Rake And Rake Again

01/09/2006

With some relief, I am chased indoors by wintery showers and strong winds that arrive bang on Heather the Weather’s scheduled 1.00pm. One could count on the fingers of one hand the number of foul days we have suffered over the last six weeks, such a change from last year’s soggy start. The down side of fair weather is the hetic task of constructing dearest Dottie’s new garden. I have now discovered that this massive engineering feat, which I had foolishly supposed to be a minor makeover, comes from the pen of a Chelsea Gold Medal winner and that dearest Dottie has now built a raised command post from where she relays The Medal Winner’s instructions in a gruff bark, a mobile phone at each ear. Such exercise can only be good for me, however, I am not sure what reserves of strength are left and in such wonderful clear, winter weather, my eyes lift to take in the fabulous views of the ridges and peaks of Glen Trollaigh. I only hope that I will be able to escape and trudge over them once more with the pack at heel. The past couple of days have been spent raking and re-raking areas of red sub-soil and carefully loading any stones into a dumper. This mind numbing work reminds me of the days when I was in Bengal with my father, there the women and children used to dive into the river to collect stones of any size to sell to house builders as the sandy surface of the delta was boulderless. I wonder if any of these entrepreneurs could be persuaded to open up shop in Argyll where the same trade could be carried out in Glen Trollaigh on terra firma.

To relieve the tedium Lachie and I have trundled The Great Radiogram of Glen Trollaigh out into the sunshine. After carefully levelling this impressive, imperial example of the cabinetmakers art, it now delivers light music from a selection of 78’s. A contactor delivering a few tons of Blood, Fish and Bone on The Medal Winner’s instructions, thought he was being terribly clever by christening our musak machine as “The Glen Trollaigh i-Pod”, bloody funny. Yours aye, Archie, The Baron Trollaigh.