Birthday cake, tadpoles and a bit of sunshine

The birthday party was brilliant. This is the only photo I have of it! The top of the birthday cake designed and made by dear Jo. Her Dad sitting on top of a cake playing the drums. I can see the likeness!

Lots of family and friends travelled far and wide to help us celebrate this special occasion   

There were heaps of cards and some fabulous presents. 'Thank You' letters will be going out in due course.
As I've been so appallingly bad at recording the birthday weekend, I'm going to show you a walk we did today instead!

The weather for the party was quite well behaved,  but as the last of the guests flew home to Denmark yesterday, the weather held back no longer and today the sun gave it all it had. Niels propped up by poles! Actually he's not that bad and very fit and carried an extra pole in case I needed one.

So few people see Assynt bathed in wall to wall sunshine. Intense blue sky and water

Trying out a birthday present - now we can see things in the distance!

Tadpoles! Millions don't survive, and the dry weather this week has meant many puddles are drying up, but here there were a million trillion tadpoles in a race against time

By comparison, two tadpoles from our old garden pond near Woking! Much larger in size and more developed, taken one April a few years ago,  a month ahead of these  Assynt tadpoles. I used to feed them fish food, so it's reasonable I suppose they would be twice the size of their Scottish cousins!

 The perfect lunch spot, I ate my sandwich before I could take a picture.

Suilven in the distance. We still need to climb it - just because it's there I think, and while we still can!

Back onto the road

and a trek back to the car. I don't think he's falling over - just deep in thought!

It has been such a beautiful day and Assynt remains one of my very favourite wild and remote places.
If one of the party goers takes pity on me and sends me some photos, I will post them onto my blog. In the meantime you have to put up with 'going for walk' pictures!

Will it? Won't it!

In one weeks time family and friends are coming to Ullapool to help us celebrate a very big birthday.

This is how I want them to see the beautiful north west coast of Scotland

but we've had quite a lot of this lately

and two weeks ago even some of this.

picturesque  as it is

I should like it to be more spring like

This is the chap who'll be celebrating his birthday next weekend

So come on weather. Get your self together!

You know you can do it!

On your bike

The sun! It seems so long since it shone. The morning was chilly with a light covering of snow on the hills, but the sun didn't give in and fought back and the day got better and better. Knitting needles and paint brushes were abandoned and I got on my bike. My knees have been creaking lately, hence no long walks, but the lane from our house is perfect for bike riding. Whether we are going to Ullapool, London or Land's End (though probably not on my bike!) the lane is where we begin our journey and in all weathers it's quite lovely - but especially lovely when the sun shines!

an anniversary of sorts

This was the piece of land we bought to build our house on. Five years ago, almost to the day, we came up with Robin to survey it

We stayed in The Ceilidh Place in Ullapool 

and practised in the hotel bedroom! Father, Son and the Total Station! I think we stood it on bits of cardboard so we didn't damage the carpet.

There was lots of  twiddling and tweaking

and standing about pretending to be a fixed point

and analysing readings and numbers on the computer 

and finally getting to do it for real 

Beware of old men in raincoats carrying poles!

and nine months later all the fiddling and faffing and numbers and analysing and calculating paid off and the land was excavated using Hoffmann & Son calculations. With a structural and mechanical engineering background between them they were, more or less, confident they could get it right 

- fortunately they did!

The early part of this blog contains nothing but the house building, and should you wish to look back  there are masses of photos showing the ups and downs and highs and lows of which there were many! The highs today though are

the finished blinds, painstakingly cut to size and slats removed by the husband and wife team who never argue or get cross with one another (if you believe that you'll believe anything!) 

and the cupboard under the stairs (no, of course I'm not opening the door, I need to tidy it up first!) Niels put up the cladding and the chief painter and decorator  painted it.