Riding the Waves to Eternity

I am struck by my current blogging (in)activity. In the past I have had occasional interludes but nothing compared to the current downturn in activity. Mind you, neither have I had to endure a deluge of enquiries about my relative silence nor a glut of demands that I post again.

I suppose that, in part, this is all a function of not having much of interest to say – although that has never inhibited me in the past. More precisely, for the first time since 2002 I have not been particularly inclined to blog much at all.

I have still jotted down the occasional passing thought in my ever-present notebook with the aim of later expanding it into a post.  I have, alas, forgotten what was in my mind as I jotted some of them down.  For example: “Loki and Coyote: great and probably necessary ideas but embarrassing should you be there at the time”.  Ummm… what was that one about?

I was also stirred at lunchtime today to do something of which I was very fond when I were but a nipper of a blogger -having a good rant but not much gets me so excised these days.  I also thought of turning in something slightly different, into a slightly more structured essay into my thoughts on various things.  But then I thought “meh”.

Digging deeper, although I frequently excuse my silences here by a jokey reference to “indolence and sloth”, this is actually a diversionary tactic which is nevertheless not that far from the truth. I have often over the years gone through quite lengthy periods during which I have found it very difficult to work up the enthusiasm for doing very much at all.  Equally some things seem to draw me in to a level of complete immersion to the exclusion of anything else.  I think these are two sides of the same coin – I am more than capable of becoming deeply immersed in doing nothing at all.

It’s pouring with rain outside.

Today was relatively routine – down to the barbers for a trim and then into town for a wander about although the only thing I bought was a sandwich for lunch.  It was quite pleasant this afternoon and I spent a lot of it outside with an oil stone and some oil sharpening up several penknives.

A number of these knives are quite old and I’ve been easing them up with 3-in-1 oil over time to get them back into working order and slowly trying to clean off gunge and corrosion as best as I can.  The majority are Sheffield made and still have sound mechanisms.  Of the more modern ones, one is a small Victorinox which I was given as a gift by the Dutch cadaster in 1997 or so when I went out for a visit; the other is a pruning knife hand made by Trevor Ablett, one of the last two Little Mesters in Sheffield still making knives (and the other is mostly retired!).

Needless to say anyone reading this who has any old pocket knives or penknives sitting in a shed or an attic somewhere doing nothing, please feel free to send them to me for some TLC.

Further to my last, I was not only contented but also mellow this evening.  This afternoon I bought a length of chain, some hooks and some tea-light lanterns.  The chain was fixed between two of the uprights of the pergola and the tealight lanterns, complete with tea-lights, hung off it.

After a pleasant barbecue I stayed outside as evening fell and lit the candles.   I stayed out for a further couple of hours, not doing a great deal more than watching the occasional satellite through binoculars and generally chilling out (literally, the temparature dissipated quite quickly in the cloudless night sky).

I also took a guitar out and had a great time just playing away to myself – some blues, some folk tunes, some more blues and some Paul Simon and Tom Paxton stuff.   And then some more blues.

I am a contented man

We have had our aged and decrepit old paved patio replaced by decking with a pergola above.  The pergola is bare at the moment but tonight, as I write, I am sitting outside with some tealights burning in the decorative lanterns on the table next to me.

Also on the table is a glass of Grappa.  This is not an Italian summer’s night but that doesn’t matter. I am sitting out under the emergent starlight and quite happy.

Of course, we still have a lot to do around the house (we have, after all, only been here for fourteen and a half years) but the decking and pergola make a significant start on some long-standing plans – I bought those tea light lanterns with a pergola in mind when we were on holiday in Germany in 2002.

The next significant work, when we have some more money, will be the front garden and, of course, my man-shed.  Also, the decking  is bare and we need some pot-plants and furniture out here.  I’m also thinking of planting two desert apple trees nearby.  We already have a venerable old tree producing cooking apples which I have recently begun pruning hard.  Two good dessert apples, chosen for restricted size as well as their flavour, would be a very good addition.  I’m also thinking of a couple of plum trees for out the front in due course.

But that’s for the future.  Tonight I’m watching satellites  through binoculars and drinking grappa by starlight.

A year and a half ago on my old blog I wrote the following:

25 January 2009

I’ve just had the oddest flashback. I was sitting on the settee reading science fiction and on the cd I had Camel’s Snow Goose playing. Camel are a band which lodge affectionately in my memory as being the first band I ever went to see play live (1976, Glasgow Apollo, Moonmadness tour). As the music played I had a mental throwback back to sitting in my room in Glen More one winter’s evening doing precisely the same thing with the same music. It was real and powerful and the sense of location was acute down to the dark curtains, the red angle-poise lamp and the momentum in the music. Most disconcerting was the realisation that that was more than thirty years ago: how can that be true?

Most powerful of all was the sense that I could put down my book and go downstairs for a cup of tea and a chat with my dad. My dad passed on a long time ago now although he is never far from my thoughts and memory, but this did not feel like a memory so much as a strong sense of being in that moment: a strong sense that despite the years he was still a real presence in that moment and there to be greeted were it not for the irritating inconvenience of the time and space that separates us.

I’ve had a couple of similar flashbacks since, usually triggered by music – most recently by Help Me from Joni Mitchell’s Court and Spark and Astronomy from Blue Oyster Cult’s Secret Treaties.  I had another this morning when I looked in the bathroom mirror and recognised my dad’s fringe  and the pebble dash of white and grey there – as I remember from when he was my age.

These are not always as vividly real as that one in 2009 but they do strongly evoke a time and place and, more powerfully I think, a sense of connection with a former “me” as compellingly as deja vu.

Our sense of conscious awareness of a continuous present, subdivided into moments which pass into some strange realm of the past is a curious one. I am coming to cherish these flashbacks, these resonant resurgences of a long past awareness.  This is, perhaps, not only because of the link to a happy time in my life when the future seemed longer and my dad was with us, but also because it helps disguise the awareness of aging.

I don’t want to make too much of this – I am only 51 after all – but I cannot ignore that bits of me now creak which previously did not.  Nor can I dismiss the irritating and ever present thought that, at 51, I still don’t know what I want to do when I grow up.

…I was enjoying a quiet malt whisky to celebrate the birth of our first child Lindsay.   Twenty one years later I am enjoying a quiet malt whisky to celebrate more than two decades of having her in my life.

Happy Birthday Lindsay, from a proud dad.

The journey home was long but attractive.   We wanted to avoid any traffic problems arising from T in the Park adjacent to the A9 and the Scottish Open Golf at Loch Lomond so we planned a route which went down by way of Glen Carron, Plockton, Kintail, Fort William, Glencoe, Crianlarich, Stirling and Edinburgh.

Typically for the day we were leaving, the weather was as pleasant as pleasant could be and it was with some sadness that we set off from Lochinver.

The route through Glen Carron is lovely and is the same route as the Inverness to Kyle of Lochalsh railway line.  I am pretty sure that I glimpsed an otter on the banks of Loch Gowan just south west of Achnasheen.  We passed Loch Dughaill which was mirror still in the late morning light and we stopped for a while to take photos.

As the road approaches Loch Carron and then climbs high above its southern shores it becomes truly outstanding with views to the north across to Applecross and the wonders it contains.  Our target was to get lunch in Plockton, a village which we have not been in before, and found our way there by another twisty and tree lined single track road.

There is a lot to be said for Plockton and it benefits from an outstanding sheltered position which allows the palm trees to grow along the bay shore.  There were plenty of places to eat and we settled for the Plockton Hotel which had a great range of local food including exceptionally fresh seafood.  I settled for the braised venison and a pint of excellent Crags Bitter from the Plockton Brewery which is brewed in a local shed (ideas spring to mind!).

We lingered for a while on the shoreline but still had a long way to go and so set off the go down through the magnificence of Kintail to Invergarry and then down the Great Glen to Fort William where we stopped only to top up on petrol.

Glencoe was as spectacular as ever but the trip nearly came to an abrupt and unpleasant end as we encountered an oncoming Volvo with Dutch number plates towing a caravan at far to high a speed on a bend at the east end of the glen; both Kirstin and I thought that the caravan was going to swing out into our path.

Happily the remainder of the trip was not so disconcerting although as we came down through the Trossachs the heavens opened and we were caught in a torrential downpour until Stirling.

We got home to face the music from Gizmo who was pleased to see us but has spent the past three or four days staying very close to us and meowing frequently.

Otherwise the week has been quiet.  I managed a lot of work in the garden on Monday and Tuesday a neighbour and I took our cycles up into the Pentlands where we had a really enjoyable pootle through the foothills from Bonaly.  My bike is a hybrid and this was the first time I’d tried it off road.  It performed well, as did my leg muscles, although the lack of suspension on the bike made it a more taxing trip on my arms than it could otherwise have been.

In the meantime, I have been amazed and gratified to discover just how much information is available online if one has a notion to design and construct a man-shed.

4 July 2010 (at breakfast)

As the rain thuds persistently on the roof of the conservatory attached to our holiday cottage I can gaze out over the sea loch outside the window and appreciate once more the joys of the Scottish summer.

The trip up yesterday was leisurely and, for the most part, sunny and warm. Like the best road movies there was a moment, hard to pin-point, when you realise that you aren’t in Kansas anymore but have passed through a portal to somewhere else. It might have been when the red kites were circling the car as we crossed the Kessock Bridge to the Black Isle; more likely it was when, north of Ullapool, the massif of Stac Pollaidh squatted on the landscape under threatening skies.

The cottage in which we are staying is a converted croft and my main reaction to being here is, I confess, “want, want, want”. It is the perfect bolt-hole and ideally sized and equipped as a rural retreat. This is something about which I have recurrent fantasies which I will mention again later.

But first things first: I had been told of an excellent pie shop in Lochinver and so it came to pass.  We had our supper there last night.  It wasn’t all pies on the menu but a venison and cranberry pie washed down with a glass of the house Merlot was a treat (especially as I am not a particular fan of Merlot: give me a new world Pinot Noir anyday).  We didn’t wander around much afterwards but came back here to the cottage.

Kirstin and I wandered along the road a little and were rewarded with a fine view of the mighty Suilven as the sun sank behind us.    It was a relaxing evening, reading in the warm conservatory by the ambient light – it was still light enough to read until around 23.00.

I’m not sure what, if anything, is planned for today. We’ll probably just drop down into Lochinver for a while and see where the day takes us.  We can, of course, do exactly as we please: we are on holiday.

(later)

We had our share of weather today, particularly this evening.  After a rainy morning we took advantage of brighter weather after lunch to venture south from Lochinver over an un-numbered single track road which took us up and over the moors to Coigach and round to Achiltibuie.

The views of the principal hills (Suilven, Cul More, Stac Pollaidh and Cul Beag) in the shifting light were fabulous and we stopped several times for photos and to enjoy the fresh, clean air.

We made our way back to the house just before the current weather set in and a front rolled in from the North Atlantic.  As I write, at 21.30, it seems to have passed over save for the occasional gust although it is still choppy out in the bay.  The only sounds are the wind in the trees and the crashing of the sea on the rocks.

I washed down tea tonight with a beer I hadn’t seen before from the always reliable Williams Brothers of Alloa. Kelpie seaweed ale (4.4% by volume) uses bladder wrack in the mash to produce a dark ale, not quite a stout, which slips down very easily.

I mentioned earlier that I had recurrent fantasies about housing; there are three to which I return repeatedly.  The first is to find an apartment on or near Rue Mouffetard in Paris.  This would be very easily accessible from Edinburgh (cheap flight to Paris CDG, Roissybus to Opera and Metro to Place Monge)

The other two both involve coastal properties in Scotland; one variant is a traditional stone built house, renovated: the second is a self-build using a Scandinavian log home kit built to have a “rambling” feel.  In each case some degree of semi-isolation would be involved (but not complete).  I could work either of these up into a more developed picture but I won’t bore you.  Suffice it to say that I don’t have the money to do any of them.

Having said that, we do plan to have some work done in our back garden shortly – removing an old patio and replacing it with decking with a pergola above.  This is part one of a number of things which need doing about the place; the second is the front of the house which requires what is there to be substantially replaced for structural reasons; the third is the far end of the back garden.  With regard to the latter I am firmly contemplating a Man-Shed, insulated and solar paneled to provide power for essentials in a man’s life such as a kettle to make tea to drink when he is sitting in his shed pondering the mysteries of existence.  If I can’t have a highland bolt-hole at least I can have a shed.

Meanwhile: there was an entertaining short piece in yesterday’s Guardian by Oliver Burkeman.  The piece questioned the received wisdom of “innovation” as the route to success, noting -correctly- that many of the world’s most successful businesses have based their success on copying other people’s innovations, usually learning from the original innovator’s mistakes and teething problems to produce a better product or service.  I agree, although he forgets mentioned the other modern trick of buying out the innovator.

I have written about this before somewhere with particular reference to ICT where we have also seen innovation criminalised at the insistence of the existing monopolists pending such time as they can, in their eyes, “legitimise” the use of the technology and retain their threatened income streams and monopoly positions.

5th July (breakfast)

It is around eight in the morning and I’m the only one up.  I’m enjoying a pot of Earl Grey tea as I look out over the bay,  Until moments ago the only sounds were the breeze in the trees and the susurrations of the sea interrupted by the occasional call from the cockerel in a nearby garden.  Just as I picked up my pen, though, the rain started rattling off the conservatory roof.

I don’t know what the weather forecast is: there is a decent television through in the lounge but I’m not inclined to switch it on though neither do I feel inclined to wrap up and wander down to the shop for a newspaper.

There is a cliche lurking here I know, but part of my liking for places like this is precisely that I am able to detach myself from the daily clockwork of city living and working.  It is for the same reason that for many years now I have not regularly worn a watch (although there is a clock on my mobile phone).  One of my requirements for my fantasy bolt-hole would be no television – although I’d also want decent broadband!

(evening)

We had a pleasant day today despite the weather.  Our original intent was to go part way round the Drumbeg road (B869) to Clachtoll to see if we could find some pony trekking for Amy (Lindsay stayed at the cottage).  There were no ponies but there was a fine beach (OS Landranger 15; NC040272) with the North Atlantic crashing up against it and a pleasant spell of weather so we stayed a while and enjoyed being windswept.

We carried on round the road and stopped at Drumbeg for lunch where a friendly robin made our acquaintance.  The remainder of the road was really weird and seemed to bear no resemblance to the map.  In Celtic and European folklore there are tales of fairy hills where time runs strangely and the unwary may fall asleep for five minutes only to wake up years later.  Just as fairy hills distort time, so this road distorted space.  I concluded that the road decides for itself each day how long it is going to be and occasionally, just for fun, decides to be three or four miles longer than usual.

We made a brief stop at Kylesku where I was savagely licked by Cole (Coal?) the old english sheepdog puppy before we drove south to the mighty metropolis of Ullapool.  We went there partly for something to do and partly because there were two or three things that I was looking to buy.  I only got one of them – some spray on waterproofing for my jacket.

Beer with tea tonight was a very pleasant Three Sisters Scottish Ale from the Atlas Brewery – a fine version of a traditional Scottish 80/- ale.

Wildlife has been fairly routine for these parts – gannet and common terns at Clachtoll as well as a Great Skua and a very probably Golden Eagle (I’m hedging my bets because of the weather conditions).  Also, though not wildlife related, there was an interesting interview with Clay Shirky by Decca Aitkenhead in today’s Guardian.

Meanwhile, I have been planning my ManShed in more detail!

6th July (breakfast)

I woke up to find an improvement in the weather – heavy drizzle rather than heavy rain! Please don’t think that my enjoyment of the holiday is being too seriously dampened by the rain: sure I’d prefer some warm sunshine but from the perspective of being away from the usual routine and out of the normal hurly-burly I am quite content.

I’m not sure what we might do today though.  There is a lot to be said for retreating into one’s own world and reading.  I have just been chatting to the owner of the cottage and commented that judging by the amount of construction going on the area seemed to be repopulating.  He demurred – a lot of the new builds are holiday homes or older couples moving here either to retire or to run businesses of some description; the high numbers of non-local accents around would seem to bear that out.  Not too many youngsters are staying once they get the chance to leave and there is, he said, a disproportionate representation by locals serving in the armed forces.

We talked too about work.  He is a joiner and seems to have plenty to do.  From the point of view of my work, I could do a lot here if I had a reasonably high capacity broadband connection.  A colleague from one agency has done just that and lives slightly further south from here in Wester Ross.  Particularly if some of my current thinking were ever to come to anything, a decent broadband connection plus a good transport link to Edinburgh would be quite sufficient.  If one’s work isn’t tied to a particular place and can predominantly be done from home, then your home can be wherever you fancy laying your hat.

More to the point, given the enforced austerity and potential collapse with which the UK government is seemingly flirting, transplanting to somewhere where one simply enjoys being for other reasons has an increased appeal.

(evening)

A nice day today: the weather behaved itself until we got home and we visited a couple of beaches which did not require the wearing of full protective gear to enjoy.

We travelled north through a landscape which starts off rugged and becomes a moonscape.  This is one of the few places in the UK where the primary road north (the A894) is single track with passing places.  As you get further north the landscape is harsher and the peat sits uneasily as a thin epidermis on the ancient underlying rock. Up by Rhiconich any crofts which haven’t been whitewashed fade into the landscape as though they too were gneiss outcrops.

At Rhiconich we turned left towards Kinlochbervie and then right to Oldshoremore and the fantastic beach there (NC200585, Landranger 9).  The beach was pretty much deserted except for a few intrepid souls ; it is always a pleasure to arrive somewhere and have a Great Skua as your principal companion.  Gannets were out fishing too as were Roseatte terns.  We went on up to Durness for a spot of lunch and then a couple of miles further round to a wonderful beach which, according to the OS map, is called Traigh na ‘h-Uamhag but the tourist signs suggested was known as Traigh Allt Chailgeag (Landranger 9 NC443655).

We’ve been here many times before and, pleasingly, it remains unspoiled and undeveloped.  Lindsay and I even went in paddling and it wasn’t long before my legs were numb enough not to feel the cold.

We made our way back down to Lochinver where Amy had chosen to stay and was making tea for us – which I washed down with a bottle of Northern Light (4%) from the Orkney Brewery (to which I won’t link as their website asks impertinent questions before letting you in – which is stupidity).  Happily the next weather front did not decide to roll in off the Atlantic until we were snug indoors.

7th July (breakfast)

I woke up this morning to blue skies and bright sunshine over the bay but also a stiff wind blowing in.  In the time it has taken me to brew up a pot of tea and sort out my breakfast the blue skies have been replaced by high level cloud cover scudding in from the Minch – and then back to blue again.

Despite my obsessing here with the weather (perhaps I’m turning Canadian) I am enjoying this.  I’d rather be in a personal relationship with the weather up here where the air is clean and fresh than cooped up in the city.  Incidentally, for Canadian readers, of whom I have at least two, Lochinver sits at 58.15 degrees north which puts it around the same latitude as Hudson Bay I think

And it does make you admire the fortitude of the hardy souls who still croft the land or make a push for self-sufficiency up here.  Notwithstanding the benificence of the Gulfstream which feeds warm currents to these parts, it would obviously be easier were this to be a shortbread tin Scotland where the winters are always mild and the rains soft.

Anyway, while everyone else is asleep, I’m going for a walk to Lochinver.

(evening)

The weather held for most of the day, bright but windy.  As I write (around 19.30) it is starting to get stormy although it remains dry.

The walk down to Lochinver and back this morning was an enjoyable relaxation.  I took my camera for a walk and basically wandered around enjoying the moment. I bought a Guardian in the paper shop on the way back (the last paper to reach here each day apparently) and after a canter through the latest moral outrages and non-events and a zippy wee assault on the daily Sudoku puzzle I was ready to face the world again.

We went up to the bookshop at Kirkaig and then Kirstin, Amy and I were taken for a walk to the falls of Kirkaig.  This was a really enjoyable walk through woodland and then open moor.  Our guide for the afternoon was Megan, the dog at the tearoom who fancied some walkies.  It was great to get the boots out and be amongst the hils again for a couple of hours.  The walk back was enliened by a flock of long-tailed tits, a stonechat and some huge dragonflies.

Afterwards we went along to Achmelvich beach which was extremely windy with reasonable breakers coming in – enough to keep the body-boarders happy.  They of course had the benefit of wetsuits while Lindsay, Amy and I had lumps of ice for feet as we paddled.

Supper was a tasty venison burger washed down with an equally tasty Red MacGregor Ale (4.0%) from the previously mentioned Orkney Brewery.  At the bookshop at Inverkaig I bought “The Golden Bird: Two Orkney Stories” by the late George Mackay Brown.  I am always wary about buying Mackay Brown because more than once I have got a book home to find that I already have it! I’m fairly sure, though, that these stories are new to me.  Of all Scottish writers of modern times (in English at least), George Mackay Brown is the one whose work I think will endure, like the megaliths on his beloved Orkney.

8 July (breakfast)

There is an early morning routine which I have established in my short time here. While everyone else dreams on I come downstairs to the conservatory, take my BP meds and enjoy breakfast and particularly work my way through a pot of tea – half and half Breakfast and Earl Grey.  I can write up this journal, check for overnight emails on my phone and generally try and kick off the day gently.

I enjoy the element of being the only one awake and active as I can do exactly what I want without the need for conversation – especially when all I want to do is sip my tea and listen to the sounds of the waves and the breeze.

The notion of allowing oneself to relax and “be one with nature”, to use a cliche, is hardly novel of course.  It features stongly in the contemplative strands of many religions and is often described in spiritual or mystical terms.  This presents an interesting conundrum for the non-adherent: what language do you use to articulate the experience without borrowing from religion or presenting oneself in a manner which might be construed as being some species of “New-Ager”?

I don’t find pleasure in this contemplative experience solely from sitting still and listening to the wind: I find it when walking in wilderness, for example, or by a wild sea or, when it is going well, when running.

There is a reverse difficulty too which is slipping into terms which are too analytical and which thereby defeat the purpose.  I am reminded of a brief conversation from my New College days:

“Ian, would you be interested in a new group looking at spirituality”?
“How do you define ‘Spirituality’”?
“We’ll take that as a ‘no’ then…..”

I am also reminded of a recent article in New Scientist about cultures where the number system consists of “one, two, three, four, many” and the cognitive differences with cultures such as ours with detailed number systems and complex mathematics.  The link that I’m grasping for here is that between language culture and expectation/perspective.

We are not used to discussing contemplative experiences outside of religious or pseudo-religious contexts and when we try we pull against language, culture and expectation.  And yet, I feel, the underlying experience is a common human experience so perhaps the language is not there because of the weight of culture and expectation pushing against it.  We find the notion of secular contemplation odd except where it is expressed through art and metaphor.

(evening)

Another day in which the weather was largely good save for some occasional showers and a stiff wind.

Amy chose to stay in bed and read today so Kirstin, Lindsay and I took ourselves southwards to see if the salmon were jumping at the Falls of Shin.  They were, but in very small numbers.  The falls are immediately adjacent to a visitors’ centre run by Mohammed al-Fayed who is a major landowner in these parts.  We popped in briefly to use the bathrooms and were taken aback to be greeted at the door by a Madam Tusaud’s figure of Mr al-Fayed as kilted landowner.

The centre was busy and no doubt generates employment for a number of locals which is a good thing; but the waxwork tells its own tale of rampant self-regard I think.

We also popped into Lairg where we bought sandwiches before heading Westwards along Loch Shin towards Laxford Bridge.  This is a nice road which suddenly becomes spectacular as it drops down to Loch Stack with its views of Arkle on the other side.  We stopped for a while and got generally windswept while taking in the remote beauty of the place.  Many years ago Loch Stack was the place I first spotted a black-throated diver (a species of Loon for Canadian readers).

We were home in time to feed breadcrumbs to the local chickens and to have a relaxed supper – washed down with a bottle of the Cairngorm Brewery’s “Sheepshagger Ale” – 4.5%.  A decent beer with a silly name.

An odd thing happened today.  Many years ago I started to write a fantasy novel which I abandoned on the basis that it was utter crap.  Today as we were driving along I was struck with ideas for a series of short stories (or perhaps an episodic novel) which interested me.  I have no particular regard for myself as a writer but I might try and work some of these notions up and see what happens.

9th July

And finally! I am sitting outside writing this in sunshine under blue skies – just 16 hours before we have to go home.

Mind you, up until an hour ago the weather was vile, which was unfortunate as Kirstin, Amy and I were out on a boat trip up the loch from Kylesku and watching seals.

It didn’t start out that way; we woke up to flat skies with no wind.  There was a little drizzle when we left but as we were waiting for the boat the rain got heavier and once we were on teh water it was miserable although, perversely, I enjoyed the trip.  But I was pleased to retreat to a fine and hot fish pie and pot of Earl Grey in the bar of the Kylesku Hotel once we came ashore.

We came home earlier than planned and took the opportunity to sort out our packing ready for an early start tomorrow.  When the rain finally stopped we noticed that the local chickens were back and they were happy to peck at crumbed up remains of bread.  I was entertained to see one of them very firmly see off a predating gull looking to score some crumbs.

The photos I’ve put here are a small selection of the many that I took and I’ve tweaked them in Paintshop because of the size reduction here.  Once I’ve finished sorting through them I’ll put a pile more in the gallery.

And so it is the night before hols and this computer is shortly to be switched off and put away for a week or so.  I do not intend to be anywhere near the internet while we’re away. Any blogging or diary entries for the next few days will be written in longhand in a notebook and then, perhaps, written up here as a report on holidays.

It rather depends what I write – four years ago in Italy a goodly chunk of my journal was taken up by comments on the text of the two main novels which I had with me (James Hogg’s “Three Perils of Man” and “Three Perils of Women”). They were excellent novels but I didn’t bring the notes over to the blog.

Also on that trip I had with me Charles Stross’ “The Atrocity Archives”, the first of his novels about Bob Howard inThe Laundry – the branch of the British secret service which concerns itself with defending mankind from gibbering horrors from beyond the boundaries of space-time.  By happy coincidence I have just finished reading the third in that series which has just been published – “The Fuller Memorandum”.  I had bought it to take on holiday but couldn’t help myself reading it the moment it fell into my clutches.

It is excellent.

And so to hols.  We’ll be up in Sutherland on the Northwest edge of the Scottish Mainland with only the northern tip of Lewis between ourselves and Canada.  If the weather remains as it has for the past week then we will have no complaints but the weather up there is, er, changeable.

I’ll have my walking boots with me together with my binoculars and camera – and a couple of other thick books just in case.  Whatever happens I won’t mind too much – Sutherland is a place that I love and I’ll be happy just to be there.

If I do get out though I’d like to go back to Sandwood Bay – my favourite place on Earth – where I haven’t been since Kirstin and I walked there some time before Lindsay was born (and she is 21 in three weeks time).  Handa Island would be nice too.

We’ll see.

Keep the place tidy while we’re gone – and no wild parties.

I thought that I’d add another post before June ends, especially because I’m now on holiday and will be away next week.  Not that you’ll notice because I haven’t been here much in the past two or three weeks anyway.

I’ll be up north in Sutherland where the mobile phone signal fades in and out.  Of course I plan to have the phone switched off most of the time but it is a useful thing to have around.  As a precaution I unlocked an old phone and bought a SIM for a different network to my usual provider in the hope that at any one time at least one of them will have a signal in case of emergency.

One of the nice things about firing up the phone was coming across some old pictures lurking in the memory.  The one below is on the Shore at Leith where the water of Leith flows into the docks.  I can not remember where the one to the right was taken although the sign has a kind of “NHS” feel to it (something to do with the colour and the typeface rings bells).

The phone also contains a couple of pics from my last trip to Canada three years ago.  Of course the phone – an old Nokia 6131- still works perfectly so from the perspective of fitness for purpose there is no reason at all for me ever to have stopped using it – but of course I have, twice since then with contract renewals.

The phone which came immediately after it, a Sony-Ericsson, is another that I unlocked but then gave away to a friend who was in need of a new phone.  And currently I have an Android G1 (otherwise known as a HTC Dream) which I really like and onto which I am finally getting round to loading some apps 0 including the Vignette camera app about which I have written previously.

And come November it will be contract renewal time again and the opportunity will be there for yet another upgrade. There is an inherent wastefulness to this upgrade cycle but there is also a fascination in watching the capabilities of the  technology advance rapidly in such a short time.  Will I be tempted to upgrade? of course.  And probably to an HTC Desire unless, of course, something nicer comes along in the next 5 months.

On a gadget man theme, a colleague with whom I was traveling a couple of times in the last two weeks was using a Sony eReader.  I have largely avoided the delights of eReaders but this looked tempting (even though I have, inevitably, a kindle application on my phone which I haven’t used yet).

And so that was June, a month which seems to have passed in no time at all; a month so exciting that the only thing I can find to talk about is mobile phones!