the castle captures me: All I want for Christmas, is fuel!

I've been away for so long, that I had to read all of the blog again to remind myself of how things were before, what I thought and what had happened. Seems like years, not weeks ago that I "went off"...but I'm glad I did go away, although I've missed some excitement! And it continues...as I write, a huge hailstorm is turning the island white and a streak of lightning has just flashed in front of the window, while a giant dark cloud moves out across the sea...

The past three weeks have given me hope and new ideas, so that looking back at myself seems almost like looking at a different person. I still don't know how I feel about the island, but I've realised it's up to me to find strategies for how I want things to be, whatever our decisions for the future are. I continue to draw inspiration from my "Woman of the Polar Night"* and her unquestioning acceptance that living in a small hut in 24 hour darkness for five months, eating dried seal meat and looking out for polar bears, was just the way it was going to be (imagine a polar bear on Rum...). And (my biggest challenge) I'm trying to focus on where I am - not where I'm not. Living in the moment is hard but liberating and means that being here for Christmas, which we've chosen to be, feels exciting rather than just scary, whatever comes next.

Living in the moment is also pretty relentless on Rum, especially in winter..so much to do, so many things to mend and so many problems to solve! A lot has happened since I've been away and even since I've been back. The gales have apparently been non-stop for over four weeks now; the cellar has flooded again several times, one time notably in the middle of the night when Mel, woken at 5 am by booming gusts of wind in the chimneys, felt strangely compelled to get up and look at the boiler. Donning my wellies ("and it's just as well I did"), she ventured down to the cellar only to find it was under a foot of water and the water had flooded the boiler ignition, with near-fatal results for our heating system. Luckily there is a pump mechanism; unluckily, it had somehow blocked up. So, "gliding across the floor" as she poetically puts it, she activated the pump manually and then went back upstairs to try to contact Colin to mend it again.

Colin duly visited - our debts to Colin know no bounds! But all visits are on borrowed time at the moment - the gales mean that boats have regularly been cancelled or late, and contractors are anxious not to get stuck on Rum, especially if the heating doesn't work. So Colin couldn't do the other things he'd been planning to do - mending the ignition and clearing out the drains for the pump came first. Likewise, the company that originally messed up the roof of the hostel, causing it to leak and flood during November (and hence close down and lose money), visited to do some urgent repairs - but it had to be quick. So the rooms don't leak any more, but the gales have meant work on the middle section has had to be postponed. Meanwhile, the SNH budget has been frozen - meaning that Mel has no idea what is going to happen to all the hostel projects/repairs/publicity in the New Year...

Billy and his "gang" have been working hard on the castle turrets, repairing the lead and iron covers and repointing the brickwork. The turrets are now covered with little white tents to protect them - amazingly, the tents haven't yet blown away. Billy and the gang managed to "get off" island on Tuesday and won't be back till New Year - so every morning, we wake up wondering what bits of the roof are still intact and which bits might have gone missing; none, so far, fingers crossed! Various rooms are full of mysterious objects, such as giant bits of metal beaten into weird shapes, a wooden scaffold holding up a toilet roof and bits of tree trunk.

The wind keeps us awake at night. It is pitch black outside from around 4.30 pm, and even the full moon only came up for an hour or so yesterday before being covered in thick cloud. Venturing out to the shop at 5 pm, I could see literally nothing except the narrow path illuminated by my head torch while all around me I could hear strange, ominous wailings (the wind, I hope) and the sounds of branches snapping. Something told me it wasn't too healthy to be outdoors, and I hurried as fast as I could to the shop, encountering another bright light on the way which turned out to be Adi with his head torch on - when both people are wearing head torches neither can actually see the other, so we have to call out to tell each other who we are.

The shop, despite the weather, was crowded with people doing Christmassy shopping; Lesley, having bought a bottle of Baileys had also decided to open it there and then and had a glass standing ready on the counter while she collected her other bits and pieces. In the dim light of the shop, it was hard to identify people in their hoods, hats and giant coats, let alone the dogs running in and out. But the atmosphere was cheery, with animated discussions of who was going off when for Christmas - the majority of the islanders won't be here, it will be Mel and I, Vikki, the Goddards, Norman and one or two other diehards (not that I am a diehard). Most return on the 30th, boats permitting, for the Hogmanay knees-up.

I too am busy with Christmas preparations, determined to make this castle Christmas as cosy as the ones we would normally have with family and friends. It is hard sometimes to suppress a sense of poignancy; this year has been so hard with so many losses and doubts, and now we will also be spending Christmas "on our own", although at least with each other. Yet part of me thinks it's a good thing to do - to have at least one Christmas in a castle on an island, possibly in extreme weather conditions! And it's certainly an adventure. On Tuesday, a dark, windy afternoon, I went to "get the tree" with Adi and Nic. "Getting the tree" meant not a quick trip to a garden centre but a journey in their 4x4 with a big axe, then a venture across boggy ground ("You'll almost certainly get wet, probably up to your thighs," says Adi cheerfully who is clad in a bright orange souwester and matching rubber trousers) to view the trees before then chopping one down. As they are Scots pines and still quite young, this actually means chopping upwards (or at head height) to get the top of the tree rather than the bottom, as the branches don't start until around 4 foot from the ground. I feel this could potentially be dangerous, as so many things are here! But I say nothing - I've noticed that people on Rum really hate being told to take care, mind out etc. They prefer the attitude that nothing is really dangerous as long as you do it properly - which may well be true. My own strategy of risk avoidance, learned through years of (a) being told to be more careful and (b) working in offices where I had to do risk assessments, is completely out of place here. Hence I tend to feel like an idiot much of the time as many of my own transferable skills are pretty much non-transferable in a place like this...nobody wants to be understood, looked after, asked for their opinions about things or organised...they just want to get on with it and have a fag...

Anyway, Adi can wield an axe, even if Nic and I prefer to stand by and watch. Within a couple of minutes the tree has been felled and we are dragging it back to the track. I have managed to avoid getting wet, and am glad I came along. It's nice to see Nic and Adi although they have sad stories to tell. The weather has affected their croft badly and two pigs have died, probably of the cold and wet. The turbine they installed has broken due to the gales, the caravan has been lurching dangerously in the wind and one of the cockerels has also died. I admire them for continuing to pursue their ideal though I can't imagine how hard it is. I wonder if there is any additional support crofters can get in these situations - after all, most crofters nowadays are experimenters rather than inheriting the croft from their parents. It must happen often that things go wrong and people just don't know why or what to do to stop it happening again, as Nic says...

However, the biggest worry we have at the moment is FUEL. The big plastic tank of diesel (the one Mel has to poke a stick into to measure the depth) is nearly empty; the stick has spoken! But SNH have forbidden anyone on the island to drive/siphon off a new tanker of fuel unless they have an HGV and dangerous goods licence. In the past, this wasn't needed, but now the licence has to be in place before anyone can do anything with the diesel - and no-one has a licence. Mel thinks we have about a week's worth left of fuel; hopefully enough for Christmas, but not New Year. By making lots of phone calls and being nice to lots of people, she and Lesley have found someone on the mainland who is actually prepared to bring the tanker on to the island. They would have driven it around the island too, but what do you know - there is only one boat now today, rather than two, and the driver doesn't want to have to stay on Rum for two nights before the next boat back to the mainland arrives. So we're not sure how we're going to get the oil to people's houses...

But at least the ferry has arrived; I can see the tanker on the pier. The ferry is now departing from our (strangely blue) loch into the scarily white waves of the Minch, reminding me of the horrible journey across on Monday where seasickness took second place to fear (we had taken tablets and they actually worked...so although I wasn't at all seasick, I could still feel every lurch and pitch of the boat. "Don't worry," said Mel cheerily, "they can go out in much worse weather than this, they just choose not to..."; the worst bit was just off Muck where the ferry tacked lurchily backwards and forwards for a bit while the captain considered the giant foaming maelstrom outside the harbour, then let us know that "Muck has been aborted"...luckily he had "chosen not to" attempt it...).

What will happen to the tanker?!!!!

Watch this space to find out whether it'll be a cold, cold Christmas...I'm off to make mince pies.