Sunday began as usual with black coffee and poached eggs on toast. Island eggs from tartan hens and sold from a roadside box. Then I drive the switchback into town (too big a word for it) to meet visiting friends for coffee and a load of chuckles. En route, I meet nobody, but my return loop-the-loop is halted many times by oncoming tourists with big smiles, because it isn’t raining and the air is soft #almost sunkissed, and because neither of us fancy falling into that pothole to our left. It’s a sort of nervous smile to be honest, on their part, that morphs into a new moon of relief when neither of us do. Home again and a short while till we need to leave for a lunch date with old mates, in a high hill house overlooking a bay – a wide curve of glitterwhite sand, that tongues out into the Great Atlantic. She is in good humour today. Little laps of salty clear flop onto the beach, no loud crashing, and as pin people wander, dogs bound after balls, frisbees and seagulls.

Lunch is a full roast dinner and when it’s finally demolished my belly expands like Christmas. We tease and laugh and admire each other across the big pine table, upon which there isn’t even room for so much as a walnut between the plates of delicious food. The warm fuzzy follows us home again, whereupon I lasso the small dog and waddle out for a short walk, giving her enough time to bark at everything; a blackbird, two sheep, the estate gardener felling a diseased horse chestnut and other things I cannot see and doubt she can either. It’s a small dog thing, this barking, infuriating during a roadside conversation but quite intriguing too. Perhaps she is allocated a certain number of barks per day, and, what with us being heavily lunched for 2 hours whilst she remains at home, she hasn’t quite fulfilled her bark quota. By 7pm I am barely able to stay awake and retire to bed at 8. Tonight, I think, I will sleep the whole night through, unless that nice lady from Edinburgh gets the red light flash and makes contact. I wake, ready for the new day at 11pm. Hallo God, I say, as I float back into the room. I always say that on waking, just to let him know that I know he’s there. It’s reassuring. I lie down again but sleep is a fickle friend this night. Waking a second time at 1am (hallo God) and then at 2am (ditto) I decide to get up and do something – quietly, needless to say. So here I am. A nice mug of tea steams beside me, although I laugh at the unnecessity of that adjective (quietly). Who on earth would make a nasty mug of tea? My thoughts are all about the lovely day with friends and pothole avoidance and smiles and roast pork with all the trimmings; of soft air and little waves and the Lowry folk on the glittersand.

Tomorrow……no, today……will bring whatever it brings. I know that I am always given no more than I can manage, never too much, although I may consider it way too much when it marches through my door. I have extraordinary stamina, some of it bequeathed from my mum, some of it learned during the days of Island Wife when the days were many miles long and mine were the feet for the running of them. Not being asleep is really just being awake and being awake is an exciting thing. I can always snatch a mid-day doze if needs be. The truth is, Life bubbles through my veins and I never was very good at being a grown up. ‘ Over enthusiastic, with too vivid an imagination’ was written on my school report, not once, but many times, as something requiring immediate attention, preceding a subsequent course of action. It smiles me now, but back then, well below the age of consent, I agonised about it. Did I need surgery, or locking up, perhaps? When such nonsense was laid down on a report of one of my children, it made me laugh. Good! I told the downcast youngster. Ignore it. the teacher is just jealous.

Soon, I will wander back to bed and give sleep another chance, but, if it won’t come, I will read the beautifully written words of another with far too vivid an imagination and move into their story. With a bit of luck, it will be dawn the next time I surface to greet God and another marvellous day.

That’s me. I thought I might have grown out of it by now, this urge to run/fly/burst into song at inappropriate moments. But no. When I look at the width, breadth and length of the world outside my window I want to be a part of every moving second. I can hear a bird, one whose song I don’t recognise. Where is it? I want to go find it right now, even if I haven’t yet pulled on my boots. I want to watch the tide rise and fall, to be a part of it. I wonder what it is like to be a mermaid or a fairy or another of those who live in the Otherness. I want to sparkle beside the stars, feel the intense cold of outer space, get as close as I can to the sun or to fly down a black hole. When geese lift, I lift too. When a tree is felled, I hear it cry out. As new buds burst into flower, I can sense the joy of the mother plant, and see her smile. Sometimes all these connections exhaust me. After all, I have enough to think about down here on the good solid earth without Otherness swirling tantalisingly through my limitations.

I don’t want to go shopping in Glasgow, nor do I want to knit with other women, however much I respect all women for the lives they are required to live. I don’t want the latest this or that, but I do want to buy something huge and wonderful for someone I love. I care not for a new sofa nor a new gadget to make my life easier, some bit of kit that requires a plug socket and fatling space on the kitchen counter. I must be weird. Perhaps I should have been a bird or a volatile planet, new to human eyes. I am open to the idea of a parallel universe, of Time shifting sideways when we all think she can only move forward or back. But, in truth, the worldly limitation of our thinking, our understanding, irks me. Although I could not stand my ground on any argument for Otherness, I know it is there. Although I cannot actually see fairies or mermaids I know they are there, for if there is really no Otherness, no dimension we cannot see, but only sense, then, well, gosh, how flipping dull!

A choice of belief, however, is not quite what I am getting at. I was born with spontaneous crazy running through my veins. Sometimes, it takes control of me and my inner parent needs to rein me in. What I consider possible is, very probably, impossible and could well be hazardous to health. But, and there is a but, if this gift of lunacy is for me, there will be a purpose to it. At the very least, our make up is a finite thing, held in by skin and bones, and sensible boots. They say we should keep our feet on the ground and our heads in the clouds. I like that, but it’s a tricky balance to maintain when all I want is to be up there among those clouds, boots an all.

I meet like-minded people from time to time, and, at others, I meet the flicker of spontaneous crazy in another’s unguarded moment. So, there are a few of us about. I’ve never asked how they manage to be sensible humans with the odd nod to spontaneous crazy, often well imprisoned in their past. They have ‘dealt’ with their restlessness, but not I. It wakes with me and messes with my sleep. It walks with me through an ordinary day, but is not a quiet companion. It picks and pokes at me and it has a voice and a persona. My mum always said she had no idea where I came from and I know well how flummoxed she was around me when this spontaneous crazy took the wheel.

On listening again to my dad playing Jazz and Blues as I drive Maz (sensibly) along the single track roads, I know he had this spontaneous crazy in him. He never read music but taught himself to play and there were so many wonderful parties where we all witnessed the depth and length and breadth of his natural talent. He lived in his sensible boots, had to with a family of five children and all the responsibilities of being the wage earner, but when that work was done and the candles were lit and the drinks poured, he became himself, became one with the keys of that honkytonk keyboard. I never asked him how he kept in balance with the sensible life and it’s too late now, but when he waxed lyrical about the Cairngorms and other wild places, or wrote his powerful poetry and let me read it, I met him there. Not asking him bothers me now, but back then it just wasn’t ever going to be a conversation.

So….….Dad…..just to let you know…..Spontaneous Crazy lives on. And, there’s a tree down there by the loch that is about to show a green light. I need to walk down to pay my respects. I’ll take you with me.

The colour of his wings, black, fine-tipped, fast moving. He skims the brackish water, rises, then slides down again through the sky. And, he is gone. A diver? I don’t know. He was too fast and I’ve lost my bird book. I could feel the push between his snowy chest and the crisp water, cold, not bothering him, gun metal grey and lifting in tiny lumps, not one of which he damaged. Cold, grey, heaving with life and always moving. In and out. Out and in. The endless warp and woof of a body of water, unconfined and yet soldiered in by granite and basalt, its only escape forward into the belly of the great Atlantic through a narrow rock-peppered slew of water the size of a big snake.

Cloud light dancing along the edges of the faraway hills, still daft with winter boredom, all browns and yellows, waiting for enough trust to push out green. Not yet, not yet, for there was a snatch of frost last night and Aurora played fireworks in the dark. Hold and breathe, be patient. Let time go by as Time always will, whether we like it or not. Sudden sunshine and a jumper too many. The heat stabs at the woollen fibres and yet in seconds, it is cold again.

My little grand-daughter and I walk to the Fairy Woods. I don’t bother to tell her that all woods are fairy woods. Let’s keep the secret in a silent gasp of excitement, trammelled up in sensible Granny Talk. She breathes. She stops her chatter about carrot sticks and school out for Easter. We find wild garlic and I crush a leaf for her to smell. She says it’s disgusting, but Mummy will love it. I show her the cloak of it beneath the bent-backed hazels and the birch all silver and knotted, witch nests hanging from old limbs like spiky Christmas baubles. The moss rises in delicate fern across the huge rocks and there are poke holes dotted across the surface. Fairy homes, I tell her, and she gasps (quietly so as not to frighten the fairies). She goes to stick her finger in and I stop her. Fairies are secretive I tell her, and they bite. She is in awe and I am on a roll here. This is my childhood, all over again. She finds an acorn, still sheathed. Can I gift it to a fairy? She asks, and my heart melts. Of course, darling. We move on along the deer paths, empty now until the dark falls like a safety net upon this land. We find another fairy hole with a primrose blooming right outside the entrance. The yellow petals are wide and smiling at the sunlight. With tiny fingers, and on tippytoe, she carefully presents the acorn, just at the entrance.

The sea-loch vibrates, as if some god has thrown the wind down. It skitters the surface, lifting it like a tune, just beginning, the words yet to be gathered up from the moment. The song itself flew out to sea, for we never heard it. And yet, as we wandered home, all quiet and thinking, the warmth of her little fingers wrapped around my own, sending bubbles through my old heart, I found the song, and so did she. Let’s have a singing competition, she said. Ok, how does it work. Well I sing first (of course) and then you sing.

Off you go, I said. Well it’s a Halloween song, she said. Are you alright with that? Well, considering we just saw witch nests and hushed ourselves around fairies, I reckon I’m up for it. Let’s hear it. She began.

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star……

Who will buy this wonderful morning?

I will. Actually, it’s free, no cash required, but not all of us will see it. It isn’t sunny, although there is just enough blue up above to make a pair of sailor’s underpants. However, my point is not about the state of the weather. It’s about the privilege of waking up at all.

I wake, as usual, at 05.30 which, to my delight, now manifests the hour at 06.30, a much more reasonable time to awaken. Thoughts arrive alongside me as I rise into the day, thoughts of how lovely it was to be invited for a roast chicken dinner with family last night; how cute Maz looks, parked prettily in the driveway; how the first bird is waiting for me to throw out his breakfast and how the faithful tide swells the sealoch. Green is coming and it becomes greener every day. The redwings chatter in the larch branches and the sparrows, huggled down inside a bush, sound like women at a market, all talking at once.

The little dog tumbles down the stairs and greets me as if I had been away for months. This, I decide, is how to welcome in a morning. If I had a tail, I tell her, I would be wagging it too. I make coffee and bask in the smell of freshly ground. The morning light catches hold of my Mother and Child statue and she glows, her face calm and loving as she looks down at the baby in her arms. I will buy myself some flowers today, flowers grown on the island, and arrange them in a pretty vase for my own pleasure. I will work more on my current tapestry which, if I’m honest, looks like it has no idea where it’s going. No matter, for it will show me how it wants to look, eventually. All I need to do is listen to that voice inside when no colour or shape is clear to me. Red, now, the voice says. Red? No, surely not. Yes. Red. It matters not that I disagree, preferring more of this green or perhaps some blue, as long as I don’t override the voice with my own. My own has let me down often enough before.

The trees are moving now as the wind picks up. Finches balance on the wobbly overhead wires whilst siskins swing like crazy on the nyjer seed feeder. An early plumber drives past on his way to somewhere up the track and a neighbour strides by attached to a trotting dog. The woodburner crackles and spits as it fires into a warmth that will make no matter of any outside weather. It is enough – enough to have woken to another morning, to be able to see, to touch, to smell, to hear the earth, or this side of it anyway, stretch and yawn into life; to be fortunate enough to choose what I will do this day; to be free and upright, to have enough to eat, to be warm, to be loved.

And all I have to be is thankful for every single thing in my life, even the things I might not choose to share my life with. There is a purpose and a time for everything even if I cannot see where any of it is going. Just knowing this, as a truth, sets me free. I may not have the blueprint but I do have this day, this morning, this awakening, this chance to wag my tail.

I’m buying.

Each time the chance of a break comes along, I am both excited at its coming and full of the desire for it to go away, to not require my attention or my attendance. Living in this little bubble of mine, or ours, is comfortable and uncomfortable at the same time. I often yearn to pop it, to look out onto the larger world a-bustle with people and encounters, noise and hurry, music and conversation. Then, when the dateline is crossed, I feel like a little girl on her first day of school. What do I pack for this huge adventure, to a B and B about 8 miles away? When shall I leave? Could someone please take this cup away from me?

It puzzles me. So, I decide to think about said puzzlement, to bring it right here to my feet, where they stand, booted up and ready for another day inside the bubble. Where does my confidence go, I wonder? Why do I pack my jiggetty red boots and then see them, lying there among the clean jeans and the same old tee-shirts like a piece of a different jigsaw puzzle that will never fit? I take them out again. That’s better. All the pieces fit now. This is what I wear every single day after all. I know where each piece goes by heart. Eyes’ closed, I would know each one just by the feel of it. Red boots with Cuban heels have no place here. They go back into the dark of the cupboard and I can hear them sigh with disappointment. I’m disappointed too. What happened to my rebel streak? Is it gone for ever?

When I am somewhere else with my ordinary stuff, I pause for a moment in regret. I could easily have packed the jiggetty boots, the dress, the leggings, a bit of jewellery, a ring or two, for fun, just for fun. But I didn’t and now look at me…….I am here but they are not. They are back home in the dark, inside the bubble, and so, it seems, am I.

How secretly and silently my inner me, my confidence out there in the world trickles away like a dripping tap. I don’t even see, nor hear it leaving me. I just know it isn’t there when the chance of an escape shakes my hand and asks Shall We? In this life of caring, everything is simple enough in between the uprisings and skirmishes. Routine, essential for someone with dementia is easily maintained. I do the same things every day at more or less the same time in more or less the same order. I found an acceptable pattern, one that raises no surprises or sudden movements or elevated noise, and hold tightly to it. I’ve done so for many years now, Sometimes I erupt like Vesuvius but not so’s you’d notice. It happens inside.

I think so often of other carers, many of whom live on this very island, who have yet to find their way into the puzzle, to make the pieces fit. I remember my own struggle at the start of this and I ache for them. I am one of the lucky ones, knowing what I know, finding the confidence to accept that I need regular forays into the scary old world and trying madly to hold on to the jiggetty red boots part of me. I remember driving into the village, turning around and driving right back out again because I just couldn’t face anyone. I remember staying home, hiding, not answering calls, praying I would meet nobody on my dog walk in the wild. And, I also remember making myself go into the shop for broccoli or bin bags and finding a real live adult with a smile on his or her face, arms open for a hug and the chance of an interesting conversation, one that didn’t focus on the demise of dementia.

Nothing in life is too big to bear. That’s what I say. I have all the right bits of the jigsaw in my hands, even if the picture might change at any moment. Athough we carers are required to live inside a bubble, we can access a wealth of support. We can sustain friendships, ask for help with care, keep our eyes on the horizon, even if it is only an imagined one, at times. When I thought that I could do it all by myself, I created my own loneliness. I didn’t listen to those in the know who had seen all this before. I’m fine, I said. I’m tough, I said. I can do this without you, I said.

I don’t now. Now I see clearly that this caring role requires others and I must let them in. Accepting support is not admitting failure. It is bringing warmth to the cold, red jiggetty boots to the light, colour, music, laughter and fun into the home. This is not a life sentence, although it is, but instead the chance to share a load. The care support on this island is superb. It is kind, full of knowledge, experience, good humour and friendship. I am, as I said before, one of the lucky ones. I have heard some awful tales from other carers in other parts of the country who feel abandoned and very scared.

Dementia is like a storm brewing in the distance. It is one of the most common diseases and one that kills. Whole families fall apart because of it. But not mine. My family and my care support team are rock solid, strong, sad, supportive, solution-oriented and ablaze with humour. Together we find the spoonful of sugar. I wish it were the same for all carers, but I know that’s fairyland thinking. All I can say is look for help, for support, an do it asap, unlike me. It is out there just waiting for all of us. We are not islands. We need each other and, just for the record, the next time I step out of my bubble, I shall force my flat feet into those jiggetty red boots, because I think that’s where my confidence is hiding.