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The Spam Fritter thought it had claimed this blog forever, but ve haf vays ov rescuing blogs (sometimes), so I'm going to resubmit it again (it has been hidden away in the 'processing clinic').

Last night (Thursday (several Thursdays ago now)) was Bonfire Night. It was supposed to be Saturday (High schoolers are home then) but plans change on Coll with the weather, and the weather forecasts. When we aren't talking about the weather we are talking about weather forecast sites; we are complete weather freaks! Anyway, all the best Coll events have back-up (or forward-up dates). However, for burger van drivers it meant a more drastic change of plan, as I was due to flit back to my other pub on Saturday and wasn't expecting to be there at all. So defrosting rolls and checking the ketchup was easy, but a tyre had gone flat so that meant a trip to the village to borrow a compressor. Half an hour later (and a cup of tea) I left with a foot pump; the compressor was needed to remove the back chassis on a landrover. On the plus side the foot pump was lighter and easier to set up, and it had a handy guage telling me when there was enough air in the tyre. Also it might increase my heart rate in a healthy way and if I counted twenty pumps with each foot it would help my arithmetic, except it kept falling over on pump 16. At 25 psi there was an audible hissing from the tyre. Not a good sign! A quick visual inspection and my untrained eye (and hand) discovered the sidewall of the tyre was badly split and chucking out air quicker than my foot could pump it in. However, plan B included using the spare, which had a shiny new cross ply tyre on (I thought they were obsolete, wrong again). Never buy a burger van trailer on price, if you go for a cheap model it will irritate endlessly. So to change the wheel, first deflate the tyre, otherwise it won't tilt sideways enough to come free. Out comes all the fresh hard-pumped-in-air and off comes the wheel. Then deflate the spare, this is OK, it was pumped up in Oban by someone else, but once it is 'persuaded' on it is back on the footpump again. I put in an 'acceptable' amount of air, and promised the tyre it could have the rest courtesy of the petrol station compressor (left full out of hours - but diesel is 拢1.57).
So down in the village at the bonfire, that is, parked at the bottom of a big rock with the action above, I was terribly popular until I admitted to not enough burgers. Or rolls. Or to not having any water for tea and hot chocolate, fortunately the generator came to my rescue and ran out of petrol (拢1.3?) so I had nothing of anything left.
The fireworks were noisy, bits were colourful, but to get the best out of fireworks they are best not watched (or at least, not seen) from inside a burger van; next year I am going to rent it out to under-fives who would rather be not so close to the action. Back at the top of the rock the bonfire had slumped to a very hot glowing pile. A significant part had been the old 'Climbing frame/Pirate ship' from the play park and as it reached the glowing charcoal stage it was easy to see the number of nails needed in construction - they were the dark straight lines in the multi-oranged glowing heap. (In construction I am a screw fan, preferably stainless)
And from the rock, looking down over the village, I offered my opinion that the village looked quite large; with all the lights on I thought it looked a prosperous optimistic place. However, from an Isle of Man view-point, it is still small.

Two blogs in one night (spam fritter willing), almost as good as two guys for every girl.
However, I thought I'd shove in my thoughts on 'the end of blogging as we know it'. I was lucky enough to be included in the first group of islands to be part of IB, and mad enough to be one of the early bloggers. Mike from IB was very persuasive (and patient with my ignorant questions), and a dab hand at pool as well. To be honest I didn't see the point at all, but we had this new computer (courtesy of the Scottish Exec) and it wasn't getting enough exercise so I gave blogging a go and since then it has swallowed hours of (mostly winter) time, hugely expanded my idea of 'what a friend is', and been a bit upsetting on a couple of occasions. (Words don't always say what they were meant to) Meeting/discovering Gary from Tobermory Tales and Pondhead, both of Mull made Mull a real place instead of just a view (a very nice view, but very one-dimensional) and Island Wanderer added to my neighbourly feelings to Tiree. I can be very resistant to change and am ashamed to admit to a bit of jealousy when IB expanded, it was Argyll's and very nice as it was, but it got better. Flying Cat, Trevor, Tws (in all his guises), Arnish, Fred blog, Calumannabel - Lewis in blogland is so different to my perception of Lewis from TV. As well as more mad bloggers there were also even madder commenters, and a regular commenter is probably more of a mate than a blogger. Especially some of my staunch defenders. Back at the beginning Mike said Island blogging was about building a community. I didn't understand what he meant at all then, I do now, and I know it happened.
I could take my urge to write away to another site, and lost in the anonymity of the big world could probably write loads of stuff I wouldn't dare put on IB, and it might be very funny, in a cruel sort of way, but it would lack the friendliness, the 'don't lock the car' feeling of IB, which is the island way. And I don't want to stop being part of a group of people united in the way we a) criticise and praise Calmac in the same sentence (sorry Northern Isles, you have a similar cross to bear), b) get frustrated when Gail and Heather stand in front of the weather they are trying to forecast or c) know single track roads are normal, as are private water supplies and knowing all your neighbours too well for sanity. So if Barney or someone else can move us en masse out into the independent world count me in, and we will have become what we were supposed to be; an independent community not needing handouts any more. Thank you Mike and Richard, Carol, and all the moderators in between (daren't risk naming some in case of missing some out), you did it, job done!

I have visited the New World (not mjc's world) and now I'm confused (dot com). Am being thicker than normal (thicker than a home-knitted jersey made from handspun wool and then put in a too hot wash so it shrinks and the arms stick out sideways) or is it not all there yet. I don't want to be impatient but I go back into exile tomorrow for another long week and the **ap top doesn't always work and it is costing me a fortune in Rum and diet cokes for my new geek to keep it on the straight and narrow. I found www.island-blogging.co.uk and a page came up (not in red, but I will learn to like that) but I couldn't see where to create myself or read comments or other blogs. Am I jumping the gun and expecting too much too soon (sorry)?
However, I found another thewhitesettler. I couldn't find any comments there either, but perhaps that's a blessing in disguise.

Because of this blog you have been denied the interesting saga of putting up IKEA curtains. The world gets better every day.

Book Club has picked up for the winter. The best meeting was obviously the one held here, with just one other person (I'm not taking it personally, although it took a long time to eat all the cheese). There have been three meetings since. I missed two of them (living it up elsewhere) but made it to the last one, although I hadn't read the book. I have now, it was a quick read (Willie Hogg by Robin somebody. It was bought second hand from a fish, chip and book shop somewhere way up north. It smelt of chips when it arrived and we are very curious as to whether books or chips are the mainstay of the business). I was asked what I was reading, but once I answered 'science fiction' everyone tried to change the subject. I'm re-reading all my Isaac Asimov books because I admire the way he joined his Robot stories with his Trantor and Foundation novels, although his style grates a bit and after three of his books I need a change. I've borrowed 'All Quiet on the Western Front' which was one of the books I missed reading. The next book is 'The Reader' - by Bernhard Schlink. At the moment it is sitting in my Amazon shopping basket while I try to justify hitting my wishlist at Christmas.
Elsewhere on Coll it is very wet. It is so wet the lakes have ponds and the ponds have puddles. The young pigs are the same colour (mud colour) and Mr Pig hides in his house. The same house Mrs Pig gathers reeds for to make his bed. The white sheep are almost the same colour as the black sheep and they are so heavy they waddle up for their food (Mr Pig gallops across, spraying water everywhere). The house has a wet bit of carpet and I am fed up of walking on it with my socks on and even the dog with the sponge coat can't mop up any more liquid. At least we don't have one of those lo-flush toilets which are so mean with water they don't quite do the job properly!