Category Archives: The Cats (well they had to have a heading didn’t they)

The Crossing

 Posted by Mark on Thursday, 6 November 2014

 

1880 map

Thursday – After a hearty breakfast we pick the the cats up from the Cattery at 8:30. We are still under a little time pressure as we have to get the 1 o’clock ferry so that we can collect Badger and get the keys a still be at the Mill Cottage by 4 pm when the twenty foot container will be delivered to allow us to store and sort all our stuff.

For the journey from Inverness to Gills Bay, Phercad had settled down, resigning himself to the journey, even Nimbus was quieter. We got to the ferry in good time, and although it had been raining on the way up the sea’s were looking nice and flat, I don’t like ferries at the best of times and lumpy ones even less so!

After a short wait we were ready to board the ferry, we drove on and got out of the car , leaving it unlocked with the cats inside in the vain hope someone would steal them ! No seriously, the car was left unlocked so that the motion alarm would not go off when the ship rolled, of course there were at least a couple of car owners who did lock their cars and so we were serenaded across the Pentland Firth for an hour by their alarms going off at intervals!

The Cats seemed to take this all in their stride and when we finally docked at St Margret’s bay they were curled up together and silent. We now had a short drive to our friend, Catherine Corsie’s farm in Burray to say hi and to pick up Badger – our motor home. I would then drive Badger to the new house whilst Anna took the car to Kirkwall to the solicitors to pick up the keys, not that as it turned out, we needed the keys as there was no key to the front door, as they never lock it around here. 🙂

I raced across the island in Badger, aiming to get to Mill Cottage in time for the 20 foot container to be delivered. I arrived at 3.30 pm and proceeded to cut out a twelve foot piece of the fence to make access easier, it must have looked strange seeing a motor home bowling up and a chap jumping out with a saw in hand ( yes I had the forethought to pack that! ) and proceed to demolish the fence! In the end I needn’t have hurried, a phone call revealed that the lorry with the crane on, had broken down and they could not deliver that day. I explained that the removal lorry would be turning up at 9 the next morning so we had to have the container by then. The company promised that they would sort our alternative lifting gear and would be on site by 9 o’clock the next day.

So I waited for Anna to arrive in the car with the cats……