"Research gathered over recent years has highlighted the countless benefits to people, wildlife and the environment that come from planting trees and creating new woodland habitat. It's obvious trees are good things." Clive Anderson

Earlier in the year we planted 550 trees. Very few perished and conditions were great for strong growth this summer

"If you are in a spaceship that is traveling at the speed of light, and you turn on the headlights, does anything happen?" Steven Wright

Autumn brought a technological leap forward for this remote island community.

Hebnet, the island internet provider went fibre

that'll do for me. All this hot on the heels of BT finally getting their act together to reinstate the landline

1930's original model - the first to have an internal bell. Callers get confused when I answer with the number on the dial - Whitehall one two one two!

"We are all protective over the things we love." Bracken

Having the Iseki tractor is a boon when it comes to bracken bashing

as is having a friendly neighbour with a 4x4 when you get marooned off piste

It also comes in handy for visiting tractor enthusiasts

"Two European nations emerged with credit from the Iraq disaster: France and Germany. Both had the courage to withstand the Bush administration and oppose the U.S.-led invasion" Martin Jacques

But from now on only one of them can retain their seat on the high moral ground.

Yes these two look just like a normal couple of tourists, enjoying a relaxing picnic in a shady spot on a beautiful sunny day... but there's more to this than meets the eye.

Having returned from a trip to the post office I returned to The Manse to find these two sitting on a tree stump in the front garden. I smiled welcomingly - "Hello, lovely day for a picnic," I said distracted by a feeling of nagging familiarity in the crockery they were using.

"Zees eez ze ostel no?" 

"Errr no!"

"Oh we saw ze 'ouse and sought it was ze ostel. Zere was no-one in when we phoned and when we arrived and zere was no one ere we sought zees must be ze place"

(Thought to self - classic case of naturalist fallacy)

"No this is my house, the hostel is just the other side, over there (pointing) but don't worry please stay and finish your picnic"

"Errr, ah am so sorry but we sought zees was ze ostel."

"Yes you said, don't worry about it. You're not the first"

"And so we put our sings in ze kitchen" 

(And so they had - their bags on the settee, some of their food in the fridge, [some of it in a saucepan, some splashed on the cooker and some in crockery from the cupboard] How best to handle this potentially incendiary diplomatic incident?) 

"Would you like tea? coffee? a glass of wine? maybe a dram?" I said struggling to maintain a straight face and some semblance of dignity.

"Err no ah sink we will be going to ze ostel. Sank you vairy much"

Exeunt

"Creativity is a mansion. If you're empty in one room, all you have to do is go out into the hallway and enter another room that's full" F. Gary Gray

During the last short visit I managed to paint the hall (and the architrave) we got from the salvage in Edinburgh

Most of the time was spent preparing, cutting and laying the tiles in the porch. The hardest part was deciding how to orientate a regular quadrilateral on a floor which wasn't. We settled on it looking as follows

So next week it's full steam ahead with the dining room

"If your work isn't mission-driven or emotionally resonant to you, it will be very hard to maintain passion and focus over a long period of time" Jennifer Hyman

One of my failings in life has been my propensity for temporary obsessional behaviour. I get heavily involved with something for a while but can suddenly find myself obsessing in a different area, losing interest in the previous one. However, Manseadventure has proved to be an enduring passion and focus for me. It is the best and most rewarding work I have ever had - I just can't get enough of the problem solving and manual labour. I love learning new skills, making mistakes and correcting them. I know it's not as good as if I'd paid a professional to do it but everything I've done has been to the best of my ability - and if it's not perfect then at least it's my not perfect.

I've just completed a three week stint and am reflecting on how much has been achieved. I've cut joists, insulation and floorboards before laying the hall floor

I've measured cut and fitted a plasterboard ceiling

remembering to install the wiring for a light

re framed, moved and rehung the front door

added a wall, made a door frame and hung a door to make a utility room

cut out two panels from an old door and glazed it using beading I routed in the workshop

and plumbed in the dishwasher

I ran out of time to take pictures of the finished, painted hall and of the developments outside including in the war on bracken; more of that next time

"There's some bells you can't unring" Ken Cuccinelli

(I like the quote but, being a pedant, I feel obliged to correct it - "There are some bells..." sad, I know)

Although the building has an obvious religious connection I decided to scale down the plans for the front doorbell. 

I was thrilled when I found this on ebay

As I recall, bought on three different occasions the total for the parts was £29 - bargain! Lets hope the pulleys and wire cost less than £196.

The reason there's a question mark on my front door is just in case I forget my address" Leslie Nielsen

Next was the porch. After clearing the detrius, the next job was framing

It was time consuming because nothing was level and the timbers were like a 3D jigsaw without a picture to follow

Then the insulation. Again it was painstaking - carefully measuring to make sure each piece fitted its frame snugly

and finally the plasterboard

Next time I'll finish the ceiling and skim so it'll be ready to paint. Just the wiring to fix for a light

and a bell! We rescued an old bell, a brass pull and bits of mechanism from an architectural salvage in Edinburgh. I need some pulleys and wire - but more of that next time

"But first, the news: The House of Commons was sealed off today after police chased an escaped lunatic through the front door during Prime Minister's question time. A spokesman at Scotland Yard said it was like looking for a needle in a haystack." Ronnie Barker

 It had been September 2017 when I originally bought the doorsets from Holyrood Salvage in Edinburgh. I phoned from Eigg and asked the owner if he could check for the missing piece of architrave (there's nothing like a longshot!). Unsurprisingly both he and his assistant had found nothing amid the piles of reclaimed doors and panels. He apologised and said probably the best option was to look through the stock again to find something very similar with the idea that it could be subtly remodelled to match the existing. We looked through the stock together. He found a close approximation, I found

the actual piece which had come adrift from the original bundle. To say I was like a pig in muck is an understatement - more like a sounder of wild boars in the Amazon floodplain. 

So it's a couple of weeks visiting student teachers and then back to the Manse at the beginning of April