The 'jingly jangly' friend

I have been all out of sorts. The children went back to school a week last Thursday. The whole laid back life of lazy days, outings to beaches, visits from friends, and the endless freedom that only the long summer break really brings, has been kick started into a bustling routine of school bags, packed lunches, buses, and then silence, as the last one heads out of the door. The house feels so empty, that is until they come bursting through the door again at 4.00pm, leaving a trail of school bags shoes and discarded instruments in their wake. I hate it when the schools go back, especially the first few weeks, when everyone is adjusting once again to the routines that school life brings.....

The happy farmer took me out to a distillery for lunch to cheer me up, last week . It was a ‘mizzly’ week, with drizzle and low lying cloud, days when it doesn’t quite know whether it is summer or autumn. It was quiet travelling over to the distillery, no squabbling children in the car, arguing over which band we should be listening too, or moaning that we were heading out at all, we did miss them…..

The old kiln café was bustling with tourists, still enjoying their holidays. The island still has that lovely ‘holiday’ feel about it, just unfortunately for some, the holidays are definitely over. The café has a fantastic atmosphere; it is situated in one of the distillery warehouses, and has an old flagstone floor and a high ceiling of huge, solid, oak beams.

We had to wait a while to get seated, the happy farmer leaning against one of the old steel posts, threatening to start chatting to people, hoping to make them ‘slurp’ that soup a little quicker, and hurry off out, so we could get a seat. I managed to persuade him to stay put while I browsed the array of drams, in bottles of various ages and cask strengths, woollen pullovers, scarves and paintings on sale.

Once seated, the menu looked appetising, and just as our order arrived so did our ‘jingly jangly’ friend, that is his ‘blog name’ anyway, called thus, as he can never ever sit still, not even for a minute. He is a fascinating character; completely loop the loop, and great entertainment value, as well as being a good friend of ours. He arrived with some friends of his, so we all sat together. The friends were up from the Lake District, and are in charge of the company who are demolishing the Islay Hotel, which is now owned by our ‘jingly jangly’ friend. It is his latest and very exciting venture. Over the course of the next week the old hotel will be ‘raised to the ground’, apparently, finally all being pulled down at 10.00am next Saturday. The company doing the work have demolished a lot of these tall cooling towers around the country. It should be quite a sight, and will be a very welcome sight, as the hotel has stood in a dreadful derelict condition for many years now, proving a huge eyesore for all of the visitors and residents, this will very soon be a sight of the past. Our good friend has plans to rebuild the Islay Hotel and turn it once more into a thriving hub of activity at the heart of the island’s community.

We headed home, refreshed, and ready for the first child home to come racing through that door.

Until next time….