Letter from Iona - #11 - One Month to go!!
Hello All:)
Today is a very exciting day for us as we now have one month left of work and then we are outta here!
This week has been fairly quiet in terms of the misadventures of Dan and Katie. Nothing too tragic. We had a major storm here last night with wind gusts of up to 70 miles/hour (112 kms)!! Needless to say, it was a rather noisy night last night. But the only casualties that we have seen is our rubbish bin got knocked over and we lost a clothesline. They also pulled all of the wee boats out of the water yesterday in preparation for the storm as they were afraid they might wash up on shore, or worse, find their way to the bottom of the Sound. There was also talk of the ferry being cancelled today, but happily it is still running......although we are not making use of her services today:)
We've had 4 new people arrive on the island to work in the restaurant/bar/shop. Two are a couple from New Zealand, (just met them this morning), one is from Scotland, and the other is her cousin from Australia! They have all moved into the flat above the Spar shop, so not only is it fairly crowded up there again, it seems to be a South Pacific haven!! The blue house will soon be emptier (which is a happy day as there's only one bathroom/shower at our place), with Agni and Gitana leaving for Lithuania on Saturday and Lisbeth leaving for Fife on Sunday. But we're sure that new faces will soon be seen around our place as well.
Dan has had an interesting invitation for today. Yesterday, while working in the bar, he got talking with Tim, a music major from the Abbey, who had heard about his amazing violin skills. This prompted an invitation for Dan and Katie to visit the Abbey this evening to try a violin and maybe the piano??:) Needless to say, we are both very excited about this!
The first day of our work here, we both worked for the 40th wedding anniversary of a minister from Bunnessen (Mull) named Syd and his wife Edna. Syd is often in the bar, drinking ginger beer, or on the bus, so he is a familiar face around here and knows both Dan and Katie by face. One of the coolest things about Syd is that the first time Katie saw him, she saw somebody else completely. Syd could be a mirror image of Katie's grandfather on her Mom's side. He has a similar personality as well with his joking and jovial outlook on life. Syd was sitting at the bar the other evening and Katie was working in the restaurant humming along with the music on the stereo. It was the hymn tune 'Melita', which is Dan's favourite hymn. While she was doing this, Syd was listening and made a comment about it, to which Katie replied, 'well, I like Melita, besides, it's Dan's favourite hymn'. Syd remarked, 'you seem to know a lot about hymn tunes and such', and Katie replied, 'Well, I should, as I was a church organist for some years back in Canada'.:) At that point, customers walked in and she had to go back to work. But not before Syd said, 'Oh really, are you working here tomorrow?' She had to rush off. So, Syd stopped by the next day (Saturday) and asked again if Katie was working at 12:30 on Sunday. Sadly she was, but when she mentioned it to Sheila, she was told, she might be able to get an hour or two off to go and play the Organ that Syd has available to him. Needless to say, she's quite excited about that and we'll see where that goes.
More stories to share and pictures too next week. Dan's tide study is going well and the moon photos, well are unique. More practice and study are required!
Today is a very exciting day for us as we now have one month left of work and then we are outta here!
This week has been fairly quiet in terms of the misadventures of Dan and Katie. Nothing too tragic. We had a major storm here last night with wind gusts of up to 70 miles/hour (112 kms)!! Needless to say, it was a rather noisy night last night. But the only casualties that we have seen is our rubbish bin got knocked over and we lost a clothesline. They also pulled all of the wee boats out of the water yesterday in preparation for the storm as they were afraid they might wash up on shore, or worse, find their way to the bottom of the Sound. There was also talk of the ferry being cancelled today, but happily it is still running......although we are not making use of her services today:)
We've had 4 new people arrive on the island to work in the restaurant/bar/shop. Two are a couple from New Zealand, (just met them this morning), one is from Scotland, and the other is her cousin from Australia! They have all moved into the flat above the Spar shop, so not only is it fairly crowded up there again, it seems to be a South Pacific haven!! The blue house will soon be emptier (which is a happy day as there's only one bathroom/shower at our place), with Agni and Gitana leaving for Lithuania on Saturday and Lisbeth leaving for Fife on Sunday. But we're sure that new faces will soon be seen around our place as well.
Dan has had an interesting invitation for today. Yesterday, while working in the bar, he got talking with Tim, a music major from the Abbey, who had heard about his amazing violin skills. This prompted an invitation for Dan and Katie to visit the Abbey this evening to try a violin and maybe the piano??:) Needless to say, we are both very excited about this!
The first day of our work here, we both worked for the 40th wedding anniversary of a minister from Bunnessen (Mull) named Syd and his wife Edna. Syd is often in the bar, drinking ginger beer, or on the bus, so he is a familiar face around here and knows both Dan and Katie by face. One of the coolest things about Syd is that the first time Katie saw him, she saw somebody else completely. Syd could be a mirror image of Katie's grandfather on her Mom's side. He has a similar personality as well with his joking and jovial outlook on life. Syd was sitting at the bar the other evening and Katie was working in the restaurant humming along with the music on the stereo. It was the hymn tune 'Melita', which is Dan's favourite hymn. While she was doing this, Syd was listening and made a comment about it, to which Katie replied, 'well, I like Melita, besides, it's Dan's favourite hymn'. Syd remarked, 'you seem to know a lot about hymn tunes and such', and Katie replied, 'Well, I should, as I was a church organist for some years back in Canada'.:) At that point, customers walked in and she had to go back to work. But not before Syd said, 'Oh really, are you working here tomorrow?' She had to rush off. So, Syd stopped by the next day (Saturday) and asked again if Katie was working at 12:30 on Sunday. Sadly she was, but when she mentioned it to Sheila, she was told, she might be able to get an hour or two off to go and play the Organ that Syd has available to him. Needless to say, she's quite excited about that and we'll see where that goes.
More stories to share and pictures too next week. Dan's tide study is going well and the moon photos, well are unique. More practice and study are required!
posted by Daniel Pergau | 8:59 a.m.
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