Moss Code

Power walking, that’s what it seemed like on Saturday.  And I took a break, for I had to come back in and empty the washing machine and get it all pegged up on the line.  The wireless was on and the voice I recognised.  Benedict Allen it was, explorer, author and raconteur, hugely entertaining.  I realised it was Excess Baggage, the final edition.  And hadn’t John McCarthy put a cracker together, for joining said explorer in discussion with our host were two other voices I recognised, Sara Wheeler and Simon Reeves.  All together, blethering, sod the washing and the walking, coffee on.  It was a real treat.

I’ve been enjoying Simon Reeves on his little jolly around the Indian Ocean of late.  As he said on the radio, for him it’s all about people and places and mingling.  He does it well, a personable guide.  But it was Sara Wheeler who surprised me, and her fellow guests.  Much as she loves to travel, about which she writes brilliantly, her preference is to read of people and places through the eyes and the words of others.  Perhaps that’s part of why her writing is just so sublime at times.

Meanwhile, back in the Indian Ocean, Reeves was at pains to show us the destruction and the consequences of the slash & burn destruction of the forests of Madagascar, and the massive scale of the tuna fishing around Mauritius.  Appalling, as the need for greed displaces all rationale and reasoning.  Pirates next week as he heads for Somalia.

But my TV must see right now is further north, in Scandinavia.  Yes it’s subtitle time again, with The Bridge this time.  The third and final series of The Killing is being filmed for all us Sara Lund fetishists; and better still there’s more Borgen to come, though it will also end after three.  Political intrigue, media manouvres, special advisers and flawed characters.  The Danes do it so much better than our contrived efforts down Westminster way.

Anyway power walking it was I telling you about.  We didn’t leave the garden and the power all came from a Briggs & Stratton engine; for it was time to get the mower out, first cut of the year.  Painful it was, for me that is; the mower at least started at the first pull of the chord.  As usual it was more moss shaving than grass cutting, though I was pleased to leave it lying for the wind rather than spend more energy raking and gathering.  The starlings have been doing that, huge beakfuls being lifted for nesting purposes, the wagtails too.  Overhead the languid flapping of the heron casts a shadow, but no sign yet of the return of the house martins.  They were late last year, after the deep and prolonged winter, and I’ve been wondering if their clocks get reset to fit in with the mild time we escaped with this year.  On cue an old nest dropped onto the steps, making way for the new; and the rain came, to make mud for the new.

So as we walked the mosses it was soft underfoot, and with far too many sinkings for my liking at this time of year, evidence of mole runs close to the surface.  Still I’d rather have the moss and the moles than those damn moths.  Now where did I put my spray, and my mask, for moth spray and asthma are not good company, but better than than more eggs and larvae and feeding.  Birds’ nests can house them I learn, but perhaps it’s just the rooks in the chimney, not the martins, surely not the martins.

Murdochgate

Here’s a wee quick one, unless you read all the contents fully, whilst I get down to some of the more important issues this Monday morning.

Thus far I’ve tried to ignore all things Leveson, but it’s getting a wee bit het up these days, at least in these parts, for there is an agenda and a vote to happen.  I’ll say no more, but have a look at this wee summary, and draw you own conclusions.  It’s not so much about Leveson and politicians, more about our marvellous media and the guff the BBC expect us to swallow in Scotland these days.

Go on, make your own mind up, don’t rely on what you hear.  And the signs are it’s getting grubbier by the day, as the Burd points out.

Rays of Hope

Corncrakes.  That was I was thinking about earlier this morning, not that I could hear any for they nest not in these parts.  My mind drifted to islands at the thought of the corncrake.  The link was tenuous for what I could hear were skylarks and, like the corncrake, I could never see them.  But they sang as I pedalled, an early outing under clear skies, a welcome change from the putrid pewter of recent days.  There was still ice on the cars though and the thought of waking under canvas in just a week’s time is a little short of appealing at the moment.  But the sun shone, and there is hope.  Then I saw the forecast for the weekend.

There is excitement too, and a date in the diary to draw us through the next six months.  Paris – a place I’ve never visited, other than to change planes.  But I have to go for a few days, for The Urchins are to be dragged there kicking and screaming, with Disney passes.  I might escape the parks but parents are required, for sole responsibility is a step too far, both for children and auntie.  We didn’t have aunts and uncles like that in my day.  Wow.

Back to islands though.  I heard an article yesterday about Eilean Ban, which is up for sale.  It is one of my favourite spots, for reasons of otters and Maxwell and Stevenson.  The name might not mean much, but it is the little lump of rock on which rests the leg of the Skye Bridge.  It was the sanctuary of Gavin Maxwell and his entourage after the fire at Camusfearna, and his cottage and much memorabilia is open to view.  It also hosts a Stevenson lighthouse, also under threat and in need of funds.

The island was acquired for the purpose of ensuring that the brige project could go ahead.  The trust that maintains the Maxwell legacy was granted a lease to 2015, which is suddenly very close.  Now Transport Scotland has decided to seek a buyer for the island, leaving uncertainty.  One of the other lighthouse cottages is available for holiday lets and I’ve often thought of a wee escape, to spend time seeking otters and dolphins, to reach for inspiration in penning the odd note or two.  It hasn’t happened yet, but I still hope it will one day.  I’d like the facility to be there for me, and for everyone else.

Now birds again, for the house martins are due back any day now.  And that takes me to nests, and moths and larvae, more of which I found yesterday, in a wardrobe.  The kilt is in the dry cleaners, with the Prince Charlie and other tweeds.  And the more I read about the perils of the moth the more distressed I become.  But there is hope, and the postie has just dropped off another parcel of sprays and other things I never thought I’d need.  There must be hope, pleeeease.

In my very humble opinion we have a legacy from Maxwell that has National Treasure status.  Have a look at the Eilean Ban Trust, and give your support.  Drop an email to the minister in charge and give him food for thought.  And if you happen to be in the area don’t just hurry over the bridge, head down to the Bright Water Visitor Centre in Kyleakin and arrange a tour.  You won’t be disappointed.

RugMunchers

Life is not without stress, though mine may be trivial in comparison to, say, the surgeons having to finish their operation by torchlight thanks to the PFI legacy that will dog the lives of all our children and grandchildren.  But I digress, putting off the moment where I offload a couple of the minor irritations of late.  There have been a few, and others which are not yet ready to air.

In the aftermath of a decent run on the Grasshopper the other day I took on the joyless task of de-greasing and oiling, the bike that is, I would shower later.  Sundry bits and pieces found a resting place on the garden wall; water bottles, helmet, assorted brushes and bike tools, mobile phone.  It was hours later, when closing up the office that I could not put my hands on said communications device.  I had been working away as the rain battered the door and hosed the windows.  Yes the phone remained on the wall throughout said tempest.  It’s working now, having dried out on the Aga for a day or two; the condensation is gone from the screen, but the mutterings on the forums harbinger doom ahead.

And inside the house the angst continues.  I gazed upwards in the bedroom, seeking solace from whatever lay above, only to spy bubbling paintwork, stained cornicing and all the evidence of water ingress after those storms that had the slates flapping and flying.  I still can’t face the loft, or more truthfully can’t fit through the hatch even if I could haul my frame the the top of the ladder through the gap yawning too far above.  Longer ladder on shopping list, and a decade of stored ‘stuff’ to clear in the unused hallway above which rests said loft entry.  Ho hum.

But it gets worse, for the need to gaze to the skies, and I hope now that there is no such view once I do gain access to the loft, arose from discoveries on the floor of said bedroom.  There was cleaning going on, deep cleaning, involving moving the bed and all that is stored beneath.  The carpet, not one of those fitted things with underlay, but a Persian, with fringes and a foot or two of floorboards surrounding, had bare patches; worst near one corner but extending right across the entire width.  Peeling it back revealed gnawed boards, and there, after a while, we spotted maggots; live ones, wriggling, crawling, munching maggots.

This is where the interwebby thing comes into its own.  For we eventually identified said intruders and undertook a very quick learning curve.  Maggots they are not, but larvae, spawn of the clothes moth of which apparently there is a bit of an epidemic.  Houses are warm all year round, an idea that is met with some surprise in these parts where the rising price of heating oil is met by an inexorable reduction in thermostat levels.  But the mild winter has failed to kill off the eggs of the previous summer, and these wee beasties can remain in larvae form, munching rugs and floorboards, for up to two years; then they pupate and the winged versions get into your wardrobes.  They like natural fibres, and dark places.  There are tales of destruction and horrifying expense.  Oh woe.

And so we await the latest deliveries from the online retailer, not books though there are a few to arrive, but cedar balls, and sprays and traps and suchlike.  The rug gets lifted and hoovered, both sides, every day.  We should really take it out and beat it but that’s a monumental task in clearing the room and finding a hawser between the clothes poles strong enough to take the weight.  The hoover drum needs to be emptied immediately, or they’ll just crawl out and into other rooms.  They took make a satsisfying squelchy crunch underfoot.

And now the transmitter from the oil tank tells me that supplies are low.  I need to make a call and find out the latest horrifying price.  I need to find the ‘off’ switch and have another battle with she who feels the cold, or doesn’t yet know what cold is.

Just when things were going well.  This summer’s adventure is now on the agenda,  ferry booked, camping pitch reserved.  Girl Urchin will finally get her dressing table and there will be more bookshelves to free up the piano.  The car now boasts a two-bar and the bikes will be coming too, all of them.  And there’s to be a wee selfish jaunt for the scribe later in the year.  There’s a little trial run in a week or two, a gathering in Allonby for Granny’s 80th, and the tent will have it’s first outing of the year.  That’ll be when we find the maggots have been there too…….

In a Nutshell

For reasons about which I shall not bore you my ability to put creative and coherent thought together has deserted me for the time being.  So to give you an interesting wee nugget to keep the grey matter going, dip into this one, and remember we go to the polls again in a couple of weeks.

Another World

I have talked before of my enjoyment for the written works of Philip Marsden.  He, no doubt, will be absolutely delighted to learn that he now has a place on my authors list, or perhaps not.  I recently added a volume of The Spirit-Wrestlers to the other Marsden works around the bookshelves, and this it was that confirmed my earlier thinking.

Any book cover that contains the phrase ‘A Russian Journey’ is likely to grab my attention.  Coming as it does between these eyes, and those horses:

And with Marsden’s name above there was never a doubt that I would succumb.  The map in the end papers traces a journey from Glasgow’s twin city, Rostov-on-Don.  Marsden had handed in his pass to Moscow’s Lenin Library and headed south.  He was on the trail of the Doukhobors, the Spirit-Wrsetlers.  From Rostov he heads east, to newly opened areas, through war-torn communities and across the Caucasus Mountains.  We spend time in Georgia and South Ossetia, Karachai and Armenia, and he is on a quest to track down remants of sect that has had been persecuted by Peter the Great, transported by the Tsar, and even longed for a return of Stalin.  Today most of them have found refuge in Canada.

But yesterday there were Don Cossacks galloping over the Steppe, and collective farms with collective herds; Scythians, with their burial mounds, and Astrakhan hats.  We can almost smell the shashlik, the koumiss, and the airak; hear the swish as the shashka is drawn from the scabbard, and fear the frinding poverty.

What makes Marsden bring the life of others back home to us, is his ability to mingle, to build relationships and trust.  Clearly he has language skills, and not only in his own tongue.  We meet up with a cousin of Uncle Joe, or as he was known down South Ossetia way, Soso Dzhughashvili, that’s Stalin to you and I.  They’re on a bus that must have been old when Stalin died, and talking of a grandfather who was 115 years old.  In an area where ages were known to reach substantially more he was still in his child-rearing years.  A century and a half was not unusual, and wearing his anthropologist’s hat Marsden reasons why, when life expectancy was diminishing elsewhere, the minorities bucked the trend and had done so for generations.

And so we travel on, through the flotsam of ethnicity, with Old Believers, and Milk Drinkers, Yezidis and Armenians.  It’s marvellous stuff.  I know not why I am drawn to tales of  minorities; perhaps it’s the antithesis to what we know as religion today; perhaps the modern move from unpopular union.  Maybe I’m just curious to know what’s out there, to scratch the surface of people and places I’m unlikely to get the chance to visit myself.  So I’m grateful for those that can make those trips, meet those people, and more so where they have the skill to bring them to life.  The Spirit-Wrestlers have had quite a journey over the centuries.  You might just enjoy a wee taste.

Snippets

I’m not going to have a rant today, well not much.

It’s long been suggested that the BBC fail their duty of impartiality in reporting on political issues north of the border.  Well they’ve given up all pretence of it as this article, and the underlying video confirms.

Here we have Brian Taylor dissecting how to spread the word.  And these You Tube videos are not leaked, but available on the BBC School of Journalism.  It’s how they train the cub reporters.  So now we all know.

On a brighter note, a little piece in the local rag.

Disgusted

There are times when the society we create leaves me speechless.  This is one of them but I am going to have a rant, before deciding whether to call the council, the police, or both.

This little road, aside which sits Grasshopper Towers, is a stretch of single track road running for two and a half miles, little more than a loop road back onto the main road in the area.  There are five properties along the road, and a total of 17 people, aged from three to mid 70s, all intent on a quite and innocent life, doing harm to no one.

I have just returned from a trip to our nearest post office.  On my way I discovered that some kind soul has decided that our little stretch of tarmac would look better with no fewer than 55 black bin bags, refuse spilling over, some burst, spread along a one mile stretch.  They are spread pretty evenly and it looks as though someone has been standing up in the bag of a moving truck chucking them out as he goes.  Some are in the fields, with newborn lambs showing interest in the contents, which look to be assorted household waste, primarily cans and bottles.

I was going out for a cycle, but now I think I might just lie down and cry.  And we give these morons the vote, probably benefits too.

Calm

Behind the eastern hill was a rumour that dawn may be close.  Welly boots scuffed a trail through the dew; the windscreen was sheathed in ice.  I had an early chore, with chickens, but returned to my sanctuary beneath the duvet.  The house was quiet; just me and the cat; and so it will remain for a few days.  It is bliss, though I do miss them.

I woke as I had drifted off, bathed in serenity.  And I returned to that state as I had a book to finish, the very cause of the calm.  It was some years ago that I read Findings, then a new author to me, Kathleen Jamie.  I recall buying a copy for my mother, as it was not a book she would ever have bought, but one I knew she’d enjoy.  Jamie wrote of nature, and of life in familiar parts, on the east coast and on islands.  Peregrines soared, and whales and dolphins rose and blew.  I was minded of that calm when I found her latest work, Sightlines, on the bookstands recently, and I was not to be disappointed.

Forgive the picture, for the camera too is away for a few days.  I have the scanner, but not the ability.  These books are works of sheer joy, and it is no surprise to learn that Jamie also writes poetry, and teaches her craft.

The latest book takes us from nature to landscapes.  Whales are a theme once again, from the arches dotted about the country, to a museum in Bergen.  And with a pod off Stromness found again a year later causing havoc on the coast of Rona.  We have gannets and islands, petrels and puffins.  Jamie takes us to St Kilda and other outliers, and in close up, through the microscope in the path-lab, with real colons; not these damn semi versions.  We view the aurora shipboard in a Greenlandic fjord; cave art in Spain, and moths in rockpools.

So I rose today ready to face the world, and as I put the book down so the sun shone, though I fear it may not last, the sun that is.  The serenity I hope will, until I get to the inbox, the phone rings.  But I think granny too deserves another night with Kathleen Jamie.

I am minded that Earthlines is published later this month, a new magazine dedicated to nature writing.  It is a genre to which I am not a complete stranger, with volumes from some of the greats on the shelf, including Barry Lopez, Robert Macfarlane and my favourite, John Lister-Kaye.  Earthlines is published from Lewis, and I for one will be delighted if we get a few words from another island lover, Kathleen Jamie, among those virginal columns.  She has that touch, the way to paint, using words alone.  Wonder if she has a blog?

PS  And a few days later we find both an interview and an extract.  As it says ‘on the tin’ she is indeed a ‘sorceress of the essay’.

Rays of Sunshine

It was difficult not to have a good day yesterday, even the miserable weather could not spoil the party.  We met up with friends seen all too rarely these days since The Matriarch removed herself to the depths of Drongan.  But she gathered her easter brood and all were fed and watered, big style.  Now we have the morning after.

But the hangover comes not from catching up on lost drams with Tractor Jim; oh no, it comes from chocolate.  For my first task this dreich morning was to deconstruct two bags of chocolate eggs, to fill the recycling box with packaging.  Thankfully the plastic element seems to be a thing of the past, but we have enough card to keep the Big Issue seller warm through the winter.  I fear an acne explosion, and so the contents have been sent to the bottom of the wardrobe.  The cat had better not sleep on his mousing duties.

And this excess came after the hunt, the one in the new garden with hiding places to be found, places that were not the familiar ones of old.  As we were reminded last week, in the words of Brian Hanrahan, we ‘counted them out, then counted them all back in again’, well most of them.  193 it was, assorted mini eggs, bunny shapes and all those little bags that festoon supermarket check-out areas in the month before Chocolate-Fest.  And only two remain hidden somewhere, unfound, unwanted.

So the little ones get divvied up amongst the assembled hordes, the ones not old enough to vote that is, refernda excepeted, possibly, mibbee.  Knowing what was to come we let The Urchins off that hook, with just a few for the pocket.  No, it is the big eggs that give me the problem, the ones with the packaging.  I think next time round we need to keep it to the garden hunt only, and to replace the large ones that each gives to everyone else, with a suitable charity.  I’d even think about putting money in a religious offering.  But we give the chocloate makers far too much; ditto our children; and it has to stop.

But it was a marvellous day.  We still see The Matriarch and her man, from time to time, for Tractor Jim has his pension fund in sheds down the road.  It is a veritable Srapheap Challenge, a fleet of bygone days he would say, fleet that is for the one where the engine sparks to life and the wheels turn, or they’ll have to next week for the annual road run when the Vintage Tractor Club clog the roads for miles around.  In various stages of decay, from vintage Fordson blue to umpteen shades of rust.  A fortune on eBay these days he says; a project to keep him out of the house post retiral, she dictates.  So he’ll be around, and I’ve a chainsaw needs fixing, but I digress.

Rays of Sunshine it was I think, and I recall bright dollops of springtime yellow dotted about the garden.  No it was not the tubs of daffodils, though there were a few of them as the first spring in a new garden brings new discoveries.  No, it was yellowhammers, and several pairs of them, around the feeders, on the trees and flitting about the hedges.  I’ve never seen them before.  It would be nice to have rays of sunshine in my garden, but they’re indoors, breaking fast on chocolate.