Power lines

Keeping with the theme here, you can see three SSE engineers working on the lines heading south from Catacol across the farm (though all three are facing north!). They were working alongside a larger team trying to get the poles above Catacol that I blipped yesterday (with the stag) to stand up straight. I have no idea how they got a digger up the hill, but they have all our respect - in many ways!

The house is starting to feel warm now, even with the power and having heated my bed up with the electric blanket last night I slept in my sleeping bag under the duvet and had a couple of hot water bottles in the bed (don't worry, the electric blanket was turned off by that point!). I was lovely and cosy, but when I woke up in the morning I could still see my breath. We (the inhabitants of Catacol) have managed to limit electricity use and not tripped the wee generator yet, unlike the south of Whiting Bay which got power at midnight last night and tripped it about 1pm today. So many thanks are due to the engineers working horrific long hours to get things back up. Tonight apparently there are 350 houses on Arran without power, but they should be onto generators by tomorrow. They hope to have us back on the National Grid on Saturday/Sunday. We're wondering if there will be a few more power cuts as the island fills up for Easter and folk who haven't been here and don't realise that it's still very much limited power use their appliances as normal.

I walked the dog a bit up Catacol Glen, and we were the first folk up there, walking across the downed power cables to get there. I took some beautiful monochrome landscape shots which will be going online soon, (in case any of you viewed yesterday's blip early, here are the links to the sledging action shots - including the canoe - and some landscape shots of Arran in the snow) and one I almost blipped was underwater power cables - not of the Kintyre to Arran variety, the ones that should be in the air variety! The dog overcame her hatred of snow, and joined me quite happily. Thankfully it is now crisp enough for her to walk on the surface and rarely fall down into it - not the same for me of course, most of the time it was up to my knees, so I suspect I will be feeling my muscles tomorrow! I walked back down the burn as it was easier.

Sorry to say the Snow Football Team Building Competition was cancelled as the organiser had to go up to the mainland, but we hope to have some fun arranged for tomorrow!

By the way for a much less verbose take on the situation from another Arran exile currently down on Arran, have a look at blip (fairly) newbie crawfja.