Confessions of a Clumsy Scot

I'm from Scotland, and I'm pretty clumsy. Go figure!

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Do what makes you happy. Taking the adult life one day at a time and enjoying the world around me

  • The start of being ‘slightly’ more self sufficient

    Back in May I planted a sh*t load of vegetable seeds and took over every window sill in my house (much to Deans annoyance). My thought was just to see what grew. I’ve never had much luck with seeds, or if they did sprout, they would last approximately two weeks and die.



    Much to my delight, I had so many sproutlings and then realised, I have to plant all these outside.
    I often have fantastic ideas but when it comes to acting upon them, I either forget, can’t be bothered or realise I’m very out of my depth. In this case it was the latter.

    Anyway, I got a pile of biggish plants pots, visited my local garden centre and filled my boot with compost and ten (yes, ten) Broccoli plants as my seeds didn’t come to anything (I may have forgot to water them).

    I strategically dug some holes in the ground to place my pots in, filled them with compost and repotted my little babies and spent an afternoon placing them and moving them before putting my net over the whole lot to keep the birds away.

    I spent about three weeks tending to them, watering them, weeding etc before I thought they weren’t coming to anything.

    I abandoned them.

    Tonight I was bored, grabbed some gloves and though I’ll at least pull out all the weeds and see what happens.
    Lo and behold, I found things!

    So I originally planted Broccoli, Spinach, Strawberries, Tomatoes and Carrots.

    I did think the carrots had died but when I pulled back weeds I found these little guys sticking out!


    I also thought the spinach had died and forgot about it. Very aggressively pulled the net off some plants before I realised, they were the spinach plants! Some snapped, some I’ve managed to replant so I’ll see what happens with those.
    I did get a few strawberries earlier on but I think these will be better next year!
    The tomatoes are sat in my kitchen window and the plants are growing amazingly however I still don’t have any buds but I’m hopeful!

    And my Broccoli is growing exceptionally well, I think they’ll still be a good few weeks off though!

    I’ve learned to be patient doing this and Its made me realise how hardy things can be so I think there will be a lot more to come!

    I’ll be looking at what I can plant for winter harvest now!

  • The monthly moan- Road Rage

    Bealach na Ba – The road to Applecross

    Road rage. In a nutshell, I have mad road rage.

    Now I like to think, I’m not a bad driver.
    But I do have a little bit of a short fuse.

    My drive to work in the morning should take less than five minutes, at the moment it can take about twenty. I don’t live in a city, or anywhere a motorway or dual carriageway. I simply get stuck behind someone driving at 10 miles an hour.
    I know you’re here on holiday, enjoying our amazing scenery but please if there’s someone behind you, pull over SAFELY.

    Also Potholes.
    I’d really recommend avoiding those. Some are about a foot deep and you’ll almost certainly burst a tire, buckle a wheel or damage your suspension. If you can’t go round it, stop and crawl over them, you’ll thank me in the long run.

    D runs his own garage, but it’s small and he doesn’t do breakdowns but every weekend when our local breakdown companies are busy he will get at least ten calls asking for him to come and change a tire.

    Welcome to Scotland, our roads are horrific (well at least on the west coast).

    Also although our roads are narrow, you can definitely pass most vehicles without stopping or having to mount a pavement unless it’s a lorry. In fact even two campervans or vans in general can pass safely, just keep to your own side and have some common sense.


    Single track road? That’s fine, again just drive to the conditions and KEEP LEFT! Please don’t stop in a passing place on the right. Stop on the road and the car coming towards you will pull into the passing place on the left.

    The A9 road in Scotland – One of the busiest roads you might drive on

    Thank you for reading my Ted talk, I just needed to get that off my chest.

  • They should really tell you to save when you’re young.

    My first gripe with the grown up world, is the cost.

    I’ve been working since I was thirteen, and truthfully have been awful with money since the day I started earning it.
    I really wish someone told me back then, just how expensive like would turnout to be and to save at least a little bit.

    I left school when I was seventeen, with nothing to show other than a D in Higher English (which I still count as a pass, though anyone official would say it isn’t). I went to do hairdressing in college, and although I loved my time in college, I knew that wasn’t what i wanted to do with my life. I was still working in the same hotel at this point that I started working in when I was thirteen along with working at my local horse riding centre. I adored this job, and I thought about pursueing a career with horses in some way but knowing I didn’t want to leave Skye, this realistically was never going to be an option for me. When the pandemic hit, I left this job and started working with my Dad who was in my ‘bubble’ as an apprentice electrician, and I loved it. The first two years of my apprenticeship were a bit all over the place because of Covid but having now finished my training, I’m glad I stuck with it. I left my hotel work at the end up the 2022 summer, simply because with working two jobs, I was getting taxed so much it wasn’t justifiable.

    In December 2021, I moved in with my boyfriend and out of my parents home. Reality hit me…
    Living is expensive. Twelve quid for washing powder? A fiver for a pack of 12 meatballs? Then the bills? You could literally not use any electricity for a whole week and still get charged. I know the standing charge isn’t much, but it’s a totally useless fee that we all have to pay.

    Council tax? I’d love to see where that goes. Obviously in this instance, each region is different but I’m loathed to pay council tax because none of that money get spent locally but I won’t get into politics here.

    We all make the joke about schools teaching kids about tax returns, VAT etc but I genuinely think this should be a reality. Get the kids ready for reality. Even a couple of classes over the course of the year to know what to expect when you leave home. What do you have to pay? How do you budget? Make sure you keep an eye on tax? Basically stop throwing kids into the deep end and watching them drown and making them go to University just to get them into debt.

    There’s so much more I could write here, but I fear I’ll get political or basically just make myself look like an idiot, so I’ll leave it there for today.

  • Dear Diary

    I’m still finding my feet and trying to deicide what to write about here, so I thought I’d do a little series of almost Diary entries, to help me write and give you an incentive into my day to day life.

    Covering the last week, I haven’t felt this whole and content in a while yet I feel SO burnt out. My weekend was surrounded by live, friends, rugby and just laughs.

    After another really hot day at work, I went paddleboarding with a friend for the first time in two years. Having had about ten days of 24°+ I was desperate for some kind of tan. I don’t think I’m vain or anything, and won’t fake tan but considering I look like a cross between Caspar the friendly ghost and a vampire, a little bit of colour would be welcome. Nothing. Not even a burn.

    Saturday, I had the same thought process. I was traveling a six hour round trip to watch my boyfriend play Rugby, and with another scorcher of a day at 26° I wore shorts and a tank in the hopes I’ll get some sort of tan, refused to even put SPF on thinking ‘even if I burn, it’ll at least turn to tan?’Again, nothing. However the day was more than just me trying to get a tan. It was my boyfriends teams last game of a very long season, and even though they didn’t win the game, they played an absolute blinder. Considering they were three players short of a full starting team, they were two tries and two conversions up within 8 minutes so there was plenty of smiles all round.

    Post game, we had the three hour drive back home, to give us half an hour to get ready. So quick cup of coffee, fed the dogs, threw on an a dress (obviously D, my other half put on a suit) and down the village for our end of season Rugby awards night! Belly laughs from the get go, cheers, smiles and lots and lots of drink all round. An inflatable dachshund, banana, big baby and a mouse costume were given to those who had disputed their fines for the season (our club does fines for things such as forgetting your kit, turning up late for matches or training etc to put money into a kitty for our end of season night out). And they all wore those costumes round the village until everyone went home.

    My highlight to be honest was watching D pick up Captains player of the season, which I think was well deserved but also a very close call between some of the lads.

    Sunday was very much more of a chilled out day, little bit of a lie in, in the morning, watched the qualifying from Saturday for Formula 1 before taking my youngest pup, Macey, out for a walk and let her splash about in the sea to cool off before getting an ice cream (obviously I shared some with Macey). Back home to watch some football then the Formula 1 race, which if I’m being honest I did fall asleep for a few laps of! Few chapters of my book then to bed. We did do a little bit of gardening but at what point of the day that was, I honestly don’t remember! Although when you’re in the garden, you don’t get much done because Macey just wants you to play with her the whole time, so that was my priority to be honest since I’d been away from them all of Saturday (the dogs are my babies, and my entire world). Don’t worry, I did have a friend playing and watching them on Saturday!Monday was back to work, which wasn’t overly exciting. Just back to a new house locally that I’m wiring which is almost finished. The good weather was a good excuse to get all their outside lighting done.Home for dinner before heading back out the door to lifeboat training. Training was just going over some fire drills and man overboard procedures and allowing all crew members to have a go at helming. Although the weather was nice, there was quite a swell so that a good learning curve in terms of boat handling. Back home to do a little more reading, watched the penultimate episode of ‘The Last of Us’ with D before heading to bed.

    The weekend passed was about as interesting as my weekends get and although I really enjoyed it, I’m still knackered, especially since I don’t tend to do well with heat. I’m glad of a slightly cooler day today and an evening off tonight, although I might try and get a gym session in.I thought this post would be a good insight into me, my interests and my life just a little.Very much some rambling going on though so I do apologise!But thank you for taking time to read!

    Ellie x

  • A little about me!

    Well Hello!

    Well hello there!

    I though my first post should be a little introduction to me and what this is all about.
    My name is Ellie, and I live and work on the stunning Isle of Skye on the west coast of Scotland. I live with my boyfriend and two doggies, Mac who is a border collie x kelpie and Macey who is a full border collie.
    I’m on my journey to ‘adulting’ if ya like! I’m attempting to grow my own fruit and veggies while I get back into cooking and baking. I’m also trying to get my nutrition back on track while I get into a gym routine and I though if I’m growing my own foods, I’ll be more encourage to cook some cool things!
    I also love reading and writing, so I though this might be a good outlet so I’m not rambling to my boyfriend and friends too much!
    My doggies are my world and I’m trying to encourage myself to be outdoors more often as this is where they’re happiest, and I’m learning that’s where I’m happiest too. I’m an electrician to trade, and I’m looking at going back to Uni part time to get my degree in Electrical Enginering.
    If I’m not at work, then you’ll probably find me in the garden, in the garage with my boyfriend, in the gym or out on the water somewhere.

    I’m sure you’ll get to know me as we go, but thank you for taking the time to read!

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