nature

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Island Blog – All the Way to Whales

I know that I am still a rebel. Against what? Good question. The thing is that ‘most of us grow out of it’, supposedly and politely and concomitantly and absolutely fitting in to lives so very far from our dreams. So reads the manuscript. I am at the steam spout end of my kettle life and with not one regret. I know that without the grounding, or sea-going strength of the man who saved me, I would have gone to some dive somewhere and died of over-ness. I would. I know it. He, the older-than-me, wild, foolish, closed up man, held me. He did and for decades, through the utter chaos of children, the strife of in-laws, well, just one, actually, through the fears and the choices we made, the walking out of that crazy. The first whale watching business in the UK, benign research, the first. I bought in, was right there, in the rain, boots on, helping the first intrepids aboard, handing over sumptuous packed lunches, thermoses, just knowing they would be coughing their way through engine fumes all the way to whales and that I would be there at the end to collect them, dry them off, feed them scones and jam and tea and, more, to laugh with them about the bounce and tricuncular shitski of the Atlantic, god bless her, around rocks and other irritations.

I think I found an outlet for my red, rebel. To be honest, I think rebel is born, within a child. I have one or two of my own supporting that. Thing is, what do you do with this red thing for yourself, when you just know life isn’t as it might be, when confines and controls and mysogyny and religion divides and sadly conquers. How can you see this at 7 years old without the language to process, let alone explain? My theory is this. Many of us are here in this uncomfortable playground. Many pull away, home to the familiar, the compromise and live with it for decades, never mind minutes and nights. I am a pull away, although some might say I compromised, settled, and to a degree, they are right, although I twist at their conclusion. I loved full time, moved into wife. I loved that. Things shifted, changed, the moment a child was born. I changed. I grew fierce, defensive, powerful. That modem operandi never changed with four more birthings. I never loved as I loved them, never. Maybe that was a troubling thing.

See that red rebel? She is wild and bothers not about doorways nor invitations, nor stupid rules, nor old past judgements. Atlantic thinking. I remember on a warm evening, way back, after feeding three courses to 16 guests, seeing them right, warm fire, help to bed. Alone in the corridor of clearing up, ironing the tomorrows, letting out the collies, watching the big kitchen sink to rest as I wouldn’t. I remember the wild excitement of seeing whales out there, the out there which billowed into the farmhouse kitchen, way beyond food time, but I will always provide food. I saw them, briefly, the whale-watching ones, saw their smiles, the twinkle in catched eyes, the long hold goodbye. I smiled at the rebel connection. There are many of us in the wings.

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Island Blog – Thinks

I did that thinks thing this morning at 0500, my favourite hour. Birds are up already, but I like to be in their slipstream as they just get on with living. After the usual catastrophe of doubt and fear on waking, all the blame on me (always) and then my leap from bed as if the before was a collaboration of bedbugs. I land floor level, barefoot. I always know the light when I wake. I know when it is 0300, a captious and taunting skinny light lemon, cautious, like a new student. I know when the buttermellow trickles in, when the sun is doing his rise thingy, tendrils slipping over hills and horizons. I huff, roll my eyes. Finally you big showoff. Even with cloud cover he speaks.

I downstairs myself in my awful dressing gown and sit, and watch. Birds are lining my fence, They know I will fatball and mealworm them into their day and they are waiting. I wait too, watching their dance and bounce and lift. When I go out barefoot into the clover of my grass ( not mine, just borrowed) they dive and skitter around me, waiting. I fill the fatball feeders (RSPB of course) and tip some mealworms into the sieve bowl. All the while I am doing the thinks. The guilt I woke with didn’t stay back upstairs with my pyjamas. I make coffee and sit to gongoozle. Being in the present is something I know is pivotal. To just watch, to stop, to pause, to breathe, to notice and to reflect. I don’t find it easy, but I want it.

\We had crazy weather last night, thunder and lightning and colours and magic. Astonishing and brilliant and scary and flooding and scary and the whole sky alight with anger and spectacular. It is calm now. Up here, way north of the heat and the confines and the lack of sleep and the burning fear, we are the lucky ones.

It is the weather now. It is. We should think about that.

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Island Blog – Tinkle Rain

Today begun massively soggy. I heard the grass groan, I swear I did, it woke me at 5. Pelting wetness as if anyone or anything needs that, at least here. Africa might. Thing is we are within the mercy of mercies here, standing under awnings, umbrellas, bus shelters, trees and buildings because there’s too much of this wet thing…..and everyone is bored with repetition. I need to decide my decisions. It matters as I am no control freak, whatever the hec that means beyond being a judgement from someone who just feels better making that judgement. However I do want to exert some control over that which I can, or could, within certain circumstances, exert said control. Not rain, unfortunately.

I decide this is the way it is up here. I remind myself that Australia, Africa and other dry zones now face wild fires and drought. Drought? What does that even mean, feel like? In this wetzone, I cannot imagine, although I do recall weeny droughts here, like a few piddly days, maybe a week, ten days and the flapdoodle of local gardeners. I remember hose bans and those out at midnight watering. The Facebook illumination of these gentle gardeners, the pointing fingers. Didn’t like that. Sometimes a garden is all we have in a life of loneliness.

I feel the caution alone and trapped inside the soggy. It was cold. Preventative, a shuck, a go-away. Awake at five, the usual, and happy with the dawn blackbird and the light. Coffee, strong, black, music on. I am all about music. Like blood flow for me. And looking out. Early birds, the lift of geese, jeez the noise of them, as if every time they lift there is confusion, or so it hears me, a mere human.

I worked on a tapestry today, a half cut not much, boring elevation of colours with no direction. I am so crap at hobbies. I worked once on huge canvases with wild brushes, wild and unthought thinking, inspiration in my fingers, my heart red pulse, sensing everything, every sound, even a creak on the stairs, the call of geese, the sudden of single seconds. It’s quite hard to tamp down. But it’s ok. So back to the rain, and there’s a relevance.

It rained, pelting, unremitting, wet. I watched dog walkers in full waterproofs walk by. Nobody else had to do this wet walk thing. Around 4, the rain got bored of itself, turned into a smurr. I sensed a weakening and pulled on my boots and stepped out. It was glorious. The rain, still falling, was soft and gentle on my face, like a spar treatment. All branches were lowered, so dipping was required. The raindrops shivering on leaves, on the tiny fronds of woodland flowers, the sparkle of hope on fallen trees, beautified my walk. And the rain on my face. I lifted myself to that gentle caress, the cold of it, the knowing that this came from far beyond my knowing, carrying stories I will never know but have inadvertently absorbed. Felt like a tinkle, gentle fingers.

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Island Blog – The Wild

I remember the shout. Reef in the mainsail, now! I didn’t hesitate because with him at the helm, there was only me and that me was down below hooking a Moses basket onto a gimballed hook with a baby nestled within. I was fast, no hesitation. As I scooted up the steps onto the deck, I could see why this reefing mainsail thing was not something to be considered, nor questioned. There was a black cloud threat and building. Grabbing and affixing my safety harness and with rain already slicing the wind in two, I got to work. He risked a tilt into the quiet space between the was-wind and the now-wind, two very different creatures for sure and the huge mainsail flapped and crackled, bucked and heaved. I had never felt so alive, so valued, so very the It of the situation. Skidding, sliding, grabbing, holding, I used all my strength to crank the crank thing, bringing the huge mainsail down to the boom. I remember watching the sky appear above each reef. I remember my arms aching, my fingers flexing, turning, holding and that moment when all was safe, that massive sail contained and that sky glowering at me like she just lost at checkmate. I slid on my butt back to him, grin wide, eyes full of rain, and unclipped.

I remember the wild. The buzz of being so essential, so needed, so valued. He smiled me in. Well done, lass, he said and those words meant everything. The hanging baby slept on. The storm was nothing of the sort, just a teenage tantrum. The sky cleared, the night began and stars came out. Ha. I said, as I looked up at the wide expanse of a gazillion constellations. I got there before you all, and I did. It remembers me and I don’t say that lightly because even when we forget the feeling of such wild times, our body remembers. Water has a memory and we might do well to accept this as we, those of us whose wild times might seem beige and back then and of no import and no longer possible in the shape of what is. I have to challenge this, in myself for starters. If there is wild, was there once, it does not die. We will eventually die but the wild is like a fire within, a sparkle, a crackle, an opportunity, a magic. I don’t like to see it allowed to fade in someone’s eyes once health limits barrage in. However I also get it and it is so easy to believe that the wild was then and now I am compromised and afraid and kind of stuck with a stick and all I have are the memories of me doing crazy things I couldn’t do now.

Where’s that wild? Where’s that dancer, the one who was spontaneous when others dithered and who danced me till I was dizzy and on fire? Where’s the one who said yes we can do this, who made the fire on the beach, the one who said ‘ just lie here and see the stars’, the one who sang, who told stories, who always made something happen, no matter where nor what, nor when, nor who(m)? The wilders who always caught the magic, grabbed it, reefed it in at times and then let it fly. They still do and you don’t have to be young to grab the ties of that kite. T’is only fear that makes us pedants.

The wild is in you. Keep her fired up.

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Island Blog – Borderlines

The tide is high. It’s a May thing. Two full moons and she is sassy with it, building already, shifting tides, lifting beyond established expectations already, anticipating something new and inventive, a space to wide out. I remember that feeling, the opportunity to break through a line drawn in the grit and spit of childhood when I wanted to fly above the whole map and redraw it. There are many lines and I probably don’t need to draw them because anyone living within those confines feel them like chasms or buffers. Either way, you fall. Until you don’t, until you have the courage to ask for help, or to jump, or to just run. Nature does it all the time.

We meet borderlines everywhere. At work, in a community, within a relationship. Some we have to allow and accept, many we don’t. Within our lives, so very much is different. Some of us do have the choice to argue, to demand our own space, our own thinking, our own beliefs and to hear that they are considered despite generational beliefs and accepted confines. Not many, I’m guessing. But in my feral world, in my so called recalcitrant childhood, in my difference and my confusion, there is always the chance for a voice. If it would just find the courage to speak out. I didn’t, but I did find someone who would and did. It happened to be my life partner, and I was lucky in that. Borders did not bother him. He broke borderlines all of the years. But even now in widowhood I remain cautious until I stop and think. And that’s important. In simplicity, this is it and there is me. We don’t match. Obviously it begs the question. And?

In my long life I watch many borderlines shift and pull away in a curve, a gentle thing, a giving, a sharing of space. In communication, within relationships, in moments. Someone chooses not to follow the line. Someone decides to curve and bend, to allow and then to move on beyond the border with a smile.

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Island Blog – The Immaculate Lawner and a Splinter

I just got one, a splinter. I went up my mosaic steps to the hilly garden behind my home. I had no mission, no compost to empty into my worm-tastic bin, no purpose beyond this, just to see what wild flowers are drinking in the sunshine. Gazillions. I took them all in, had a wee chat because they might think I was some wandering weirdo. I went barefoot, feeling the soft grass like clouds, watched the green spring up between my toes, felt the sun on my back. We had a wee revel, the grass, the moss couched on rocky bits, the wild flowers and me. Even the black honeybees joined in, although they’re more about their own stuff I find. Then, on descent, and holding the handrail as I choose to do these days, a splinter decided to come with me, sharp and into my palm. I need my palms for work at the Best Cafe Ever, and I swore. I did. It hurt and I can’t see it without binoculars, let alone remove it. My specs are, well, shite, as we say on the island. There’s a ‘could do better’ here, I know it.

The experience thinks me. We make plans and then get a splinter, something we can’t quite see, but definitely know it is there, because it hurts, disrupts and alters our direction. This, I have learned, is Life. I know we are encouraged to make plans, but rigidity is no friend. The words, Always and Never, for example are in my opinion, obsolete. We make a promise and break it. I have done so, an so have we all, even as we may quote the Always and Never nonsense, because we are human, soft, flexible, adaptable, dynamic, fluid. We have to be and particularly now. Things change every day, every hour, every minute. The way it was is not the ‘is’ of things.

I look at my view, one I never take for granted, the tidal ebb and flow, the woods out back, the sound last night of Barn Owls. I see the grass longging, lengthening, cupping wildflowers random in their rise and I see the chaos of that, and the order. Think of a baby. We watch, observe, marvel, encourage, laugh at the random. And, then, we control. We become the splinter. Why? Ah, yes, to conform with the rules handed down. This is how you do this. But not anymore. The innovators are all over us now. We have Autonomy. We have Choice. We know what is happening in our world. If we do nothing else, let us keep the green, the life-flow that feeds us, mind, body and soul.

I know, when I drive somewhere, even here, that I will see immaculata. Gardens synched in, controlled and statuesque like women of the past. The colours will be gorgeous, all in rows and all controlled. Immaculate lawns. Not here. I am already in a dither about cutting grass at all, taking the heads off those lions and cuckoos, the daisies, the others I cannot name. I probably will cut just once and avoid any cut in May because the bees so very much need us to stop tampering with their lifelines. And not just bees, but all the flying insects considered swatting material, pests at best. Do we actually realise how important they all are?

Splinter moment.

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Island Blog – Mud Heft and Stone Humping

It annoyed me, the scourge of mud below my wee pull-in. It used to be gravel but I am letting it return to itself, to that grassy green naturality. To be honest, I am displeased with those who seal the ground shut. We have little enough of it left, after all, and all that healthy breath is paved and suffocated. I know that gravel isn’t so clever at closing the land, but it dims the light. Folk moan about moss in their lawns and yet moss is essential in so many ways, and, by the way, moss is way more beautiful than sticky-up grass, mown into controlled order, like Dickensian pupils.

The sun was freed up, all of a sudden, and the wind grew warm. I pulled off two big jumpers and felt quite menopausal for a few minutes. The weather is bajonkers, but this smells of warm stories and hope. It inspired me to do something. about my grump. See, when lorries or big vans deliver they just scoop onto my not-gravel, digging nothing less than. a whole ditch. Those wheels sink so down, I feel like I am looking at the topsoil of hell, not that I. believe in that. I selected my least rusty shovel from my fishbox of chaotic garden things with handles and marched forth. It took me ages. I stabbed and jabbed, scooped and dumped and all beneath a warm(ish) sun. It wasn’t a big scoop, just a deep one and I felt a butterfly of excitement once I hit the tarmac.

Now, stones, I thought. I have some big ones, old as Eve in my garden, fallen from drystane walls of old. I grabbed my wheelbarrow and bent to hump three big ones onboard. Heavy. they were and still are, but they are beautiful. Ancient basalt, naturally formed and willing to help. I placed them in situ. Now, if a van or lorry thinks it might cut my corner off, it will regret it.

I wondered if I should paint them white and then dismissed that nonsense as so urban. The moss growing over them is so beautiful. No white paint here. After all, drivers on islands might consider the fact that we are island folk and also that they should be looking for rock trouble, as we all do.

I hope you have sunshine too.

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Island. Blog – The Insprits and the Mostly

Life is mostly ordinary for us, We might think it is different for those with solutions to everything, but, in truth, nobody does. Rich or poor or in between we find solace in the ordinary. In this ‘ordinary’ things work, wifi connection, light bulbs, fridges, washing machines, bus times, clocking in to work, locks on outer doors and systems we trust. Night is night and day is day and daffoldils are early spring and bins are emptied on the right morning. Mostly, it works according to. Mostly. And we like ‘mostly’ because we can ignore any inner doubt, any mind-fiddle that awares us of the fact that this is not as stable as once it was. And this we ignore, mostly. But there are nivits in our world now and I have met a few. Actually they have been here for many years.

I watch the tide rise bejonkers, too soon for the full moon. It slips determinedly over grass and rocks either side of the sea-loch. The Insprits are here. To be honest, it twinkles me because there is no sustainable ordinary in island life and I know this. I have lived with them for many decades. Mostly Folk could not live this way, but this way will be the way one day. The weather decides ferry access to the mainland. And, since Covid, there are many happy homes here, those who love the. shenanigans of the Insprits, who work from home, who dance with the ditzy dynamic of everything ‘island’ and who are patient.

I’m looking out at a full tide, the rise beyond itself. I hear the call of whitetails, watch a canto of buzzards, see the black lambs cajink over new grass. There’s rain coming, again, we all know that, but there are those wonderful moments when it stops and there’s a sunblister in the grey and then we see all the beauty beyond the insprits. They were always here and always will be. The sudden upsets, the unexpecteds, the terriblest awfuls.

If we can hold to loving the ‘mostly’ but prepared for the insprits, and we can teach our children this, well then, we are wise.

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Island Blog – Walking over Acorns, and a Green Lung

We walked this morning, before the sun burst into flames, through an Arboretum. It’s a wide expanse of trees, divided into countries. Today we moved from Africa to Asia. These trees, roughly 2,600 of them, were planted between 1959 to 1971, an inspirational Green Lung beside the River Berg in Paarl. As you can imagine, the trees in Asia are very different to the Indigenous ones in Africa. Long and wildy limbs with pompoms of bright green needles and fir cones large enough to knock you out, were you to be directly beneath as one fell. The shade is glorious, a softening for walkers and hot dogs, and the tracks wind on for miles, red sand, buffalo grass, benches for a sit down, bins everywhere and no rubbish. There is even the occasional security guard on his beat. It’s completely safe, unlike other such areas where big trees and bush proffer many hiding places. We wandered beneath the massive sequoias and gums, so old and so fat in the girth as to look as if they will last forever. I swear I saw clouds in the top of one of these giants on another day, one with clouds. Birds abound, skittering through branches, oblivious to us in their busy hunt for food. Sunbirds, sugar birds, such delicious names. Butterflies too, big and rainbowed . Everyone says hallo in passing. This place is a place within which to breathe and to ponder. The river, depending on rain, is either sluggish and silent or tinkling like timpany over huge rocks, white and sunlit.

Under the myriad Japanese oaks lie a gazillion acorns. Not small ones, the usual size, but easily an inch long, and just as we walked beneath the far-spreading bough, the wind luffed. It rained acorns. Pinging down, they made us ‘ouch’ and lift our feet in escape. We stood in safety to watch the fall until the whole wide circle of shade became a thick carpet of hopeful seeds. So random and so impactful and we laughed and thought of Christopher Robin, Pooh and Piglet and the others in the 100 acre wood. It was that magical. Walking back over acorns I thought of all the ground my feet have walked for 70 odd years. Through thixotropic mud, over pine needles and fallen leaves, over memories, rocks and mistakes, along dusty tracks and busy roads, over pavements and concrete, bad thoughts and poor decisions. Always moving on, no matter the journey, no matter the challenge ahead.

It’s what we do, those of us who decide to keep moving on and I was never going to sit for long. What inspires me, being among those trees, any trees, is that they have no care for our slightly ridiculous rush towards all the things which give us no nourishment long term. The way trees work is silent and beneficent, gifting shade, nutrition, food, homes, protection, love. We can only breathe because they do.

We can learn from that.

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Island Blog – Skinny Bathroom, Piddle, Little Things

After the rains, the air is fresh and smelling of citrus and sunshine. Last evening friends came to share a delicious lamb shank tagine, plenty wine and a load of laughter. We talked news of our week as many and diverse subjects flew about the table. Faces glowed in candlelight and the embers of an equally merry fire. It’s always the little things which uplift us most, even though they aren’t little at all. In this troubled old world it is what people can do for each other that truly counts, leaving legacies, memories and glimpses of how life can be when those who plan for war finally understand that they plan for the wrong thing.

Looking far out, beyond the garden, the huge eucalypts, oaks and other green-leaved old guys, across the huge expanse of grass and towards the lines of vines, now all harvested for the year, I can feel hope. I think we have to look for it and then see it, a wide open offering of beyondness, beyond ourselves, our own little prison walls, our own prickly thoughts and perceived ideas of ‘shoulds’ and ‘oughts’. Beyond the line of slow-moving traffic when we are in a hurry, the things she said, he said, the way someone looked at me in disdain, the deadly daily headlines, the neighbour’s barking dog. All of it, piddle, and about as useful, but, like piddle, it is there whether we like it or not. Our choices gives us voices, over which we have complete control, unlike most other things out there. It all begins with that choice, a cerebral decision not to drown in piddle. No special talent required. We all are gifted with that choice.

My little home away is in a different building. Across a lumpy brick-laid courtyard, where the earth refused to be accepting of all those bricks on her back, is an interesting journey, particularly after dinner and wine and hilarity and in the glorious pitch dark of an African night. I have the hang of it now, my feet have learned the ups and downs of this short traverse, and that makes me smile, because I love to know how connected I am with the vagiaries of Nature. My mind may be full of piddle, but my body knows the way and the way is not always a literal body walk. Oftentimes the traverse is more neural pathways with signposts as I navigate my way from complicated to simple.

In my skinny bathroom I have the usual equipment and a very efficient shower. However……..If I close the slide door which affords me privacy whilst naked, it is impossible to squeeze myself between basin and said door, en route to the very efficient shower. Impossible. So I gingerly de-slide, peek around the corner to ensure no unfortunate farm worker gets a scary shock, and dive into the shower, re-sliding it. Afterwards this performance is repeated in reverse. It has become a daily nonsense and no two days are the same. I am quite certain I have been glimpsed on occasions, and this smiles me too. After all, I am hardly ever going to hear “Morning Ma’am, I saw you butt naked yesterday’, now am I?

Last evening, pre lamb tagine and vibrant people, there was a tiny frog, obviously not of the voyeur variety, if, indeed, such a frog exists, which I doubt. I was already partially un-clad. I stooped to wonder at the spectacular markings on its tiny back, so intricate, so perfect and so not ‘just’ a frog. How extraordinary this big life is, for those who stop to notice. I bunched a bath towel around myself, picked it up, cold in my palm, soft, gentle, and opened my door without a single thought of farm workers nor maids with bundles of washing and wide smiles. I opened my hand among the pretty ground-creeping thingy with orange flowers and felt the frog leaving my skin, my palm empty yet still echoing that connection again, to all things, all people and all of Nature.

It’s always the ‘little’ things.