Our muddy and marshy fields have solidified into a sparkling white wonderland, alternately reflecting pink dawns and orange sunsets every day this week.
It’s undeniably pretty, but venturing welly-clad onto this frosted loveliness is akin to tackling the north face of the Eiger in flip-flops.
And it’s not just the humans that are skiting around like tiddlywinks. The young Highlanders have been gleefully catapulting themselves across the ice towards us each morning.
They’re a huge help at sunrise as as we stand one-legged on the lumpy frozen ground, the other leg violently trying to boot a whole in their iced-over drinking trough. Inevitably we’re soon collapsed in an undignified heap on frozen dung, being licked by three sandpaper tongues; it’s an invigorating start to the day.
Turns out we’ve plenty of time to give the girls the attention they crave just now as the sub-zero conditions have thwarted the Polycrub plans for now. The freshly dug plot is rock-solid so the, already tricky, construction project is currently nigh impossible.
However, as all grannies will tell you, whit’s fur ye’ll no go by ye, and it was our own Granny that told us that our delay was, in fact, opportune.
Granny, aka my mother-in-law, is an avid BBC Alba viewer and is always fully versed in their programming schedule.
She likes to ensure that we, too, are abreast of all the goings-on in the Gealtachd, this Christmas introducing us to the surreal musical phenomenon that is Peat and Diesel. Described on Twitter as ‘If the Pogues had been born in the Scottish Isles…’ this band of three lads from Stornoway is a new favourite in our house.
So, too, is this week’s viewing suggestion from Granny: An Lot/ The Croft.
It’s a documentary series on BBC Alba that follows the graft of Sweeny the crofter, trying to eke out a living from his croft at the northern tip of the Isle of Lewis.
On Thursday Sweeny took delivery of his new Polycrub. It arrived in the same innumerable bits and pieces as ours, but he and his pal seemed to have little bother slotting the components together and constructing an impressive solid structure, built to house his sheep through the depths of a an Outer Hebridean winter.
Having glanced at the thick instruction book before fearfully thrusting it into our neighbours’ hands, it was a relief to see a 3D (and moving) representation. Of course, the chat was all in Gaelic, but I’m sure my family was delighted to be assisted by my triumphant interjections when I recognised a word.
‘And!’, ‘At all!’ ‘Right Enough!’ ‘Six Weeks!’
Like a toddler expecting a round of applause for linguistic prowess, I ignored the fact that we were all reading the perfectly adequate subtitles and continued my outbursts throughout the episode.
The subtitles were of little use, in fact, to our youngest offspring who has very recently joined our self-sufficiency endeavours by learning to knit. She looked up sporadically from the purple square she’s creating to try and work out what’s going on.
Suddenly, she squealed: ‘Jeezo! I’m turning into Granny!’
We all turned to enquire what had instigated this flash of self-awareness.
‘I’m sitting here knitting, watching BBC Alba!’
Laughing at herself, she was soon back upstairs, doubtlessly to regain some street-cred with a late-night tiktok binge.
The rest of us were happy to watch Sweeny’s delight in his Polycrub and are inspired to batter on with our own when the forecasted muddy thaw arrives.
In the meantime we’ll be glued to Alba and maybe the wee one can extend her textile efforts. Episode 4 of An Lot sees Sweeny attempt to make his own Harris Tweed. Time to get the shears out and see just how cool the teenager looks sat at a spinning wheel.
The Softer Crofter 