climbing

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Island Blog – Barefoot and So Very Connected

Shadows are longer now. They surprise me, twisting my eyes towards them, when the sun gets behind this overgrown shrub or the line of my rake, or just me. I am, it seems, the giant. I reach all the way up to the big larch on the rockface, my neck and head lost in the skinning branches. I smile at the thought. Long gone are my days of hiding in trees, of scaling the scarp of an ancient trunk, scratched, bruised and, at times wishing I hadn’t bothered to begin. But the absolute joy of hoiking my butt onto a strong limb, into the hook of a tree mother’s arm, the inevitable wobble and correction and the determination to stay exactly there, completely lost to the eyes of predators, aka, adults or, later, visitors, even my children, is like a fizz in my blood. I like the memory, hold it, recognise it, know that it, once, was mine.

Although the Siskins, Goldfinch, Swallows and House Martins are gone, Robins have returned with a different song. Their Spring ‘Come to Me’ has changed, in timbre, in melody, in regularity. Timely, I guess, but what do they sing for so beautifully? Perhaps they sing for. Autumn, on the cusp of Winter. Perhaps it’s for the superb clarity, the reviresco of light, the copper,gold,fiery sunsets, the way the basalt sharps up, glitters with rain, sparkles with sun, moon, reflecting, as we all do in the autumn of our lives, a new and unexpected brilliance.

There is sudden sun and sudden rain, sudden cold and sudden warmth. The invasion of another seasons is always a fight. Think about it. Summer (so called) has lazed about for months, taking her place, sitting fatly upon her throne, throwing us, this year, a capulet of cloud sneezing and, somehow, she managed to throw into our mix, a. big dose of winter. I suspect, she, fatly lounging upon her throne in the Out Of Work Months, mixed up a laboratory of cold spite, made it work, cackled a lot and then brought her experiment down on our heads. Summer always had a love/hate relationship with the Winter King.

I watch chimney smoke across the sea-loch, early morning, as the stars are still stars and the cold is a thrisk of caught breath. The ground is sharp and fierce to my bare feet, a thrill and a real connection with the earth. It is a mystery to me, this sense of connection. I claim no understanding, and I don’t want to, because I love a mystery. I just know that I am always, ALWAYS uncomfortable in shoes and that my feet are happy bare. I cannot walk barefoot along pitted tracks now, any more than I could heist a larch trunk, nor heft my old butt into a mother curve, but that is ok. I could once, and that is enough.

The mice are coming in. I knew they would. The nights are cold now and they are no fools. Survival is everything. I won’t say I am okay about mouse droppings inside my pots and crockery kitchen cupboards but I honestly feel this is a problem that would arrive me a derisive snort from a woman who has no kitchen left because of the bombing. I sweep them away, wash anything I cook with, hope the wee sweet furry creatures don’t eat through the lagging of my water tank in the loft, and wish them well. I suspect I am fortunate to have met animal invasion on a regular basis in my young wife-life. It helps.

Rowan berries, wild sienna, catch my eyes. One here, heavy with fruit, a wide bloom of branches, over there, one skmming for space t’ween big-ass confers, doing her best. Hazels nut up, cones catch the sunset, way up there atop an ancient fir or spruce, and brambles wink blue-black in their tangle. This is Autumn. The rut will begin soon. I will hear the roar of stags echo across the sea-loch, plaintive, threatening, both. The crisp is coming in, no matter what, and it is beautiful. It is tough. It is upskittling, confusing, sudden, It is as it is. We, who live so very close to nature, are so ready for the tapselteerie of fickle weather changes, and we will adapt, and that is our human skill, if we so choose. I think, sometimes, no, often, of those who live in cities, in controlled (so called) environments, and wonder how they are coping with the strangeness of our new seasons.

I wake in the night sometimes. If the moon is loud, or if I hear swans beeping to each other as they fly over my island home, from the freezing arctic, heading south, I wake. I know why. I cannot miss one single chapter in this extraordinary life journey, even if inconvenient. I rise from bed, fling open the curtains, see the night, see the stars, search for swans, feel connected. So very connected.

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Island Blog – Keeping Time with Time

I wake early and with the sunrise. Out here, in Africa, we are two hours ahead of the UK for a while yet, until the clocks go forward this month. Africa doesn’t bother about clock changing and it wonders me why anyone does. There must be a point to it. Perhaps there is only a limited amount of time in the world and it needs sharing. We lose an hour and another continent thousands of miles across the world finds it has gained one, over us, that is. What is achieved in that gained hour I wonder? Does somebody somewhere get a job done more thoroughly or is that hour just 60 minutes of boredom, time wasted, time not needed, time spent in waiting for something, anything to happen? And when we claim back that hour, around now, with Spring in our step, do we notice the gain of it, treasure it, make it really count, or is it just lost in sleep, a sleep cut short? This musing thinks me. I don’t need to know the facts around time gained, time lost, because this is not the way my mind works. I am more interested in the concept of time and what it means at the core of itself. Time gained? Who gains? Time lost? Who loses? All answers float in the stratosphere, high above factual explanations, beyond the reach of science or physics, free-flowing through the vast and unlimited space of an imagination. There is no such thing as time. Time is an illusion. We all have the same number of hours in a day. But what do we do with our no-such-thing, illusory and equally gifted gift of Time? Now that’s a question.

When I was mostly tapselteerie, way back when children were children, when I was taller than any of them and when, if I said NO, then NO it was, I never thought much about time as a concept. It was something the clock told me, tick, tock, tick, a hand at my back, a hurry up, a panic, a flurry of hours that allowed for no sit-downs, merciless in the tick and the tock of itself, selfish. Selfish time, stop a little, slow a bit, let me catch up? No chance of that my dear, you just need to shape up and move faster. It is like this for all in the muddle-frenzy of young life, building children, building a business, clambering up corporate ladders, learning new ways to fit in, diluting self for the benefit of the team and so on. From where I sit now, watching all this flurrying about me, I am glad it is done for me, no longer diluting self, no longer at the mercy of time, of business, softer round the edges, watching, smiling, calm. I was never calm in the olden days, although I did know people who managed the calm thing and it really irritated me that I couldn’t, me constantly on the boil, my guts in a right fankle, my legs never still. These people seemed in control of their time, allowing it to pass them by, yet still able to fire on all systems when required. Something to do with my faulty wiring, I told myself, and there was a damnit in that thought. However, looking back now through the rosy lens of hindsight, I smile as I recall the fankle, the self-flagellation, the waste of those minutes, those hours spent wishing I could be who I was not. Time wasted, or was it?

Self-reflection is no bad thing, as long as it is not indulged in and developed into a standstill. In my long journey through wasteland and over capricious and sometimes spiteful expanses of ocean, I did, and still do, need to trim my sails, to learn from life herself, to change this or that, to find a new way to look at an old thing. Learning is a lifetime’s work and I am still learning, still a student, an understanding that can really up my fed at times, and delight me at others. I still have my mind, my health, my precious life, time. None of us know how much of that we have, myself included, and it seems to me that this doesn’t really matter much. It’s who we are in the time we do have that remembers people, makes a dent in others lives. Did I waste time in my life? I did. Was I completely marvellous at filling my time to capacity and at all times? I was not. Did I share my time, gift my time every time it was needed? I did not. Am I deeply thankful for all the time spent, shared, gifted, wasted? Those hours of shared chatter, laughter, tears and silent companionship, those highs and lows, those moments spent staring through windows and wishing life was different, that something would happen to change everything……….am I thankful for all of that time? I am.

And now, for however much time is left, no matter the loss and gain of hours, I will keep time with Time. I will sleep some away, waste some, share some, sit alone and gaze through windows but this time without wishing for transformation, without regrets, analysis, criticism of self, all of that time wasting nonsense. Even through the rumpelstiltskin hours of a tossing night, even when I wish she would hurry up, slow down, stop completely for a while, even then, for Time is my friend and she is gift. So many have no time left at all.

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Island Blog 65 – Follow me follow

Bumble Bee

Yesterday, the Bee Father decided to investigate all his hives.  It’s the time for swarming, he tells me and I remember one of those not so long ago;  a great blackening of the back garden and the Sun quite peely-wally behind  a thousand whizzing bees.  I heard the noise first and went up the garden stets, well, two of them, or maybe just one.  It was mightily clear to me that the cup of coffee awaiting me on the table was going to go lonely cold for I, sure as hector, was not taking one more step into that melee.  I could have disappeared completely and would likely have swatted and begun a war.  The swarm finally cuddled up with the New Queen on a bough of larch, bringing it at least two foot closer to the ground.  The solid ball hung there in a perfect shape until the BF climbed up to unhook the ball and drop it into a cardboard box and covering it with a piece of white cotton.

Whilst he worked high above me among the lofty Soldier Pines, where the sun dapples the wild orchids and the bees live in harmony and peace, I could hear a marked rise in the tonal buzz.

We are not enjoying this, all of us, it tells me, for we buzz as one.

After the BF had gone right through 3 hives, discovering all was well, that there were not too many queen cells growing new queens to generate a swarm or two, down he came, quite bridal in his white and veil, to sit and eat a quiet lunch with me.  I had carried up an array of dishes, bits of this leftover and that leftover with salad.  For a few moments, all was peaceful munching, until She appeared.

She is a Follower, one of those female worker bees, set the task of making sure any unwelcome visitor goes a very long way away.  Whilst he sat quite still, she bumped against his face and his head, never landing.  After a few minutes, he got up and walked slowly down to the cool of the garage, thus planning to let her know he was leaving.  He came back without her but it was only minutes later and she was back, bumping her warning against his face, head and neck.  She came nowhere near me and I was right beside him.  I watched him never swat (fatal) and sit calmly, waiting for her to get bored or decide her point is made or whatever it was she wanted to tell him in no uncertain terms.

3 more times he walked away, waited a little and returned.  3 more times she found him.  By now I’d had enough of this lurching lunch and removed myself indoors.  The little bee had popped over to check me out, but I was spooked by her right in my face.  I don’t mind once or twice, but she was just too persistent.

Much later in the day, after another hive was checked, the dog walked, church over and thoughts of supper in my mind, we went back up to sip a glass of wine in the warm evening sun.

Within seconds she was back and bumping round and round his head.

I think it’s that aftershave I put on this morning, he said, as we re-settled inside, but we both know the real truth.

Charisma.