13 February: Rum day 2

Sun!

The jobs for the day arrive from Alex in a  WhatsApp message: scrub clearing in the adjacent wood (the hope is that the midges will be reduced with the reduction in greenery), pressure washing the community hall, sanding and painting a door destined for the campground toilets. 

I start with the scrub clearing, cutting down holly and rhodi saplings. Then to sanding the door. It turns out my standards aren’t high enough – it must be super super smooth. Have another go, Rebecca.

By lunchtime I am feeling “over exposed” from being outdoors – though it is mild, 7° or so. I’m a wuss. But the end of the modest 4-hour shift the first coat is on and looking good. And I have benefited from a few tips from Amélie in the doing.

There’s no official end time to the working day. We are trusted to put in 4 hours. At around 3.30 I feel it’s time to stop. I consider how to make the most of the remaining sunny hours. Of course – my bike! I cycle a few kilometres along the Kilmory Bay track. An initial bone-shaking, stony start adjacent to the Kinloch river settles into a comfortable earth-surfaced track some distance above the river. Kinloch Glen is a huge, treeless expanse of moorland, sweeping up towards the high peaks in the south. I reckon I could get to the bay and back within daylight. But it’s tight. I don’t want to be pounding along that track in a hurry. So I turn back at a point geographically bang in the centre of the island.

On my way back to the bunkhouse I meet the three girls on their way to the little nature trail circuit. I hook up with them and we have a pleasant stroll. Bizarrely, we pass a former “shop”, by the side of the river, abandoned with some of its stock intact. 

I think of the boarded-up castle, the dilapidated buildings, the funky village shop and strange politics of the place and weigh it up against the potential benefits that could come from dark-sky status, the development of holiday accommodation, the possibility of selling off some of the properties to fund building more viable housing stock for the community, the far-reaching research project into deer management that has been carried out here for the past half century. It will be interesting to see how the long term evolves. Check out a BBC documentary being broadcast this April. For supper I suggest to Leah cooking for 2 meals in one go. She does her best, and it works as a strategy for increasing the calorific content. But we can’t resist eating our fill. There isn’t much of her chili meal left.

Tomorrow the village shop will be closed (as no incoming supply ferry). I feel a little anxious. The experiment in trust, and relinquishing control, continues – uncomfortably!