Plants Gone Wild

Everything in the garden went mental during the hot weather. We came back from holiday to find that the ivy in particular was making a determined effort to take the roof off, and the unidentified climbing bush thing at the front was no longer under the window but over it and, indeed, over the roof.

This meant that Seumas got to break out a new toy. I must admit I was a bit concerned about letting him loose with the power tools, and I was even more concerned when I saw how happy he was rampaging round the garden like Bruce Campbell from Evil Dead.

The pile of branches came off the plum tree, which is dangerously unstable due to the amount of ivy strangling it, and yet still managed to produce a fine crop of small, bullet-like plums, most of which bounced off my head while I was holding the ladder.

I get all the fun jobs.

The tree will probably come down in the winter, but for now it's a popular shelter for all the juvenile songbirds in the garden, so it stays.

Speaking of songbirds, we found this lovely little home in the rafters of the garage. 

It held four robins, two of which hung around the garden for ages entertaining us. Robin fledglings have a particularly gormless look due to their yellow gapes. This one had a habit of sitting squarely in the middle of the garden path and doing a good impression of a rock. It must be a valuable defence mechanism in normal circumstances (Thomas never spotted him), but it did make for rather cautious trips out to the bins for a few days!

The Cottage on Holiday - 24/7

One of the strangest things about Uist was that it never really got dark. Sunrise was about 0400, sunset about 2230. At gone midnight it was still light enough to read by, and all the birds were still calling.

James took this photograph about 2300, calling me out of bed to see the mist curling up the loch. The tide was coming in, and the water was like glass. There was a curlew calling somewhere to the north, and it was enough to raise the hairs on the back of your neck.

The Western Isles are almost completely treeless, and this makes for big skies and endless horizons. What trees there are cower behind their protective houses, and are shorn off at an acute angle where the wind catches them. The wonderful Hebridean Meme sums it up much more succinctly:

We got quite good at taking photos that avoided the inexorable march of technology across the middle of the shot. This is Bana Thighearna nan Eilean - Our Lady of the Isles, who looks out from the slopes of Ruebhal on South Uist. We came back to this statue several times. It's a wonderful peaceful spot, and I love the expression on Mary's face. She was modelled on actual local women, and seems to capture the enduring spirit of the people here.

The Cottage on Holiday - A bheil Gàidhlig agaibh?

Life at the cottage is both multilingual and monological. 

I speak three languages, sometimes all at once. Seumas tends to deal with foreign languages by waving his passport and looking hopeful (this has a surprisingly high success rate - S) and Thomas has yet to master any meaningful communication apart from that encoded in the rustle of someone opening a packet of cheese.

As a result, I'm like a really boring Hamlet, soliloquising in French over the contents of the fridge and pondering in Gaelic the mysteries of where my shoes have gone.

This affliction was particularly acute on holiday, as the bilingual roadsigns tripped my brain into Gaelic mode, and communication became a bit fraught.

The Machair Way runs up the west coast of South Uist

I heard a lot of Gaelic spoken, but didn't speak much to others. Partly due to shyness on my part - my Gaelic is still very rudimentary- and also because there is a bit of a thing where (particularly older) native speakers can feel uncomfortable talking to those who have learned Gaelic in a formal setting. 

What I can do well in Gaelic is quote large chunks of song lyrics; a visit to Carinais in North Uist meant that this lovely old song got an airing - the video here is from 1989, but the song itself is said to have been composed by the foster mother of Dòmhnall mac Iain 'ic Sheumais after the Battle of Carinis in 1601.

It's a lovely, lovely song, whichever version you hear, but it's especially poignant at the site of the battle, now a peaceful field.

As it happens, when I did speak Gaelic, it was under the most extraordinary circumstances (which most of my friends have already heard about, sorry folks). Did you watch that video? Notice that wonderful voice (and that wonderful mullet)? The mullet has long since departed but Rory MacDonald and his brother Calum are still making wonderful music, and I had the very great privilege to bump into them in Lochmaddy.

And by bump into them I mean spot them from the car and then belt back down the lane on foot, clutching their latest album and calling to them in Gaelic  'excuse me, excuse me, I'm sorry...' They were very kind, extremely tolerant of my garbled Gaelic (which deserted me entirely once face to face), and generally made my day.

Calum agus Ruaraidh Dòmhnallach

Nach buidhe dhomh? (Aren't I lucky?)

The Cottage on Holiday - Walking on the Wild Side

It's been a little quiet at Hazel Tree Cottage recently, as we took a week out from the usual routine for a long-awaited holiday in Scotland. Seumas spent much of his childhood in Caithness, where his grandmother lived, and for the last 13 years he's shared his love of the country with me. This year we headed for the opposite side of the country, to a wee croft in South Uist.

A trip to Uist has been a long held wish for me. I have been learning Gaelic for the last two years, and Na h-Eileanan an Iar - The Western Isles- are at the heart of Gaelic culture, and the language is still in daily use there. The islands are also a haven for wildlife of all sorts, and as a birder, the lure of such treats as corncrakes, divers, eagles and seabirds was irresistable.

An Croit

Ronnie's Cottage is a tiny croft on the shoreline of South Uist. It was renovated in 2012 and despite its traditional appearance has all the conveniences you could need, apart from WiFi, which frankly was a bonus, as Seumas and I have a tendency to be wedded to our phones. We fell unashamedly in love with the place, and sat out most evenings looking over the tidal loch. 

In fact, we scarcely needed to leave the garden all week, as the wildlife came to us. On the first morning a Golden Eagle was quartering the moorland to the south, an otter came exploring on the second evening, the local Cuckoo called incessantly from the powerline over the road, and a pair of Short Eared Owls were regular visitors - one came winging round the chimney stack and nearly collided with Seumas. Difficult to know who was more shocked.

Hunting Short-Eared Owl

I drove Seumas mad on the single track roads, constantly demanding he stop so I could check out diver-shaped silhouettes on the many lochs. Most of them were Tufted Ducks or Red-Breasted Mergansers, but persistence paid off, and I finally saw my own Red Throated Diver during a day trip to the most southerly occupied island, Barra. They are beautiful birds, with soft grey plumage that shades into the deep red throat. 'My' bird was floating quietly, apparently unfazed by the excitement over our side of the loch as binoculars, camera and telescope all came into play. Seumas spotted another pair near Ormacleit on South Uist on our last day, which were swimming slowly up and down the loch, occasionally meeting and diving, then resurfacing and separating again.

Red-Throated Divers 

We had hot, clear weather all week, with up to 18 hours of sunshine a day. The sun rises around 4.30 this time of year, and sets at about 22.30, and it never really got dark. I took Thomas out around 3am one morning and it was still twilight, and all the birds were still calling.

The Outer Hebrides are almost devoid of trees, and it was entertaining to see how many birds made use of the power lines that snake all over the islands. Everything from cuckoos to oystercatchers to the usually timid wrens staked out their patch on top of a pole. The wrens are particularly interesting as they are actually a subspecies; they are larger and darker than our wrens and their song differs too. The local starlings are also a subspecies; we noticed that they have much fewer spots on their plumage, and the juveniles are dark brown and much less conspicuous in a flock.

Stonechat embracing modern technology

The birdlife in general is far richer and more accessible than on the mainland. Lack of human interference and fewer ground predators mean they are much less wary of people, and utterly indifferent to cars. Our total 'list' for the week was over 70 species, but plain numbers don't do them justice. This was the best birding I've had in years!


Mute Swan
Greylag Goose
Mallard
Tufted Duck
Eider
Red Breasted Merganser
Red Throated Diver
Fulmar
Manx Shearwater
Gannet
Shag
Grey Heron
Little Grebe
Golden Eagle
Buzzard
Corncrake (heard)
Curlew
Redshank
Oystercatcher
Ringed Plover
Lapwing
Dunlin
Common Sandpiper
Great Skua
Arctic Skua
Puffin
Guillemot
Black Guillemot
Razorbill
Common Tern
Arctic Tern
Black Headed Gull
Herring Gull
Lesser Black Backed Gull
Greater Black Backed Gull
Common Gull
Kittiwake
Rock Dove/Feral Pigeon
Woodpigeon
Collared Dove
Cuckoo
Short-Eared Owl
Kestrel (on mainland)
Magpie
Jackdaw
Jay (on mainland)
Hooded Crow
Carrion Crow
Raven
Rook (on mainland)
Great tit (on mainland)
Coal tit (on mainland)
Skylark
Swallow
Housemartin
Reed warbler (heard)
Wren
Starling
Blackbird
Songthrush
Robin
Stonechat
Wheatear
House Sparrow
Pied Wagtail
Meadow pipit
Chaffinch
Siskin (on mainland)
Twite
Corn Bunting
Reed Bunting

Living Space

The cottage is not short on living space. The ground floor has a living room, study, dining room and a fourth room variously referred to as the internal hall, inner lobby, office or snug. 

The living room is basically L shaped, with further space nibbled out by the stairs, which occasion much swearing from taller visitors. That overhang is begging for a piece of feature art, but at present it just has the world's naffest bunting - Valspar paint samples.

The snug has doors on three sides as well as the stairs going up to the right of the radiator. Like the rest of the ground floor, it still has the original parquet, but years of leaky gutters, a breached DPC and pet accidents mean it is rotten and stinks. No wonder the previous owners chose to hide it under the (horrible) carpet. I'm looking forward to ripping it out and putting tiles down.

The 'dance room' runs the length of the house. The parquet flooring is in much better nick than elsewhere, and the ceiling is high enough for all the posing one could desire. It's currently in that half and half state that all new home owners will recognise - business at the back, and absolute piles of boxes at the front - despite my best efforts it's become a stashing point for all the things with no home.

Taking Offence

I know, I know, it's a horrific pun. Blame Seumas.

When we moved in, all the fences were in tolerably bad repair, but the left hand side was particularly knackered - leaning at a 45degree angle into next door, and held up only by ivy and the live electric wire for the garage. This meant that the power to the house went out every time it rained. Which was fun.

This is the ivy on the good fence. The ivy on the other 
side threatened to steal my camera if I got too close...

So we got some quotes to get the whole lot ripped out and replaced. Went with a small company recommended by our old neighbour, who came round and quoted within 24 hours. Unlike, I should note, a big local company, who clearly had better things to do than turn up for either of the two appointments made.

All seemed fine, transferred the cost of the materials over, and then the company owner buggered off into the ether with my cash, and no more was heard from him by me or the sub contractor, which left us with a great big hole where our fence used to be, and a further hole in our finances. 

Old fence stacked up... on the lawn :(

Fortunately, the sub-contractor took over the job, but bloody hell, what a nightmare. The job turned out to be infinitely more complicated thanks to all the ivy roots, the fence line wandered back and forth over the boundary line like a drunkard walking to a taxi rank, and the dogs on both sides were thoroughly miserable at losing their garden privileges for a week.

It's almost finished now, and to be fair, the new fence is a massive improvement. Concrete posts and gravel boards should withstand incursions from weather, ivy and determined spaniels, and won't rot off at the base after a few years. Which is good, because I'm never doing this again.

Totally dog proof!

Naming things

Some things come with names, others name themselves. The dog, for example, was intended to be a Rufus, but came with the name Thomas, and could clearly never be anything but a Thomas. 

Definitely not a Rufus!

The cottage also came with its own official name, but for the purposes of internet anonymity and a desire not to have any more weirdos on the doorstep than already live here, it needed a new one.

We tried several on for size. Brick Cottage seemed a bit industrial, Victoria Cottage too formal. Puddle Duck cottage was a blatant lie, and 6 Inches Of Chicken Shit Cottage, whilst accurate, was vetoed by Seumas on the grounds of possibly putting people off.

The final choice was Magnolia Tree Cottage, partly because there's a bonny little magnolia tree in the back garden, and mainly because I seem to spend most of my free time painting things that colour.

Unfortunately some no doubt lovely bloggers over the pond had bagged every possible iteration on the theme of magnolia and cottages, so it was back out to the garden to see what else was growing out there.

Fortunately, there is a whopping great hazel nut tree out the back. Phew, problem solved.

Original Features

Any home and lifestyle magazine worth its salt will wax lyrical about the joys of 'original features' in a home. What they don't tell you is how bloody difficult these can be to live with.

Hazel Tree Cottage has been through a number of incarnations since it was first built, so it's difficult to tell what counts as original features. Probably the only ones we can actually be sure of are the huge inglenook fireplace and these wonky beams in the living room, where a ladder went up to the attic bedrooms. Whilst the newer staircase is considerably less aesthetic, I am devoutly grateful not to be scrambling up here after a few gins!

The single glazed rear windows were rotten to the core. It's never good when you can poke your finger through the frame.

Yes, yes, they look very pretty in the estate agent's pictures, but at some point before we moved in they'd been painted black, the central vent had fallen out and there was a Force 10 gale blowing past the sink.

No sentimentality here, all the old windows were skipped, and shiny new uPVC ones went in. Et voila - heating bill cut by half, all draughts eradicated and the kitchen ceased to feel like the 9th circle of hell.

Painting Part 2

One thing we learnt early on in our house-moving experience was to set up one room as you like it. That way when the rest of the disaster zone threatens to rise up and overwhelm you, you have a little retreat to go and hide in while you eat chocolate and wonder why you ever left your parents' home.

For us, that's usually the bedroom, and we had already established that, pink hearts aside, our room needed very little doing to it to make it livable.

One thing we differed on was the orange pine wardrobes with celtic decorations stuck on them. Seumas liked them as they were. I ....didn't.

An impasse seemed unavoidable, but then Seumas made the error of disappearing on holiday with my brother for a week, and I seized the initiative and a paintbrush.

I wasn't entirely sure how to tackle this, but the easiest advice I found online appeared to be to lightly sand the original varnish, then paint with a wood paint of your preferred brand and finish. I used B and Q's white eggshell, which needed about 3 coats to fully cover the orange, and held brush marks quite strongly, so I finished it off with the roller.

Seumas was sensible enough to praise it when he got home, but he does think it makes the room look a bit cold. Personally, I like cold bedrooms, and I like the clean, spare feel it gives to the room.

This nook is probably my favourite bit of the room. I love the slope of the chimney, and the way someone has built into that awkward space to make it usable as a wee dressing table.

Painting Part 1

I think the first thing most home owners think about on moving in is 'when can we get rid of that paint'. Colour is a personal thing, and one person's avant-garde chill-out zone is someone else's Laurence Llewellyn-Bowen-fuelled nightmare.

This was particularly pressing for us as we'd decided to set up our main room in what was a child's bedroom, and had been decorated accordingly. It was instantly christened the Luuuurve Room by friends who should really know better, and I as instantly resolved to paint over the whole damn lot. 

So resolved, in fact, that I cracked open the paint just two days after we moved in... Valentines Day.

I used the cheapest B&Q emulsion I could find. I do not recommend doing this, for anyone else who might be considering removing large gloss paint hearts from their sleeping area.

The hearts took about 8 coats to cover. But it was totally worth it to stop the jokes.

What have we done?

Give or take the odd swearword, that was exactly what I said when we unlocked the back door on moving day and stepped inside.

So what had we actually done? Well, we'd planned to upgrade from the world's ugliest council house to somewhere that could just be moved into with no effort required. Bit of garden. Out of town a bit. Space for a family. Absolutely no DIY required.

That was what we planned. What we bought is a 250 year old cottage that needs new floors, new windows, new doors, new chimney, new bathroom... you get the gist. In a village, yes, space for a family, also yes (assuming our children don't grow beyond 5 foot even). Bit of garden? Well, not all of it is given over to chicken runs. Just most of it.

That sign says fresh eggs. The only eggs we have are Easter ones and I'm not sharing. 

It's just a month since we moved into Hazel Tree Cottage. Since then I have lost count of how many times I have said the same thing, with or without expletives. Would I change it? Not for the world!