Hello to everyone who is still following our epic journey towards building a house and creating our own little slice of sustainable heaven up here on the Loch of a Thousand Winds. The last year has been challenging to say the least what with all the nonsense (see The Captain’s Log posts), the effects of all the nonsense on the availability and cost of building materials, and not least, the effects of ill health related to all the nonsense.
As you may be able to tell from my tone, I am done with all the nonsense, so I shan’t go on about the pain, division and vile behaviour it’s generating – suffice to say that it’s a gift that just keeps on giving.
Over the last year, we’ve had a big hole dug, it’s way bigger than we anticipated thanks to us not being allowed by building standards to go with the foundations we had planned. Our builder is now doing the blockwork before we can fill the aforementioned hole with rubble and concrete and make our first grant claim so that we can afford to begin the next stage of the build which will bring walls and a roof. We hope to have a weatherproof structure up by the end of this year, but we’ll see, I’m not making any more predictions about when we’ll have a house to live in. I know I sound weary, we all are, the process has been painfully slow these past 12 months and we are suffering from project fatigue.
As we were anticipating doing a lot of building work over the last year, we paid little attention to the garden and so only managed to cultivate a few delicious tomatoes. However, a completely unintended raspberry patch appeared in the summer, courtesy of the increasing number of birds who visit us I’m guessing, and observing the spread, and enjoying the fruits of earlier labours was one of the pleasures we did enjoy.
A friend came to visit in the summer and we were able to finish creating the path that winds up the croft past the mature, donated blueberry bushes to the small god of things who looks over us. We have spent a few glorious, sunkissed evenings sat up there with a glass of something warming, surveying what we have achieved so far in Bairstowpia. It really helped us remember that we started with only a bare patch of boggy hillside and now we have a sprawling, ramshackle but secure collection of self-built structures of varying shapes and sizes, our own off-grid electrical and water supplies, lots of fruit bushes that are starting to spread by themselves to provide us and the wildlife with organic edibles (mainly the wildlife to be fair), and a growing expanse of trees that will gift us with their valuable shelter as the years pass.
Another very good friend came to visit several times over the year and used his expertise in all things diesel heater to ensure that we have been warm and toasty in the yurt all winter. We spent a delightful, if surprisingly warm, winter solstice night out on the platform, with the newly revitalised Sputnik burning logs from my folk’s garden under the broad expanse of the Milky Way with the exotic sounds of Egyptian and Turkish music coming from Mick’s laptop. Truly it was a night to remember.
Despite all the nonsense, I was able to continue working with my clients and also doing some teaching of Kinetic Chain Release down at the new KCR Academy in Glasgow. We have the brilliant Seth Gardner as our creative director so I got a taste of the demands of the career I might have had if I’d followed my earliest inclinations to be a performer. Given how my life has turned out, I’m pleased with my choice.
Joe is in the final years of his time at school now and is thinking about his future plans. We hope to hold onto him for an extra year or so before he goes out into the big wide world as the time seems so short, but we’ll see what happens.
Mick has been able to restart his HEMA class in Ullapool and has a regular group of sword junkies to play with which means I no longer have to feign interest in all things metal and pointy – thank the small god of things for his small mercies. Mick was also awarded the honour of being made Sempai by the Sensei of The Cameron School of Martial Arts where he has been learning and latterly helping out in Jujitsu classes for many years now. He has also been volunteering to work with some folk who have need of long term support thanks to disabling health problems that continue to be unaddressed by our severely stretched health and social care services thanks to the willful mismanagement by successive governments. If one was prone to thinking dark thoughts, one might consider there was an agenda to impoverish the NHS and Social Services so greatly that privatisation by the back door is achieved.
On that happy thought, I’m going to sign off for this update and continue hoping that I have more inspiring updates to share in the not too distant future.
We hope you are all well and happy, much love to you all,
Alex, Mick and Joe xxx
lochofathousandwinds 