We have settled into Helpx No.4 – Arisaig House. It’s a luxury B&B on the western coast of Scotland just across the ditch from the Isle of Skye. Since arriving here a week ago, we’ve had nothing but clear blue skies and sunshine. Seriously, it’s been shorts & singlet weather, and once again I wish I’d brought a pair of damn shorts (you are going to Scotland, you won’t need shorts! I said to myself when we were packing… stupid stupid stupid). Even the dogs are playing in the ponds and sleeping on the cool gravel rather than the nice soft grass.
Arisaig House is gorgeous. It is a big old stone building which has 10 luxury rooms inside the main house and 3 self catering cottages further out on the grounds for people to rent for the week. And when I say luxury, I mean that guests sleep nestled into a plush king-sized mass of feathers from a billion now-naked birds, they bathe looking out of a large window down onto a field below full of geese and sheep, and they stretch on their own lounge looking out over gardens to the beach which is within walking distance. We are surrounded by mountains which seems to create a summery micro-climate like we haven’t experienced in Scotland before. Frankly, it’s too damn hot. We have a suitcase full of gloves and thermals…where’s the frost!? But I suppose the vast majority of people here think the weather is just the bees knees and couldn’t be happier. Weirdos.
An English family own the B&B and work in it themselves which is really nice. The water is undrinkable as they have a private water system thingy, so we can only drink bottled or boiled water. Or wine. Or beer. Or cider. Or vodka and soda water, which is drinking plus staying hydrated, not to mention low calorie – winning!
Our work here has been varied and pretty laid back so far. We do housekeeping in the cottages and inside rooms (cleaning, making beds etc) and also helping with the gardening. Yesterday Isaac helped make a fire to burn leaf-matter garbage, and today we chopped logs so they can dry over the summer ready for use in the winter. I got to use a hydraulic log splitter for the first time…it’s the first time I’d heard of such a thing too. Basically you put a smallish log in it, then press a button and it pushes it onto a sharp edge like an axe head, and keeps pushing it onto it until it splits. It was fairly tame, but all I could think of was horrifically chopping my fingers off. Our boss took pity on my coward-ess after lunch and let me clean dishes instead. It’s kinda funny…I think it’s absolutely outrageous and insulting that a man wouldn’t help in the home because it’s ‘woman’s work’, but when it comes to splitting logs or spraying the wasp nest…. I’m sorry, you want me to help you do what? What logs? Split what? What what? Shame on me. It’s just that I’m a coward you see. And most ‘man’s work’ isn’t just dirty or unpleasant, women’s work has oodles of that, it’s that it’s dangerous. Would I rather Isaac loose his fingers? Of course not. Do I think he has less of a chance of burying an axe into his shin than I would? Yes, definitely. It’s not sexism. Had Isaac used a log splitter before today either? No. But I don’t see how that’s relevant….
We get our own apartment on the property which is awesome, and we don’t even have to share it with anyone! There are drawbacks to this place too, such as the internet and our lack thereof. They may be fixing it later on, but for now there is a spot in the kitchen and a spot on the window sill where you can get one bar of slow internet connection. It’s amazing what you can get used to. It is a lot harder to procrastinate when you can’t jump onto Pinterest, so I’m trying to take advantage of the situation and do lots of reading, writing, going for walks or runs…oh which reminds me – I impaled my foot on a big rusty bit of metal!
The sun lured us out in our last week on Skye last week and we went for a walk along the beach. Walking very slowly, I tripped. I couldn’t move my leg much and looked down to see a big bendy piece of wire (I guess a little thicker than a coat hanger) stuck through the front of my shoe. It felt like it had gone a fair way into my shoe which is why it didn’t just fall out when I tried to shake it. Isaac pulled it out and I took off my shoe expecting to see a sock soaked in blood. It wasn’t. But there was a little puncture mark in the ball of my foot just below my toes. ‘Hmm…I guess I got poked a little’ I thought to myself. Isaac helped me hobble back to the hostel and we sat down with a cup of tea and a bandaid. After a while, a line started to swell from the puncture hole down the ball of my foot to where the arch starts. With a slow creeping horror the realisation struck – ‘Holy snapping duck shit, it went in that far!!’. Tetanus is for sissies, so I decided I would only go to a doctor if my leg started to show signs of wanting to come away from my torso.
It’s been a week now and it’s healing well. My foot puffed up like a not-so-delicious foot soufflé for a couple of days, but that’s all gone now. It’s just a little tender and my gimp-limp is barely noticeable.
Oh and in other news – I’ve been cooking! I haven’t made one stir-fry..Mum and Jess would be so proud. I’ve made a tomato chicken bake, creamy marinated baked chicken, bacon wrapped chicken (there was a chicken special at the food store), hamburger soup, and last night we had roast pork with steamed greens, roast potatoes & onion, and super burnt (oops) crackling.
We’ve also had a few memorable dates come and go this month:
- We've been overseas for 6 months.
- We had our 8 year anniversary together & our 4th wedding anniversary.
So that pretty much wraps up our adventures over the last couple of weeks. Isaac is going by himself down to Birmingham to a games convention thingy at the end of May. We will be staying here until we go home in July, so I’ll have lots of opportunities to get oot and aboot once my foot heals completely and explore the woods and beaches.
