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Island Blog – And So We Run

It is still today, like the sky was exhausted, the winds gone. The sea calmer, the illusion complete. T’is an illusion. We, who live out here in the wild of the wild, know this. But, we have always known this. There are wilder places, and I have heard of their experiences, of torn off rooves, a disputed plural, hallo Dad, mid storm, of sheep out there, hopefully somewhere, of cattle on the cusp of cliffs, of subsidence, of trees falling on pretty much everything, of no power, no neighbours able to walk to help, of all of it. But when the still comes, we run with it. No, not that for those of us who know that this is how it is, and how more it is. I am not one, anymore, one. whom lives in the way beyond. Actually, I never was, not really. The Outer Hebrides are, well Outer. The storms they meet are huge, no, HUGE. I wonder if we ever think of that? Or, are we caught up in the ‘inconvenience of winter storms, because, what, they limit travel to something or someone? Loss of power for 24 hours, for 3 days, loss, btw of any chance of communication, so dependant are we on those who seem to own us now.

It thinks me. It might think you. I notice that, once the still comes in, after the biggest storm in ages, apparently, which, I must confess, laughs me, as there have been so many storms within those ‘ages’, we run on again, chasing jobs we hate, running after things we really don’t want to align with just because someone in authority wants it for us, or just running from what is no longer happy. I wonder, as I write this, if someone, who has survived whatever they survived in this storm, is now questioning the running?

Well, if you are, be brave. I know that sounds impossible. But, it is your freedom. You’l have to stop and turn. You are change. A rare leader.

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Island Blog – The Void and Music

In the last 24 hours, we were there, weren’t we. Not a question. We knew a storm was coming in, not unusual for we islanders, and argyllersand that there might be limitations, such as no ferry runs, such as possible power cuts. I have more power cuts under my belt than may seem acceptable to those who don’t live out here in the half way to space but still under complete control of the Mad Atlantic and her insouciant storms. I just know she works with the under and over skies to turbulence we humans, to ascertain her control. It works here, anyway, or she does, and by the way, she spreads her velvet and ferocious self all the way around the frickin world. Just saying. I have no idea about the Pacific, or the Indian, or any of the active others. Oceans, mountains, moons, skies, they confound me.

The wind was coming. The warning was red, the first for Scotland. Scotland is a big place by the way. There is the East, there is the West, there is the South, the North and the Middle. We almost don’t speak the same language, so different are our life experience.s Different winds, different seas, different a whole flipping lot. And a gale, a big storm means different things to us. There are those way out there in farmhouses, stock in the thick of serious gusts, the fear, the cold, the cut off from everyone else. I am not one of those, but I did feel the cutoff. That word, in my day would never have been a word. Just saying. Hallo Dad.

I’m resisting, I know it, It was hell. It was dark. I was alone. The 24 hours without power was long and scary, as wee bits of my home crashed down with a loudness that so didn’t befit the size of each piece. But, as they fell, in the candle dark, I bigged them up. My chimney? Slates? Like ancient slates? Even worse. I went to bed, slept fully clothed, pus blankets, with a candle and with the damn frickin electric phone beeping all night in a whiney moan. Battery losing power. Like I could care, with my two hot water bottles and no communication with my family and wind shouting and blattering and making noise and shout .

When the ppower came on, I almost danced. Warmth, tunes, connection. Tick. So very important. My landline is dead. But, I have contact with my kids. However, there may well come a time when that connection won’t come back. I know this. For now, I am just loving the reconnection, and playing my tunes, music always loud in my home, always was.

Probably overdoing it. Thankfully my house is solid stone build.

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Island Blog – Wet baskets and Thinks

I have returned to the most wonderful artwork in my home, on the ceiling above a recessed window, in the halfwayupthestairs wall, in the bathroom, no longer (and sadly) containing a bath. The colours are eliptic, shaplular, interesting. I know why they are there, and what they would mean to anyone but me, obviously. They show water ingress. But I have lived with water ingress for most of my adult life, all of it, actually, and have become friends with it, interested, even. In a home 117 years older than I, expectations are definitely a mistake, particularly in our current world of covering every damn thing up with paint and walls and pretence. In those old days, sentient folk followed water courses and with respect. They just knew what they were up against. Nature. Now, well, now that intelligence is considered obsolete.

I’m watching the ingress right now. It comes every winter, and every spring when the winter king has finally let go of control, I call a plasterer to cover up what will always be there in this ancient stone build, my home. Through my windows, i am watching big cloud talk and I am not surprised. They know there is a huge gale coming in on Friday, and they are bunching up, holding tight, shouting it out, running for cover, for those who recognise sky conversation. Fishermen may not be out on Friday. Ferry may not appear on Friday. But those of us who live here, who know the gales will come, who know that, accept and batten down. The wood won’t burn. The rain comes in. The wind takes your wheelie. And, and, there is shared laughter in that.

When I come into my ancient home, all tripled glazed and with underfloor heating, I smell wet baskets. I think. Or, is it mice? I think mice smell like wet baskets. I don’t like opening my door to the smell of wet baskets, nor mice. I want to come in to fresh and welcoming. Too many years of this place smelling like an old folks home, and I so wish I didn’t have to say that. Maybe that’s an ingress, maybe from the old bones of the old stories, I don’t know. Perhaps rain ingress smells like wet baskets, or mice?

A lot of thinks. For now, I’ll go with finding supper.

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Island Blog – Pants and a Laugh

There’s a thing about pants, and I’m noticing it. The thing. I’ve hung many of them on lines, on pulleys, on the side of doors, mirrors, radiators, and not just mine. I know the bottoms they contain, and I wonder. The yawl and spread of these do not comply with the computation in my mind. It’s as if another country has been added, thus compromising my understanding of a person’s geography. They have forgotten themselves. It leads me, inevitably, to a check on my own underpants. I can see, as I bend to eyeball the drawer of such personal items, that I am living in the past. I bought this pair, well, obviously, years ago, just look at the stretch that once kept me in, and which, now, spreads like a new planet no matter how much I fold and scroll. Have I thus spread? I have not. It is just that I don’t need more pants. Oh, really? Is, then, it so, that I don’t need a new bra either? No, I’m fine, same tits, well, a tit and a half to be honest now, but it works and who’s looking anyhoo? Hallo sisters, so not the point, and that laughs me now that I have one tit that is intent on the sky, thank you marvellous cancer surgeon.

Back to pants. I am home now after the most invigorating and uplifting time in Africa. Yes it is rainy, and so what to that, and there are potholes and there might not be adequate salt spread on the single track roads and there will be winds and so flipping what? Some people are fighting for their lives right now. Which is pants. My thing here is this. We can get all caught up in pants, literally. I know I do until I decide this pair has to go, I deserve new, even if gravity has altered my flesh, and a new bra, even if one tit is heading one way, the other, the other. They used to agree, but that was when they did and now it is different and I believe that those who survive, not the longest, but the happiest, are those who just buy new pants, new bra, each time life slams a dunk, whatever the hell that means. And then there are those who are so caught up in the loss of buttock control or whatever, that you just know they are not paying attention.

Hallo those who can laugh at all of this.

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Island Blog – From Gimcrack to Newbuild

Arriving back in Scotland was a right shock. From 34 degrees to minus 8, and overnight. Doesn’t seem possible. All those sleepless hours inside a huge metal bird, squashed and fighting for leg room and elbow room as we all hurtled through time and space, over countries we may never set foot in, delude us. We left in shorts, well, I didn’t, still buzzing with holiday flutter and fast departing tans, breathing in many other breaths and emissions, only to land in a cold, dark, very early, winter morning, wishing we’d chosen thermal longs instead of cotton shorts.

Outside the terminal, folk with fast departing tans, shivered, puffing steam like the Hogwarts Express and stamping. I didn’t risk the stamping thing, having only light plimsoles on my feet, one of which threatens a hole. I just stood in awe, watching the excited departees, smiling at the caved in faces of others like me who wanted nothing more than to run back to the plane demanding a return ticket. It’s winter, for goodness sake, I hissed to myself, teeth chattering something I couldn’t catch. Get over yourself. You’ve made it back, after all, no damage done.

Met, as I was, by my daughter and granddaughter and hugged warmly, my shivers abated. The car pulsed heat, the snow was stunning, I was safe. As we drove in lines of traffic, all going somewhere, I presumed, I felt many twinges of sadness at my leaving Africa, the son, the sun, the heat, the music, the warm sea, the ease with which anyone can live in a place that never gets cold at all. Of course, to live there would be a very different thing. Perhaps the heat, sometimes rising into the late 40s, might cause problems with working conditions, with comfortable sleep, with mental alertness. I didn’t have to be alert at all, had a fan blowing me almost out of bed each night, didn’t have to work. that’s not real life, however, that’s a holiday, an adventure every day with company, laughter, games, walks, moments that lifted us almost off our feet and nothing mattered, not even the threatening hole in my shoe.

Slowly I acclimatised, very slowly, and particularly so as I had managed to land with extra baggage – a novovirus bug, always a risk when travelling, when inhaling other breaths and emissions, no matter how clean the recycled air professes to be. The virus is brutal. Don’t catch it. Then I gave it to my daughter who missed her 50th birthday as a result. So unkind of me, but what control do any of us have over the invisible? I am happy to report that, it seems, nobody else in the family caught the devil, and today I begin my journey back to the island in sunshine. It’s still going to be winter for a long while, I know that, but I feel as if I have moved from gimcrack to newbuild. Plans for self-improvement, for more fun, for more adventures, all just waiting for me to press ‘play,’ and I am ready.

Whatever we go through, whatever befalls us, cannot break us if we refuse to break. We may lose confidence, bodily parts, outward beauty and all control over flesh gravity, but this olding generation is a tough cookie. And, all we have to do is to keep getting up, keep looking out like excited children, who just know they will catch a falling star. One day.

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Island Blog – Travelling in Light

Last full day, today, under an African sun, and, although I am (always) sad to leave this beautiful country, I am ready to fly back through space and time, to land in my own country, my own life. Visits to Africa heal me, help me move forward in renewed hope, and also allow me, by some magic, to let go of whatever gave me ants in my pants during the year before. This time, I had some tough shit to go through, the legacy of which rippled on through my body and affected my mind in ways that surprised me. I was, I thought, quite in order with myself. Then, when I fell very ill, and cancer was discovered, I still felt in order with myself. I am strong, a warrior, I can overcome this, or so I thought, and, to a high degree and with the assistance of an excellent surgeon and tremendous medical support and expertise, I did, or we did. But the body holds the score, as we all know, so that, even when a mind is made up to survive and thence to thrive, the body lags behind. In turn, this lagging thing affects a mind, so that, although I had moved on, I was constantly reminded of a new frailty. And a new strength. It was confusing, as if a fight was on between body and mind. No matter how clear I was on my decision to move on after such a trauma, I was often reminded that a new compromise was required.

This visit, around family, under sun, inside adventures and conversations, I rise. Not by mental force alone, but with a gentling of body and mind, as if they now move together and as one. I said I knew myself before, but was still aware of anxieties and hesitations around my new limits. Now, I work with those limitations as if they aren’t limitations at all, but just who I am now. And I have learned from this change, this rather strange pretence that I can force a collusion between mind and body, regardless of trauma, as if it was nothing much and blow it away on the winds. That doesn’t work, I know it now, even if that determination has held me up and bright in 2024. What I needed was time to heal and the patience to accept that truth, to walk with it, open and humble, until all of me finally got together again.

We have had many wonderful adventures, all the while sharing ideas and jokes, plans and observations. We have watched the wild Atlantic and swum in the warm Indian Ocean. We have seen humpbacks breach, dolphins burst the waves wide open, colourful birds flying overhead; we have dined and wined and picnicked and walked through Fynbos, Fleis, and across miles of white sand ,peppered with an array of spectacular shells I never see back home. We have seen the sun set the ocean on fire, stayed with friends who live between mountains so high as to disappear into cloud. We have wandered among shops in Capetown, laughed at the terrible driving whenever it rains, and stood in awed silence beneath the upside down stars. And all the while, I could feel the gentle hand of a natural healing.

I know I fly back into winter, but there will always be a winter. I know I don’t have enough warm clothing. I know I will have to drive back to the ferry through tricky weather and that the ferry may not sail through gale force winds. I also know my wee home awaits me, the wood burner, the candles, my friends, my community. I return as me, but renewed, re-jigged, at peace with my life, because I have travelled in light, one that is strong and sustainable, one that tells me who I am, and who I am is just fine with me.

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Island Blog – Twenty Twenty Thrive

And so, here we are, landed in a new year, onto an empty canvas, into a story yet to be written. What will you make of it, I wonder? Some of us feel ‘meh’ about the whole thing, some have made a plan of action, resolutions, even, although it is a truth that most of the latter are set too high and dissolve around February 1st. So how might we approach this new land, begin our own new story?

We have talked much on this, here beneath an African sun, and, although ideas are manifold as stars, each one is apposite to that person’s development and growth. To become more healthy is to initiate a plan of action, perhaps to walk each day, perhaps to run, a ghastly idea to me. I could run to save someone or to catch a bus, but all that bounce and jiggle is not a thing I would ever choose to undertake. However, I respect and admire those who do. But if this plan doesn’t get begun, it only serves to bring a person down so that they berate themselves enough to give up on what seemed like a wonderful idea. We are so good at self-flagellation.

Personal growth – now there’s a good one. It could mean noticing everything and everyone: could mean searching out the work of someone who has studied the subject, spoken on it, made it reachable. For me, one who is always hungry for learning, I listen to what others say, how they feel about what they say, and I ask questions. To keep a mind off moans and grumbles and selfies, it’s essential to feed that mind, no matter how old that mind might be.

Connectivity is another option, more of it and among those who uplift and encourage. There is enough gloom and doom out there already. What the world needs is more bright thinkers, those who, in spite of their circumstances, in spite of their fears, choose to see the world as a place of of hope, beauty and opportunity. When I hear moans, I can feel the irritation rise in me. When I hear ‘Well, what can anyone do?’ I want to say ‘A whole lot,’ because each one of us has that power, if we so choose. We can’t change everything, but we sure can change something, and that something is actually ‘someone.’ The self.

Achievements, personal achievements are listable for all of us. They don’t have to be huge. Why do we plant seeds in Spring? Because we can, because we love beauty and that blaze of colour. Why do we smile at each other in passing? Do we, smile at each in passing, or is that ‘self’ so caught up in minutiae, that we just don’t bother? To decide to smile at everyone. A good plan. To pick up litter instead of judging whoever dropped it. Another good plan. To allow someone else the parking space we were heading for. Excellent. A real achievement. And there are many more ways to make a difference whilst moving towards our goal of independent choice, of control over self.

Jimmy Hendrix said ‘ When the power of love is greater than the love of power, our world will find peace.’ I may have misquoted him, but you get the gist. And it begins with one person, one with a resolution that is free to us all. We can all thrive this year, by setting goals or plans or resolutions which connect us to each other, which take our self-centred thoughts up into the sky, to blow away in the winds.

Let’s do this. And a very happy new year to you all.

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Island Blog – The Silvermine

We went there today, early, for a picnic and swim. In 1665 someone reckoned there might be silver to be mined here. There wasn’t, but the river was dammed in order to check for it, and the dam is a big and glorious lake now. Many, very many, come here to swim and to enjoy a day by water in what is now a Natural Reserve. There can be baboons, there can be snakes, but with the shouts of delight and the ebullience of human voices, an encounter is a rare thing, thankfully.

We arrived with swim kit, dogs, food, a rug, a few towels and we found a space. The space was small and spiky grassed, but it was good enough. We had walked by many larger spots, already taken, even though we came early. We settled. Just behind us, on the slatted walkway, we heard others walk by, also looking for a place to land. You always hope for good neighbours, at this point if you come with two dogs, one a puppy. We found them, or they found us. They also had a pup, a curious but beautiful mix between a terrier and a something else with long legs. She barrelled into our midst, soaking and shaking, eyes bright and we laughed and said hallo. Then our resident pup did the same, only he has a much fluffier coat. I heard, through the big ass grasses, children squeal and chuckle as they cuddled him. That’s the thing about the Silvermine. Although we are all on the same shoreline, we are naturally divided, with these big ass grasses and they are so big ass, a total view block, some even taking out sky. And, yet, we can still, if we want, connect.

We swam, we played table tennis in the water, we watched the dogs swim, catch ball, and all the while the afternoon moved on, tick, tock, as more people came and as others left. I wondered how this place will be when the gates are locked, when the sun is gone and the night falls dark on the Fynbos.

Silver or not, we found it on this very happy day.

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Island Blog – The Pretend and the Real

There’s a thing after a big occasion. It’s a bit of a down in the boots. The build up to something takes frickin ages, months of thought and prep and unholy panic. And, then, the day comes, as it always will, skidding in too fast, knocking those who aren’t prepared right over on their butts. We get through it, love it, hate bits of it, and then the night comes like a full stop to all that thought and prep and unholy panic. And, even though it is done for another whole year, there’s a wistfulness squirking around because for one day everyone got together, rising above the ordinary, the boredinary, the slough and chuff and scuff and dribble of the next bit, which is much longer than a bit. It’s going to work again, to school again, to facing the weather again without the lift of pretence. It’s like stepping out of fairyland and back out onto the street, wetter and colder than before.

I get it.

Oh, I know I am in Africa and Christmas was super hot and sunny, no need for a merry fire in the grate, no need for candles, which, by the way, would have melted into puddles by 8 am, but I still need to come home to the ‘street’. It wonders me, this whole shift, not just mine across timelines and a gazillion air miles, but for everyone else. Life will never stay still. Such a damn nuisance, that. But, it is how it is, and the slump after two days of festivities will affect all of us, no matter whom nor where we are. We love to celebrate, to have fun, to lift ourselves up and away from the pressures of our lives, to pretend, just for a short time. I believe this to be a strength, because I have met many, so many, who say MEH to celebratory felicitations. That saddens me. You, my friends, have lost the child in you, and that is a massive loss. We love to play, however stiff and starchy we may become, through pressures, hurts, wounds, damage and disappointments. Good news is that the child still lives in there, somewhere. And, the most playful people I have ever met, have always been the most broken.

We make resolutions. We break them. We set them too high, way above the beyond of what we can reach just now. We want to change, or we would never set these damn things, these Don’ts and Do’s that may never be us. I just decide to be more playful, to see the fun or to initiate it. To laugh more, to share smiles, to say hallo to anyone, everyone. To bring out the little girl I once was, before the pretend became a conscious decision, when it just happened because it was real.

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Island Blog – The Trouble with Labels

I would say, and have said, how much I hate labels. Let me explain. The first time I met them, there were four, written down and explained by an author whose name escapes me. At first, it felt reassuring to discover I was thus labelled, at some big business meeting, somewhere, way back when. It was exciting, because it was as if I had finally discovered me, the who of me, and it explained a lot – why I never had my endless questions answered, why I was the LOUD in the room, how I could walk into any gathering like a new adventure just arrived, startling everyone, and, unfortunately, receiving glares and go-aways from those in the other three categories.

Over many long years, with that label pinned to my chest, I have spent time breaking it down, because it was so finite, and that sort of blockage is anathema to me. Life and people are a flow, ever changing and adapting, so that labels, fine on something you want to buy, are little short of irrelevant when it comes to human beings. When I look back at the definitions of each of the four tyrpes of human, I can see myself in every one of them, at times, when required. Let me list them, if you don’t know what I mean:-

Choleric – strong-willed, passionate, direct. Melancholic – introvert, sensitive, suspicious.

Phlegmatic – neat, diplomatic, reliable. Sanguine – extrovert, optimistic, talkative.

I am all of these, when I need to be. I believe we all are. How would we not be all of them at times? One label does not define any one of us. Take People Pleasers, for example. Does anyone want to be stuck in that set of chains? Of course not. I can happily relate to my passion for making sure others are happy. I am sensitive and observant and can make a room of mis-matched humans into a happening, a melding of unlike minded souls, just by choosing the right music, the right time to say something, the right time to say nothing and just to listen, the right time to move towards a soul alone and to engage with gentle questions. All this does not label me a people pleaser, and leave me there because I, like you, am moving on. Life is swerving us, compromising our decisions and choices, picking away at our incomes like seagulls on chips, and we are adapting because we are strong and resolute. We are passionate but suspicious. We turn out neat, can be diplomatic and reliable, as we can also be strong-willed, optimistic and sensitive.

What we are, if a label is ever required, is dynamic. I, and you, I’m guessing, have denied self in the interests of others and the situation. We have been determined and strong-willed when a situation requires a leader and we are that leader. We have been introvert at times, extrovert at others. We have flexed and moved, stopped and turned to stone, elevated another, then thought that one through and grown wings for ourselves. We are passerine.

This merry season is a challenge for so many, perhaps for us all. Moneyed up or not, there is pressure. Please remember how far you have come, through (very possibly) many ghastlies, and who you are now. Not one label, not two, not twenty two. No labels. We are extraordinary humans, able to twist in any storm, able to guide others to safe landing. We are quiet and we are the voice that saves the day. We are passionate but able to hear another’s opinion and to consider. We are neat but don’t judge those who are not. We are suspicious but not of everything and everyone. We are always reliable, doing every task whether someone is watching or not. We are talkative but can laugh when someone says Shut up. We are all of this.

Someone recently asked me my advice for the day. I could only think of one thing.

Keep moving, watching, listening and learning, and, above all, recognising and saying hallo to every single person you meet along the way. They just might need it.