Location: West Coast, Scotland (The Highlands)
Date: 9/03/26 Monday morning
Condition: Damp, caffeinated, and rushing for the ferry.
8:00 AM. The Highlands are still waking up, but the kettle is already screaming.
Monday is “Postal Day.” I’ve got 28 orders on the table this morning. That might not sound like a lot to a big corporate warehouse, but when you’re hand-picking every stem and checking every leaf for health, 28 is a mountain.
First job: Printing the postage stamps, then straight to my five 3D printers. I get them loaded with filament and leveled. These machines will be humming all day long, churning out custom orders and accessories that I’ve designed to solve the problems I’ve seen in tanks over the last six decades.
Then, it’s straight to the plant room.
Before a single plant goes into a bag, I do the “Soggy Walkthrough.” I check every tank. I’m looking for new growth, checking the water clarity, and doing the morning maintenance. If a plant doesn’t look 100% “hardened” and ready, it doesn’t leave the shed. Simple as that.
Fast forward two hours and three strong coffees later, and the table is a sea of green. I’m almost ready for the run.
Living out here on the West Coast is beautiful, but it’s not exactly “Amazon Prime” territory. Our village Post Office has one—and only one—collection. If I miss that van, I’m in trouble.
The alternative? I have to load the boxes into the car, drive down to the slipway, and catch the ferry to get to the main post office in Fort William. That’s a two-hour round trip just to get your plants and printed gear into the mail system.
It’s a bit of a scramble, and my boots are usually soaked by the time I hit the road, but there’s something honest about it. Your plants aren’t sitting on a conveyor belt; they’re sitting in the passenger seat of my car, crossing a loch to get to you.
Time to move. I can hear the ferry horn.
