Stuck in the office

01/21/2005

Dotty and I awake in the Great Bed of Trollaigh in disbelief. Clear, dry skies, a light wind and a touch of frost. It gives us a day of change as Dotty can work on her garden and the sun shines more or less all day. It’s almost Alpine with snowy ridges against a blue sky and a top temperature of 3 degrees. I am tied to the office desk, for this is the time of year to complete the accounts, and spend hours on the phone with accountants, woodland and agricultural advisors, planning the year, and most importantly planning the April fifth tax return. At my age I no longer have great ambitions about income, but it is so important to keep the place up, and to be able to hand it on to the next generation without too many problems. I can see Lachie fretting outside the office windows hoping to tempt me out on a spree. I do manage a climb with him and the pack, up the Alt Trollaigh to inspect the water supply which has taken a beating in the spates, so we must plan repairs and improvements. Here too, we dream of a new hydro power scheme. We chat together about logs and fuel and Lachie shows me his excellent work. He strangely disappears with the dogs as I tackle my other outdoor chore, stripping to the waist to sort out a blockage in one of our septic tanks, equally strangely, Susy Smith the Editor of Country Living Magazine never mentions this frequent and pongy rural exercise in her editorial “First Words”. For more generations than the Trollaighs care to remember, all pipes led to the River Trollaigh and as a result, the river was one of the best Atlantic Salmon spawning grounds. Now SEPA insist on a complex and unworkable system of cleansing tanks which have ruined the spawning grounds and subjected The Baron Trollaigh to unhealthy plunging plumbing. A deep hot bath in Dotty’s boudoir (she is still in the garden), and to hell, a strong Ardbeg for detoxification! Your aye, Archie, The Baron Trollaigh.