Alfie

I've just heard that Paul Hines, Jayne and I's  old form teacher in 1H and  2H, and my Geology teacher, has just died.

It was a Grammar school and a different era - very much chalk and talk - but he was a brilliant Geology teacher and I got my lifelong love of the subject from him. That is what good teachers do. He got very good results and worked us very hard for the A - level but when I studied Geology at Uni the level was way below what he had been teaching us. In the early 70s plate tectonics was in its infancy but Alfie was bang up to date with all the new theories. We did lots of practicals - the school had a very fine rock and mineral collection - down to him - and he was meticulous in how he taught us to observe and record. Again lifelong skills learnt. It was the only A level course  I really enjoyed.

I went off with Jaffa on the back of his Ariel Arrow (?) and scouted waste tips in the Preselis for bits of galena and sphalerite, hunted in quarries for crinoidal limestones and jasper and on Skomer for flow banded rhyolites.  Pembrokeshire is a geologists paradise - so we were very, very lucky. 

Paul was nicknamed 'Alfie' as Alfie Hinds was a famous criminal of the time, and I wrote thousands of lines for him "I must behave" and "I must be quiet" being memorable. The chime was "Hines means lines". He was pretty tough discipline wise in registration but considerably fairer than many of the bullies who taught us.

He caught us playing table tennis in geology prac. one time  - he had been called out to some meeting or other for half an hour - and didn't punish us - but he did shame us which was different in the era of the big stick approach. Shortly after we left at 18 he moved to Haverfordwest to teach as Head of  Geography and had a successful career there, retiring to France. 

Murphy's law of Self Building - Part 2

We filled the large roundhouse area of 113 sqm to a depth of about .75m after a horrendously busy weekend. That's 80 cubic metres plus. We aligned and fitted all the drainage but needed two 32mm elbows. This meant an early morning trip to Campbeltown. As soon as I returned we started backfilling this void. Murphy intervened and half an hour later a hydraulic hose blew.

Another trip to Campbeltown required 38 miles down the road in double quick time and we managed to get the material dumped in the roundhouse that evening.

We had to work quick as we needed Andy’s 3.5 tonne digger to distribute and level the space and he was needed elsewhere the next day.

At the same time we were waiting on parts for our wacker plate. This meant we had the roumndhouse floor area levelled by eye and it was 5cm too high so we had to screef off an area of about 50 sq m by hand that had been compacted by the digger. The weather was very hot and it took us several days and considerable fluid intake.

So we have weathered all sorts of setbacks – Murphy is a frequent visitor to Ardailly. Even the gremlins who serve the great god Google (what would Orwell made of this publishing phenomenon?) screwed up the original posting of this blog hence this edited reissue.

Spot the Corncrake

We've heard corncrakes here at Kinnererach and frequently down on the plot this summer. Fiona even saw one on the Outer Hebrides a few weeks ago. They are shy and retiring and it is this bit of habitat between the plot and the sea where we most often hear them. See if you can see one. (MacArthur's Head is in the background.)

Isle of Gigha Raft Race 2011

We stopped work at 2p.m. Saturday when we really should have kept grafting to go to the island raft race.

Tarbert on their way to the start line

Ready Steady GO

Andy demonstrates the sea water hose to the winners 

Superb afternoon with the usual suspects. Tarbert guys always strip off to the waist and daub themselves with some weird colour. Gardens raft always top heavy. Karate kids won again. Yet another Gigha occasion and a good time had by all with much imbibing. Another fine BBQ by the Boathouse who organise and sponsor this event. Lindsay cooked on Saturday afternoon but we had an even better do at his new house on Sunday evening with fantastic barbecued lobster and langoustine in garlic butter...It was one of those weeks where we went out more often than not and hot, hot, hot ....

Murphy's Law of Self Building

If it can go wrong it will is the fundamental principle of Murphy's Law. If you are a self builder it will go wrong at the worst possible time - so the tractor got rolled just an hour from finishing the footings, and the JCB has a fuel leak from the lift pump filter and I still can't get the gasket to seal. The JCB also needs new seals on the dipper ram and I didn't get it sorted when I had the chance. Today's problem -  that wasted four hours is the pull start on the wacker plate. We need this going full time at present to compact the backfill on the big roundhouse which is currently being dropped in by JCB and spread by Andy in his mini-digger in 150mm sandwiches. All was going well and then the spring pinged on the pull start - not easy to get back in, and then the fixing screw was unthreaded and so it is kaput anyway. Friday afternoon means no spares till Monday - thankfully we managed to borrow another wacker plate but not till 5:30 this afternoon. The good news is that we ran out of aggregate and backfill but I am digging out a fantastic borrow pit of sand and gravel (36 cubic metres) which has much better material than the stuff we were paying for....and at least the weather is good. Tomorrow is the island raft race so an afternoon off.

playing catch up

Well here we are in mid July and still not got to the kit up stage. May was disastrous weather wise and early June no better.  A week on the fish farm doing grading (46hrs in 4 days) and a week ill and that was June gone. We managed to lay one small area of floor in mid June only and are getting the others prepared for a massive bout of concreting later this month Today was sublime but too hot. Anyway we did do the porch area. Took 2 hrs mixing only for 10 sq metres - only 190 to go.

We are very happy with the finished floor level as we can see the sea horizon below Jura

DPC and insulation in

Insulated tray prior to the pour

Dragonfly

Just after we had finished the blockwork and were preparing the porch for concreting this fantastic creature landed. We take it as a good omen.

Four Spot Chaser at rest

razor sharp

We have had the new leaves on both our wild cherry and the wingnut burnt off by the salt in Monday's storm.  Not sure if it is fatal or they can recover. Salt burn has scorched lots of trees, and the emerging bracken has been hit too - though that is no bad thing.
A couple was airlifted off the big ketch in Ardminish Bay - the skipper had a broken arm. The helicopter pilot recorded gusts of 80 knots plus - well into hurricane force wind speeds -  and took four attempts before landing on the golf course to pick up other medical emergencies. Hope they are all okay. I don't know how this hurricane blast fits May weather patterns. We've had one Atlantic Low after another for four weeks now. It is very cold too and we have had to refix the roof membrane on our big shed (it is a temporary until we can turf it) which was steadily loosening itself.  Tried to make a start backfilling the small roundhouse and porch areas this morning but was sidetracked by having to check all the warps on our cat as another gale is due. Then a huge shower drove us indoors, soaking. I hate wet socks.
We have totally lost our momentum. It is difficult to plan work and even more difficult to keep up progress between showers and gales. The ground is very wet - more so than in late March and I think we will be held up again for the kit. As Jayne said yesterday, the incredible power of the storm does make you feel very alive - it is visceral. That is why we are here living on the edge - but our daily lives are limited by the weather as well as enriched by it.

does a gale have teeth ?

Its Monday afternoon and XC Weather is showing 35-57 knots SW gusting at Macrihanish which is slightly more sheltered than Gigha. Over the weekend we had torrential rain all day Saturday and some pretty blowy weather but nothing like today's gale - Malin was forecast Violent Storm Force 11 this morning at 5:30 - and that was the inshore forecast for Mull of Kintyre to Ardnamurchan.  Jayne and I were brought up in Pembrokeshire which is much more exposed than Gigha so we're used to it. But now we want to get our floors levelled and laid but can't - the weather in May - our Hebridean Spring - has pretty much brought us to a standstill this last week. 
Our two piles of 100mm insulation board in the yard ready for loading both blew over at 12:45 - a 2.4m x 1.2m board is pretty aerodynamic in a 50 knot gust. We've restacked now though in the lulls. Minimal damage as we caught them just in time. Mark is watching the shed roof lifting just down the road at Tarbert but Andy was still cutting grass - last we heard.
At least the power is back on.