environmental toll and it distresses me enormously to have to continue with it. I’m not going to get into what I believe are the rights and wrongs of the situation, suffice to say that, according to the research I’ve looked at, everyone living at UK latitudes should be taking Vitamin D, C and glutathione supplements so that if they get a dose of Covid19, their immune systems will be in good shape to deal with it. At the risk of being branded a tin foil hat wearing, anti-vaxxer conspiracy theorist, I will say this, the virus is real, we have lost a close family member to it this year, but there is a lot that we can do to protect ourselves besides being isolated from family and friends, getting a vaccine and polluting our environment with millions of tons of single-use plastic.
Well that’s it for this most peculiar of years dear friends, we look forward to easier times ahead and possibly a house in which to lay our heads in 2021. We hope you all managed to have a jolly Christmas and send you our heartiest best wishes for the New Year. With much love,
Alex, Mick, Joe and Princess Starry Pup
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