All too familiar....

Life doesn't get any quieter..... Richard has been sending numerous e-mails to try and organise us somewhere to stay and it is looking as if we will be putting two static caravans on our land in due course but just in case I am taking the trailer tent back with me. We're not thrilled at the prospect of having to stay in it at the moment as this was the view from our bedroom morning apparently!!

It is a depressingly familiar scene - just when I was beginning to think that I could start getting to grips with some of the work in the garden. I have loads of vegetable seedlings ready to go into the garden and will be disappointed if the second batch are wasted. At least some of them have already moved to a warmer climate as I dropped some off to Daniel and Julie on my way back down on Wednesday so hopefully they at least will survive. Sarah has had to have a crash course in looking after my propagators and the greenhouse but she tells me that the young plants are safely tucked up in bubble wrap with the heaters on so all may be well.

It was a swift turn around as I worked in Sutton on Wed & Thurs nights then went to Brighton to see my friend Jane on Friday and Daniel and Julie in Oxford on Saturday where we tackled their garden. A large pile of scrap wood left by their builders has now been reduced to a manageable stack and Daniel and I admired the contents of his compost bins while Julie painted and cooked for us all. On Sunday morning I moved on to Winchester and cleared Tim and Ruths fruit patch, from which we had aready taken the cage two weeks ago. The plan had been to transfer the bushes/canes to our garden but unless we have a very rapid thaw they may have to stay wrapped in their black bags for a while. Bethan is turning into quite a chatter box and Toby seems intent on visiting A & E as he hurtles around the house with no concept of danger!

On Monday it was back to Sutton and another four nights work, with my car going in for servicing as well. I think Dave will be surprised to find numerous fruit bushes, a chop saw and stand and a pop up gazebo in the back of my car - but may also be surprised to find I have done 20,000 miles since I bought the car a year ago - how many people bring their car nearly 600 miles to get it serviced I wonder?

In the meantime Richard has fulfilled a long standing ambition - to be able to stride around his land in a kilt. He and Sarah went to a ceilidh (pronounced kaylee) on Friday which is the Scottish equivalent of a barn dance. Apparently it was great fun and as scottish dance is on the school curriculum, the children were the experts!!

I will be driving back up on Good Friday and we are supposed to be having an easter egg hunt in the garden on Sunday - I suppose the snow will make the eggs easier to find!!!

Mole City!

We have just come back from a whirlwind trip down South - both at the same time for once! Our friends Richard and Judith were brilliant hosts, not only tolerating our comings and goings but also opening their home for an 'open house' evening on Tuesday when we were able to catch up with a number of old friends. We spent the week-end in Winchester and managed to take Bethan and Toby to the zoo for the day without losing them to the lions, allowing Tim and Ruth to dig out two ponds from their garden - something of a hazard with two small children! We have brought back another fruit cage from their garden which I was unable to persuade them to keep - despite Bethans appetite for raspberries, so now need to re-plan the veg growing area to incorporate it.
After spending Wednesday night with Daniel and Julie in Oxford we headed back North to find that the snow at ground level had all but disappeared. The parking area at the back of the house seemed enormous, having been under snow for so long and having got used to walking through a narrow dug out path. The full effect of the damage that the moles have done is now exposed and hopefully Pete will be able to come and deal with them soon. The grass everywhere is very brown after three months under snow but we have had beautiful spring weather since we came back so I am optimistic that it will soon 'green up' again.

It is amazing the difference a few days make. We now have an abundance of snowdrops and crocuses and the daffodils are comparable in height to those in the south so presumably had been quietly growing away under the snow - amazing!!

The builders are not now going to start until after Easter which gives us a little more breathing space, especially as I am coming back down to Sutton on Wednesday to work and not returning until Good Friday. We still don't have another house to move into but there are a couple of possibilities in the pipeline and hopefully something will be confirmed this week. I have been accepted for bank work at Raigmore NNU so just have to wait for all the paperwork to be completed and hopefully will start getting some work up here

True to form, as we came back, Sarah headed South - she will be back for a few hours before I leave again! She has passed her first test as gardeners apprentice and looked after my seedlings while I was away - what she doesn't yet know is that there are three times as many now growing fast!! It is easy to get lulled into a false sense of security given a few sunny days but checking the forecast for while I am away there are temperatures at night well below freezing still so it won't do to get too complacent with the seedlings.

All play and no work?

Having seen Richards Mum and Dad off at the airport yesterday (after a quick lesson in using the log splitter for Dad) we went for a stroll along the edge of the Moray Firth to try and seek out some walks for Rhema. It was so mild that it was almost 'shirt sleeves' weather and it was odd to think that the next day we would be ski-ing at a place that has the most snow cover for 30 yrs- both venues less than 45 mins from home - not many places in the UK that you could do that!!

....just to prove that I did manage to stay vertical much more this time and did actually move!

We spent a great day with our friends and RJ was very patient and did much to undo the damage to my confidence fom my last lesson. The conditions were perfect and we are now both glowing from a day spent under clear blue skies.

If this all sounds a bit too much like 'all play and no work', I did have an interview at Raigmore hospital today to join the bank.

Cautiously optimistic

Back in Moy and the temperature rose by 15 degrees in 24hrs so suddenly the grass is appearing again and I was able to bring my car down the drive and finally unload the scaffold boards. Although it is possible that there will be more snow I am optimistic that I will be able to start constructing the raised beds soon.

Richards Mum and Dad are still with us and on Saturday we went with them to take a look at the lodge where we had first stayed with them in Aviemore and which was the base for our family holidays up here for 25 years. It was refurbished last year and we were keen to see the result as other units we had seen had been hideous and we had voiced our concerns to the management there. In fact the refurbishment is lovely and we were pleased to see the lodge restored to a high standard of decor as it had begun to look very 'tired'. We are planning to hold on to it for the time being so it is possible that we will all decamp to there when we eventually redo the kitchen here. We were also pleased to see that after many years of arguing that it had originally slept eight, they have finally installed a bed-settee restoring it to that status.

We took a trip up Cairngorm as well on Saturday as there was an attempt on the world record for the most kilted skiers which was quite a sight.

They ski-ed from the Ptarmigan restaurant at the top of cairngorm accompanied by a piper and drummer. The Cairngorm ski club were the last to come down performing a scottish reel with a certain amount of kilt swirling!! Enough said!!

Richard and I are going ski-ing again on Tuesday - at least, that's the idea.....the couple who have offered to take us, Carol and (confusingly) Richard, may not realise what they have taken on but Richard assures me that he will get me ski-ing off piste before long - we shall see..Richard and carol will get the chance to do some more advanced stuff while I learn how to stop!!

Am I about to succumb?

I have resisted as one of my friends put it 'the evil that is Facebook' but could I be about to be sucked in....not by the temptation of finding out what everyone is up to - but by the fact that the company I am planning to get my polytunnel from has signed up!! If you doubt this....http://www.facebook.com/Polytunnels

Perhaps I should get out more......

But it could be worse .....

This has been a common scenario - the ski-ers are happy in the end. It has been the best season for years.

...in fact, definately not!!

Last Wednesday I went to the community coffee morning as usual and then set off with the trailer for Edinburgh to pick up the scaffold boards. It was already snowing in Moy but reports were clear for further South and I considered the risk worth taking as even with the cost of petrol the boards were such a bargain. Several hours later, loaded up with 40 boards - 17 of the 8ft ones sticking up out of the trailer, and I was on my way back. All was well until I was onto the A9 when the extent of the snowfall during the day became apparent. I was glad that I had decided to come straight back as the last 70 miles or so were covered at 20-30 miles an hour and by the time I reached Slochd summit the visibility was poor and it was impossible to see the margins of the road.

I had one amusing episode where I became aware that a queue of some 20-30 cars had built up behind me and decided to pull in to let them pass. I was a little nervous about pulling into a layby as it was quite possible that I wouldn't be able to get out again, although I was carrying a snow shovel. Having pulled over I was disconcerted to see that everyone else had stopped as well and showed no signs of wanting to continue past me. After half a minute or so I pulled out again and we continued in convoy for the next thirty miles or so - very strange....I can only imagine that no-one else wanted to be the one to potentially drive off the road!!


Richard met me at the top of the drive and took the trailer down in the Kia as by the time I got to Moy it was clear that the 807, even if it made it down, wasn't going to get back up again. By the time we got up in the morning we had a foot of snow and the conditions were making the national news. The remaining boards are mainly still in the 807, my suggestion that we use them as sledges and simply slide down the drive on them not having met with any support. Richard has been left with instructions to bring one with him each time he comes down the drive so eventually they will all make it down and when the snow clears I can start laying out the vegetable garden. Our postie hasn't been able to get down the drive either so we now have a large plastic box at the top and she just leaves anything in there.

The snow gates across the A9 were closed on Thursday which meant that no-one could go in or out of the highlands and we were officially cut off from the rest of the country. The pictures which appeared on the national news of lorries parked all down the side of the roads in a town were actually Aviemore and we spoke with some of the drivers who had spent the night in their lorries and were anticipating a further night there. They were looking for somewhere to get something to eat at a reasonable price - obviously we look like people who know where to find a good cooked breakfast!! Some of them were with whisky tankers which they assured us were empty but we have since learnt that if they have a full tanker they are not allowed to leave their vehicle, so valuable is the stock.

It is all credit to the council that we were even able to get into Aviemore on Thursday - we took Joe into work as it really was only safe in the Kia and were going to do the shopping in Tesco but once we realised how little movement of deliveries there was we decided to go to Inverness instead rather than denude the only supermarket for miles around. It felt slightly strange to find that there wasn't any snow at all in Inverness!!

The next challenge was, on Friday, to clear the drive enough to get Richards Mum and Dad down as it was under eighteen inches of snow. It was slow work and the drive gradually began to resemble the Vancouver bobsleigh run as I cut a channel through it and gritted it. David had been and ploughed it but where the tractor had been the snow was compacted to ice and with the fresh snow on top was quite hazardous. Some eight hours of digging and 135yds later and I was almost at the top. Mum and Dad had braved the conditions and had even gone back up again so that we could go out for lunch but on returning to the house Richard was startled to find a complete stranger once more clearing the drive with a tractor! It seems he was out and about, just being neighbourly. Sadly, all my hard work was demolished but at least we were now able to drive the Kia up and down again. At the risk of being boring, with yet more photos of snow, these show quite well how deep it was as well as the length of drive that needs to be cleared each time. We have only had a few days since mid December when we have been able to bring the cars down.









We had a good week-end with Richards family, his Mum, Dad, Sister, Brother and Sister-in-law before his sister Vanessa and I flew back down on Monday afternoon so that I could go to work. Unfortunately Joe wasn't able to join us as he was at a promotional event in Aberdeen for the golf course.

They enjoyed a walk down to the loch and the photo demonstrates how easy it would be for an accident to occur as the frozen loch is indistinguishable from the surrouning area. Anyone unfamiliar with the area could easily walk out onto the ice, not realising that they were no longer on solid ground. Rhema thinks there has to be a furry bone here somewhere.....

It seems strange to be in Sutton and see the crocuses well advanced - I briefly saw my snowdrops before they were smothered again, but I have to say that it feels colder in Sutton than Moy, although all that digging keeps one warm!! Looking at the live webcams on the roads up there (http://www.trafficscotland.org/ if you're interested - click on 'live eye view' and then the camera icons on the A9 - slochd)) it looks as if fresh snow is falling again tonight.......As ever it has been good to have a few nights work and have the opportunity to catch up with friends while I am here. I will be going back to Moy on the 9.30 flight on Friday and am hoping that I don't have quite the sprint at the airport that I have had in the past!