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Since everything which could go wrong with the road seemed to have gone wrong we have been reduced to inventing ridiculous scenarios for the next delay. Unfortunately we weren’t radical enough! The tar came in on Sunday. We watched the barge heading towards the pier shortly after lunch. Later that night Paddy and the crew were spotted in the bar, so they stayed long enough to unload. Today I passed the tar boys at 7-15 moving the paver back up the road ready for the first delivery. At 11 they came in for cigarettes; they have to stop at ferry times to let the traffic through. They don’t like Mondays because the ferry is in at 11 and again at 1-15 which really cuts into the working day. At 2-30 I’m driving home, and meet the paver trundling back down the road, and it isn’t laying tar!! We have a duff load of tar and it isn’t ‘marrying’ in onto the gravel layer. The technical term is ‘scabby’! Apparently it won’t wear and the weather will knacker it! The boat isn’t coming back with another load until Saturday. The tar boys want to go home. Even promising them roast lamb didn’t raise a smile. On a good shift they can lay 1100 tons a day. Here it is taking a month. Colin’s birthday is getting closer and he may still be here.

Not a road story. We have a film crew in at the moment. They are filming wildlife on Coll, I think snipe and shooting are involved. It is for an internet-based company called www.countrychannel.tv. I tried to look at their last film on roe deer but the links weren't working. They are rather taken by the bath in room 2 and the view, so when the links get fixed the next film will include the view and the bath (probably empty). Film crews start work much earlier than the airport boys. There was no way I was making breakfast at quarter past five! I'm not sure anything is awake at that time unless George is walking home.

It was chucking down the wet stuff this morning, so being a complete wimp I drove from the hotel to the shop, and lo and behold, there was no queue for diesel. So I ordered £20 worth, and discovered I had no money in my work trousers and had to walk all the way back to the hotel to get some. I got soaked. You don't get much diesel for £20 on Coll. Petrol has just come down 10p a litre to £1-20, but diesel only dropped 2p to £1-28. Apparently it is because fewer people are flying because of the terrorists so there is a surplus of petrol, but not diesel. I thought planes used aviation fuel! The airport buy some diesel, but mostly they get a private delivery, so the fuel company isn't trying to make money out of them.
The film company were making a film called Wild about Coll. Yesterday (which was sunny and fabulous and I went to the beach) they cooked goose and snipe on a beach. The film should be viewable in December.
The road is making progress again. They laid 700 metres of tar yesterday from Arinthluic up to Gordon's peats. I might see if my car has five gears. Today has ground to a halt, it is too wet to roll type 1 gravel. The scousers aren't coming back and Barclay has left so it seems the job is nearly over. However several pallets of cement and lots of reinforcing came in on Monday's boat so work might be about to start on the terminal building.

Nothing is going right at the moment, except Colin had a very memorable birthday (which he probably barely recalls at all). The barge was due in on Thursday (his birthday), then Friday. This is the last barge, it is off to Shetland next. They decided to get lots of tar and go right through the village, then they were told they could only have 300 tons! Not enough. Then they were told the tar plant was broken. It must have got fixed because the barge came in on Friday with 630 tons of tar. It was a bit rough. They tied the barge up with 5 ropes on the front and 5 on the back. One broke and went whistling past Colin's ear. The ropes are about 4 inches in diameter, not small bits of string! The skipper decided unloading was too dangerous and headed back up the Sound. The boys went back to the pub to discuss Colin's birthday. The barge came in today. It was calm (relatively) and unloading started. Then something broke. They spent a long time trying to fix it but couldn't, so the barge went away again with most of the tar. The boys are back in the pub. I've beaten them all at pool so I left them playing darts. I actually think Tennents should sponsor them.
The Dalmally boys are heading west making good all the passing places. They are far too intellectual to spend hours in the pub, they were about to enter the quiz tonight instead.
I can get into fifth gear going west (it is downhill) but only fourth heading towards the village. In places the road is now wide enough to pass without using passing places or the verge, so I think it is a 'good thing', although it is acquiring lumps as the ground underneath relaxes after all the stresses of six-wheeler trucks trundling back and forth.

Yippee!!!! The tar machine is halfway through the village. Main Street / Shore Street have a shiny smooth layer of Tar. I'm not sure how far they are going, or whether it depends on how much is left, but since the airport is a 'prestige project' they are clearly hoping if the road looks good at the start (from the ferry) no-one will notice the cost-cutting at the airport end. Anyway, that is the end of the major hold-ups for me. The major problem are the cattle grids, the road height has increased but the grids haven't so don't approach too fast.

Tuesday was a dark day in the village. An electric pole caught fire and we lost power at ten o'clock. They managed to re-connect a few people but most of the village had to wait for Barry to come off the ferry and power was restored as Eastenders was starting (whatever time that is).

Out at the airport the foundations are being laid for the terminal. The main problem seems to be lack of water for making tea.

The military are back doing war-games. My peaceful bath was interrupted by a swarm (?) of jets practicing their turns. They use Tiree airport as a target for their bombing runs. I suppose ours isn’t on the map yet. Last night we were tempted to leave a giant message on the runway (which is still too short (allegedly)) so it could be seen by Google’s satellite. ‘Real ale here’ was the favourite, no prizes for guessing who was in. HMS Gloucester was cruising about a couple of days ago at breakfast time. She puffed out a lot of red smoke at one point. When it comes to ships she must be the kind that would be a tower block. Seen from the front she was very tall and thin, if the wind had got up I would have expected her to fall over.

The Dalmally boys have finished and gone. They were here right at the start just before Easter, it will be strange without them. They didn’t win the quiz but we let them take a small temporary reminder of Coll home with them. Only on Coll can you get a haircut on quiz night – beware of late nights on Carnan Road!

The Islay boys are away for some r & r, possibly even to dry out but they will be back next week. I’m not sure what has happened to winter but Coll isn’t getting any quieter. The terminal building has reached ground level. Apparently there is enough reinforcing in the foundations to build a 7-storey hospital, not a small timber ticket office. Next week the scaffolders come in.

Yup. This is an unapologetic blog praising Calmac, and why not? We are very quick to criticise them when they get it wrong.
We went away for the weekend (a Coll winter weekend is Saturday until Tuesday) for a house-warming between Fort William and Mallaig. The colours on the hills were amazing, and it was nice to see somewhere else with far too much water. We set the alarm for 3-45 am Tuesday morning and drove to Oban to join the queue of 16 vehicles heading to Coll. I stayed awake long enough to hear Captain Billimore (a legend in his own lifetime) welcome us aboard and briefly mention winds up to force 6 (a bit of a breeze, nothing to worry about). I did notice it seemed a bit rough, but I travel better lying down with my eyes shut so I stayed that way until the announcement came that we weren't going to land at Coll. The trip between Coll and Tiree is normally the roughest but it seemed OK. We tied up at Tiree and drove off the ferry so they could shuffle all the vehicles about, drove on poised to get off at Coll, and sailed straight past the green buoy and back to Oban. Apparently winds were 40mph, gusting 45, and not safe to dock. Meanwhile those mobile phone-literate people had been bothering the Calmac head office, so we drove off the boat, round the block and queued up in lane 4 to get back on the boat. We weren't guaranteed the wind would have dropped enough to let us land, but with the carrot of a free trip to Barra and South Uist if it hadn't I think most folk risked it. It was calm enough up the Sound to have a late lunch, chicken and leek pie, I might stick to the steak pie but it was alright. Out of the Sound it got rough, I reverted back to a horozontal position and listened to the waves breaking over the front of the boat. The direction must have changed enough because we docked OK and I was straight off the boat and back to work at 6-30. I spent most of the evening swaying about as the floor wouldn't stay still, even lying down it is possible to get sea-legs, and suffer back on dry land! So thank you to the Barra and South Uist folk, who didn't grumble at the extra journey time (or at least, not in my ear shot) and a huge thank you to Calmac for being able react to circumstances and adjust their schedules. Otherwise we would have been stuck in Oban until Thursday with nowhere to stay and shopping getting warm.

Meanwhile, here is a canape recipe, and very fiddly it is too. Take 100 cherry tomatoes, cut in half and take the seeds out. Take time out to discuss which way to cut them in half, it is very important when the intructions have come from someone who isn't present yet, but will be in time to notice we'd actually done it wrong! Put some pesto in each half tomato (my job), put half a tomato on a cocktail stick, then a piece of mozzarella or feta (I prefer mozzarella) and then the other half tomato. 99 more to do. This proved to be a great way to make some new friends but I am not doing it for a living. I ate several at the housewarming and they were 'a good thing' and stopped me eating too much shortbread, but probably weren't that effective at mopping up the fizz (it was a high class housewarming).