If my Dad taught me one thing it is to know when to step up. Receiving a distressing email from your soul sister is just the trigger to step up and offer to help. She would do it for me and there is no question I will do what I can for her. So, as of first thing this morning a restructuring began to enable me to extract myself from here and relocate to Portsmouth for how ever long it takes. I have been banging on for months about how I am moving my professional life onto the Internet so this will be an early test of how well I am doing.
It is however, Annie's last day with us so, once my flight was booked, I focused on our day on the island. We drove to the north of the island to Lochranza with one of Pete's famous picnics. It is another glorious day on Arran so the whole journey sparkled as well it should. Stopping off at various points to explore and take photographs and, importantly, spot deer. A small issue, however, was the distinct lack of deer spotting talent in the car aside from myself. The slight problem we had there is that I was driving the car along Arran roads and should not have been looking for the deer. Driving is not one of my talents and I can only ever drive and not consider trying to anything else at the same time. Despite this I did see some deer and on the way back spotted the most impressive stag I think I have ever seen on Arran. I have been deer spotting on Arran since I was a small child.
I did manage to get us all to Lochranza in one piece and we sat on the edge of the shore with our lovely picnic. A pair of Oystercatchers bleated at us in objection for a while. I have quite decided that coming back as an Oystercatcher could have its merits as that noise is deeply irritating. I can do deeply irritating if I try hard enough! One of my favourite things to do on the island is to sit and look at sailing boats all bobbing about on the water. There is something very calming about that and today was no exception. Lochranza is really the most beautiful place but I always feel that it is the end of the world. I feel like if I sailed away in one of those little boats I would fall off the end.
No visit to Lochranza is complete without a coffee at the Distillery. A lovely art exhibition by an amazing man who works in a orphanage in Nepal took my breath away. Not only is he a talented artist but he also knows how to release the talent in the children and their art was on display as well. Sales from this exhibition is to raise funds for art materials for the next year. There really are some special people in the world.
A gentle drive back home and a chance to reflect on what has been a lovely week with Annie. It has been wall to wall sunshine and calmness and I have loved every minute of it. Annie departs on the early ferry tomorrow but leaves armed with estate agent details.....watch this space!
As it is the summer solstice we are out with friends this evening which will just tie off the visit nicely. Then tomorrow I will pick up the reins of organising my departure while making sure the children have all they need to carry on without me for a while. It will mean that I will miss seeing Molly off to her job on the Isle of Eigg but she is more than capable of sorting all that for herself. All four children are very capable individuals and will cope fine without me for a while. They also know that I am needed elsewhere and wouldn't have it any other way.
I spoke to a friend yesterday who has children that are coping with a very difficult time at the moment. Children never cease to amaze me and I have worked with them all my adult life. I firmly believe that if we do not learn from our children we are somehow missing the point. So, I will take the lead from my children and do what needs to be done in the full knowledge that they will be absolutely fine. Incredibly proud mummy moment!Until tomorrow. xx
Sending you energy and support to do whatever you have to do. We are lucky to have blogs and Facebook.
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