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Sad to say Marcia died this morning after being flown off last night (Thursday). She moved to Coll shortly before I did, and helped introduce me to many people on Coll.

We’ve just had the dentist in again. He comes over from Mull twice a year in a big mobile surgery. This time they came for four days instead of two, and as there were spare appointments I was recruiting patients. However it was just as well there was some slack in the queue as we had a power cut. Always irritating, but especially for the poor person halfway through their treatment! Fortunately all the drilling was done, so some temporary fillings went in until the power returned, although with the lights out the dental nurse was having to hold a torch in his mouth! And those chairs aren’t easy to get out of when they are tipped back!

There was a bit of a do for Ted’s retirement. Ted comes over to do sport at the junior school and is very popular with the kids. He had brought his guitar but he was a bit upstaged by a wonderful lady, now of Edinburgh, called Mabel, who really showed us how to ceilidh. We had a few Gaelic songs and some wonderful stories and recitations, as well as some songs in English. The Mull representative helped, as did our current ‘boy in blue’. I hope Ted enjoys his ‘retirement’, but I can’t see him having much free time.

Hi Sunny
I see a new business opportunity arranging dental checkups for tourists. Actually he only wants to do us Coll folk, and I think he is manically busy on Mull so probably won’t be adding Arran to his practice list.

Winter is definitely here, today I was due to go away for a short fortnight, and I’m still here. Too rough for the ferry! It was pretty wild, there was foam being blown all over the carpark. Loti was crawling along into the wind, then she turned the wrong way and probably made a very fast trip back to Oban. So I’ve lost two days holiday. Bother. Lots of visitors are also stuck here, but they only had to get back for work or school. The wind has dropped now, but I bet it’s mad again tomorrow.