Month: August 2025

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Island Blog – The Longtime

The rain is so loud I can’t hear Mark Knopfler. I have to turn him up and it takes me out of my chair, my finger pointy. I want to hear the lyrics. The rain challenges me. It thinks me. Well, actually it doesn’t. I’ve had a lifetime on the island meeting those two. The weather and me. The dynamic I know so well. Nature, storms, heavy rains, wild days and nights, so very many, the irritations, at first, then the fears. My husband heading out into the thing I want to silence and deaden, my boys too. Now, with a husband gone and my boys wise, seasoned and knowlegeable seamen, never sure about any sea nor ocean, and so far, securious, I can find some peace, althought a mother never does that well.

Everything is waggling, the overgrowth at this time of year, and I watch it. The louring sky is dank, empty, wondering what to do next. Sky white paused me coming back from a busy work day at the best cafe ever. So many lunches, bit voices, gentle askings, queues building, the Washeroo going like a dingbat, whatever that is. I was behind a learner driver coming home, wipers on speed. I clocked this and held back. I thought about the learner, and on these roads and at this time of year when most (it seems to me) tourists don’t reverse for whatever reasons. Here, just let me say, most single tracks follow the sheep tracks, and that’s flipping obvious. There are rocks and troubled grounds, bog and spill off. So, we, the islanders know this. Visitors don’t, and how would they? It can still piss me off, not that I’m proud of that. You head for a corner, one of 4, and you just know it’s clearthrough on island days. Not now. The reverse manoeuvre feels like a snake recoiling, and in this rain, unclear. I do it a few times as an oncoming vehicle stops dead and flicks on emergency lights. Oh dear.

I do care, I really do.

I also welcome winter. And that thinks me again (god help my thinks) Because and what Because? The time to rest, the pause of voices, requests, little roads with everyone pulling in because we know, the settle, the unwind, the emptiness, the wildness wide open, the longtime.

I love the longtime. I hate the longtime. T’is how it is.

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Island Blog – Just a Belief Away

You know that thing, when some thing happens about which you feel you can do no thing? The ordinary path, walked each day, a surety underfoot, possibly a foolish surety, suddenly twists into a knot you can’t undo and you’re down there looking up at the frickin hooha of it, with only the sky as guidance and in the wrong boots for a tricky climb. It can appear as if the world has got herself into that now because this situation (a peelywally name for it) means I can’t see beyond the knot. It’s huge and a definite halt in the skinny path, a blocking out of light, an earthly gasp.

Then, as hours go slowly by, each day like a foot-dragging teenager who doesn’t want to return to school, each night a tumble of sheets, the unwelcome dreams flensing skin, infecting thoughts which, so they tell me, just want a rest from this whole thinking thing, a little hope pirouettes in. Then a little more. Never have hours felt so bloody minded. They trudge like prisoners in chains, exhausted. I watch the raindrops, listen to the soft wind, walk through it, bat away sluggish flies, see the windburn on our trees, smell Autumn and there’s a welcome in this place and a lift. Autumn is here, a bit early, yes, but here nonetheless. The swing between that knot and the open sky proffering a higher view uplifts me, even if I am well stuck on the ground of it all.

I know all the platitudes. In my opinion, the lot of them should be removed from every voice. When disaster slam-dunks a person, any platitude, bar none, is offensive, and why? because the one who delivers has not taken time to think before speaking. Just saying.

So, although we are in the thicktwist of the thing, there is always the power of choice, and choice is a power. to decide to focus on hope, on a positive outcome, to visualise it, every damn minute. All a choice. I have met too many sinking souls who decide to sink. No matter the matter, no old creed residing, no matter the odds, nor the ends, Hope, God bless her, is just a belief away. Always.

And she is mine.

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Island Blog – When a Big Thing and the Oldish

Happens, in a family, suddenly, all are thrown into outer space. For a bit. It’s a few days in, now. And all of us are coming back down, thanking the whoevers for parachutes…..and they were there. It all suddened me, although I was on the outside of it all, as in not right there, but the shock waves on, way on, and not just throwing me into a right spin, but all of us, many of us, and we are many.

Once we land back down into the ordinary of our own lives, all we can do is think, wonder, pray, hope, and keep getting up, getting dressed, emptying the bins, cooking something for supper, make soup, walk the dog, clean the bathroom, that sort of ordinary, as we imagine, pushing unhelpful thoughts away.

In the trying to sort out some sort of regulation in our thoughts, which, by the way, still haven’t landed, we can founder on the rocks of the thing. It is a strange time. I know that I come back downstairs and then realise I am unclothed, not that it matters here in this wild place, but nonetheless, t’is an oops. I have to think before driving out in my wee mini, bless her fearless and loyal heart, who now, since the bump, is showing more signs of trouble. It thinks me.

An initial shock, a crash, a bump, a stopping, will not just be itself, or, at least, its first self. The future of the first smack has a voice. In the immediacy of our culture these days, I’m not sure this is fully understood, nor allowed. I know about the throwaway now. But I also know of the oldish, the way they could sit back after a massive crisis, eventually and obviously, and let go. We have done what we can, what we ever could, and now, we have no control. I like that way of being, of thinking.

Thank you, Oldish.

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Island Blog – A Speluncar Paradox

Blimey it’s hot. Even the stoics are wilting, including me, although I rarely confess to any such thing. And that thinks me, a lot. What is this inborn choice/need to always present upbeat no matter what the what or the whom? I spent this non work day with my thinks. We played think tennis together, the ball whacking over the net and back again. We both did a load of sweaty running about. The ball, the answer, said damn all, and no surprise there. Had I been that ball, that question, in this heat and being arse-whipped again and again, never mind the bouncing thing, I would probably have remained silent. Did we come to a conclusion? Well, no, although the match may have brought in a synergy because what I (we) realised is that I choose to be upbeat and also that I need my cave. There’s another also. I do not need to explain nor justify either, particularly the cave bit. I am human, chancing into weak, rising into brilliance. No, not weak. Bin that. If I always bring in the light, my choice, my need if you like, and my pleasure, then this cave choice is my safe hideout. Equally vital.

So, when I mourn for the lost children, for the wars which devastate ordinary lives, when corruption in high places decide the way the streets will or won’t move safely, when social media desecrates young trusting children, when lies are told in high places and those of us is ‘low’ places hear of them too late; when huge companies hide their truths, when weapons trade across oceans, hidden and politically permitted, when news comes too late, when everyone knows what’s coming, but if the sun shines and there’s a barbecue, a dance, a chance, a band playing, then everything’s ok. Isn’t it?

I am ready for my cave, my paradox, because tomorrow I will leap into the light I bring and spread it blooming everywhere.

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Island Blog – I’m with them

The sun. I can see it determinedly shoving the mist oot, as we say here. It’s early, coffee, look out, listen. I hear the yip yip of a sea eagle (such a ridonculous call for such a massive bird) somewhere over there, across the sea-loch, in the hiding trees. The gulls and crows wheel and dive around this heretofore invisible massivo, like a mob shrieking at a government official who’s life choices are in doubt. This big bird, however, is just doing a landing and rest thing, no corruption in sight, although, to be honest, if you were low on the food chain, it could feel like corruption. I can’t see it. The Bird. The Yips flee out, oot, between a frickin tensity of trees, all leaves and “look at how wide I am” but that massive and wily expanse of feather, body oils, strength, all-seeing eyes that focus, with that control of the wind, that precision, those click-into-action claws, the curvature of that beak , this Bird sees everything. Everything.

It thinks me, the bird in the tree thing, the one who can see everything, is and who isn’t bothered by hecklers, ground huggers, life stuckers, whilst the sky screechers wheel around you, or me, the ones who may never catch the wind and rise into the clouds, the ones who jeer, who taunt, who peck and point and who, in their mob belief feel safe, belonging to the part of an ‘acceptable’ whole. For me, the one out there, believing, or trying to, their own truth, braving up on a wobbly branch, holding whilst the cawing and shrieking gets tired of itself, which it will, and yet still doubting and thirsty, sticking true to the self they hope they know they are.

I’m with them.

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Island Blog -Dishwasher and Changial

As I load the wee feisty dishwasher for the nth time today, it thinks me. For a few days, this wee and faithful soul has made herself a feature, not because she performed to standard and without complaint, but the reverse. Coffee cups came out still coffee-ed, cutlery not up to scratch. She is saying something. We listened, we scoured and scrubbed, took her vital innards apart, and I felt we stood her tall then. She is diminuitive by the way, down there, a wee fat square of genius with a big mouth. Our care and concern (I watched us doing this caring and concerned thing, talking, suggesting, idea-ing) guided us and we came to ‘fro’, as one of my forbears said, although I forget whom. I think he meant a. together thing, an agreement, a forward action put in place. Anyways up, she, the moothie darling, now washes everything into spectacular. We laugh about this and it thinks me, a lot.

Around humans who are a gazillion nautical miles more away from machine-land, we may presume too much, as we did with the dishwasher, that the way it was, they were, last week, last sometime, still stands. It doesn’t. It really doesn’t. I have heard too many say things like ‘I thought she was fine, he loved his work, they enjoyed their evening class in Belligerent Living Tactics, had fun with Granny, were really committed to classical piano lessons, wanted to stay living with me, and so on’. Unless we check our collective self, almost daily but without intent, agenda and without too many questions, just observing, we can still presume too much. After all, we want the status quo. T’is comfortable, an easy grab each morning as we dash, all dyspepsia and inner angst, into our own selfworld, and, if we are honest, that is our world, no matter how much we try to persuade ourselves and others that our thoughts are always on them, him, her, they, I, me, and more.

My thinks are thus, or this if you prefer. Thus is a tad ‘older generation’, even as I believe thus means more than this. It has depth and mystery to it. Just saying. In any situation, what is anyone looking for? That’s a bit broad, I give you that, but let us settle on the dishwasher for now. We need her, big time, we need her, the moothie one. We discuss, disemminate. The doors open in 20. We do what we do, and as we do, we share, we laugh, we idea, we watch, we are curious, we observe, we learn and the end game is a caring synergy. Synergy equals mutual growth.

Amongst humans it’s not so different and it is so very different, of course it is. As we come together on an ordinary morning, it isn’t necessarily one for one of us. The mood shifts, the dynamic changes, the unpredicted has joined us. We might need to support. We might not want to. We might find our flow from here to there compromised because of a perceived threat, we might stand back and snort at this whole circus, thus refusing to learn, to change, to alter within a changial. My word. However, I believe we have presumed too much and for too long. I do raise a glass to the very few institutions which actively embrace the irrefutable change in our societies, but their action implementation is too behind the behind of it and that shuckles my head and my heart. We heard the siren song decades ago. Just saying.

I might end there.

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Island Blog – Fog Horn, Wren Song and Ellie

Something woke me at 5. It was just light. I could see this ‘just light’ sneaking around my blackout curtains, the wrong light, the too early light. Just before I swore I heard the sound again, a low growly sound, long and breathy. A foghorn, a warning to mariners, although I doubt any of them needed such a warning. The landscape was erased and at sea that is very upsetticating indeed. I remembered, as I wheeched back the blackouts and as my eyes landed on absolutely nothing at all beyond the fallen over daisy-like blooms in my immediate garden, those times when fog had descended on a lone yacht on its way from somewhere to somewhere else. Very scary. The sea is still bulky and yawling beneath the boat, the rocks are still there, hopefully not ‘very’ there, the sky, if we could have seen it, is still there, but the way ahead is a complete blank. Even radar and the other whatnots that tell you where you are have drunk too much, or so it seems as their dials shimmy about between all quarts of the compass. Due north has gone on holiday. I just went below and cooked something at such times in order to halt my thinks. Thinks out there in the middle of an ocean you were watching like a hawk yesterday, one you could track, every wink and every malevolent plan at its inception noticed and addressed, and which now has laughed itself into invisibility, will create a negative spiral in the mind of the most experienced of mariners.

I haven’t heard the foghorn up here for a long time, although I did hear it often down south where the sea was crabbit and contained and it must be tough being a sea when you want to be an ocean, so I get it, the crabbit thing. But here the Atlantic has free flow for thousands of sea miles or kilometres and holds in her grasp depths nobody has every plummeted. Nonetheless, she fogged us up this morning, creating a strange white-light, the clouds following her lead and lazily hanging about all day like bored students. There was no windy mother/father/tutor to tell them to move on.

Back to 5 am and the waking thing. I came downstairs. I always know when sleep has left me and there’s no hanging on for more, made coffee, sat watching the fog. As the morning began to yawn and lift, I heard wren song, so bright, so clear, so pure that it halted me. It sounded so close and so confusing. The blackbird is the first bird, isn’t it? Why is a wren awake this early? The song was so near. I knew all my windows were open for the heat, but still……

She sang again. I turned, slowly. She was perched on a chair behind me. I went rigid. She paused, bobbed, looked right into my eyes. I smiled. Ok, I almost whispered. (Can you deafen a wren?) I rose as if I was in slomo, moved to close the 3 doors into the house and turned back to open the two garden doors, stood back, watched the battering flapping against windows, waited. With a frrrup of wings, she found her way out. She must have been inside all night, so quiet as I drank (there’s no such word btw) my coffee at 0500. All day in my work, in the crazy of visitors, lunches, clearing, providing, protecting each other, I remembered the wren and the fog whilst I thought of one young brave beautiful wren heading into what seems like fog, for now.

It will clear brave wee wren. You have wings, remember? And no fog will ever stop you.

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Island Blog – Celtic Sea and Me

We were born, before the wind, some of us. We are irrefutably connected to the mystic, although there’s nothing mystic about it, not for some of us. We’ve always known it. Trouble is, with all this concrete covering over earth, all that burying, that disguising, turns our land into, well, Pleasantville. Watch the movie. It has much to say about the falsehood of our lives. We, out here in the blast of the thrawn Atlantic, still bumping over tracks, still able to walk barefoot without (sort of) any fear of broken glass shards, used needles, cutting things, are still connected. It wonders me, as I think back to my time living in a flat in Glasgow after so many years in the wild, that pavementing damage to a human connection to what once was (and still is) so vital for a goodly life. Over years, over time, the strive for money success, the building over bones, over history has taken us up many miles by now. We are lifting ourselves beyond oxygen.

At work today in the cafe kitchen, working with the team, filling the quick-steam dishwasher over and over and over again (and more), we fried, all of us, but we knew we would, and we kept each other cool just by asking “you okay” a lot. It’s a very uplifting question. My thoughts as I sank my old fingers into the deepsinksink scrubbing pots and pans and kitchen whizzy things went to the oceans, the seas of the world. I don’t question my thoughts anymore, nor did I much as a young woman. I know I am connected and it is a warm bond, like a cord, like a chord. I saw and see what those caught on pavements may well, and do, dismiss, although not so much these days.

My thoughts today as I batted away a persistent wasp sailed on the Celtic Sea. I love that name, feels me at home, my sea, although it isn’t. However I came home and studied a bit. This Sea, which immediately tells me it is confined somehow, like the `North Sea’ and thus, a possible grump. However, this sea, a big tradeline traverse, has the blood of the massive Atlantic in her veins and that smiles me. She will be feisty for sure. I check more. Celtic Sea, Basin Countries (the ones she bangs up against) Ireland, Wales, Breton France, Cornwall. She follows a tricky coastline and, knowing skippers (sons) who have launched into the Bay of Biscay in slight trepidation, she has a temper. She is also the minder of part of the Continental Shelf, where land falls away into scary depths. She curls around landfall, so she needs company.

I love her already. She sounds like me.

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Island Blog – Peppers Ghost

Last family gone now on a very long drive south complete with two girls, one sausage dog, one cat, one hamster, two bicycles, a ton of kit in back. Ten days of bonkers, of opportunity grabs, of endless and fun-filled action packed crazy. In other words, normal for my family. I have watched them fly huge kites, slice the sea-loch into tiny particles, wheeling and squealing and all the way up to sunfall, catch fish on the flow tide, barbecue, dig a fire pit, build dens, bond with a friendly deer, watch stars, straggle over rocks at low tide to gather big mussels for supper, and so much more. I have those memories. It wonders me that I have them at all, that they all still come. This island roots them all, even though they spin away into very different worlds. This is home and, as always, I am the one to wave them off. I’ve been doing this wave-off thing for decades, for ever, because I was always the one to stay home. It was as it was. And still is, certainly now in the autumn of my own life.

The silence is deafening at first. Any car passing by isn’t a goodness me here they come. I don’t hear the quad, heavy laden with way too many kids, careening down the Tapselteerie track. The sea-loch is calm and in one piece. The evening is gentle, soft, empty, and yet full of echoes, laughter, children, questions, invitations, halloes and goodbyes. My home is at rest. And, although my head quick-turns at an approaching car or at a tumble of high voices sneaking through an open window, or at a sudden flash of someone small. running, laughing, shouting something, I know t’is peppers ghost, an illusion, a memory, a wonderful memory, just one of a million and they’re all mine.

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Island Blog – And in they come

Flipsake, And it is a flip. There was one family until there wasn’t. Can I supply a mattress, space for a mum, what’s in the fridge, shall I bring milk? This is, and always has been, my family. We led this, me and their dad. We loved spontaneous even though it thoroughly irritated us at times. It was the mover, the wild blood in our veins. They say you find your own people, if you’re looking, and both of us obviously were. I wonder about the effect on our kids, not kids anymore, but parents. However, the spontaneous grasp on moments, probably learned from us, moments which could become slicedice and not always throwing a six – up here, out here in the wild west, even as they always brought a new something. New somethings were our thing. I never knew what would happen next as the mama of this loony troupe, nor even before they all arrived, thankfully not altogether. I had a bit of time to rest in the in-between.

The days spiral. I just watch. The big quad scoots by, way too many small kids aboard, laughter lifting into the wind, spinning out. Walkers pause to look at the colouring of crazy fun and smile. The boats push into the tidal flow, all aboard hooting mid sea-loch, spinning the bow into the stern, throwing the wee dog into a paws up. He knows the crazy and holds tight. I remember this, had forgot in the ordinary of my family gone, widowhood days. There is no moan here, only wistful. Was I there enough, working as I was? They ran free, my children, over miles of safety and wild. Their childhood was feral, inventive, but was it ok for them? Ach, I’ll never know.

I’ve watched them out there with their daughters, challenging tides, heading out into the Atlantic, bringing home a catch, salty, soaked, grinning, lifting, so happy. They, the last of the blast, leave tomorrow early. They will leave an energy in their wake, a reminder. Of what? Of what we begun, me and their dad, their grandad, the what we never knew would work.

But still they come.