Well, there goes another year and Am Fasgadh continues to be as busy as ever!
We have seen a few changes over the past year. We said goodbye to Eloise, Eli and Joshua, and we welcomed Caroline and Susie to the fold. We are still getting to know them both, but they have settled in wonderfully.
Caroline is fantastic at organising activities and seems able to turn her hand to almost anything. She has been keeping us busy with painting, latch hooking, sewing and even getting our hands muddy with some planting and gardening too.
Susie has taken over as the South End Project Worker and she has been bringing the bus up weekly so that the South End folks can come up to Portree for the day if they wish.
Sadly, we also experienced a number of losses this year. We said goodbye to Chris, Alison, Christabel, May, Cecil and Helen. They have all left a huge hole in the Am Fasgadh family and we miss seeing them pop in and hearing their voices on the phone.
And now for the exciting news — we have a bus! We have a bus!
That means trips out galore and we have certainly been making the most of it. We have travelled here, there and everywhere — to the pantomime, the ballet, Oban, alpaca visits, Inverness, Staffin, Dunvegan and plenty of local walks too. Having the bus on our doorstep has been amazing, giving us the freedom to head out whenever we want. We are incredibly grateful to the Highland Cross for gifting us the bus.
We even enjoyed overnight stays for the pantomime, the ballet and our trip to Oban. On the way home from Oban, we visited Jane Isaacson’s farm, where we met her Highland cows. Jane kindly opened her café especially for us and treated us to tea, coffee, scones and shortbread — all absolutely delicious! She also showed us how the ice cream is made, although sadly we were just a little too early in the year to sample any.
We already have plenty more ideas for future trips, including a night away in Lewis, a beach day, a trip to Eden Court for a musical and of course the pantomime again.
Life at Am Fasgadh continues to be busy every day. There is always a game of Scrabble, Boggle, chess or Bananagrams to keep us out of mischief! We continue to hold monthly meetings to make sure everyone is involved in the day-to-day decisions. We also make good use of the suggestions box, discussing everyone’s ideas together and deciding whether to move forward with them or perhaps revisit them later.
Those of us with green fingers have also been helping Caroline with the allotment, which is slowly but surely beginning to come together.
Earlier this year, we had great fun welcoming a film crew from Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, who spent nearly a week with us filming life at Am Fasgadh and interviewing members and staff who wanted to take part. They created three short films and we will be choosing our favourite to help support future funding applications.
Some of us are also going to volunteer at the Skye Half Marathon this year. They have always been very generous supporters of Am Fasgadh, so it feels good to be able to give something back.
We would also like to say a huge thank you to James, our volunteer cook, who comes in every week and makes us fantastic food.
Finally, we would like to thank all the staff for their support over the past year. We receive help with so many things — from bills, mobile phones, TVs and Alexas, to attending appointments, shopping, clothing, food, travel, Universal Credit and so much more. Many of us would struggle to manage these things on our own, so your support means a great deal to us.
Thank you all for everything you do.