Turning the corner

Drumbuidhe does sometimes feel like a burden and this New Year has been quite bad: various bits of roof blown off; a neglected garden; my sister K stomping in with her size 7s to "sort things out"; mice everywhere; electrical system not working; the continual creep of broken electrical equipment across every space not to mention my lack of regular income. Now, as daylight gets to 10 hours a day. everything is starting to seem more manageable: I've tidied up the worst electrical equipment offenders and switched off the wind turbine controls; I've ordered next year's seeds and filled up the propagators; I've pruned the fruit trees and sorted out the compost heap. There's still a fallen tree on top of the garden shed but it's looking a bit more manageable.

Since we've now entered the post-it note phase of C's life I still have to work out ways of stopping him killing my carefully nurtured plants. C doesn't always do the killing personally, sometimes passing acolytes ask if they can do "something to help" and C will get them to pull up my salad (thinking they are weeds) or harvest my mooli (and then leave them to rot because he doesn't know what they are) or hoe the planted seed bed or harvest the onions a month too early or plant the carrots/onions/anything too close together or in the bed containing something else (this requires me to dig up and replant everything) or spray Pathclear (the clue is in the name) round the fruit trees... This is why I think my sister's idea of a live-in handyman to help C up here is a completely rubbish idea. Drumbuidhe is surrounded by evidence of what happens when my dad gets an acolyte with stars in their eyes (the bust grass cutter; rain that pours through the south gable; cables draped across courtyards and enough expensive gadgets to give a socialist luddite palpitations). Hey ho.

But enough of my whingeing. I've been writing this as displacement activity from today's task which is the editing of SAP calculations for my studio project and also for Uist. I'm trying to wrestle the complex calculations for energy use into a format which can be used to pragmatically assess the value of interventions for traditional housing on the islands. The algorithms aren't going to wrestle themselves so here goes.

New Year

Finally! we have daylight. It's universally acknowledged that the Christmas and New Year weather has been completely rubbish, this followed on from the early December rubbish weather to produce a series of perfect storms.

In parallel with the weather there has been a series of mechanical breakdowns so that my trusty fiat panda fell very poorly on the road down south for Christmas so after some seasonal wheel-removal I had to limp back to a Glasgow garage. I borrowed C's car to come up to Drumbuidhe for New Year but was hit by a lorry in Glencoe damaging most of the driver's side (terrifying at the time but my heart now sinks at the paperwork that will be involved). Now up here the storms have ripped off all attempts at protecting the generator which is sulking so I'm running on just PV and water power. Thankfully I've worked out how to turn off C's wind monitoring station (wired directly into the batteries, draining all those precious watts I've gathered) and, with a wee touch of sun today, I'm hopeful I'll get to watch the TV tonight. Hurrah!

wild winter

The day after the storm and there's a door and some flashing blown off up here in Drumbuidhe and the mystery of why the generator is still running (the temperature adjusted voltage is too high? the freezer compressor kept running? a n other device is draining the battery?). I've spent three days recovering from my part III exam in Benbecula and cowering indoors in my pyjamas as the winds (gusting to 145km/hr) howled outside.

The part III exam was even worse than I was expecting (and I was expecting it to be truly dreadful). On the weekend before the exam I posted a draft of my case study to my ex-colleagues for comments. Alas they took it personally and I was cold-shouldered for the duration of my exam. My ex-boss replied to the draft with a fair number of corrections (about half of them were relevant, but quite a few were editorial) and the comment that my case study would fail and that, if I submitted it as it was, she would write to the part III examiners noting that I was bringing the architecture profession into disrepute. I received her comments halfway through the exam and responded by drinking and smoking heavily. I was then dumped by A again (I know, I know, it's getting tedious how often this happens, but even I wasn't expecting him to do it immediately after taking off his clothes and getting into bed with me...).

The case-study situation did improve the next day as I talked through the study with D, a retired architect on S Uist and got hold of my academic mentor to check what the situation was with hostile bosses. I was at least reassured that the case study was interesting, accurate and well-written and one's boss has no business writing to the examiners.

The exam itself was just hard, hard slog and wasn't helped by interruptions while I was working out a fee offer using my spreadsheet - I was talking to S (who wasn't supposed to be invigilating but since M wasn't talking to me, he got the job by default) when my sister phoned me up and immediately put my 5yr old nephew on the 'phone so I couldn't say "I'm in the middle of the exam" and S now thinks I'm really rude. Hey Ho.

I slept for what seemed like 3 days when I finally got the whole damn thing into the post. A took me for a last beach walk and, alas, he missed the track back to the car so I ended up trying to follow him over rough machair. In the dark. In a hailstorm. This left me cold, wet and scared which did nothing to improve my temper. A's not that great at coping with guilt so, the next morning, my last hour on Benbecula was spent listening to him ranting at my rudeness - although I'd made tea, helped fix his bike and set up 'The Killing' for him to watch, my failure to say "goodnight" quickly enough had left him unable to sleep.

There are still so many things I wanted to do in the islands but words cannot describe how relieved I was to leave Benbecula.

I'm now starting to get back on track for Christmas (still not decided where to spend it of course) and I've got a parcel of Christmas Cake, sloe gin and Christmas tree biscuits packed and ready to send down to Devon. Since sister K has an aversion to nuts (no allergy, she's just picky) I've adapted the Glasgow Cookery Book recipe to incorporate chocolate chips as follows:

Chocolate Christmas Cake

250g plain flour plus pinch baking powder

1 tablespoonful cocoa

200g butter

200g sugar

4 eggs

25g ground almonds

1 tablespoonful treacle

600g mixture of chopped apricots, prunes and figs

100g chopped dark chocolate

The night before, soak the fruit in whatever spirit you have to hand (I used a mix of orange juice and whisky). Cream the butter and sugar then add the eggs alternately with the dry ingredients. Stir in the treacle and fruit and add to a 20cm cake tin. Bake at 170C (gas 3) for about 2.5 hours. I leave it to cool in the tin overnight to ensure the cake holds its shape and use just icing sugar for decoration.

Westering Home

My time in Benbecula is drawing to a close with a flurry of activity (a trip to St Kilda, a wee course in collograph printing, the start of construction on the Harris House care home); a new lodger in my Glasgow flat and a confused series of trips between Glasgow, Morvern and Benbecula (with an extra trip to London when it looks like it wasn't complicated enough). I've still got some furniture, a fair amount of books and a heap of clothes stored in A's cottage on Benbecula. I moved out of my rented cottage at Aird at the beginning of September so I've been squatting at A's since then. I'm grateful for the storage of stuff but staying there gets a bit depressing with missing light fittings (I think he's been using a camping light in the bathroom for a couple of years); a pervading smell of mildew and a mattress on the floor to sleep on. I replaced the broken lights in the bathroom and kitchen (and replaced the wire at the fuse box which meant I also fixed the sitting-room light); nagged continuously about buying some more fuel oil and took a stack of rubbish to the local dump but it was my clearing of the guest room and the introduction of a proper bed (Ikea's finest at £44) that was the final straw and A announced that my presence was causing him too much stress. I upped sticks back to Glasgow (many thanks to Calmac for squeezing in a wee fiat panda at the last minute) leaving A to his mess and mildew but at least I know I actually have a bed to sleep on when I head back to the islands for my part III architecture exam at the end of November.

Down in Glasgow there 's been a fair bit of sorting as I've started moving my things back in again (this implies that the Glasgow flat has been a barren shell while I've been up in the islands but it turns out that I own a ridiculous amount of stuff) and clearing the spare room now that Marc's heading to India. I had one false start with a new lodger when a dramatic Italian-Brazilian chef got sacked just before he was due to move in but I now have a decent and quiet chap who works in Hamilton and supports Partick Thistle. He was a bit surprised that I welcomed him in to the flat and immediately left for a trip up north.

Up here in Morvern I've got seriously behind on garden tidying but I'm trying to persuade myself that this is what winter is for. I had been hoping to start refurbishing the fank this winter but I'm still struggling with the dismantling of C's home improvements. Although the wind turbine is nowhere near producing net energy C has installed a series of energy storage devices which include: a hot water tank on the bookcase in the fank (caused chronic condensation across the whole building) that has been disconnected but never removed; wiring the immersion heater in the fank to the turbine (leaving a bare-wire junction box in the bathroom, just below the towel shelf ... ie just where one would be likely to place a damp hand ...); placing electric radiators in any available areas of floor space (they're newly purchased but have all had their wiring cannabalised in what can only be described as a 'haphazard' fashion) and looping networking cable over the courtyard. Hey ho.

After a couple of truly glorious days of bright autumn sun it has settled back into greyness reminding me that the time of soup has arrived. Here's a great quick soup that uses the cavolo nero we've got growing in the potato bed:

Bacon and Kale soup

200g smoked bacon

4 to 6 chopped potatoes

200g cooked beans

as much cavolo nero as you can gather

water

parmesan to serve

I had some fine bacon from Puddledub in Ayrshire and I used soaked and cooked butter beans but a can of cooked cannelini beans is particularly fine ....

chop the bacon and fry in a touch of oil

remove the largest ribs from the cavolo nero and slice finely

once the bacon's browned add the chopped potatoes, cooked beans and cavolo nero

stir a couple of times then add water to cover with either salt or vegetable stock to season

simmer for about 30 minutes or 'til the potato is cooked

serve with grated parmesan

sunshine on a rainy day

It was yet another spectacular Easter: sunshine, good food and a smattering of broken-down vehicles.

The long drive to Drumbuidhe (minus the Corran ferry so about 10 hours door to door) helped with the perspective and the arrival of the Wintles and Pulhams in sunny Morvern provided plenty to do. The holiday was filled with beachcombing, bottles of wine and banter - very jolly. After the family hordes had left there was a lovely final Sunday lunch (slow-braised pork belly with soy sauce and rowan jelly) with Hugh and Miranda Morris. After the slightly frenetic pace of a full house in Morvern, the wedding weekend in Glasgow was very quiet: a long lunch with Sonya Hancox, cupcakes with Peter Hamilton and blissful shopping in Waitrose.

The flight back to Benbecula was delayed (broken plane) but beautiful and I made it to the last film of the rather worthy Ecofilm festival, Wasteland. I arrived back to grim discussions about the Comhairle's architecture department, missing my mum and sad. I found myself very tearful during Monday's gaelic class and I'm still feeling rather fragile. Thankfully all the physical stuff's in place so I still managed a clamber up Ben Kenneth (280m) on Saturday and Ben More (620m) on Sunday followed by a rather extreme bit of paddling on Culla Bay. I'm off to Drumbuidhe again tomorrow with fresh-baked chocolate brownies and four gaelic CDs. I can't provide gaelic recipes yet but the classic brownie recipe is:

125g butter

125g chocolate

2 eggs

250g sugar

150g self-raising flour

Melt the butter and chocolate together. Whisk the eggs and sugar then fold in the flour and melted chocolate mixture. Bake at 180C for roughly 30 minutes and revel in the squidgy yumminess.

spring

Stuff is springing up all over the place: the first lambs in Aird which led to a series of stock-based conversations with Roddie MacDonald; the Calmac summer timetable coming into force (now with added Sunday sailings!); lunches outside (sandwiches on Balivanich beach today); my bicycle lights running out half way to the gaelic class in Griminis and the Benbecula 10k. It sounds quite respectable if I say that I finished 34th but since there were only 41 finishers (gentleman number 52 made a bid for freedom by heading off the island to South Uist) it's not that great however I did manage to overtake two ladies who were deep in conversation. And I got a medal. And I got a personal best time by finishing under one hour. And there was free cake afterwards. And I got to meet the famous Father Ross who was running in full French style (jogging bottoms, woolly hat, gloves, hoodie pulled up) to avoid 'le froid'. Alas my delicate Scottish skins is getting blasted by all the attention and I'm nursing my second set of blisters which I'll have to wrap up before frolicking on Berneray tomorrow.

Drumbuidhe is also doing fine with the potatoes planted (charlotte, romano and harlequin) and two beds cleared, the raspberries cut down and the hedge trimmings cleared away. We also made a start on clearing out the oldest compost heap (I try to remain equable but C's only contributions to the garden in the past 3 years has been pulling up my seedlings thinking they're weeds; pontificating about my errors in potato cultivation and getting his acolytes to 'help' by dumping grass cutting on closed compost heaps ... hey ho).

C has found a new acolyte in his joiner Ravi which is good company for C but is leading to the standard initial problems as Ravi misreads the situation (C encourages people to think that he rules his wee kingdom like Prospero whereas he's actually a visitor to my home) gets a rush of blood to the head and exploits C's frailty to provide ill-advised (and coincidentally pricey) work. The best case scenario is that Ravi's mortar joint between the aluminium roof and the stone wall will crumble by this autumn but unfortunately the worst case scenario is that it will pull out the new pointing as it cracks. C is now banned from doing anything to the fabric of the building (see garden comments above) without explicit approval from me although I have no doubt he will forget this when he meets the next new acolyte.

He's back down in Glasgow at the minutes sounding calm but a bit sulky - the current government funding for wind turbines mean that we must get one installed (and by 'one' I mean a turbine that generates useful amounts of electricity and doesn't fall down which kind of rules out C's twenty variations on a Darrieus). On the positive side C's spending on his turbines (about £20,000 pa for the past 3 years and probably £100,000 plus over the past twenty years ....) mean that the budgets required for a turbine that actually works hold no fear for me. On the negative side, a functioning wind turbine will play havoc with his Prospero act.

But enough pondering over parental sulking - here's a fabulous bit of saffron bread that will make anyone smile:

make a dough with:

250g white bread flour

50g butter (rubbed into the flour)

1 sachet yeast

100ml warm milk infused with a good pinch of saffron

1 tablespoon poppy seeds

1 beaten egg (keep a wee bit over for glazing)

1 tablespoon sugar

1 teaspoon salt

roll out into a rough rectangle and fill the centre with a paste made of

100g softened butter

80g caster sugar

50g ground almonds

150g dried chopped apricots

finely chopped zest from two oranges

wrap the rectangle up into a parcel and turn it over so the rough bits are hidden on the bottom. Slash the top diagonally and leave the bread in a draught-free place (I use the oven) to rise for a couple of hours. When it's risen to your heart's content, brush the top with beaten egg and bake it for 30 minutes at 200C. All very pagan

jolly lumberjacks

a heady mix of a month started out with Emily arriving from London in the teeth of a gale (the schools then the buses then the offices shut down for the day). We spent a jolly weekend bouncing over the island road in search of tea cakes that weren't stale and anything resembling a social life. The walking was superb (sheltering behind gravestones to eat our sandwiches in a hailstorm was a particular highlight) but the nearest we came to a social life was the last 3 minutes of an old firm game on the telly at the Pollachar Inn. Hey ho.

The next weekend was spent with 3 jolly lumberjacks at Drumbuidhe. Jake, Donald and Gordon cut down as many of our conifers as they could (about 50% of the border of the garden) and I spent a painful hour kneeling on the south wood store roof mending the house with (industrial grade) sticky tape. Things got a wee bit emotional and heated over strawberry wine and blueberry vodka but it was a weekend of decent chat, fine fod and sticky resin.

After a weekend spent driving around south Uist and Eriskay looking for a gap in the rain that never came there was a decent spot of tea and dancing at Daliburgh where I made it (just) through every dance apart from the fiendishly complex scottische.

I'm now back from a busy weekend that covered Campbell's Birthday present (wine tasting at the Ubiquitous Chip: nice food and wine but Campbell didn't make it through the main course before he had to be poured into a taxi); 3 days spent doing intensive babysitting in Devon (I'm bruised and tired but, hey, nobody died) and finally a frantic shop in Glasgow (obscure hair dye! tofu and kikkoman! waitrose!) before jumping on the flight back to Benbecula where my cheeky wee late arrival was discovered when I missed a meeting my Stornoway boss had set up for 9am. Hey and indeed ho.