Sometime around April, in a fit of excitement and enthusiasm, I moved stuff out of what will be the media room (to be filled with consoles and gadgets) in preparation for getting it looking good. Or more realistically getting it looking like it has been decorated in the last twenty years, not much we can do just yet about the two types of carpet that decorate the floor. But, just as I was about to start sugar-soaping the walls and filling the manifold cracks and holes, spring hit the garden like a dose of growth hormones and I was forced to spend what seems to have been the entire summer outside nervously grappling powertools and hateful brambles. The media room has languished, bare and unused apart from Ula’s frequent flings onto the beanbag. During that period it has loomed large in my guilty conscience, and as a result the apparent work has grown ever bigger as I procrastinate or forget to get the tools and just get on with it. Well, no more. Islay forced me to pick up bucke...