Month: October 2026

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Island Blog – Perhaps

I remember being young. We all do when we aren’t. However it isn’t always helpful, often is not. On facebook and my blog there’s this daily beckoning to look back as if ‘back’ is somehow better than ‘now’. In my daily quest to interrogate the efficacy of looking back with all its etceteras is in question because the wishes/fishes automatically arise when they have no right to. Once the western world decided to possibly but not always gently, rub out the ones like me who are old in years, and to effectively stop us doing all the things we still want to do instead of fanning what flames we still can generate, it doesn’t promise much for the middle aged, never mind the young of today. I should tell you that being old in years has zip to do with being ‘old’. Old people can still dance and when they do, let me tell you, there is admiration for their efforts. The sore bits, the discomforts, the whateverness of their current lives do not stop, don’t even hesitate in the thrum of life, the thrill of it, the desire to make fire, to make music, to dance. A word to the middle aged. Stop right now with your ‘stopping’ tactics. We made a huge difference once. We danced on tables, knocked back the shots, sang in public, sorted issues you may never encounter. We fixed boats and planes and household equipment. We fought for justice, made peace with warmongers, cleared a million tables and lived on barely any income. We tamped fires, delivered calves at midnight in January. We negotiated deals, sussed out falsehoods, calmed storms on a daily basis. Too many excellent humans are tidied away just because they can’t see so well, or hear, or who have become tripeds, or who forget to shave or who can only manage soup.

Looking back reminds me of what I could once do without any effort and of the loss of that. This is why I work at the Best Cafe Ever and want to keep doing so if that is an option. I can see how things are in this western thinking wherein, it seems to me, the bottom line is everything. People have considerably less value. Driving home today after work, my thinks were on this subject. Everything about a really dynamic life, regardless of age, involves people. Yes we are infuriating with all our allergies and quirks, our beliefs and skewed parabolas. We throw hissy fits over ‘stuff’ and we demand when we might just ask; we storm about in temper or acquiesce ourselves into a puddle; we spit when we might polish; we are selfish, damaged, awkward, grubby, weird. Of course we are. We are human.

In any work, any life, there are options. Will I choose to be arrogant, dismissive, ‘up myself’ in this one life, regardless of past influences however strong? Or will I make myself anew and at every age of my age? I ask myself that daily. It’s a good question because the answer and the actions thereafter are all under my control. I meet kindness and interest in my cafe work. I also meet the opposite, but I tell you this that, once welcomed and faced with a big display of cakes and the island teas and the magnificent coffees and hot chocolates, I sense a softening. It wonders me, this. Perhaps kindness and time and a big smile and helpfulness is all it took to melt that armour. Perhaps.

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Island Blog – Looking for Parsnips

An ordinary day. Go to work, work hard, come home, iron things, manifold them because it is a right shite humping a wee iron across the surface of a set of overly decorated and bedazzled super-king duvet covers and then submissioning them into a shape any woman, and it is usually a woman, can manage without personal harmage. I know that ‘housekeeping’ requires this effortitude, but I do wonder how many recognise the work involved. I do not include my bosses because I did elect to take this (small you would think) pile of laundry to help my team at the Best Cafe Ever. A doddle, you might suggest, but not if you are me with my standards, Had you watched me with ‘my standards’ you might have seen my head shake. My recall? Tapselteerie Kitchen, everything dark, all asleep and me ironing bed linen, napkins, table cloths, I could not go to sleep until my standards for me were accomplished. Stacked and warmly loved, I did climb the stairs. It’s my thing and still is.

This ironing thing….a few duvet covers, but with lips and otherness I never had experienced before….. duvet covers were squared off or rectangled off and with no lips or other suchness. They just fitted the damn duvets. Nowadays they need their own voice. Also, they don’t have poppers or buttons. They have folds and inserts and what is happening to this world, because it sure sucks for the housekeeping crew. No question mark required. Is it an aspiration for elevation, as if we look better for all the faff and unnecessary folds and flaps and buttons? I pass on that one.

I like ordinary. There’s a connectional direct with whoever I meet. We are raw, scared, wishing we had done things differently, all that and we meet on a colding rainfold street, looking for parsnips or the daily paper or for a delivery from the island vet or just to connect. Or just to look for parsnips.

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Island Blog – The Cold

I have no issues with the cold. It comes every year, for goodness sake, and there is a wealth of expensive kit available for those who need it, or just want it. However, I do remember the arrival of it, overnight and me all unprepared with those skinny windows and the ensuing freeze of water pipes and the whole damn struggle to just get through the day without becoming the frosting on an island cake. It’s different now, when it comes. I have a cosy home and no sensible windows in such places are ever single-glazed. But I still remember, and not with regret at all, but more with questions. How the hec did we all survive it, those fifteen years, that first one, when everything froze including the inside loos, and every single morning for weeks? How did we break the frozen silage up with forks and swearing so the Galloways could feed? How did we break up water barrels for sheep more than thrice in a day? How did we make sure our children got some sleep? Well, we did, and they all survived.

Now, with inside heating and expensive fashionable snow gear (even to collect a child from primary school), it seems the cold is solved. But it isn’t. It is just ignored. Like so much in this captious life, the life that demands better street lighting, better this, better that, and which doesn’t want to know about where we are and what might be coming, there is a big denial.

When I, an ignorant town girl married an older man, wise in country functions and curious about life, I began to learn. Even then, in 1972, there was information out there. I remember that too, being told about a much bigger world than I knew, or had known. My world was all about the bubble within which I lived. It fascinated and alarmed me and we talked about that, his calming words. It didn’t throw me upwards onto the street, to buying snow kit for winter, although I did, even if it constituted yellow plastic over at least six warm layers. We audibly crackled on those winter feeding hilltops, our wellies lined with silver foil and our feet forgetting what they were until we reminded them before the aga, reviving them through the pain of a returning blood flow.

When I say the cold is being ignored, I probably mean a turning away from it. We don’t like it, it shivers us with its message of long, very long, dark months, and with the promise of an increase in its intensity. It creeps under doors and whistles through gaps and ill-fitting windows. It is almost sentient in intent and so we bulk up to go out and buy fleece and wool for sitting indoors. It is the same with the dark. Darkness is menacing, blinding, comes too soon and stops the dawn light as if it is the one with all the strength. But if we could, as our ancestors did, just accept the shift of seasons, particularly from autumn to winter and from day to night, we would be prepared and ready, even welcoming, instead of being somewhat astonished at the damn nerve of their annual arrival. We are so quick to reject both winter and the longer stretch of darkness that we can make it personal. We can decline, grow inwardly weaker. However, I have found that to teach myself to enjoy both, to watch them arrive, to really feel the exhilaration of cold wind on my skin, to love the warmth of a merry fire, to prepare winter food, nourishing and thick and to pull on whatever I need for a walk in between showers, brings me peace and acceptance. Candles burn as darkness takes over, throwing a soft flickering glow into the room. In this place of no traffic, the silence is almost deafening. There is no light pollution so that, on a clear night, the stars are in their millions. Owls call as they hunt. Stags roar their challenges from distant woods across the sea-loch. Nobody calls and it seems as though all is well with the world.

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Island Blog – The Sudden

There’s a silence now and a shiftshit in the island air. I can feel it sniping through the cracks in my old stones. The afternoon sun is a dalliance, and then said sun dunks down into Australia, or wherever and turns into their friend, leaving shiver tails of cold. I light my fire. It’s up to me to do that these days. The light, I am watching it, tumbles into umber yellow grey, the wind rising. The forecast is compromising ferries, la la la. I tie down my wheelies, close my garage door. It’s only 56mph the morra, but it will probably arrive early like an infuriating guest for a party with a confident Halloo, when you’ve barely got into your corset, never mind the slinky dress.

I don’t think much of the outside world comes slowly. It comes suddenly when you’re busy with all the stuff of life, the noise of it, the intercantobulation of dealing with a thousand things in a single day, every day. I think about that in my singular life, in the soliloquy of just one voice, one woman, and even in that life there are Suddens, because everything changes all the time, no permission required. And they bring noise and alteration and acceptance, defiance, reliance. We have met that this week in the Best Cafe Ever. A small team because Why Not, it’s the end of the season? Not. This week we have experienced a surprise of customers. We were prepped, the chef and Jess there early, me clocking in at 0900, all in place, lights on, ready. But I know we didn’t expect the inflow of customers. They came and came and kept coming. The Suddens. Who were they? Those who come for Autumn; half term parents with wee ones, adventurers who love the chiaroscuro of this time of year, single travellers, many interesting folk. Were we ready? Did we have enough food? Oh we worked with that, talked about it, made decisions, wanting to make everyone happy. It is such a multicolorum. And that is a dynamic that all such cafes have to work with.

In the Servery, when we met, we laughed and talked nonsense and rolled our eyes and cleared tables, separating the ones shoved together in order to allow new customers in twos to have their space. I met many beautiful dogs and their smiley owners, a blessed pause in the wheel of the work mill. I talked about words and their meaning, the way grammar was not taught to my children, the way words can upspell a mind, create curiosity and a skidder through the woods of learning. I brought up a word.

Subito. Means Suddenly. However, that word in Thesaurus or Dictionary is ‘strangled’ by the next word right beside it. Repente. repent. I am ‘suddenly’ ashamed of what I have sought answers from for all my years of writing.

We will laugh about that tomorrow as we lay place for whoever arrives wanting coffee, tea, cakes, lunch, company. What matters now is not grammar. It’s connection, and the fun this wee team can generate in a sudden moment.

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Island Blog – Euphoria,Petrichor,Mull Rally, Choices

They all came together today, in bits and bobs, at different times, but now when I look back over the day, they all merge into a lovely flow, the punctuation being the full stops and unwanted commas, the question marks and semi colons. I remember telling my English teacher once that I hated full stops because, well, they were stops. It’s all about breathing, she said with a kindly smile, but to be honest I had plenty breath left for at least four more points which required making, with all appropriate adjectives and adverbs and spins-off into some tributary of the main river of it all. She taught me well.

It began with a lovely morning walk with two men of whom I am inordinately fond, with their two girl labradors. As we walked around Tapselteerie, the sun dappling the soggy track, the dogs weaving, the conversation flowing easy as syrup, the connection so refreshing between us, we shared our takes on life, our knowledge, the questions flying overhead and pulled down the answers. We walked over coppered beach leaves, through puddles, the petrichor strong, the chiaroscuro momentary in the cloudal shift and twist. Rain coming. There is always rain coming, but look, look now, see that quicklight, that sudden brilliance, as if the sky is looking at us……Look! And we did.

It is the annual Mull Car Rally. I give it capitals because it deserves it. I know, I know, that this weekend there is a huge invasion of car enthusiasts, boy racers in souped up noisy small vehicles that will irritate and infuriate the peaceful balance of this beautiful island. I also know that the above don’t give a hooha about the beautiful island. They are here for the race. And I get it. I was young once and I can remember the euphoria of this weekend, when my own children were in that race, over a whole weekend. I remember trying to find somewhere for folks to stay when every single place was already booked. I remember the buzz. Something wild and completely crazy is happening here, this weekend, right now, and even from a distance, I am feeling an integral part of it.

I know, and already see that the roads are challenged, loads of off-road skids, mud everywhere, the crazy lifting into wild. On Monday it will be done, someone the winner and, please no disasters. These roads are skinny and curvaceous and cliff-topped and it’s all done, or most of it, in the dark. I hear the grumpy on all this, and then I look at them, the grumpies, and get it. There’s a choice to be made. I want to ask, Do you remember being young and alive and euphoric? But I don’t. When olding sets in, and it does, it can begin around 60. There’s a time when curtains get closed early, when light is too much, when someone who won’t pull over to let you pass, or who won’t back down on a scoopytwist of a hillback and you have to reverse like a dervish into a muddy passing place, causes a tsunami of olding.

Dont’ go there. Keep ahold of the Euphoria, smell the Petrichor, hold on to the Chiaroscuro of who you were and still are. And choose to stay there.

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Island Blog – There’s no point Sniffing

I am just home again after a big travel to the city for an annual cancer check. I was anxious, not about the check, no, but about the thrust of me into a chaos of too many people, the train station thing, the push, the rush, the not feeling sure about connections, the dizzy of bright boards telling me this/that and the very sure possibility of me, little me, having to negotiate a change. I felt even smaller than small as I walked (purposefully) onto one of so many platforms and into a crowd of those who, it seemed to me, knew exactly what they were doing, easy in their waiting. I was cold and unsure, hesitant. This is not me, but it was me in that environment. The journey was 0k, standing all the way and wondering, as a million people travelled with me, if I would ever arrive at Waverley Station. I remember a young mother with three toddlers and a great many men who felt fine taking up all the seats. I thought of my boys and just knew they would have been on it, vacating seats and helping such as this young mum with smiles and assistance. They would have Noticed. It smiled me as my legs fought to stay upholding me. I remembered a young woman, too, dressed for a night out, who reached for me, said, you go before me, as the throng pushed to ‘alight’ and I thank her.

My time with family was glorious. To be welcomed into a young family is not a given, not in the way I was welcomed. Young girls, all teenage and angsty, all soft and loving, loads of crashes, soundus eruptus, then gentle mellow, new puppy in the mix, who does this, who didn’t do that. I sort of remember it, but it was so long ago. Every time I am in the thrix of it, I am initially startled, until I find my feets. Ah, here we are, and then the memories quicken like fire in my mind. I have obviously lived the alone-ness for a long time. But sitting, as I did whilst staying there, outside, alone, watching the big sky over the East Coast and thinking, I can see how it is. I don’t understand it, the now of now, but I see it and here’s the thing……I can flap it away or I can knock on the door. I did. I respect personal space, even if it never existed in my youth. Come in, she said, and I did. There she was, they were, in their private safety. I just came to say goodbye for now. She rises and hugs me like I was so valuable.

I can see what my young are going through even though I am a million miles away from helping any of them. All I would say is this. There’s no point sniffing because it will keep coming until you blow. The katabatic wind is gravity driven, comes down from mountains, glaciers, way beyond. In the cosytuck of the world, the surface life, this will sound looney, to suggest that the force of downdraft needs attention. But think. How many times has anyone felt completely south of the north of themselves, as if a whole hemisphere is tangled? I think we need to simplify. Who am I? What do I want? What is my name?

All these confound. Who should I be, who was I as a child before, what I want needs approval, my name? Not the one I would choose, not now.

No Sniffing. Blow.

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Island Blog – Flick the Indicator and Sing

It’s windy. and rainy. This is so not news, not on the way-out-there of us on this almost most westerly point of the UK. Wind, rain are a thing here, loads of both. I can see it in faces, wrinklewrapped but in straighter lines than those on mainland skin, as if continuation actually fixes anything in place. Which it does, when my thinks think me. If somebody continually focusses (too many esses) on gloom, doom, disaster, failure, then guess what manifests? I remember an ongoing conversation way back about being a realist as opposed to a ‘fantasist’. The latter was the term applied to a positive thinker. It laughs me now, but it was a furious one-thing-or-the-other bargument back then, as if there was no opportunity for the in between. Nobody then, nobody at all ever even considered the power (definitely not that) in the electricity of the mind, the fact that it only needed a human decision to fire up the electrons, particles and all the other stuff about which I know zip. I learned it early and I am glad of it.

Anyway, back to lines on faces. I meet the curved lines of dissatisfaction, the downturn, the defeat, the settling, mostly on visitor features. I also meet the ‘scars’ of women and men who have lived here, faced down the wintersmith and laughed back into a hesitant spring and for decades. We can notice, if we care to notice. Life is tough and for all of us. However, and here’s a thing. In any conversation between two ‘solids’, there are many opportunities to divert. There is a wealth of colour, tone and hue between black and white. It’s about belief, and belief is a choice and a confidence and a decision. I’ve made such choices often without a scooby, no idea what might come down on me, appear for me, many, many times. I recommend it.

Flick the indicator. See what happens, and then deal with it, holding tight to your own song, because if you don’t sing it, who ever will?

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Island Blog – Long Shadows and a Someone

Here is something I really don’t understand, even as I sort of get it. First part of that sentence, good grammar, the latter ‘now speke’. Just saying. Although I have lived all the way from grammatical stripulation, something which drove me right up into mini-skirts and the climbing out of windows after 10pm to hook up with a market stall owner and an E Type soft top, to the now of ‘like’ being the first word before pretty much every single word. It used to be ‘Um’ and that meant a knuckle rap, even in my day. In a moment, She said (all of 4 feet tall behind her desk) of hesitation, hold the silence, use your eyes, lift your chin, make it seem as if you are about to come up with something utterly profound. Your brain will catch up. She was right btw. And I thank her. She cast a very short shadow, but I remember her longer.

I walked today, this afternoon, and noticed that the grasses interrupted the track. It stopped me. I hadn’t noticed shadow before. The light is shifting, the balance too. The dying fronds luffed and danced in shadow talk. I could see it across my boots as a soft swish of goodbye for now. Onwards and into the woods, I see anew the arse end of a fallen pine, the roots highwide and skyward, a curve shadow which was t’other side before the Autumn arrived, which seems very sudden. After that I did a load of noticing, shadows longer, strange, almost confusing. Maybe shadows always are and maybe that whole confusulation is what notices us as we notice. Now there’s a happy thing. There is a theory that we miss places and times, but what if they miss us? I have places in my mind, pebbles in the wilderness of my story, which halted me. Still do when I remember them. I smell decay, the erupticus of the land taking back. The leaves turning, almost happily into red, gold, brown and falling. It is as if the earth rises up in welcome hands.

Perhaps it is something to do with the colding, the change into the dark and away from the endless summer light, when the shadows finally get their say, longing. And they do ‘long’. They are longer than the one who actually walks the earth. We are finite, minute, temporary and yet we are extraordinary, magical, pivotal, powerful, and we make a point, a mark and each of us is a Someone.