The boys are home, hurrah!

This is their first day back at school for the winter term. I get them up at 6am by mistake (having forgotten all about the BST to GMT change). It has been raining all weekend and the yard is several inches deep in water. I try to start the Landrover and it responds with a pathetic cough, a dull whirr then silence. Dismal.

The upside now that it is officially winter is that the school bus comes to the bottom of our track instead of just to the nearest main road. So we all run through squalls of rain leaping around the muddy puddles and reach the bus, which is by now reversing up our track. “Would you like a lift to nursery with Fenning?” are the bus driver’s words as I open the side door. So in those few minutes of watching us run down the track she has worked out what is wrong and how she can help. Her thoughtfulness lifts my flagging spirits.

Fenning is delighted: he has never been on the school bus before. He counts the seats, counts the windows, counts the other children and attempts to count the time left until he’ll be in Primary One and on this bus every day. The concept of ten months is hard for a four-year-old so I try telling him that it will be after next summer. In this weather the concept of “summer” is quite hard for both of us. He is not quite so pleased with the speed with which I deposit him at his nursery and leap back on the bus for a ride home (luckily the driver is also a near neighbour).

By amazing good fortune my AA membership is still in date (it has usually just lapsed when my vehicles break down). At 10am the AA tells me that their Kirkwall representative will be with me by 10.40am. “Kirkwall is an hour and a half away by boat and the next boat is not until this evening”, I feel compelled to mention. But the telephonist merely repeats that their mechanic will be with me in 40minutes. I am intrigued. Perhaps the AA has a speedboat service for awkward places like this, or has sussed time travel.

While I am waiting for the AA spacecraft (or whatever) to arrive I decide to tackle the blocked drain in the yard. I suspect that the drain is under an old Belfast sink that is propped on bricks under the yard tap. The sink proves to be astonishingly heavy, the submerged flagstones which I am standing on prove to be very slippery and my left welly proves to have sprung a leak. The rain descends with renewed vigour. I seek refuge in the house, only to discover that the porch roof is leaking. At some point this will become a good day.

At 10.30am one of the island mechanics arrives having had a phone call from the Kirkwall garage. Mystery solved and no UFO’s involved. The Landrover’s problem turns out to be a flat battery and the culprit a hopelessly loose fan belt. So that’s what has been whining at me for the last few weeks. Well – I have never pretended to be any good at car maintenance.