More for Sale....

The following items are available, prices negotiable:

Dehumidifier, hardly used - £30

Office Chair, good quality, swivel - £25

B&W Laser Printer - £5

Magimix Food Processor - £10

Silver & Bone Fish Knife & Fork Set, Vintage - £5

RISK Board Game - £5

Angle Grinder, small, little used, with spare disks - £5

Hand-held Circular Saw - £10

Wrought Iron Companion Set for Woodburner - £5

Soapstone Chess Set with Board

Le Creuset Whistling Kettle (red, unused) - £5

Metronome - £5

King-size Duvet - free

Contact us on 293.

Thank You!

Thank you for all the very generous comments and good wishes which have appeared on recent posts. I wish I had time to respond individually but our days are filled with the wearying task of packing up our possessions and making sure we leave the house in reasonable order.

It has been a great pleasure writing this blog, the more so when I have known that there are people 'out there' who have enjoyed it. It is truly sad to close it, but it will continue, all being well, until the 29th.

A Celebration

I bought a digital camera in July 2006. For a long time pictures steadily accumulated in the photo library until there were getting on for 8,000, a number which I tried not to exceed, without success. I now have something like 12,000 pictures of Western Ardnamurchan, so the closing posts of the Diary will be a celebration of this beautiful area using some of those pictures.

This photo, taken in January, shows the view across the Sound of Mull from the gate opposite the entrance to 'Ben Hiant'.

Garden Tasks

Almost all the beds in our terraced vegetable garden have now been dug over and fertilised with seaweed, the only remaining ones being those which still have some of the winter crops such as broccoli, leeks and spinach. Meanwhile, the greenhouse is filling up with seedlings, all of which seemed to have survived the recent cold weather even though the greenhouse is unheated.

As well as the seaweed, our proximity to the sea is good for washed-up fish boxes, which are an ideal size for growing crops like mixed salad leaves and radishes.

Four sections of the beds are down to strawberries, which seem to have survived well through the winter, and the raspberries and gooseberries are shooting - though the raspberries are still in need of a final prune to take the tops off the canes.

The garden is watered using unchlorinated water which is brought down in blue pipes from the neighbouring burn. There are two standpipes and the green water butt which holds reserves for the occasional dry spell.

It's an ideal site for a vegetable garden being southeast-facing and sloping to aid drainage. Building up the beds behind the terraces, and ten years of feeding the thin croft soil with compost and seaweed, has made a huge difference to the garden's productivity - this productivity including the number of worms, much appreciated by the local robins.

Lost 'Phone

A mobile 'phone has been lost by a cyclist on the road somewhere between Acharacle and Kilchoan but most likely between Glenborrodale Castle and Kilchoan. It’s a small black Nokia 'phone in a black case. If anyone has found it, please contact Ardnamurchan Estate on 01972 510 208.

Stone Man

Stone man lying down in the hills at Ockle.

Many thanks to Out&About for the photo.

Christmas

Wishing all our readers a very happy Christmas.

A Message

From Jonathan Ball:

Life, love and family. Aren't I lucky.

Large brain tumour removed, getting better slowly.

I live in this most magical part of the world, doing a job I love, running the shop and post office that I love. My wife Susanne visits nearly every day although she hates travelling. My two sisters and two brothers and their families have given me support above their line of duty, without which things would look very different.

Sending my appreciation and thanks for all your support, prayers and best wishes, which I have received both from new and old friends and neighbours.

Regards
Jonathan

Dictated by Jonathan.

East to West Cycle Ride

In a couple of weeks' time our daughter Elizabeth and husband Tom will be attempting to cycle the 640 miles or so from the east-most to the west-most point of the British mainland - from Lowestoft on the Suffolk coast to Ardnamurchan Point in Scotland. They’re going to try to do this inside a week, without any support crew, carrying their gear and sorting out food as they go along. It will be a challenging trip but they have been putting in the miles in preparation and think they can do it.

They obviously hope to enjoy the ride but at the same time are hoping to raise funds for the Teenage Cancer Trust. This is a fantastic charity that does great work, providing facilities, nursing and support for young people whose needs can otherwise fall into the gap between general and paediatric care. A couple of years ago our family saw at first hand what a difference this could make when our grand-daughter needed treatment.

Liz and Tom have set up a JustGiving page and would be thrilled if their efforts inspire anyone to make a donation to this very worthwhile cause. It goes without saying that every penny raised will help to make life just a bit better for young people going through a particularly tough time.

Donations can be made at Liz and Tom's JustGiving page here.

"Strange Man"

"Strange Man" is the caption the Raptor appended to his picture of a gentleman who passed through Kilchoan the other day.

Doesn't look strange to me - except that he can survive in the current weather.

Many thanks to the Raptor for the picture.

Trees

Many thanks to Tony Kidd who has sent this picture taken on his wanderings near Plocaig. Tony says, "I've been told it's good....ish." I think it's excellent, but deserves a motivational quote to go with it.

Vintage Car Rally

We were away in September when this rally of vintage cars came through Kilchoan, arriving via the ferry from Tobermory.

Very many thanks to Nick Winter, who was here in Kilchoan to record their arrival, for sending in these pictures.

Some of them can be identified from the internet. KY 2832 is a Lagonda 3 litre tourer sold recently for over £80,000 while....

....this is a 1936 Lagonda Rapier 10hp Sports Tourer.

They all have very much the same look to them, so I wonder if all are Lagondas, and if....

....this was a Lagonda rally.

Whatever they are, they must have been a fine sight, and their owners justifiably proud of cars in such superb condition. And the Ardnamurchan sun shone on them.

The Right Camera

The Raptor has a new camera, a Panasonic Lumix DMC TZ70. Normally, after other people have shown me their cameras, I feel a little smug, as I reckon my Panasonic DMX FZ150 suits me extremely well. It has a 24x zoom, takes a photo with no delay, has an impressive burst speed, and produces super pictures without my having to understand what an f-number is. The trouble is that the Raptor's has all the same features but none of the bulk and weight of my bridge camera. It just shows how fast technology moves on.

As if to rub salt into the wound, the Raptor has been inundating my in-box with the pictures he's been taking, which have shown off the capabilities of a camera that fits into his pocket.

He tells me it has another advantage over mine. It has bluetooth, so after he's taken his pictures he puts it down next to his computer and the two machines talk to reach other, so when he comes back all his new pictures are on the computer.

The other thing I liked about his camera was the system it uses for manual focus. It's not something I often use - usually it's when a ship is passing in fog, and the automatic focus can't find it. The manual focus on the DMC FZ150 is a bit clumsy, so by the time one has worked it the ship has disappeared.

I bought my camera in June 2012, and have now taken, according to the camera, an unbelievable 600,000 pictures, though I can't quite work out that number even though, on a typical four-hour walk, I'll take 250. But what's most impressive about this camera is that it's gone everywhere with me, in rain, hail and snow, on ships, 'planes, cars and kayaks, through burns and bogs and up windy hills and out onto exposed mediaeval battlements, and it's never let me down.

Many thanks to the Raptor for the pictures.

Bad Hair Day

Many thanks to Les Humphreys for this picture of one of his windswept llamas.

Swordle Find

Many thanks  to Paul H for sending me these pictures of an object he found at Swordle during his recent holiday here.

He and I are both intrigued as to what it could be. Paul describes it as, "Very light, a bit like coral."  Has anyone a suggestion?

A Talented Artist

The local artist who created these eerie pictures of trees and....

....woodland with open glades between the buttressed roots....

....was the water of the falling tide as it slipped out across the sandy beach at Fascadale.

Monsters in the Sky

Kilchoan Early Bird is worried.  After only two drams of his favourite Whyte & Mackay he looked out of the window and saw a Scottie dog and a weevil.

Low, Low Tide

With the sun and the moon in line with the Earth, the tides have been exceptionally high and low - hence the problem with the Tobermory ferry, which had to be re-timetabled yesterday and Friday.

Richard Houston has sent in this picture of Glenborrodale Bay, with Glenborrodale Castle in the right background, at dead low tide at about 12.30 midday yesterday.

Many thanks Richard for the photo.

Mystery

We were a bit mystified by this very good bottle of red wine which appeared in our post box yesterday afternoon, without anything to explain it.  Unless someone claims it, thank you, it will be drunk with considerable pleasure - not by the robin.

Lysblink Seaways Cartoon

Many thanks to Cardinal Upchuck for allowing me to post his cartoon.  There's a Facebook site here.