Driving south through Glencoe on Tuesday (ie the second of June) there was enough snow on the slopes for skiing, albeit of the Scottish ice-and-heather variety.
There was a brief sunny spell on Saturday when I walked out to Eilean nan Eildean with friends. Back at Drumbuidhe we sat outside drinking beer and polishing our sword (not a euphemism). After decades spent as a grimy prop, it's hilt and scabbard are now gleaming and it'd displayed proudly above the door next to the timber marked 'H Gordon Esq' which was removed when we renovated the kitchen and shows Drumbuidhe's build date to be about 1850. The fine weather prompted C to try and set his turbine running but there wasn't enough wind to keep it moving (there's a starter motor to set it running). C switched the electrical brake on when he went to bed but a variety of flaws (the electrical brake doesn't work; the starter motor may have been set to come on; the turbine is hideously unstable when moving; the bare minimum of guys were holding it down and one of the guys was fixed into a loose rock ...) meant that the turbine collapsed overnight.
I was down in London a couple of weeks ago (watching Krol Roger at Covent Garden, very fancy pants it was too) and while C was alone at Drumbuidhe he managed to break the phone, his car and the internet connection as well as assaulting one of the first workaway volunteers. He cannot be left alone up there any longer. Of course having stated this I've just left him alone up there ... I'm down in Glasgow for more supplies (and to see 'The Matrix' in Glasgow Uni quad) while he's awaiting the delivery of the fabled Greenhouse ... but I'm not sure he took it in the first time I told him anyway.
It's been more losses on the west coast as well with the news on Wednesday morning that our ex MP Charles Kennedy had died. I felt the echo of another summer's day as I waited for the ferry on Muck three years ago in the morning sun and heard that the small isles GP had been found dead. She'd been charged with drink driving the week before and, as it was described to me a couple of days before, "everyone but herself knows she's an alcoholic". The loss of Charles is another sadness.
There's also the tang of local (very local) politics with the news that the estate shepherd is leaving on Monday. We don't yet know why or where he's going but long, long experience says that Derek Lewis (the estate owner) will find it difficult to replace him. As the NHS is finding with the small isles, what looks at first glance like an idyllic job can have too many strings involved. That's one of the problems with idylls.
