Author: judyfairbairns

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Island Blog – Tumbletast

My Dad liked bloaters. The rest of us baulked at the whole bloater thing, the name being enough. I don’t know, even now what is a bloater, and am not sure I want to. I think it is half smoked, or half something and half anything is not for me. I remember many times being called to shores where a huge whale had beached and died (thankfully), each sight a bloat, big enough to eventually explode with enough force to cause turbulence in the flight from Glasgow to Iceland. the swellbelly of that magnificent, once free, wild person was a trip in my step, the deep sadness a hold in my belly, a gasp. Even as I had seen death many times, sheep, cows, calves, lambs, dogs, cats, in-laws, these encounters, seen afar off, yet known, walked to over stones and tumbletast, maybe in the darkling, with torch, always ready to defend, to protect, from gulls, from people, from the weather. A lonely death, a lonely walk. But, I would not have missed any one of them. I saw them. I see you. I put my hand on your bloated beautiful body. Hallo.

I understand why some of us choose to beach.

I watched the sky today, the first open one for frickin days of slanty rain and grumpy clouds and the whole wotwot that goes with such control, mud, puddles, landslides, the withering of our confidently constructed land. How foolish we are to think we can do this. Nature allows no half measures not neither. (sorry Dad) By the way, what do three negatives mean? Perhaps a lot. I might look into the three negative thingy. I know 3 to be the perfect number, and I employ it myself in my writing. This, this and this. It seems to work. In fact, I struggle to do two, as if two fail me somehow. Then I feel sorry for Two. Life is so complicated.

I am scared. I am anxious. I sleep little. I am tumbletast.

The post arrived today from Ros, my lovely friend. Everyone here is a friend. She, however, has the smile and the welcome that could begin a new history. I collect, barefoot, and not under rain. She, in her luminous PO kit meets me over the fence, hands over. She asks me how I am. I tell her I am waiting, waiting, two weeks till surgery. How do you feel? She asked. I am not half anything, so I smiled and told her.

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Island Blog – Clanjamfrie

It is, I tell you. Well, for me anyway. Setting aside (why don’t we?) the immense lack of sleep, the immense lack of sleep……no, wait…. my dad has appeared “You cannot have an immense lack of anything, only a surfeit”. Thanks Dad. Who would believe that after over twenty years of being thoroughly dead, he can still appear to check my grammar? Perhaps, and this is up for discussion, but not right now when I’m busy flowing, I might be the one who calls him up.

We might also set aside the jolly fact that a nearby burn, turned torrent, pushed through the vent in my garage’s nether regions and created a whole new tributary, nameless but only because it was obviously a lightweight body of water which, apart from soaking all my logs and taking my wellies on a walk, one they have not enjoyed for years, disappeared as fast as it had come. Then there are the inside leaks. Only two these days, since goodly stonemasons, rubbing their chins as they peered into cracks and poor pointing, at a wall face without facia and inadequate rain resistant piping, managed by some miracle to plug the other 3 opportunities for ingress, 3 openings that our West Coast rain will always seek out and take full advantage of. I confess to a moment of sadness as I considered what wild creature may have found itself walled up.

I have walked, honest. Each day of this clanjamfrie/chaos, when the rain comes slantways and suddenly and utterly soaking, I have dragged Little Boots out for a rush and a bark at the deer, or a car, or even absolutely nothing at all. I wish I had her energy. I wouldn’t mind a rush and a bark at nothing at all. It might take my mind off the fear and the anxiety, and, more, it might mean I could let my roar out, which is something I have rarely, if ever, allowed. It feels like mental constipation. It probably is. When I awoke at 3 am I did sigh. I don’t mind 5, or, at a push 4, but 3 is just not right. The dark is pitch, the wind a howl, the rain a battering and yet, and yet, it is a new day, I am awake, and I get up and out, make tea and spend a lot of time addressing my thoughts. In my sleep, it seems to me, I am free of them, but not for long enough. It’s as if they crowd in the waiting room, just waiting for my eyelid doors to open, double doors, to submit to their pressure. I am told to be polite to them, to address them respectfully, but, much like the relentless days of rain and punching wind, I am losing the lady in me. She is becoming fishwife.

I didn’t go to the shop today. I just sat and sewed something without a name, listening to a whole audiobook (when did that become one word Dad?) thus losing myself in someone else’s story. I did sweep the floors, stack a ton of wood, lift my eyes to the sea-loch when a Whitetail Eagle made a hoor of a stooshie about something, or someone. I heard stags moaning and roaring in the rut. I watched, and hissed at, drivers who shot past my home, through now deepened potholes, splattering the arse of my little mini puddle brown. I listened to the click and crack of the woodburner munching wood. I listened to music, a bit. Actually the whole frickin day was just a bit of this, a bit of that. I have been up too long this day.

I think it’s the waiting. Waiting is, as we Celts say, shite. Always. And then when the waiting is over and the result is clear, we settle back into the clanjamfrie of our lives, as if the leaks and the rain and the inability to roar, and that interminable waiting meant absolutely nothing. As I will, no doubt.

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Island Blog – Dies Saturni

I wake at 04.45. I only tell you this because it is a marvellous thing and also complete pants. The former explained thus. It is marvellous to wake at all. The latter I have issues with. It is still blacknightdark out there and nobody else has stopped snoring. Only me, it seems. And then, I hear a car pass by. It is the second morning for this car passing by waytooearly thing. What is going on? I live in the backside of nowhere and island folk, in my experience wake at dawn and not before. However, it alerts me. Every damn thing alerts me, awake or asleep, and, then I consider this. It always did, and I was glad of it back in the day. Moving backwards, my teenage kids arriving safely home, a gale blowing out a window (that was fun), with a power that astonished me, the baleful call of of a cow, a sheep, a horse, all needing help, no matter the hour, nor the dark, nor the frickin gale. Could have been the first snuffle and twist and hoot of a new baby’s call for mama. I have never lost it. Staying in a city is a right twillop for me as there are noises all the night long, although, I notice, that my early sleep hours ignore most everything, and it is around 0400 or 04.45 perhaps, that I am twisted into alertness, as if I was Joan of Arc or Boudicca, and responsible, therefore, for the saving of a people. It is a wonder and a tiddleypom.

It is Saturday. Saturn’s Day, according to the Romans who were invaders, btw. Yes, I know they built roads we still drive along, but they were invaders, nonetheless. We might have got that whole road thing sorted all by ourselves, in time. It thinks me. Although I am British and wotwot, and we had an empire we controlled and invested in, and, let it be said, abandoned the countries which were probably doing ok according to their own understanding of ok, I wonder at the intervention. Bringing down to the individual, how do we interfere? We think, or I thinked, that, as mama, I had the right to ‘guide’. I laugh at that now. How can anyone guide from a generation away?

So, on this day of Saturn, I felt slow and I am never slow. I felt anxiety and had no answer to the question. What makes you anxious? I don’t know. The rain, the pelter, began at 04.45. I came down, wide awake and happy to wake at all, made tea and sat hearing the heavy blatter of cloud tears overhead. I mopped up the house leaks and said, out loud,, Don’t feel bad, old house. You have stood here, strong and protective since 1820 something. I understand a leak or two.

I think of Saturn, way up there, way beyond my looking. All those fiery rings. I do look up often, even as I often look down. Today, I paddled through the lush of super rain. Even the woods were sloshing. My feets were wet and I lifted my head and laughed at the joy of it. Wee Four Legs was a muddy delight on return. On my way, I met a couple staying in a holiday home just inside the estate. We talked, we clicked, we laughed and that connect lifted me. As I rounded for home, I clocked the power of connectivity, even momentual, even random.

And that was my Dies Saturni.

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Island Blog – Did You?

Love someone to the bitter end? I don’t mean death. There is an end in a relationship, one we really wan’t to ignore, wishing it away, and, yet not. We know our hearts. We know this. What we find wanting is courage, and, in my experience, it will lack, be wanting, unless just one bigger, more confident and older person, one we trust, has told us we have courage, and, more, that it is ours and that we can pull it up as a new employee. That was a long sentence, I know. However, according to my English language tutor, I am alowed this dance across the floor of regimental grammar, but only if there are well placed commas, hyphons, apostrophies, colons and semicolons and wotwot. Sounds like surgery.

So, did you? I did. When love breaks into shards of itself, at the time when we are placed in a home, placed in a role, sugged down in routine, money worries, debts, fears, routines, over many years, we may become a sludge of ourselves. We used to dance to Footloose, did we not, like yesterday? We grabbed chances, opportunities, we laughed loudly and wild. All this does not end in a Full Stop. No Way. Living life to the full is not only for the young, in fact, the young just do that living thing without many thinks, when the biggest chafe may be from parental jurisdiction. The next bit is supposed to set itself in place, which probably means this young person with Footloose dancing in their hearts has to ‘settle’. Hmmmm

I didn’t. I did try, honestly, but I am a wild card. It is not a comfortable persona. So, I loved him, until not. However, there was a strong historical build of companionship, and it worked. Much as I would have loved one of those big loves I see in my sisters, it wasn’t for me. And, there is a learning in that. My children (I can say that now without a reminder that they are ‘ours’, which, for me was a given) are strong, loving, kind, giving, astute, intelligent people. I have no idea how they burst from the turbulence of their parent’s breaks, but they did and I am so proud of them, just the surviving bit, never mind the rest.

So, are you at the bitter end? I’m saying nothing. You know your heart, Scary, yes, (another bloody comma) but this is the one life. Relationship, work, something. Could be neighbourhood (ridiculously long word btw) could be any connection that is fighting your heart. Courage. We don’t feel it, do we, nor know it for we don’t remember who taught it to us? In our childlife we watched compliance, obeisance, bowed shoulders, quiet voices, servitude. But we can change that, and not just for us, for our children and their children.

That’s a whole load of thinks. Happy Friday my friends.

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Island Blog – Light will Always Out

You are my everything, these scared days, you who read my twaddle and who respond, or don’t, doesn’t matter which. I see the stats, just general, but I know how many of you wonderful two legged creatures read me up. I cannot tell how how, right now, that makes me feel supported and, well, interesting. You will be interesting too. Know this and hold it tight, as you traverse the sticky roads to work, school, through troubles and strife, through pain and upskittlements. I am a fighter. You too. Know this as well. Although it is true that, in our own very personal happenings, we all walk alone, there are many others who walk a similar path. We may not see them, nor ever meet them in this life, but it matters not. Just to know it is enough. And, when I am scared, I don’t want to be fixed. I don’t want to hear that it will be over soon, because who can promise that? I don’t want to hear stories of rising from the sinking I am currently in, the swamp of it, like Duchess, my beautiful brave strong and loyal heavy horse, who ended her days on a wild shore in a night of hail and storm. If you want to know more, buy my book, Island Wife. It was the very worst night of my life, to leave her there, up to her oxters in a sucking bog, knowing she couldn’t possibly survive, all one ton of her, all her grace and fealty slowly, oh so slowly, freezing unto death. However, I make no connection t’ween my current fear and her dreadful demise. It just came out onthe page and I will leave it there, for she deserves her name to be known beyond my own troubled heart that cannot make sense of it, nor able, it seems, to let it, or her, go.

I know that cancer comes to the best of us. We do not deserve it as punishment, there is no such thing. No God nor gods, no past crimes of commission, nor omission, bring down the hammer on our heads. Life is not about just deserts, but, more, the chance, no, chances, (for they are endlessly proffered) to do good, to make right, to stand for justice and against injustice. This I believe and, indeed, practice. I also believe that all people, all people, are intrinsically good souls and doing their best, thus disallowing blame in one fell swoop. What the hell does that mean? Moving on……I am scared. The waiting for surgery, the unknown is a longth of minutes and days. I wake early, happy to see another, almost morning, check the stars or the cloud. Even clouds cannot control light. It will always out.

And there, I rest.

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Island Blog – Thinksmith. She

Been thinking about thinking. We all have a gazillion thinks every day, but it’s the sorting of them that fascinates me, draws me in to the frickin web of itself. I can get stuck. Did you know that a spider web is the strongest of all ‘materials”? It can hold a floating astronaut, once duly bigged up, or so I read. So, these thinks, these random trollops (can I still pen that word?) invade a brain, invited or not, and, mostly so NOT. Howeversoever, they come from the moment we wake. The What To Do List is immediately available, the flat surface visible, and, in theory, doable. Doable? Is that a word now?

Back to Thinks. I wake with all of them and I watch them fly about my mind, then, on lifting into the morning light, into a new day. It’s noisy, the think party, yes, but as my body moves from the dream world, where everything is transient, falling, scary, I grab my huge man-jumper, a gift from an old and gone friend for whom I cooked and cleaned. sling it on and take my legs to the floor. Oh, pause on that. There are those, many thoses who can not do this, and never will. I take the stairs down for coffee, knowing there is warmth and power for the kettle. I flick on the fairy lights because it is so not dawn, yet, but the moon is owning the sky and she smiles me. Salut, Lady Moon. May you live long and prosper.

But, and there is always one of those, or, if not, it’s a bloody However. Another think. How else can a writer break from one statement to another, without a but or a however, or a coach or counsellor, or a friend who cares? We don’t talk right these days. We fire statements like rockets. We don’t invite and accept, on the streets of our lives. Now, I know I am an old island woman, so am not in the hub or hug of today’s thinks, but it seems to me that there is almost more fight for survival in the world of greed and success over others, than ever there was. And that thinks me more, even though I have no inside information on how the hellikins this world works now. Just this very day, I heard a young man tell me he no longer seeks money as his goal. Yes, he wants money for his own lifestyle but not for its own sake. He wants wealth in order to share it, to help someone else, to be random, to be wild with it. It thinked me good.

I can play with words, phrases, terminology, wordology, big thinks, random tiddleypom, the thinksmith, always, she.

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Island Blog – Just Saying

My garden throws its colour to the sky. I know from the slow down of all those throwing blooms, that these wise creatures are saying farewell for another year. They feel the chill of Autumn, are bent tapselteerie by the sideways punchgusts of October, and they accept. They’re probably knackered anyway. I know how they feel. Pushing out colour and brilliance, every day and for months, is a demand and a half, for sure. Languid clouds in a troposphere of unusual calm, float like holidaymakers, pulling apart now and then to let the sun blast out his light, dazzling my eyes. I watch the season turn and it thinks me. I probably do that thinking thing a bit much, but everything fascinates me. On walks with friends, I point out the spot where deer have traversed the track. I see the flattened grass over here and then, look, a continuation to our left. I see where mice or voles or wotwots have nibbled at fungi, where birds have pulled off the buds that come, always too late, a nourishment as food supplies dwindle. I hear the change of birdsong. And I think about all of it.

What is it like to roost hungry, and how many days can any bird manage that? How many deer in this fold? Are there young? A hind and her healthy looking calf, stand just beside the track. I lasso the dog and avert my eyes. I mean no harm, I tell her, in my calmest voice, and keep walking. I look up now and then to see here black eyes fixed on me, her head turning as I move on. She is beautiful. From the look of her calf, she is a good mother. I remember that this is the rutting season, the big fight ahead for the stags. I will hear them roaring soon, the clack of antlers across the sea-loch and that will think me all over again. Survival is key to all animals, the continuation and strength of bloodlines. The old guys will be thrown out, or killed on those hillsides. It makes sense, in the animal kingdom. The males fighting, always fighting. The females protecting, always protecting. Who is the wiser, I wonder? Neither, is the answer. Both have a role, an essential role, and in the animal kingdom it is clear and unquestioned. Perhaps in the realm of humans, this is where we get in a muddle, because I believe that our men can feel very lost around all the powerful and assertive women.

Not that I pay any homage to the old ways. I have, personally fought against that load of nonsense, and with zeal and planted feet, but I do think that even our young men are in a spin. They learned a role, it was clear. And now, it’s as if they have been thrown into a womansphere, in which they might be forgiven for feeling that they have little space, if any. Perhaps we women might refrain from criticising men in general, much as we worked hard to stop them from critising us, and to, instead, see them as individuals, just as we women are.

Just saying.

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Island Blog – The Past Perfect

Blustery, and the garden is dishevelled. Blown this way and that, snatched at and barely returned, the long legged blooms bend and sway, but do not break. Well, some do, and that’s my fault. I planted them late, the Spring flowers, asking them to do what they find tough. To be asked to bloom strongly in the wrong season is definitely an ask. I can relate. But just look at them, yellow, blue, red, beautiful, the whole fricken lot of them. They cut my sky, leaping up into the cloud talk, which, they well may hear. They offer a safety to the wee birds on the feeders, protection from a sparrowhawk. She is ferocious, fast as light and accurate. I don’t begrudge her need for lunch, but I don’t want to hand out a plateful of robins, finches, sparrows or blackbirds. It is a tricky kill for her, what with all my late planted, big ass stemmed blooms. A canopy. I wish I had had one of those in my time.

Today I called The Hub. I love The Hub. T’is a new thing. Heretofore, I called an answerphone with a lengthy tiddleypom of a preamble, finalising in press 1 for this, 2 for that, and so on until my arm grew weary. Not now. It seems, after I questioned this change, that it was deemed more reassuring for those of us with cancer, to have faster access to a human voice. So spot on with that. Instead of having to stand up once the automatic voice clicks into life, I feel heard and cared for, and so will all the others with cancer surgery and treatment ahead of them like a stop. I can speak to Adam, or Karen, after no waiting at all, ask my questions and have promise of connection and response. thank You Edinburgh Cancer Hub.

I asked my questions, was confounded at a few. Now I am here, in this wonderful Autumn wildness, with candles lit and a baked potato baking. The crazy west coast light is outside of me, and yet it is not. I watch it through my windows, can connect with it as I walk out onto the colding grass, and I feel alive. This is my home. My roots are here, even though I didn’t know. And those roots are strong. Planted late, growing, regardless of that, holding sway against the winds of time. Yes.

Ps. Can you still say ‘had had’? Is that the past perfect? I was such a grammar girl, once.

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Island Blog – Rings

Today I called a nurse, took my kitchen compost up to the bin, felt the wind slap dunk me, the smell of other climes, other stories, blustery like Winnie the Pooh. He was pretty cool about winds, bees and troubles and he is my guide when I feel worried about pretty much anything. Calling the nurse was just about the jojo of jags for old people, covid, pneumonia (tough spell) and shingles. I said No to shingles. She said you’ve already had it twice, which makes you more susceptible. I had thought my trusty immune system had this. No Shingles Allowed. Not so. Anyway, I now have, it seems, to check with the cancer team about everything. Those jags, a simple visit to the dentist for a teeth clean. It rings me around.

Rings. I Love rings, oh I so love rings. Rings are the firsts in my looking as I press towards a jeweller’s window, the dynamics of a ring, the gold, the silver, the copper, the rose gold, the jewels, the dynamic twist and swirl of the modern artist. It all halts my breath and my feet. I think of the meaning, the intent, the power of all that ringing around. Then I remember control and I walk on. However, I have bought rings for myself, rings I try on, now and again, but rarely hold for more than a day. What is this ring thing? Capture? yes. Oh…..maybe I rest there.

This day, the ring thinks were loud in my mind. There is no reason for it. It just came. I laughed as I recalled a day on the island ferry, en traverse to the mainland, and himself angered me beyond my reaches. I was aloud and not allowed. I was at the end of my reasonable thinking. I was done. On the upper deck of the ferry, I turned like a wild animal, and took off my wedding ring, dramatically, and threw it into the sea. It was like taking off a whalebone corset, or, in my experience, removing a liberty bodice. Ghastly things, trust me, and inaptly named for sure.

Today I was moved to check my jewellery box. I kept one ring from my mother-in-law, an eternity ring, gold band, thin as wire, with, I think, battered dark sapphires as a surround. It made me look for my own, gold with five dark sapphires for five beautiful children, and I tried both on. My own will not fit me on my wedding finger, but my mother-in-law’s slim band fits nicely. It’s loose and easy. Maybe I can wear it, bear it. Nothing on that wedding finger has ever felt easy before. Rings contain, control, or they did it my life, even as I love them. I still love them, even though I cannot wear them for long due to my perception of ring control, as if it was a restraint, which it never was. My fingers have memories, it seems and one finger in particular. As I turn the ring around, I wonder what it meant to the old girl, and I make smile. It is a lovely thing, that ring, as is my own, which goes back in the box, too small, too tight.

Thoughts of my surgery rings me around, although I distract well and keep occupied. How can it not? I have a date now, not far off and welcome indeed, because this perceived restraint, the whale-bone corset of it, the ring control, is not for eternity. The surgeon is confident, thus am I. A short period of discomfort is just a short period of discomfort, and thereafter I will celebrate my freedom every single day, in this wild place. On the return ferry voyage, as we pass the lighthouse and carve our seaway home, I will stand on the deck (not burning) and throw the ring of cancer overboard. Not in fury, as I had when sending my own wedding band down to Davy Jones, but in joy and gratitude.Today I called a nurse, took my kitchen compost up to the bin, felt the wind slap dunk me, the smell of other climes, other stories, blustery like Winnie the Pooh. He was pretty cool about winds, bees and troubles and he is my guide when I feel worried about pretty much anything. Calling the nurse was just about the jojo of jags for old people, covid, pneumonia (tough spell) and shingles. I said No to shingles. She said you’ve already had it twice, which makes you more susceptible. I had thought my trusty immune system had this. No Shingles Allowed. Not so. Anyway, I now have, it seems, to check with the cancer team about everything. Those jags, a simple visit to the dentist for a teeth clean. It rings me around.

Rings. I Love rings, oh I so love rings. Rings are the firsts in my looking as I press towards a jeweller’s window, the dynamics of a ring, the gold, the silver, the copper, the rose gold, the jewels, the dynamic twist and swirl of the modern artist. It all halts my breath and my feet. I think of the meaning, the intent, the power of all that ringing around. Then I remember control and I walk on. However, I have bought rings for myself, rings I try on, now and again, but rarely hold for more than a day. What is this ring thing? Capture? yes. Oh…..maybe I rest there.

This day, the ring thinks were loud in my mind. There is no reason for it. It just came. I laughed as I recalled a day on the island ferry, en traverse to the mainland, and himself angered me beyond my reaches. I was aloud and not allowed. I was at the end of my reasonable thinking. I was done. On the upper deck of the ferry, I turned like a wild animal, and took off my wedding ring, dramatically, and threw it into the sea. It was like taking off a whalebone corset, or, in my experience, removing a liberty bodice. Ghastly things, trust me, and inaptly named for sure.

Today I was moved to check my jewellery box. I kept one ring from my mother-in-law, an eternity ring, gold band, thin as wire, with, I think, battered dark sapphires as a surround. It made me look for my own, gold with five dark sapphires for five beautiful children, and I tried both on. My own will not fit me on my wedding finger, but my mother-in-law’s slim band fits nicely. It’s loose and easy. Maybe I can wear it, bear it. Nothing on that wedding finger has ever felt easy before. Rings contain, control, or they did it my life, even as I love them. I still love them, even though I cannot wear them for long due to my perception of ring control, as if it was a restraint, which it never was. My fingers have memories, it seems and one finger in particular. As I turn the ring around, I wonder what it meant to the old girl, and I make smile. It is a lovely thing, that ring, as is my own, which goes back in the box, too small, too tight.

Thoughts of my surgery rings me around, although I distract well and keep occupied. How can it not? I have a date now, not far off and welcome indeed, because this perceived restraint, the whale-bone corset of it, the ring control, is not for eternity. The surgeon is confident, thus am I. A short period of discomfort is just a short period of discomfort, and thereafter I will celebrate my freedom every single day, in this wild place. On the return ferry voyage, as we pass the lighthouse and carve our seaway home, I will stand on the deck (not burning) and throw the ring of cancer overboard. Not in fury, as I had when sending my own wedding band down to Davy Jones, but in joy and gratitude.

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Island Blog – Thinks on Waiting

I love this time of year. Yes, it does rain most days, but if I wait and watch, I can pick an in-between space within which to walk out with Little Boots, the wee dog. I am so not a waterproofs woman, to hell with that crackling stuff. I am frocks and bare legs and would go barefoot if the track wasn’t so sharp with stones and wotwot. The in-between times show me chiaroscuro in the wide open sky, like a light show no human could ever emulate successfully. I love the touch of cold grass beneath my naked feet each morning, the thrill of the cold, the smell of it, the fizz in my breath. I love the sound of raindrops (not on those hideous waterproofs), the soft plunk onto grass, the tinkle of it on the roof of my warm conservatory roof, like a tap dance of fingernails. I love the feel of wind in my face, the way the (cheeky sod) lifts the skirts of my frocks, all layered up now, and flaps them wet against my bare legs. I love the sound of the current nonsensically named wind as it divides the limbs of beech trees, oaks, sycamores, larch and pine. Each sound is unique to each tree.

As I move beneath the rain-laden canopy, ready to duck, a wind nudge lifts a limb out of my way. I smile and speak out my thank you. The floor of the wood is not soaked, latent fungi leaping out in oranges and reds and snowy white and danger. I don’t know my fungi, beyond the chanterelles, so I just admire, no touching. I navigate the muddy puddles, or ‘cuddles’ as my grandaughter calls them. They are too disturbed to reflect the sky and too muddy because there is traffic on this track, workers on the estate, families who live here, passing up and down just like I did, endlessly, when it was Tapselteerie and it was ours for a while.

As I head for home, the fire already merry, the afternoon beginning to lay down her weary body, to hand over to the evening, I consider all those waiting. I think of people, all people, not just those I know. Waiting for answers, waiting for buses, for appointments, for interviews, for a plate of food, for a future, for just someone to acknowledge the pains of a troubled past; for a child to be born, for someone to finally die. There’s a whole load of waiting going on in this world. The sealoch waits, I watched it do that waiting thing, as one wind puffed out and the other (Arlene???) headed towards it. I saw geese peaceful, unfluffed up. I saw a sea eagle perform in majesty so high above me as to let me know it was probably dodging ice, wings wide, slow, dip, cut the sky in half, level and return.

I waited all day yesterday to hear the results of my recent tests. I had a friend here and we both had notepads full of questions, ready, alert. Our alertness began to dive about 3pm. We couldn’t walk Little Boots together. We had to be beside the phone. No call came. So I made contact this morning and received an almost immediate return call. It’s good news. There is still a tumour, yes, we know that, but there is no second, just an extension of the original, like a tendril. All lymph biopsies are clear. Plan is to insert, under local anaesthetic (eek) a Savvy Scout, which will grab all the floaty bits, apparently. Then, a short while after that is done, surgery. I still don’t know what, as I still haven’t spoken with the surgeon, but I am not worried. I liked him, trust him, and his team. It looks like towards the end of October when all this will come about.

I know waiting is tough. For birds who want feeding, to those awaiting decisions on scary surgery. It is exhausting, and I am as tired as I was in the days of Tapselteerie. And I am also thankful. I know I have massive support and love from my family, from friends, from all of you and I cannot tell you how precious that is, in the times of worry or confusion or just plain shatter. And, this, too shall pass. Whatever comes next, I know the sensual joy of really living, of my connection to nature, of the sound of music, the lyrics of songs telling me I am not alone; of books and stories, of my own and the impact it had on hundreds of others; of this focussed and caring cancer team; of the ferry that still runs, of the rain, of the light in the sky and of the full moon, of clouds and light and the fact that I have plenty frocks all for the changing should I get caught in a deluge of cloudal tears.

‘She is one who can laugh at the things to come’. That’s a bible quote. I like it, very much. And I can wait, as long as it takes, with humour and sass, even if I have no idea of what for.