Life in the round

01/28/2005

The weather girls bring us more good news. Blue skies all day, up to almost ten degrees with a north wind, veers to northeast and it is dry all day. Sun breaks on the Tower at 11.35 am, it is wonderful at this time of year to watch the hour that the sun appears around “An Grirnan” creep forward by a few minutes each day. After breakfast, my head is stuck in the ledgers or on the telephone for most of the morning, but I am free to get outside and into the policies in the afternoon. I have a schedule of tasks but I am easily distracted by other maintenance as I pass by lose stones, bent fence stobs, wind blown plants and broken branches. It is very relaxing to potter away the afternoon without a care in the world. It all reminds me of an earlier Baron who invented the bicycle in more or less the shape that we know it to-day, all be it without pedals, chain or gears, a sort of scooter with a seat. The old fellow had a whimsy for ease of transport around the garden whilst lost in the pleasure of doing nothing. Trollaighs have always had an ingenious bent, indeed one of the earliest buildings in Glen Trollaigh was a water mill that shows some very sophisticated engineering for its time. Its main propulsion is listed as an unscheduled monument on the new fangled Landranger Maps, under the note “The Trollaigh Wheel”. Hey Ho, a relaxed Friday evening stretches ahead, settled in front of the library fire with at least half a dozen christmas present books to dip into, and I feel sure that an Ardbeg can be smuggled past Mhairi. Yours Aye, Archie, The Baron Trollaigh.