The Eggs-box and the blackerry

I've derived a good new way of fire-lighting. In winter, here, that becomes a necessary skill. When your wood-burning heater is elderly and has its air flue rusted to one position (and no I am NOT trying to fix it until summer. I don't want to have to replace it if I bust it, and doing so could take a while as it has to come over on the ferry.) When my chooks started laying, we found ourselves without many egg-boxes, so whenever we gave anyone eggs it would be on the 'egg box comes back, please' condition. And people being what they are, they put the egg-boxes in dark places, alone, and you know what? They bred. Multiplied prodigiously. And of course the chooks slowed down for winter, but the flow of egg-boxes coming to us did not. The one thing you don't do on the island is to say 'no' when people want to give you things or take you places -- because they will never offer twice. (My poor Indian friends - from a culture where it is polite to refuse the first two offers, in case the host was trying to be polite but really could ill afford it... had a culture shock). And we WILL need egg-boxes again. Just right now they're Ott. The other issue I have is old cooking oil - with one son allergic to seafood, I have to be very cautious about re-using it. It is however, basically diesel - not easily ignited but long burning. So the perfect firelighter is some old cooking oil poured into 4 squares of egg-box. I like to play with my eggs-box. And I have a blackberry too. And some raspberries. Frozen. Who says we live in the past?

Tomorrow we're (Barbs - via her job at the Doctor's rooms) and James and I, via her, going in to a do to meet the new Island doctor. We're a little nervous about this - Barbs will have to work with him, but that is minor, compared to fact that he is going to be the island's doctor. We were spoiled with Sonia and Biren, and Tony who has been locum-ing is a treasure, who understand Islanders and island life. It's a bit different to a mainland practice. It's an island. You can't just go to a different practice. And the Doctor has to live with a tight-knit, quite inter-related community who will affect his quality of life far more than any mainland community... because they ARE a community, and there are very very few things happen here that everyone doesn't know by nightfall.