End of October already and although it may not look like we have achieved too much, i.e. the house site is still a very deep hole, and there is no garden yet, we do feel more grounded and beginning to belong a little more.  The weather continues to be the main influence on any work that does or doesn't get done. Our inside space, the big shed, is quite civilised now and I am sitting here writing this at the kitchen table.  The sun is out just now in between showers, and the wind howls through the eves a bit.  I have a view out through the glass door Ben installed last week.  It is a very fancy Nordan door that we took with us from Edinburgh and it makes a lot of difference. The mountains I can see of Appin and Duror in the distance are wooded and misty.  The buttery rolling hills of Lismore in the foreground are a defined by long lines of dark grey stone walls and sprinkled here and there with white sheep.  Intense and huge rainbows move in and out of focus and connect the land with the sky with colours that remind me of Mexico.  It is all very beautiful. Yesterday we attended an island funeral which was a wonderful experience for me.  The church was full to overflowing, most people in black, not somber really at all, but respectful and full of love for the plight of mankind and the mystery of life and death. The funeral was for Donald MacColl who had lived all his life here, was a farmer and musician.  His wife Iris had given birth to 8 children, many of whom still live and work here on the island.
The materials for the foundations are now onsite.  Not an easy operation.  Three large loads of gravel and 8 pallets of cement in bags delivered to the island by barge to the pier at Achnacroish and then moved by tractor and trailer to the site.  One trip had to be abandoned as the wind and the waves were too much to allow for safe unloading and a second attempt the next day early in the morning proved successful.  Now we are waiting for the digger and Ronnie MacColl and Michael Dempster, the foundations man, to get things together for the mixing and pouring.  Ben and Sebastian remeasured and realigned the strings and posts on the building site for the founds and we are ready to go.  In the meantime, they are busy with the constant work of improving the water and wind tightness of the big shed, with the repositioning of the caravan, with the installation of the water system and drainage and the other one thousand and one little jobs of making living on a building site in the wild north west feasible.

Work got under way again with the arrival of the digger on Thanksgiving Day.  Foundations reset, and re dug to the required specifications.  One of the two cattle grids was installed, so that visitors and ourselves will not have to open a gate to come in and out.  The fences and gates to the cattle grid still have to be installed, hopefully this will happen soon.  The weather hasn't been quite as wet as it was, though the ground is still waterlogged in many places.  Sebastian had his birthday yesterday and Ben Tombs, Sebastian's brother returned from a week away.  Good to have him back again as things seem to happen when he is around.  He knows how to get stuck in and has done all this kind of thing before in New Zealand.  Ben and Sebastian are working on getting a water supply to the new barn, which has become our main living space.  They put the yurt into the barn in an attempt to make a cosy living room and a second floor office above the kitchen for paperwork and writing.  It's all quite cute really and apart from the fact that it is quite damp and cold it is wonderful.

Oh boy, this is difficult.  It seems that it has been raining now for months so no scything now.  Very little work has been going on.  People keep asking me "How's the house coming along?"  I feel quite wearied by this question.  The house, dear friends is still only a big hole in the ground.  Why? What's the hold up?  Well it is a long story involving the rain, the mud, the change in plans due to the liquidation of the original kit building company, more rain which prevents the road entrance to be finished.  The ground is too soft for big machinery at the moment so can't put in the cattle grids, so can't finish the fences so can't keep out the cows and sheep.  Another consequence of all that is that I still can't start a garden either, this is my most frustrating complication.  I really don't want another year with no fresh food from the garden.  I'm sure we would all be a lot happier and healthier with our own home grown fruit and vegetables.  Adam (son) started the building of a large poly-tunnel, but is has been too cold to put the cover on it.  And without a fence the cows would most likely wreck it anyway.  I am moaning a lot!  One thing we do have now is a composting toilet.  It is very high speck.  When it stops raining, maybe tomorrow I will nip out and take some photos of it and post them on the site.