End of Year Review

Well it’s been an eventful year here at Cromasaig 9. As we come to the end of my first year in charge of public relations, I have been told that it is my responsibility to write the end-of-year review. Now I was only informed of this yesterday so have not really had time to produce a report (complete with graphs and statistics) to my normal highly professional standard. Therefore this first end-of-year review takes a form more like a round robin. How very middle class. Also, I can’t really be bothered as I am not getting a Christmas bonus due to ongoing disputes with the management. All I can say is “if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys”. I keep being told that I will one day be paid in blueberries, but have yet to see any progress towards this.

The year began with Graham turning over thousands of little squares of turf with a spade and a pickaxe. When I asked if he had lost his marbles I was told that no, this was in preparation for the planting of the woods for me to sit in, and is called “manual mounding” in forestry speak. Twelve thousand trees then arrived in February and Graham spent most of the following few weeks planting them under close supervision from me. The woodland had been carefully designed with lots of different tree species and bits of open ground in particular places so I felt that my watchful eye was needed. I ignored Graham’s pleas that he has a forestry degree and knew what he was doing – it’s not that I was particularly worried about localised site conditions, species suitability, biodiversity, public access and so on; I just wanted to make sure I had some good places to sit. I have been asked to thank the nice people at the Forestry Commission for agreeing to pay Graham lots of money for planting my woods from something called the Scottish Rural Development Programme (SRDP), which gets funding from the Scottish Government and the European Union.

Then at the beginning of summer some nice men from England came and put up a monstrosity of a thing called a keder house for growing lots of fruit and vegetables that can’t live outside (as discussed in a previous post). It is sixteen metres long, twelve metres wide, about four metres high and looks a bit like a space ship, so is perfectly in keeping with the local landscape. It is also located right at the far end of the croft, and I learned some new swear words while the nice men from England and another nice man from a local estate were moving the materials across the bog – I mean prime agricultural land – to the site. Graham, yellow bellied coward that he is, blamed Eleanor for this. Apparently she didn’t want it blocking the view of the mountains from the house and insisted that it went as far away as possible. I have been asked to thank the nice people at the agriculture department (SGRPID) for agreeing to give Graham funding from the SRDP to cover most of the cost of the keder house. I lied earlier – I have produced one graph which I feel demonstrates the potential of the keder house using the example of pumpkin production over the past year with the results extrapolated to next year:

Then more trees arrived. Apparently these ones will grow apples once they get established (not blueberries?). There were two hundred of them. Graham took ages to plant them because he ran away for two weeks in the middle to become a firefighter, much to Eleanor’s amusement. I didn’t think it was amusing. I considered it a dereliction of duty and said so. Still, surprisingly few of the fruit trees have died so far. I’m not sure what they intend to do with all those apples. Eleanor likes cider, but seems to have gone off it this year for some reason. I have been asked to thank the nice people at SGRPID for giving Graham lots of money from the European Union to plant the orchard and do lots of other things that will be happening in the next few months (does that include blueberries?). This seems to be a bit of a recurring theme. In fact Graham seems keen for me to mention the words “European Union” and “funding” rather a lot. I’m not sure why. It must be topical or something.

Then some other men arrived and put up a building that will be used as the office and store for the blueberry growing enterprise (when is this happening?), heaps of books and Graham’s forestry stuff. Six months on, and with Storm Barbara rustling the branches, Graham has almost managed to get it watertight. Other than that it’s very nice, but it has an upstairs bit with a ladder that I can’t climb, so I’m sure they’re hiding something from me. A secret stash of blueberries perhaps? I would get the Clerk of Works to investigate for me, but she can’t even walk yet let alone climb.

Speaking of which, our new Clerk of Works, Matilda, took up her post in October. Eleanor and Graham came back with her after a trip to the big smoke, Inverness. They were away for a while, during which I assume they were doing interviews. Anyway, they seemed rather pleased with their choice of candidate for the job, although I was initially unimpressed. However, silver linings and all, despite her rather basic communication skills she does seem to be able to make the management do her bidding, so I think she may be a useful ally. I’m the brains, she’s the brawn.

In November I discovered the answer to a great mystery. I had seen Graham and Eleanor – and since October the Clerk of Works of course, as someone has to supervise – humphing lots of books into the car and disappearing for a day or more, only to return with less books and some food shopping. I wondered if they were maybe bartering books for food but after demanding to be included on a trip in November I realise that this is not quite the case. I now understand the concept of selling stuff, but it seems to involve a lot more conversation than I would consider necessary. After asking if Eleanor had lost her marbles, I was told that no, she was advising and helping the customers and that this is part of what is known as Customer Service and that my suggested approach of “just buy the flaming book” would be significantly less effective in terms of sales.

To conclude things I should probably mention the house. This is being built so that Eleanor, Graham and Matilda can live on site to grow my blueberries. I have been offered a place in this house too, but I don’t need a house – I have a lair. But more on that another time…

It seems to have been a very busy year, which raises the question why are we still just eating kale? However I am assured that despite appearances the foundations have been laid for a future in which blueberries will feature prominently.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year etc etc and so on.