91热爆

I should never have mentioned melting tar. The Tiree boys (well, just two actually) came over with a tractor and two types of gravel and a very impressive shovel and spread grit on the melting tar (and they spread the grit with real panache, because, like throwing ropes, it is a lot harder to do than it looks) and then a great rain came and washed all the grit away, but it wasn't needed any more because the sun had gone away, and the rain kept coming and we had burns where we'd never had burns before and the polytunnel resembled a rice paddy and I won't have to water for the next week and all the calabrese is ready now and the show isn't until Thursday and I think it will have all gone over by then except one plant which is planning a September harvest! A plane was buzzing round on Saturday, rumour says it was trying to land, but the runway was under water, but I'm absolutely certain this was just scurrilous gossip!

Time for a mini rant
I have a copy of the provisional RET ferry fares which apply to Coll. Coll being lucky enough to be included in the trial. Random one-off visitors staying longer than five days will find the fare they pay has nearly halved, but regular islanders who currently buy books of six tickets will get to save a mammoth 拢8 per trip! Actually I can live with this but a) a holiday on Coll is about doing something different, and what could be more different than cycling, walking, hitching and taking the taxi for a week? b) the ferry is already fully booked frequently in the summer, people on holiday plan well in advance and will book their gas-guzzling 4x4 cost-more-than-a-Collach-earns-in-a-year car (OK, whingeing over-exaggeration there) well in advance, where as an islander needing to visit a sick friend/relative etc may well find there isn't space to get their car on and c) suddenly the taxi and cycle hire folk find there is less business. But the over 5 metre rate has come down massively (well, almost half) so petrol, coal etc might be cheaper. Anyhow, I am currently scanning Ebay for a 7.5 ton(ne) truck (having taken my driving test way back in the past when it let you drive something really big and worthwhile) and thinking of taking on Eddie Stobart. I'm just a bit peeved Amazon don't sell trucks!

Meanwhile, back at the burger van I watched a rather fine Dutch yacht sail away from the big pier. It was one of those proper sailing boats with a four-sided sail, as opposed to the triangles they normally have (someone said it might be a lug sail??). Anyhow, it was really good to see the sail go up and suddenly the boat starts to move when the wind catches it. What was most interesting was the fact that an over-5-metre truck is going to be charged 拢5.96 per half metre + 拢20 per single trip on the ferry while a 10 metre yacht is charged 拢6.07 per night to tie up at the big pier. Where do they get these nice tidy numbers from? A quick peruse through the Oban Times' feature on West Highland Week reveals this is less than anyone is advertising visitor moorings at. It has been pointed out that moorings go up and down with the tide, and the pier doesn't, and on Wednesday there will be a lot of swell early in the morning (when The Clansman comes in), but I am looking forward to starting my yacht-spotters album and I've ordered a new anorak!

The Coll Show has been packed up and the debris stacked by the wheelie bin, and nothing remains but the funny bright green patches in the grass which mark spots where tables or chairs stopped foot traffic. Someone somewhere did something right because we had wall-to-wall sunshine and not a midge in sight. We also had a visit by Mike Russell ( MSP and Minister for the Environment), which is a bit worrying as everybody knows politicians only exist in the flesh when there is an imminent election. Actually he was very nice and I think he is 'a good thing (for a politician)' and at least he knows where Coll is and how long it takes to get here. We made him earn his keep by presenting the prizes and judging the pets. I'm sure 'prize-giving' is a one week compulsory subject in the year-long 'how to be a politician' university course and he breezed through it, but pet judging, that is a different matter. He very astutely asked if there was someone who should win, but I assured him we don't do that kind of thing on Coll, so he was on his own. After much deliberation the tarantula was awarded first place. Second place went to a pair of garden snails and their courgette, although they were not very tame yet, having only been captured that morning. Third went to a furry four legged canine (FC would approve of the placings). He bottled out of awarding Best in Show to a bug, and the veteran dog walked away with the Skinners Simply the Best Trophy.

Elsewhere, my courgettes won and the calabrese was left at home (too yellow) and I got second with my French beans. It takes a lot of beans to get six the same size! And now we have a house full of cake which I am allowed to eat at last, preferably on toast. He entered two loaves in both classes (white and brown), but one mix was much wetter than the other (he is reading a very technical book recommending wetter dough mixes) and there is a big difference in the texture of the two loaves, although they are both very good with cake! And the fireworks were brilliant, very noisy, and finished too quickly.

As an experiment this year, the dance was held the following night. The band came over from Tiree (we get all our bands from Tiree, it manages to produce a new one every couple of years, we heard Skerryvore first too!) and they were brilliant. I can't give them a name check because my gaelic spelling is atrocious and I got bored trawling through the search engines, I'll just wait for the comments. The dance floor was permanently full, mostly of teenagers (where did they all come from?), and, as the night wore on, it got harder to tell band from dancers, as the band marched around the floor, and then someone in the audience produced another set of pipes. I love the pipes, especially this new habit of playing them topless, it was a brilliant night (even the beer lasted for most of it). Seriously, anyone needing a ceilidh band to dance to, who enjoy playing music as much as the dancers like dancing, and who really know how to entertain, call Tiree.