The island was a little reluctant to show us her beauty on this visit, but finally did so in time for the day off, on Wednesday.  Another work week with Calum, top man, and this time, a group of fairly experienced volunteers, a few of whom I knew already.

I’d heard that the week before had been a bit of a wash out, but when leaving Inverness last Saturday the sun was out and it looked like things could be about to change (contrary to the forecast).  However, this time the forecast had it just about right.  Sunday was a monster – removing fence in what started out as wind and drizzle and progressed to wind and heavy rain.  Thankfully that was the worst of it with just light rain for the next two days.  And then some sun.  Until Friday night when it all kicked off again, force 7 winds, heavy showers, cancelled ferries, caution on the Skye bridge – great stuff.

Photos will follow, once I’ve stopped driving for long enough to get them online.

Ok, photos can now be found here (in fairly low resolution). There may be slightly less of them than usual because my camera got very wet in my pocket on the first Sunday, and has, since then, been performing in a most erratic fashion.

Anyway, here are some higher res highlights:

I’ve spent the last few days at the Trees for Life property, Dundreggan.  The lodge is currently being altered to meet building regulations (disabled access, etc) for use as accommodation for the work weeks to be held there.  Myself and Norman were meant to be painting but, perhaps not surprisingly, the builders had overrun.  So they were in our way, and we ended up spending more time prepping than painting.

Still, it was good to catch up with Norman, who I’d not seen since my first work week, back in October ’06, and we managed to scrape together some decent meals and extract a conversation or two from Pierre, the French volunteer, who is staying at Dundreggan for a month, where he hopes to learn English.  To be fair his English is better than my french, but then I have no intention of learning french or going to France.  I had to speak to him very slowly as apparently I have an accent which he finds difficult to understand.  I wasn’t very good at it.

Must remember to add some photos…  Ok, here they are.

I’m back at Findhorn – after a slow start (pretty much the same as usual then) I eat a hearty breakfast and head into the TFL office.  It turns out that Rosie, my co-focaliser for the forthcoming week, is ILL!  I will have to take a bunch of potentially unruly volunteers out on my OWN!

Actually, Jane from the office will have to come out and drive for me because I’ve not taken my PCV practical yet.  Jane has only been on one work week, ever, and hasn’t done the Focaliser training.  It’s ok, I’m fine about it.  Everything will be just fine…

Craig picks up Rohan, who I’ve not seen since the training, and we get our briefing in between sorting out the food order for the forthcoming work-weeks, and grabbing some extortionately priced food from the Universal cafe.  We make up for it by taking seconds during our TFL bought meal in the CC later.

Finally, after a bit of revision, Rohan gives me a shout from outside, and I go out to see what he’s on about, and see this…

I’ve just finished my first TFL week of the Autumn season.  We stayed on the Attadale estate – worth a look if you’re passing – and worked at Achnashellach and Reraig.  Big praise goes to Calum, my co-focaliser, who I felt totally comfortable working with.  Good job really, as, due to the lack of beds, we ended up sharing a double together.  Compliments have to end here I’m afraid, as the big man sure does move about a lot in bed, and is 6 foot 5, or something.

Anyway, we planted 3000 trees and the group seemed to enjoy themselves.  Photos to follow when I get a better internet link

Ok, photos are now available here

Here are reduced res versions of some of my favourites… (actually I’ve just noticed that they are higher resolution than the way they’re displayed through photobox!)