by

Island Blog – A Precious Island Life

The mist is definitely on a mission to smudge. I saw it first around 4 am, woken as I often am when the circus of the skies, the cosmos, opens for business. I know there are conversations going on up there, ones we need to hear and to understand, but, sadly, I only talk human, child and dog. I feel it nonetheless, and there is a freedom in that itch, that discomfort, because it connects me to more than me, to more than the solo and the loneliness, to more than ridondulous concerns about which wheelie to put out.

Work today was busy, wild at times, and tiring, until I approached my own tiring nonsense and sharpened it into a soft lead pencil. I can write my own next sentence. I always can. It felt a bit limpy, nothing for a while and then a big invasion of lovely customers, so smiley, wanting soup, quiche, cake, hot chocolate, iced latte, extra bread, focaccia sandwiches, and yet, do you know what all of them really wanted? A welcome, a recognition, a pull to forward, an invitation and a hallo and we are so happy you came, thing. Chances are, not one of them will get that, but I do, and so do the owners of this welcome cafe. They, the visitors, are spinning through life, escapees from huge pressure jobs and lives and here they are under the mist mission with a chance of blue. It must take time to process. Actually I hate that word as I have never consciously, nor knowledgeably, processed a damn thing in my 70 years. And then, these big and possibly powerful folk are gone back to the whatever of possibly powerful lives, leaving us with the mystery of mist mission, the lift of sky birds, the wild of spatter rain, the thrum of maybe thunder, the friendship in the pub, the people long here, grown wild from the nonsense and fun and hard work and deprivation of a precious island life.

by

Island Blog – Go Mahousive

Ok, a new word, yes, but my family are right there on inventiveness. We always were. I do remember the odd altercational exchange with t.t.t.tteachers who stood resolute against any such inventive nonsense, stuck as they stood, like plastic, and holding out the Oxford Dictionary, which, even then was definitely well beyond its shelf life. So we, in that crazy Tapselteerie kitchen did invent. We did. Stories, chances, lifts and lufts, beyonds and togethers, all made a right frickin mess among pots and pans and plans and dance dynamics, not enough bread, squashed strawberries, an important delivery that didn’t arrive. And I am proud of that, The fact that in the face of endless structural collapses, we made our guests believe that everything was mahousive. And it was. To be honest, should I notice an unavoidable slimjink, I would move into the guest mist, performing, always performing, my eyes alight, bright with a tomorrow promise and an absolutely firm delivery of an amazeball pudding, with cream and liqueur and more wood on the fire.

It worked. It does now, I watch the do it now thing in the Best Cafe Ever. What might be a lack turns into an opportunity. In order to make everyone welcome, we, on the business side of the counter, behind the cakes, the swivel and twist, the real mahousive, the inner workings of a brilliant cafe are bright like the sun. Welcome, we say. How can I help? And there are so many incomings, I watch them. from behind my Washeroo. Hallo you, I think. Each customer is served alert and kindly, orders change, others in the group, the family, shift and change choosing this, no, that, no maybe two, no, one.

And on it goes. I did spend a while today standing and thinking. There are only two words in the Oxford Dictionary beginning with mah. One is mahogany, brown and well, brown. The second is mahout. Elephant friend, those who, back in the day, cared for those poor creatures who were forced to carry queens and other eejits with delusions of grandeur through streets, into wars, way way out of their natural and familial environments.

So I officially add Mahousive. It means bigger than anything. I’ve done this adding thing before, by the way. I wrote a piece for BBC Wildlife, a gazillion years ago, about a whale, so called stranded in a sea-loch, Isle of Lewis. It was a nonsense. The whale was fine. It was February, so damn cold even that word wasn’t enough. I, and Janine timed the breathing of the whale as it took on the loch and the captive fish, I watched the surface lift in response to the hailstones. The loch ‘poppled’ . It did. However that word did not exist, I challenged that. I find it now in the dictionary.

Go Mahousive.

by

Island Blog – Thinkfull Traverse

It began gently. We worked on this and that in the almost empty cafe, tables waiting, our voices echoing in the space, rolling up and over and down again back to us behind the counter. We commented on the bajonkers of yesterday when folk arrived in bulk packages, and the difference this day. Someone, I won’t name her, said the jinxword ‘Quiet’. And that was that. In they rolled, those with children, those on a tour bus, those in couples, singles, triples and more. The sun shone on them until the clouds snatched that chance away and even the roof builders, noisy nail-gun-toting buildmen, with voices and shouts and good works and noise, had to demur, to capitulate as the heavenly water threatened to dilute their egos.

Meanwhile, down in the depths of cafe-ness, everything changed. Suddenly, and it was ‘suddenly’, we were serving lunches, quiches, soups, baby chinos, scones with or without cheese, cream, jam, foccacia sandwiches with beet, green stuff, hummus, quiches, fresh, intelligent, spontaneous, ice creams, cakes so soft and so spectacular, I do marvel. These bakers appear to bake without effort, all bonhomie smiles of welcome even if they are mid shift on a pastry or spongeal bonkers. When something runs out, they say, Ok and go back to make another fabulous.

I am dunk-sunk in the Washeroo, my choice, definitely my choice. I like it in this bubble, even when the temperature rises to silly high, all that steam from the dishwasher and the hot water required to make everyone safe from whatever they imagine is out there. I am good at my job, I know that, even as I remember the washing up thing back in my day when the process was often all about the visual and less about the temperature of the water, the cleanliness of the scrubber (not me, the thing that scrubbed). Different now. I also remember Health and Safety appearing, she in a suit (so very obvious) having driven up the long pothole track to sit alone at dinner, like a bird, her head pecking left and right, her judgement the next morning, clear. She knew there were 4 collies in the kitchen, 5 children dragging in brush and mud. and vibrant stories, a husband who never cleaned up for anyone and who, for sure, had a chainsaw to mentor with oil and spray and gloop in the cooking kitchen, or a lamb to deliver in the warm because the alternative was hypothermia and death. But she had her remit. I sat with her, I did, I could hear her stockings rasp as she sat, as she moved and I did feel for her feral self. I’m sure there was one, somewhere. inside.

Today did think me. My thumbs hurt, I stood a long time, it was humid pre rainfall. I did feel it all. But I felt all of this before my cafe work, all on my own over many widow years, and then at times the sore thumbs, the ones which have served me for over 7 decades, took on a magnitude, when other bollix, olding bollix, rose into the ‘it’ of a day, and on and on until I, even I grew sick of my winging as if this was how it would always be, and from now on, the olding crone whispering a downfall. So, instead, ignoring the olding crone, the sore thumbs, the souciant eruption of care for my thumbs, hips, old legs, slower arms of me, I rose. I did. I remember doing it and it recalled me, the doing of it many times before, although I was younger then.

It doesn’t change, that choice, that attitude. Nobody has to turn in, if they don’t want to. I’m going to turn up every day no matter the what, the which, the who, the when of anything. Feisty, Fairy, Failing, Freeing, Focussing, Free-ing up, Friendly, and, trust me, all the other F words chuckling me in this daily throw of the dice, and that also shuts me the f up on my sore bits. We dance together, work in a dance dynamic as we serve and serve, clear and clear, smile and smile. In short, we have found a home. I really think so.

by

Island Blog – Aestival and a Hotchi Witchi

Work today was a spin and a din. Lordy, I swear folk decide to arrive in a gamut, they do. From zero to bonkers in moments, and it is moments, not minutes, although, technically they both may add up to 60 seconds. But it’s the moments that trixillate the arrival thingy. A drift of one family, small noses level with the cake counter, a scarp of I Wants spilling across the wood, echoing, developing. Big parents minding them with hand fusses and gentle remonstrations. Tired, I bet. I remember that time. Nothing pleases for long, minutes, maybe. Maybe. A group of time travellers. Well, they look like Time Travellers to me, all lycra and speedo and helmets and smiles and buzz. Then, older folk, white-headed, gentle, of their generation, polite and smiling, asking for tea for two and cinnamon buns, yes please. These sell out in minutes. All of the baking is ridonculous. So soft, so inviting, so tasty. I plate up, plate up, out it all goes, and in come the compliments, the thank yous.

The spread of the Best Cafe Ever is a good sprawl. Tables not too close and there is, on days like today, sunshine enough for a spill outside into sunbeat or shade, the circular bench tables offering the chance to chat among the feral and opportunistic sparrows who have so worked out crumb snatching. They are even brave enough to sit right beside delighted customers, heads cocked. I so admire them, and the customers who don’t swat.

I love the team of Us. the summer now is full of folk for from Englandshire, school holidays and a choice, I guess, not to fly to abroad, wherever that is, but coming instead to a beautiful island, thrumming with history and the chance to get out there on a boat into the biggest ocean, the Atlantic, the one who controls lives for a gazillion coastlines, carrying as many stories on her back and within her depths as would delight a bedtime child all the way up to adulthood, if said child hears something that lights a light within. And there’s no given on that.

As I drive back home from work, I notice that some still spray poison. I also get it, not that I would ever choose to spray poison. But, I do remember, I do, the overwhelm of bracken, stealing foodal ground from cattle and sheep, and our own internal battle with the choice between poison and the slow and endless alternative. However, there is a disallowance in me now. Where we were dealing with frickin miles of green and the skin-legs of grisly cattle and skitter sheep. this poison is in small gardens, constructs within a wall of hedge and strappish fence. There’s no need for poison here. It’s quick, yes, but it also kills wildflowers, insects who tap down, any water supply, albeit deep down, any birds, spiders, bees, wasps (we need them), flies too, ditto. I do really wish that, in the crevasse that divides generations, there is a wise person, an Hotchi Witchi, one who would not let a single young thing pass until they proved they wanted to be a facilitator of intelligent change.

That’s what I wish for future aestival days, ones I will never see. Maybe I will be the Hotchi Witchi. If so, plan your responses, you young things.

by

Island Blog – The Leapist

As life twiddles on, all contours and corners, some parts expected, many not, the old roads rising up like snakes, or a beckoning, clear and flowered, I, and my curious Alice mind, notice it all. Actually, this Alice noticing thing can be a pain in the ass, a lot of the time, but, and but again, I have the Alice mind and it is my mind and I am always curious. I stop, a lot, see a little ‘weed’, see a butterfly on a bloom, and I question. I see huge invasive flattening in the mud where careless cars have quashed a whole story, a whole tiny life story, now just tyre marks and unfertile ridges. However I bemoan nothing beyond an initial gasp at the uneducated. It is as it is, and, beyond the well-known fact that Nature will survive and revive way after we eejits are dust, I don’t want to carry judgement. It’s like wearing lead boots. I do wish, nonetheless, that more of us understood the precious gift of our lives, our responsibilities, even our place in this time, this Now. I wish, too, that everyone would be curious, ask questions, be open to learning. But, it isn’t like that now. I know, I know. There is an expectation that beyonds me. We want, I want, this, no, not that this, this this, and now. I know not the language to engage in that conversation, were it one beyond observation, nor would I.

I didn’t have work today, although I did delight in collecting and delivering the bread, the croissants, and the pain au chocolat to the Best Cafe Ever. I wound my merry way along the complete wiggle and turn, cornering, rising in speed, slowing because the bracken is frickin and holds the view in completous. (my latin coming out there) and I did meet a few eejits who cannot reverse, but we worked it between us. Driving home in the sunshine, the heat and still smelling the glory of newly baked sourdough and the fresh pastries, I had a think. I am listening to a beautiful audio book. I should probably name it. Harry Potter and the History of Magic. It’s all about the making of the books, including in detail all the research Rowling immersed herself in. It is way more than my initial assessment of her, to my shame. As revelations arose going back centuries, to beasts, beliefs, to christian evolutive paths, her research brought together magic and belief, unbelief and choice. It thinks me, a lot.

Church today, a few of us. These days folk come because they want to, not because they ought, or should, or are told to. The theme was about stepping up to genuinely bring good. I used to wonder. about the consistence of that ‘good’. You can be one person in your good giving and then you. come back home as mum or dad in very bad moods, and ‘what changed?’ So confusing. I get it. However, I am a Leapist. I can understand magic and faith. I disagree with a lot on both sides, but I am open, curious and always learning. What I do learn is about the stops. No, this, No, that, on both sides. Perception on both can be sqewed, cultures are BIG on tidelines, on either or. In between there is the chance to leap through. I’m there.

by

Island Blog – Invectus

Last night, Buck Moon, btw, full and shouting, although I missed the earlier rise into sky disco mode, because I was in bed by nine, still light, still opportunity out there, but my opportunity opening had closed. I was happily Beach Cafe tired and there was a good book awaiting me along with my nightie (sorry for the detail) and a big mug of knockout drops, aka, Chamomile, 2, Sleep tea, one. Works a treat. I can actually leave the night unattended, she gets on with herself, darkling corridors and alleyways and rocks on the shore, inviting the night creatures out like a disco queen.

However, and this was a big However for me, last night when the night disco raised hell for neighbours and when the Buck Moon was rubbing the velvet off his antlers, asleep was I, calm and well-read, chamomile drugged, my heart the rhythm, a gentle beat. Actually, that’s a lie. I am hellfire in my chest, the beat of acid house, or whatever that hysterical thrumming beat is called. Anyway……is there another word for a crossroads in direction? Happy to receive ideas. Let me begin.

I think I fell asleep around 10. I flipped off an extra pillow, felt the fresh breeze pushing in the wide window, and gloried in it. T’is done, I said, I did, out loud. Sleep now. And we did, the breeze and I, until the carbon monoxide monitor rose into a soprano that would split any ears, all ears. It began as a chirrup, which I ignored. I’ve done well on this island ignoring alarms, any sort. Mostly, they are nonsense. However, this scream would not be ignored, rising into a definite panic. I came downstairs, checked the house and found a citronella candle still burning, encased, yes, but burning nonetheless. I had forgot.

I pulled the CO2 thing off the wall, after extinguishing the candle, and pushed every damn button. It screamed on. I sat with it for moments, doing the pushing thing, but that ear-splitting scream continued and I mean continued, non frickin stop. I made tea, sat, shook my head a lot. I knew I needed sleep, there was no gas leak, no nothing, all windows open in this heat , no threat. I filled a bucket with water and dropped the monitor in it. I had already unscrewed the back from the front, always, in my opinion, the best advice to give to anyone, no matter the problem, but still it shrieked, even underwater. I went back to bed and applied ear plugs, slept a bit, but when I woke about 3 am, I could still hear it, burbling away drowned, not drowned. Apologising to my, now, exhausted fluffy dressing gown, I literally caterpulted downstairs. It is 04.30. I have work tomorrow, no, today. There is no danger here. Still shrieking in the drowning bucket. Ach……Ok, you, I thank you for being so wonderful, I think. I put it in the fridge and still it beeped. I got some sleep, and loved my day in the Best Cafe Ever. However, when I did come down at 04.30, I knew there was a reason for all this nonsense. There, like a new planet, the full Buck Moon. Held, in sky stasis, right in my face. I didn’t need lights.

Thinks me. Someone who irritates, something that irritates. What can we learn about another and, what’s more, was there a random something that led us here, this now, one we might not have chosen, but one which may give us the insight we need?

I am happy to say. that, with help, my feisty and wonderful CO2 monitor is no more. I will buy another one because I know, and this may be a big shift, that when something alerts me, no matter it electronic, I am alert. I honestly don’t believe that things and people are apart from each other. After all, and think on this, we constructed the things. We are connected, as we are with the tides and the moonflows, even if we live in concrete and streetal limitations and confines.

If only we believed,

by

Island Blog – Shenanigans

It was super boiling in the Washeroo today, all that steaming water puffing steam at me as I loaded and emptied the dishwasher, one I have never met. The wash is fiery hot and quick and very effective, plates and cups too hot to touch for at least three rounds of ‘He’s a jolly good fellow’. I am so happy that, back in the 80’s, my adventurous and spontaneous culinary skills were ‘allowed’ to develop without any eye from Health and Safety, bringing in some besuited interference with a clipboard of rules, immovable rules, no matter that we live on an island with a dispirited ferry and, thus, limited deliveries of fresh anything much.

We, up here, in the thankful coolish climes, with a wind that, once November comes, can wheech a skinny old woman off her feet, we are happy it’s gentle now, warm and soft, and more than happy we are not in Englandshire nor in any other Hotshire. I thought I was hot in the Washeroo, but I can imagine, actually I cannot, the temperature in a restaurant in a confined city place, with no access to a seawind, no chance of a blast of cool.

However, this is not the thing I wanted to say. I gave a lift home to a young beautiful woman, shy, smiling, respnsive, smart, definitely in the room. I watch her head turn, saw her respond to a customer demand, watched her serve, clear tables, respond to a sudden rush. I watch from the Washeroo, where I am definitely hiding, because there is a lorry load of plates, cups, glasses, bowls, and more coming in on trays so fast I can barely keep up. But even focused inward, the dishwasher, the drying, the response to askers. More Teapots, now, This Knife, More quiche plates, that sort of dynamic. I do this dynamic all through the middle of the day which is when the everyone of everything arrives with a list. Two soups, one with bread, one with cheese scone, yes, extra cheese and Mull seaweed chutney, yes. Four quiches, no, wait, two are vegan, so no this nor that. The kids want juice, ice, no ice, baby chinos, is the banana loaf nut free, is the lemon polenta ok for vegetarians, are the blueberries safely sourced for those muffins, can I have this tea, that tea, this coffee, that coffee with oat milk, soy milk, no milk, extra water, warm, not iced?

We do it so well in the Best Cafe Ever. We duck and dive, juke and swivel, guided by the bosses. Actually I wonder if they like that title. Just wondering. We are well led. When something looks like a lack (always wanted to write that) it’s a turning, an opportunity and what I have found in that wee serving space, with goodness knows how many conversations and solutions burgeoning like new blooms every minute, we are a flipping marvellous team. The leaders, the we of us, the whole impact on this summer, this place, this dynamic. I’m so glad I’m here. The fun we. have, the shenanigans. Everyone is jealous. Work is boring after all, a thing to get through.

Not here.

by

Island Blog – The Mary Thing

I’m home and back into a precious silence, just the birds, the gulls screeching like a mother who is way past tolerance, urgent, a call that cuts like glass. I’m watching the shift-light, the white skinny, almost saying something. Blue sits fat and patchy, here and there, confident in its canopy control. I am always here, but playing hide and seek and damn good at it. I’ve been hours away this day, caught and captured into a gathering. That’s what we call it here. A gathering can occur on a hillside, within the walls of a completely unprepared cottage in the middle of nowhere, a sudden thing. But, this one was ready for itself. We all knew it was coming, the date set.

I was unsure about what to wear as all of my clothing fits a rainbow and this was a sad gathering, no matter the celebration of life thing. A very long life lived, a load of children, a big team of grandkids and a football stadium of great grandlings. 97 or so years of twinkling and working like not many women would these days. I knew her, a bit, but in talking with one of her grandsons (so handsome, as they all are) about body language and the words we say without saying a single word, I felt I suddenly knew her better. She was a generation above me, ahead of me, but she was so approachable, so welcoming, so naughty, perhaps not all by herself, but there was that sparkle in her eyes that told me she was up for anything. A very gracious lady, and I mean Lady.

We laid her to rest this day in the old graveyard, her beloveds, spanning generations, lowering her into the ground beside the love of her life, gone some years before, above the bay, with cloud dip, slight rain (very polite and thank you) and a lot of old, young, very young, all there for her. She leaves with them, her inspiration, her encouragement and acceptance and a lot of tears and laughter. And Billy, who brought her home was as he has always been, respectful, working with whatever a family chooses, so compassionate, so professional.

What a legacy Mary. You leave that with them, with me, with all of us who remember you now, and who will talk about you for frickin ages.

Thank you.

by

Island Blog – Tergiversator and Future Hope

This watching of grandlings growing into themselves thinks me. Although I only see them in explosive bursts, in holiday mode and intent, so intent on buzzing about on my quad, sometimes well overloaded, I can see they are moving into a new state. To me it looks like a very big space, full of questions like bluebottles around their heads. What they once believed unequivocally, they now challenge such as rulings within the home, opinions proffered which cause them to stop, confused, unsure. ‘I don’t agree with this’ can be flattened by one slammed fist of an authoritarian, carelessly dismissed and mocked. I remember that place. We are changelings in these awkward and spotty years, knowing what we don’t want but without the language to communicate. We have, in short, yet to learn the rules of the game ahead. We feel anger, frustration, a lack of recognition, but then even we don’t recognise the self we are fast becoming.

Change is a wonderful thing, in its perfect state, which doesn’t exist by the way because change is always upsetting for others. Think on it. If a dot in a perfect line of dots decides to drop a millimetre down or up, the line, once confident and assured now faces a void, a loss. Chaos ensues. What we once were…. that damn dot has ruined, ruined! This line has stood strong for weeks, months, years, generations, and now look. No, don’t look. There’s a hole in the straight line, in our understanding, in our confidence, in our family, in our workplace, on our street, and we are wringing our hands, lost, confused, angry. And why are we angry? Because we now, thanks to this Dot Dash, have no idea who we are anymore. That’s why.

In the Oxford Dictionary, there are many words for change, but what I have noticed is that there are many more swerves to the negative, and it wonders me. A definition begins with all that is good about change, slipping almost immediately into the gutter, into the dark, the menacing. This tells me quite a lot about how culture has, and still does, control wordage , language. Tergiversator, a word I might use now as light and lively once meant fickle, scheming, menacing even, and there are many more such definitions. This is because words shift and change shape and meaning, all the time and with every generation, with the infusion of new cultures, new beliefs, new aspirations towards a freedom, an escape from the structure of what once was so solid.

As a new young person grows beyond the langauge learned in childhood, there must always be some level of confrontation. The pillars and posts of the buildings that once stood strong (and controlling) will crumble because they must. New ideas burst in, new thoughts, new people. We need these new people, careless though they may be, crazy, certain of themselves, blundering and breaking rules, just as, once, the world needed us for exactly the same reason. Future hope.

by

Island Blog – Family, time and A.I.

They barrelled in, the girls, all grown up now, or so they think. I remember barrelling in with just that belief, even though I was always dodging the parental thumb. They’re like butterflies, the really colourful ones, dipping and diving, fluttering, spinning bright sparkles around the room, any room, so vulnerable. I smile a big welcome, ask questions because these girls now think they are adults, autonomous, certain. They have opinions, strong ones, a surety that I have definitely lost over time. For now, they know the world. It’s round, and contained in space within a gravitational pull, but they’re not, with their piecings and tattoos and that certainty that the world is just waiting for them to cause a wow. A really big Wow. One is heading into performing arts, another to the science of human geography, another to animal whispering (it’s not called that, but she is definitely a student thereof, already). And there are more plans for futures. Forgive my forgetting. All these teens are alight like fireworks, grasping life, opportunities, fighting for space within the inevitable confines of peer judgement and parental disappointment. What the parents wanted and hoped for, even planned for, was not what this teen had even imagined. No, Dad. No, Mum. Teens can say that these days.

I am, at first, momentarily surprised at how short I am. They were babies, toddlers, kindergarten deposits, when…….a few months ago, weren’t they? Now they are tall, strong girls, all made up perfectly, in lycra, toned and svelte, excited, fit, adventurous, wild, aware. I don’t mind being short btw. It works, for a granny. They look after me, help me unscrew a wine bottle or a jar of pesto, open the door for me. I am loved and I can feel it. Actually, the surprise thing continues. My quad shoots by loaded with girls, all squealing. I know they have walked into the wild Atlantic from Calgary beach, swung on tree limbs, investigated deer tracks, not a moment of boredom. And they are doing all this right here. Although I may only see them in quad passing, I know they are here, and it thinks me about moments, which is really all we have. Although I am alone on the island, I am not alone at all. Family may not live here anymore, but they come back and those explosions of the familiar are welcome, so welcome. Even when they are here, they have their own agenda, their own plans, of course they do. Even their parents, my kids, move to a different beat from the one of their childhood.

I get this glimpse and then they are gone again, but I have watched every given moment, listened to hopes, dreams, plans. I have watched faces alight with hope and faith. II have given over my kitchen for cake-baking, have watched my quad roar by way too fast, loaded up with girls. And I think this……

Go girls. Make a difference. Be canny, aware, safe and, oh, another thing….Artificial Intelligence can never be human.