meish dot org: life, unfolding

I was on the Isle of Mull for a few days recently, and was pleased to notice that the seasons are slightly further behind than down in London.

Driving across the island, the periphery of my vision was streaked blue from bright patches of bluebells, crouched under still-unfurled bracken.

Difficult to get a picture of them, because their impact is amplified when glimpsed against the calm greens of the rest of the island. But here’s a quick snap:

I’m not normally one for nature notes on this blog, but it was a lovely sight.

Apologies for the crapness of this camphone photo, but crossing the road to the bus stop this morning I was struck by how perfectly all the commuters in the line were preserving their personal space. Lovely.

I’ve written about queuing here before, notably:

• The Fine Art of Queuing - in which I attempt to buy a sieve in a backstreet Bolivian hardware store
• The Revolting Queue - in which the locals turn nasty when someone cuts in
• In the Queue - in which I’m accosted by an oddball

…and others, I’m sure.

H2G2 has a nice breakdown of queue typology here. And I liked this invention by a West Bank woman of special socks for queuing in:

Maram Abdel Latif, from Jenin, spent three years on the design and produced her first prototype in February.

The socks are made from nylon and gel that moulds around wearers’ feet to prevent discomfort, even if they stand for hours, as they sometimes have to.

Ms Latif, 22, says the socks are ideal for pregnant women and the elderly.

The carer at an elderly home says she got the idea after facing long waits at Israeli checkpoints in the occupied West Bank.

Breaking radio silence for a brief greeting from the wind-blown Hebrides.

There’s a gale of epic proportions going on outside - with stinging rain and wind strong enough to lift you off your feet, to make the chimney roar, to whip the sea into wild foam hurled at the shore.

Electricity is intermittent. Tea and hot water bottles are in plentiful supply. I’m feeling coldy, sleepy and snug, currently wearing five layers of clothing.

Now it’s dark outside, and every time the electricity pings off, the world is dark and noisy - just raging wind and lashing rain and sea spray against the windows. Thank goodness for three-foot-thick walls, candles and jumpers.

Not sure quite how much first-footing will occur tonight, but if it ends up quiet, that’s no bad thing. Hope you have a happy new year, whatever you do.

Beaches. Turkey. A million mince pies. Long walks. Completely absorbed in a great book. Listening to Kate Rusby and The Streets and Ani DiFranco and Bill Hicks. Watching terrible films. Late nights playing cards and laughing, laughing. Trifle. Cold toes. Great slippers. Dark at three. Big skies. Skipping stones. Sleep.

I envy Santa, you know. I could have really done with a team of flying reindeer and a sleigh tonight, to shift me from London to Glasgow.

Instead, I had a plane, and a not-very-co-operative one, at that. Three and a half hours of waiting at the gate, three hours of waiting, taxiing, waiting, returning to the stand, waiting some more in the plane and then one hour of flying. We arrived four and a half hours late.

I could have herded some reindeer and trained them to fly in the time it took to get to Glasgow.

So, in summary:

I spent much of Saturday on a plane, wondering if we were ever going to take off.

I spent much of Sunday stroking a kitten on my knee while a 7 year olf and a 9 year old painted my finernails Barbie Pink. And then I got on a train for a long journey in the dark in which the old lady on the neighbouring table barfed repeatedly all over the table and herself, and the seat, and her dog. And us. Sort of. If you count splashes - which by the way, I do. Every time she puked, it was like it came as a total surprise to her, and she just let rip all over the table top, over the paper and her magazine and everything. Then she’d mop at her mouth and say quietly “goodness!” while Anna and I passed her tissues to clean up and cones of newspaper to barf into. She’d take the latter gratefully, then unfurl the cone flat onto the table in front of her, and then barf all over it. She was going for maximum coverage.

Then I spent much of Monday on ferries and driving across wee islands, then making four dozen mince pies and five litres of mulled wine in a big kitchen.

Holidays, You’ve got to love them.

Internet and electricity not necessarily forthcoming over the days ahead so have a good one. I will.

The long journey southwards begins at breakfast tomorrow - a walk, then ferry, bus, ferry, walk, train, walk, bus, wait interminably at Glasgow airport unless I can jump on an earlier flight (not very optomistic about this) then the flight itself (less bumpy than last time, I hope) then bus, train, walk… but at least for the last three modes of transport I should have company….

Saying goodbye to this lovely island is always hard - there’s something special about the quality of the air, the fine light, the stiff breezes and rich colours. There’s something cosy about the thick stone walls, the heaped duvets and oil heaters. There’s something relaxing about walking with my mother or spending long hours doing batik with my sister in her craft room… I’ll be back in the summer though - I have to show P the puffins…

I’ll be so happy to be home, though - raring to start a new year at work (there’s so much to do), overjoyed at the prospect of my comfy king sized bed, and just completely unable to wait the long hours and miles before I see P again. There’ll be a lot to catch up on - and a lot to share in the days to come. I have pictures and movies galore, of windswept beaches, and yours truly looking silly in a woolly hat.

Excuse the quietness for the next day or so - I’m on the road…

Update, later:
Home. Managed to get to airport a bit early and upgrade to the earlier flight, which meant I was home in time to actually have an evening with P. Lovely.

And oh, my bed. Did I mention how much I love my bed? It really is a thing of inordinate wonder.

Now spending a leisurely day ignoring email (sorry, I’ll get to it eventually), house hunting (hoorah!) and allowing myself to be swayed by consumerist pressure. Yes, I’m back in a place where money means something (all I’ve bought in the last two weeks is a can of diet coke on Christmas eve and a paper to read on the train) and I feel the need to hit the sales… but not for clothes. Oh no. I have clothes. Music, and a decent printer, I think.

Beautifully sunny day - but there’s a fierce wind, whipping up white horses on the blue sea.

I had a conversation with a five year old the other day, looking out over the fields towards the ocean on a windy day.

“Look at the white horses,” I said.

“Don’t be silly,” she said, with the arrogance only a five year old can muster, “they’re sheep.”

It’s all about perspective.

On the subject of big plans for next year, and so on, there will be no review of the year on this site. This is not a football match, and I’m afraid I stubbornly refuse to put together an edited highlights package. Bollocks, quite frankly, to that.

If you’ve been reading throughout 2001, you’ll already know what has happened - the highs, the lows, the various dramas and lulls.

If you’ve come to the site recently, then you can always wrap up warm in front of your computer and delve into the archives which will explain far more than any summation I could give.

This year has been so full and rich, it deserves the long-winded version, I think, rather than a greatest hits parade version. I’ll leave that sort of thing to the newspapers and TV production companies, who seem to thrive on it at this time of year.

(Tangent: last night I caught the top 100TV moments of the year. All sorts of things were covered, from sport to politics (and both, when Prescott threw his famous punch), but interestingly, there wasn’t even the tiniest mention of the one event which had everyone I know, everyone I came into contact with, glued to their screens for long disbelieving minutes, which grew into hours. You know exactly what I’m talking about. Not a TV moment, apparently).

The exception to the longhand rule, of course, is the mayfly project, which is a tidy way to sum up 365 days, in case you are pressed for time.

So we tumble towards 2002. I, privately, am tumbling instead towards Thursday.

And no, I won’t be making any resolutions this year - because I never do. I’m not waiting for midnight to make changes in my life - because I think that I am constantly changing, and I hope I am constantly moving, improving. I am a work in progress, a life, unfolding.

I hope I never need a calendar to hang my promises on - I don’t make promises to myself or others, resolutions, because I feel I have to - I make them because I mean them, whenever they happen to crop up during the turning of the year.

Warm wishes to all for the new year, and here’s hoping for for a peaceful, fruitful, cheerful (meaning health as well as happiness), loveful (I don’t care if it’s not a word; it is now) 2002.

We deserve it. We all deserve it.

Update, later:
The moon on the ocean is unbelievably beautiful. The night is still and cold.

Nothing else matters.

Happy new year.

It’s got to be minus five out there. And it’s got to be only a degree or two warmer in here, so I’m going to make this a short one before my fingers drop off.

I do miss him. So much.

The lights are flickering occasionally, and the TV ariel has broken - either locally or the main mast on mull, but regardless, no tube. Meanwhile, a repeat viewing of Best in Show with my mum (she snoozed off - but then despite earlier protestations along the lines of “I never get ill, I’m as healthy as you like” she has had the death bug for the last 36 hours) followed dinner of baked potatoes and cheese, which in turn followed a gluttonous viewing of some previously-recorded TV murder mystery drama (Jonathan Creek) with my sister and mum, all three of us sat next to each other like three little maids from school, in a line on my bed - my room is the only one in the cottage with a tv. We sat, legs outstretched in front of a heater, each cradling hot water bottles. It was lovely.

Ah, the humble hot water bottle. Let me sing its praises. What a genius invention. What wonder, what brilliance, what sheer comfort. Happiness, I’m telling you, is a bed nested with hot water bottles, when the wind is whistling outside and down the chimney.

Roll on thursday.

Update, later:
TV working again, but I’m still at a loose end. Beautiful, brilliant sunny winter day, sun gleaming off snow-covered mountains and sparkling off the sea.

Think I’ll go for a walk.

Update, later later:
Bah. Spoke too soon. Mast on Mull is down.

I wonder if I could swim back to London…?

Update, later still:
I don’t want to swim home to London anymore, for two main reasons:

a) it’s too bloody cold and

b) I’ve just watched a few episodes of the BBC’s excellent nature series, The Blue Planet (present to my mum for Christmas) in which billions of vicious beasties with pointy teeth lurk just beneath the waves waiting to pounce on unsuspecting herring/krill/plankton/delete as appropriate, and I’m not putting my tootsies in the water for anything, thankyewverymuch.

Which is odd, because once upon a time I dove (dived?) with Killer Whales, and explored underwater kelp forests, and swam daily in the sea. Funny how things change.

A third, and perhaps more positive reason is that I spent the day in the company of two of the most exceptional people I know - my mother and my sister, going for long cold walks along beaches - we looked out over the crashing ocean and saw snowcapped mountains on Rhum, the Cuillens of Skye, the Treshnish islands and Tiree, hugging the horizon - collecting shells and pebbles, playing gigantic games of noughts-and-crosses and talking, talking talking. About big hearts and big life changes, big decisions and big plans for this year, and next, and beyond.

And just like that, half the island was struck down by a mysterious 24 hour bug, which manifests itself through near-constant vomiting and all sorts of other nastiness - aches, dizziness, insomnia, fever - and is not very pleasant at all.

And I got it too.

I’m starting to feel a wee bit better, though I haven’t slept or eaten in 24 hours, and feel fairly abysmal. Apparently I am very white indeed - I ventured out of bed this afternoon for a wobbly-legged walk down to the village, and eight people commented on my pallor. Look, I’m from London. We’re all this sickly-looking….

Right. Going back to bed and going to try and hold down something more substantial than water. Haven’t managed it yet (haven’t managed to hold down water either, come to that) but it’s worth a try.

Bah, and indeed, Humbug.

It’s odd. You don’t know how dark darkness actually is until you realise that the kind of darkness you are used to is, in fact, relative rather than absolute.

Last night, the island was whipped with gales throughout the night, and at at some point in the early hours (after 2.30am, when P called from the Tyne Bridge, and before 5.45am, when my mum came in to my room looking for a torch) the electricity lines went down all over the island.

Way before dawn, Jan came in, looking for a torch. She called hello into the dark room, and I responded from under my two duvets, and got up to help. I couldn’t see her. In fact, I couldn’t even see my hand in front of my face - this was real darkness, absolutely pitch black, devoid entirely of light. We bumbled around each other like Laurel and Hardy in the gloom, fumbling for a torch we couldn’t find.

So, no electricity - which meant no heating, no lights, no kettle, no radio, no tv, and no computer. The horror. Funny how dark darkness is when you’re not huddling inside or comparing it to light. There is no ambient light here, no light pollution - the storm clouds obscured the moon, and there was no distinction between sea and sky and land. Total darkness.

I waited until dawn broke (at half past eight) to visit the loo, and then crawled back into bed with a woolly hat and socks on.

When I did get up, though, I felt strangely liberated by the lack of electricity - nothing to do but read, nothing to drink but water. I curled up in the grey snow-light coming through the windows, and read.