Troublesome Traps
05/22/2007
Dearest Dottie views the F A Cup Final on the library telly, blue and white rattle at the ready as she disputes each decision of the referee without an iota of knowledge of the rules of the beautiful game. Her support of Chelsea is based on a love of the King’s Road, Peter Jones and the peace of the Physic Garden rather than the reality of the blue bears of Stamford Bridge. However this allows me to slip away for a little scribble and an early Saturday afternoon stiffener courtesy of Messrs Hendricks and Schweppes. Perhaps it is just happenchance however as I settle in front of the Great Fire of Trollaigh the beastly gale and driving rain that we have endured for the past 24 hours seems to ease a little, so I may at last have a tramp across the Long Glen path before dark to see what damage the high winds have wrought.
A busy week draws to a close with almost every bed taken by the EU Advisor and a steady stream of acolytes bending the knee before the EU cash machine. That sounds a little harsh when in fact we all had a jolly good party, gone this year were the Liberal Democrat Depute Ministers as they are currently deposed and chewing their cheeks whilst working on a “strategy” to allow themselves to sell their principles down the river in exchange for some power once more. Instead we hosted a few fat man lunches for groups who wanted to meet a real live EU Advisor, this proved very useful for both sides with wry smiles all round at the astonishment spreading across her face when the Scottish Land Reform Act and its implications were explained to La Belle Dame, I am pleased to report that there appears to be absolutely no way such an absurdity would even be dreamt of in any other member state. The “managed retreat”, so much a buzz word of poor government policy on UK farming also cropped up in almost every conversation. Where will our farmers and farm land be when we need them, as we surely will when China buys the entire North American wheat crop, Australian crops fail and the Russians turn off the gas and oil. Hopefully the supermarket queues gazing at empty shelves will be satisfied by chewing on RSPB leaflets, while stocks last!
A lighter note brought the Girls to Glen Trollaigh to help with the heavy load of feeding and scrubbing the high number of visitors and to indulge in the start of the Great Trollaigh Spring Clean. An event planned for each year, but only completed on a more irregular basis. My task seemed to be to service and set one hundred mousetraps, fingers are bruised and battered and the air a deeper shade of blue. The discovery that many of our older carpets have become serious breeding grounds for moths is alarming to say the least, however anti moth warfare has been engaged and every outbuilding is festooned with relics and the scent of mouldering mice is subdued by essential oils of Cedar and Lavender whilst smaller rugs and the like displace old salmon and game in the deep freezes! Yours aye, Archie, The Baron Trollaigh.