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Saturday, September 16, 2000
23:52 
My legs are seizing. Can hardly walk, hardly move. Shaking really badly. Heh.
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22:29
Poor El. She's not brown.
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22:27
Hey and away we go,
Through the grass and across the snow,
Big brown beastie,
Big brown face,
I'd rather be with you than flying through space.
Ah ha ha ha ha. Ha. Ha.
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22:14
Man I feel weird. Hyper, jittery, pain quite bad, stupidly, stupidly sensitive. Not just skin sensitivity but weird shit sensitivity. Heard my guitar whimpering and found that one of the strings had snapped. Weird. Head feels like a helium balloon that is overfilled yet somehow still wrinkly. Decided to skip codeine today, drinking stiff gin (almost too stiff) with flat tonic. Nothing fizzy in the fridge.
The fruit fly infestation is driving me nuts. I have emptied almost a whole can of Raid at the little bastards, some took a direct hit and still they come.
Prakashindar
I become rage,
I become storm,
I become fury,
I become flame,
I become passion,
Yet still they come,
Thine unseen enemy,
I surround thee, love,
You shall not fall. |
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18:42
What do you think? You think I could write porn for a living? Hmm? Squelchy stories for ladies' magazines? Hmmm? Or men's?
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17:02
Shock news!
That scab that has been lurking on the back of my solar plexus, or thereabouts, for months, since the beginning of May, in fact, the one that should have been gym related but wasn't, the one that was just icky and scabby and nasty and wouldn't go away, it has gone away.
It was very prominent towards the beginning of the week on the boat, but Frood says he noticed it had gone by the end of the week. Wow. I'm wondering if it will come back now, and how long it will take. It would be nice to know what the trigger is that creates it in the first place.
Dammit, my demon infested CD player has scratched my Bonzos CD. Bastard thing.
But I did manage to find 20 quid's worth of petrol to put inthe car in case of emergencies. That'll do til this blows over a bit, I think.
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13:00
I am dismayed and horrified by how quickly I have deteriorated since getting back. I am now on quite heavy doses of painkillers. I was kept awake by the pain last night, drowsily swallowed some more tablets sometime after 3am then worried whether I had taken too much because I had not been thinking properly and was very tired. When I was on the boat I thought I had turned a corner, that I was getting better. I felt well, despite the pain, I thought I had found the strength to return here (not home, this isn't home) and get on with my life. I didn't expect everything to fall apart as soon as I stepped foot through the door. I really, really thought that I had found what I needed to get on.
But the change back to being weak and in pain has happened abruptly and undeniably and I am even more hurt and depressed by this. Because I didn't expect it to happen. Andy says he did, although not this quickly. I am frightend by what is happening to me. I don't understand it. I don't understand it, cannot comprehend it in terms other than those of resonance with the Land. There is no resonance for me here, the Land feels sick and diseased, rotting, bound. It feels the way skin looks if that skin has been kept bound in waterproof opaque tape for months on end; pale and grey and flaccid. It has a feel of leprosy, of stagnation. It has the same greasy, slimy feel as decomposing vegetation.
I may be weaker than I should be even at home, I may still be in pain, but I can manage it. It does not confine me to the house, to my bed, to whimpering in a corner in tears taking handfuls of pills in vain attempts to dull the pain.
Andy and I feel close again now. I missed him terribly last night. It worries me that we should feel close when one of us is weak or sick, not when we are strong. I wish we could have that same closeness when we are both strong. I would infinitely prefer us to be standing back to back, ready to take on allcomers, than with arms wrapped around each other weeping on each other's shoulders.
I don't think that the sense of separation we felt was necessarily a pointer as to how things would always be. I think it came as a surprise to us both, and was an artefact of one of us being completely at home, experienced, competent, and the other being in a totally unfamiliar and apparently threatening environment. The mistake we made there was to turn away from one another, not towards.
It will be a couple of more days before I can get back to the gym, but at least my appointment has come through for the consultant, and it doesn't clash with the trip to Ireland to see Cousin Wyrd for which I have just paid. I'm quite excited by that already. It's not very far away. It will be good to see her again, meet these people she wants me to meet, see Po again, see Ireland again.
I have also started applying for jobs, more to see what sort of value I have in terms of application form than anything else, although obviously if something comes up that I can do for a while before getting back to my PhD, or that will let me finish my PhD while I work, I will jump at the chance. I must rehash my CV, maybe even put it up on the website.
The Gods help those who help themselves. I'm not asking for a figurehead to turn into Hera and give me advice, or a helmet that makes me invisible. I would appreciate a little help though. Just a little.
I'm worried about Bling too. Very worried. She seems to be in quite a bad way at the moment, the sort of state that she tells me is no good if she decides I'm that way. She is losing a lot of weight, not eating, complaining about being fat and wobbly. I lost a lot of weight over Christmas last year, fell back to around 8 and a half stone (119 pounds). My period stopped and everything. I was horrified, really rather scared. I don't think I'm fat. If I lose weight it's through stress. It sounds to me like Bling is stressed and is losing weight as a result, but what worries me is that she still thinks she's fat, that she's happy about losing that weight, not upset. I know her mother-in-law tells her she is overweight, that all women should be 8 stones, but that's blatant nonsense. She's 3 inches taller than me and still weighs (now) a stone less. And it shows. I need to lose weight, the 6 pounds I put on eating too much bacon on the boat, but that's to get me back to a sensible weight. Bling looked thin last time I saw her, with prominent bones. She must look almost skeletal by now. She's also being a bit self-destructive at the moment, and it's very difficult for me to know how to help. On the one hand I've been there, I can talk from personal experience, but that also means that if I advise her against these things, if I tell her she has to stop, to take better care of herself, I feel hypocritical, and she can accuse me of hypocrisy.
She says she only sees fat on herself, not on other people. I tell her if she's fat then I must be huge and she says that I'm not, I'm being silly, but she is fat. It seems impossible to get her to admit that if she's taller than me and weighs less, the only way that she could be fat is if I am huge, and if I am not huge (she says I'm quite slim) then she can't be either. It gets frustrating. I wish I knew how to help her.
Still no petrol in the car. I would like to go and take a walk round Shotover today or tomorrow, but I can't if there is no petrol in the car because no buses go up there and I can't walk that far, and there is nowhere safe to leave the bike if I go by bike. It's terribly frustrating. I could go see if Tesco are selling fuel to non-emergency personnel yet, or the BP garage at the top there, but I'm not sure how much petrol Marko used dong the laundry and I don't want to run out looking for more petrol to put in. Of course I can't work tomorrow if there's no petrol in the car, or next week.
The daft, stupid, utterly ridiculous thing is that the stations are emptying almost as quickly as they are being filled, because people are panic buying - still! - and stockpiling fuel. They are putting more petrol in their cars almost as soon as they have used any, taking petrol that could more usefully go to those who currently have none. My estimation of the intelligence and sense of the Great British Public [TM] has gone down even further, if that can be imagined. People are still stockpiling food.
Well folks, Cousins, Family - I think it's time we got that LIH idea off the ground and abandoned the rest of them to this sorry mess they have made for themselves. We can do better than the folks on Castaway, I'm sure we can.
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Thursday, September 14, 2000
18:40
The fuel shortage continues and the effects start to bite. The blockades were removed this morning, as far as I know, save for the ones in Essex, which stayed in response to all the oil companies except Shell putting prices up. The shops are running out of food. The health service is on red alert. People are suffering.
Yet still the roads round here are busy. And as I stood outside earlier, I could feel sickness in the Land under my feet and I nearly vomited.
It is at times like this that I wish more than any other that my dreams had been fulfilled in some small way, that I were not sitting at home fretting about friends and family but was living in a small, tight-knit community of people who loved and trusted one another. When times get scary, as they are now, I wish I were sitting round a fire with my loved ones, drinking tea and indulging in trench humour, not slithering on treacherous footing across the surface of a sick landscape. I want to be near to them in case things go wrong. I don't like to be so far away and unable to get there should they need me.
I think about moving back to Scotland. I wish I could do that. Somewhere I could walk without the skin on my feet burning as if I were walking on poison, somewhere where I can breathe. Being on the boat really opened my eyes. That potential became actuality without any effort from me. I could breathe. My skin could breathe. It was the first time in 2 years or more I have actually felt in any way relaxed, even though at times the situations we were in were quite stressful, I didn't feel stressed the way I do simply because of living here.
My Mum tells me that the job market is appalling. I think she's probably right. Cousin Wyrd suggests that I ask "someone" to do something about it, to open up an opportunity for me so that I can move back there. I still feel, even after all this time not being Core, that I can't ask, it's not my place to ask. Some pagans seem to think that this is what being pagan is all about - asking Them Upstairs to provide, but that's a very Christian attitude. It's the same attitude that leads fundamentalists to refuse hospital treatment saying that "the Lord will provide" when what the Lord has provided them with is well-trained medical staff.
Even thinking about it feels disconcerting. "Hey Oðin, remember that time I did that job for you with the you know what and the you know who? Well, I'd quite like for me and the Froodster to get jobs back home, where I belong, and I kind of think you owe me one."
Only it wouldn't be like that, would it?
Please. Please. So I can do the things you ask of me and not be sick and weak all the time, of no use to you at all. Hugin and Munin and I have tasted freedom now, we don't want to cower in this corner any more. Please help. Please.
Empath and shifter becomes supplicant. It probably wouldn't work.
But I don't think I'm getting any better round here. Woozy from the painkillers but they aren't really helping. Restless and frustrated. Crumbs, even Nick is buying a house.
Update on the twins. Jodie is not growing so well now. Doctors think that Mary is taking her nutrition. There's an explanation of how they are joined as well. I don't think Jodie would survive for long, given the amount of reconstructive surgery she would need on top of the shock of separation. They reckon that the best time to separate them is when they are 3 months. I don't feel so strongly about this now, but I suspect that the best thing to do is to let both of them go. Having said that, I'm hardly in a position to judge what sort of quality of life the survivor would have, if she survived.
What would be worse? To kill one twin to save the other only to have the survivor die too, or to let them both go together? If only there were some way to communicate with them.
I really don't feel happy here today. I'm missing Frood, missing Andy, missing Nick, feeling homesick and hurting, scared and clingy but with no one to cling to. I know where to go to stretch my wings, alright, but that doesn't mean I can get there. It only means that I know what it feels like to fly while I sit here with my wings clipped.
I need to stretch my wings more often.
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Wednesday, September 13, 2000
11:20
Very worrying night. As well as feeling myself getting sicker almost by the minute, Andy flaked out entirely and I couldn't say the things to him that he needed to hear because I wasn't sure enough of them myself.
But, dearest, I am not a star by which you should navigate, I'm just another boat on the same sea, trying to find my way through the same fog and mist that surrounds you. Maybe that's why your star is drifting; it's just my mast light.
Wait til it starts raining. At least if the wind gets up it'll blow the mist away.
So, after a night's restless sleep filled with dreams and nightmares about climbing mountains (that's what I get for watching a documentary about mountain rescue and a film called "K2" last night), what do I think about the current situation?
Andy's not a pod person. Of the two of us, he's not the one trapped in transition, not really. He says he has things to assimilate, but I think he has been trying too hard. What is there to assimilate, exactly? The fact that I am not really a sick person called Sam and I am actually Sam who happens to be sick most of the time? That there can be places where the Land really is in the ascendant over People, even in this overpopulated country? That once separated we were raised differenly, to be different people?
Yesterday, last night, I didn't feel like we were related any more, but then I have just come back from a week of being immersed in the place where I grew up, my home, where I have not been in more than 2 years, that I missed so badly. During that week I had more expectations of Andy than were warranted. I was probably angry, at some level, that he was interfering with my enjoyment by not being comfortable in the way I expected him to be - unfairly, I hasten to add - which didn't help with the way I handled it.
Especially as I should have known that something like this might happen after the Herefordshire trip.
Let me explain. We stood up on top of that hill in the Welsh Borders and I looked around and was reminded of home. It was terribly beautiful. I relaxed a little. I was content to just be. But Andy seemed to be trying so hard to be part of it, was overwhelmed in an over-excited way. He didn't feel like someone who would be able to live with the Land, rather someone who would always be living on it. He doesn't have the feel of someone who would be content to be a farmer, for instance.
I'm still not explaining this very well. Probably because it's a remarkably hard thing to explain. I'm also explaining it poorly enough to give the wrong impression, I fear.
What it comes down to is that Andy is more of a People person than I am. He can still go to nightclubs and derive some enjoyment out of it whereas I can barely get through the door. I go out on the hills and I can just be. I can absorb it all, take it all in. It's like letting go.
There is a story about some Dao master who used to swim down a raging waterfall and terrible rapids every morning, where rocks thrust their jagged teeth into the stream and the water churned to grind bones into gravel, but he never once was bruised. When asked by a young man how he accomplished this feat, he merely said that he just was. He didn't try. He accepted the place that the water gave him. Sometimes I feel that when it comes to the Land, Andy is the one charging down the falls with a body board and a wetsuit, whooping with delight at the excitement, while I let the water carry me, enjoying the sensation of being in the water for it's own sake.
That's what happened on Jura, with the standing stone, with the hills, with the sea.
So we felt separate, because I knew my place - it was the one I was given when I arrived. The Land opened up and accepted me, but Andy didn't have that. He didn't have that sense of place. I noticed it in Herefordshire, that feeling, not so much in Cornwall. Perhaps it is something to do with unfamiliarity. Or perhaps in Cornwall I felt somewhat like he did myself, because down there it is such a confusing mix of People and Land, both very strong, that I wasn't sure of it myself. Or maybe that is the sort of Land that fits him.
We are different, always were. Put me in the home of my childhood, with Nick, my family, things with which I was brought up, things with which Andy is utterly unfamiliar, and it's going to feel different. Couple that with expectations that he would fit right in just because of what has happened recently, and you have a recipe for disappointment.
On the other hand, I did recognise him standing at that gate. We do have chorizo moments. We do have these "memories" that have the same details, the same colours, the same information.
Sharing disparate skill sets. On some level the twin thing is true. I really think it is. But we are also different now, different people, and we have to accept that too.
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Tuesday, September 12, 2000
17:07
And so what of the other things?
The trip was also disappointing, in some ways, because it hammered home to me just how seperate Andy and I are. Some people fit on the boat - Frood does, always has. Some people don't, or fit poorly, a square peg jammed into a round hole so that the corners are blunted and it looks rounder. I could tell immediately that Andy didn't fit very well. He spent most of the first couple of days sitting apart from other people. We've never had anyone that antisocial on the boat before. I was at peace up there, immensely comfortable, and yet he was not. I felt centred, secure, aware of myself and what I am.
He says in his blog that I didn't feel like his sister any more, and he was concerned that the Weapon was in ascendant. In some ways perhaps it was. But the person I am there, the person I was raised to be, is much stronger, much more self-secure. I was being what I was before I was Core, but tampered by all that has happened since. The Land accepted me back and I was part of it. In my childhood I didn't know what that feeling meant, but now I do. Andy, I think, is used to me being weak and vulnerable except when the Weapon takes over, but that is what I am here, ill, ground under by the stresses and the disconnectedness of being here. I no longer feel the urge to lose myself on Dartmoor, but I do feel a need to return home.
On the drive down, in the car, leaving Scotland, I had the strongest sense that living here in Oxford is killing me slowly, and I don't know how much of that was over-reaction.
I think I realised that I was his sister then, but here, now, perhaps I was not, perhaps in certain ways it is not relevant that I ever was. The stories I have written in the shifting sequence seem strangely alien now. The pain has returned, the stress has returned, but the stress I see differently. It is as if there is a cloud of radiation out there, outside, and that is wearing me down. I feel that if I were back there I could cope with my problems, even resolve them relatively easily, but being here is weakening me so that it is all too much.
I am not sure what I think about what happened between me and Andy. He certainly seemed upset with me for the first few days. We didn't connect, not much, which might have had something to do with it, allowed the separation to grow, for me to go someplace without taking him with me. I don't know. I'll have to think about it.
It did reinforce how suited Frood and I are to one another, how well we get on, and that was good. Like I said, he's one of the ones who fit on the boat. He loves it out there as much as I do. It was brilliant seeing his happy face when the otter turned up. Heh.
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16:47
Amazing how many cars are still on the road. I've given up thinking about getting more petrol for mine at the moment.
Not good for snorkelling, Kinuachdhradch, nothing of interest on the sea bottom. Good to get in the water though, even if I did forget my ankle weights so my feet couldn't fin properly. Frood made a quick splash round the boat then out, not having the advantage of a wet suit. The cold sapped his strength so quickly it was all he could manage. "Bracing" was the verdict.
Motored down to Craighouse in reasonably decent weather. We could have hung on at Kinuachdhrachdh, but we had run out of gas in the big bottle and needed to get more. Andy took the helm for most of it, but I wasn't worried in such fine seas. Only a slight swell. I slept most of the way down - boy can I sleep on the boat! Had some trouble with the mooring. They're a bit odd in Craighouse. Rather than having a mooring line you bring on board by picking up a buoy, the buoys have a hoop on top through which you pass a line from your boat. The mooring buoy is also pretty heavy, and the Evarne has a high bow, so it was quite a job.
Nick went ashore to see a friend, we stayed on board. He was away longer than he'd intended - he had intended to come back for dinner. The weather got bad while he was away and he had to spend the night ashore. I was a bit miffed because we had intended to put a second line on the mooring and I couldn't do that without the dinghy. The inflatable on board had a puncture and I didn't trust it as the seas were getting heavy.
It was a rough night. I was up and down checking the mooring all night in very strong winds and lumpy seas. The creaking was very ominous and I was worried the line would go where it was running through the buoy. The two sides of the line, running from either side of the bow in a V, had become twisted so the forces weren't being spread evenly. Andy reported that the sound was even worse in the for'ard cabin.
Nick came back the next morning - I was quite worried about him getting back in the strong wind and we did need gas, but he managed it, then he and Frood rowed across together to the stores to get gas and bread and a few bits and bobs. Rearranged the mooring line, putting the main force over the bow rollers and using the first line as a slack emergency spare. I had to go down in the dinghy to do that. I was nervous that whoever was holding the painter would let go, because the wind was so strong I didn't think I'd be able to row back. I was glad of the buoyancy suit I was testing.
Force 8 gales imminent on the weather forecast. A boat let off a flare and called Mayday. I wasn't entirely surprised. It was sorted out quickly though, so I imagine it was only engine trouble, nothing desperate. Having said that, even minor problems can quickly become desperate in that sort of weather. There was a lot of lifeboat activity over those few days.
It calmed down that evening, but the gales were still forecast. We didn't want to go over to shore and get stuck. Still, Andy and I went for a walk on shore. We were't going to get to climb the Paps, and I didn't want to be stuck on board for three days if the weather got really bad. I had no plans to see anything in particular, hence staying in buoyancy suit and wellies, but Andy did seem terribly keen to see a nearby standing stone. We walked up in that direction, and it was further than I had thought from the map. Also, I was feeling very uncaring about stones. The Land was thrumming around me so strongly that the stones seemed irrelevant. The place is all about Land - standing stones are about People, and I didn't care about that. It almost felt like it was rude to go look at a standing stone, a bit like visiting someone and then talking to them by calling their home phone on the mobile, or writing messages on a notepad. Besides, I was concerned about trying to get back to the boat in the dark with the wind getting up, and didn't think we could walk that far and back in time. Then, of course, I'd have had to go through the plantation, and the midges were getting fierce.
Andy went on to see it. I was quite frustrated, being concerned by the safety implications of him going off alone, of him taking too long and us being on shore when the storm hit. Also because I couldn't understand his evident need to see it given how strong the Land is there, how beautiful it is.
It was still quite calm when we got back, although the sun was setting and I was getting impatient. We rowed back and settled down for an evening on board, with cards and booze.
Next day Frood and I went over to the shore to get supplies. I rowed myself, but it was a hard job while we were still just off the Evarne, and I thought I wasn't going to be strong enough for a few heart-stopping minutes. Nick went ashore in the afternoon and spent the time with his friend. Andy and I experimented with various forms of salt-gel mix, including proprietary brand and decided that the sea-salt/KY mix is the most effective, for whatever reason. Went ashore to the pub for dinner that evening, having decided that as long as the weather didn't get worse, we'd head out the next morning. Up the West coast if the weather improved, up the East if it didn't. Dinner was tasty ( I can thoroughly recommend the sea food pie), a few games of pool, having intimidated the white-ball-snatching border collie who frequents the place until he buggered off. Reacquainted myself with Elaine and Scottish licensing laws. Eventually headed back after falling asleep on the chair. Decided that we were pretty evenly matched when it came to pool.
Up early the next day to catch the tide, heading out shortly after 0800. Moderate swell, enough to mean I had to keep an eye behind us and adjust course to try to keep the worst of it coming up directly astern. Another reason not to rely entirely on the GPS, although I was getting used to the idea of it. Nick handed over to Andy when I went for a pee. He didn't seem to take to kindly to me trying to tell him how to helm in heavy seas when I got back. Oh well.
The Corry had a standing wave on the far side that must have been about a metre high, and it was choppy. We decided to moor back in Kinuadhchradch and hike up to see it, abandoning plans to go through to Pig's Bay or Glengarrisdale. Packed kit for a long hike, headed out in terrible squalls. By the time we got there the Corry was as tame as a little puppy, although according to our tidal calculations it should have been quite turbulent. Walked on round the coast, picking our way down steep drops and wet bog to go cave hunting.
Stopped on the beach in Pig's Bay to make tea. Hunkered down over steaming mugs as another squall hit and left us very wet. Hiked up the steepest part of the glen, clambering over thick tussocks that were slippery with the wet, risking landing in a deep wet hole with every step. I was hurting so bad I was crying, but more from frustration than anything else, especially seeing Nick ambling on ahead in wellies and with his hands in his pockets. It was frustrating to be so much slower than everyone else, especially when they didn't really wait for me to catch up. I didn't feel tired when we got back to the boat though. Pleased to have done it, aye, sore definitely, but not tired. Had a massive fry up dinner with beans and potatoes and then just vegged for the evening in the gentle swell. Hippo of Hamble came in, apparently looking to use the mooring. They arsed about for a bit. The boat belongs to the chap who owns the marina in Melfort. Eventually they anchored while we half jokingly said very rude things about them to each other, disturbing our peace and everything.
Next day we decided not to press on to Pig's Bay, but didn't really want to go straight back, so we bimbled over to Crinan to look at the lock and get a cheese toastie. We had to faff about anchoring, avoiding boats coming out of the lock, and I was concerned by how closely to the other boats we were manouvering. Still, we dumped a lot of chain down and sat for a while waiting for her to settle. The trip across in the dinghy was a giggle. Four of us in there, in pretty choppy seas. The bow went under a couple of times, and I couldn't stop giggling. The four of us were laughing hysterically, probably something to do with the gin we had for lunch, and we attracted quite an audience on the slipway.
Was very sad to see Uisge Bheatha in Crinan, looking forlorn and abandoned. A very sad state for a beautiful boat like that. The sausage roll at the coffee shop was nice though. Andy got some inflatable repair stuff from the chandlers. Our decision on whether to get PVC or halyperon (or whatever it was) was based on the fact that halyperon sounded too posh for our little dinghy.
Back up to Melfort then. I took her through the Dorus Mhor, and right the way back from there. The engine lost revs a couple of times, sounded like fuel starvation. I wondered if we were going to have to take her in on the jib, which wouldn't have been easy, but Nick did his thing and we kept an eye on her and she was fine. One last night of store cupboard food and being rocked to sleep, faced with an early start to leave her spotless and shiny when we were done the next morning.
It was very hard to leave.
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14:29
Back, as promised, and somewhat changed for the experience. But changed back rather than changed in some new way. Feels awful to be back here. But I'll get to that later.
It was good. Any other descriptor is inadequate because it tries too hard. I'd forgotten how much I love it up there, if that is possible. It's not that I didn't realise how much I missed the boat and the West Coast, it's more that I had pushed that missing so far down I was no longer aware of it. But I sent word that I was coming and even when we were still South of Carlisle on the trip up I could feel Jura especially urging me to hurry up, to get a move on. What's keeping you? What has kept you?
Arrive at the boat having made Frood and Andy somewhat nervous by my aggressive driving on the road up past Loch Lomond. Heh. Evarne just as I remember her, only without the RIB. Nick grinning and welly-clad. So good to be back. I hadn't forgotten how to row. Everything came flooding back. Not just the skills, but the feeling of who I was, what I was raised as. I slot back into the Land as easily as if I had never left. That feeling I had lost, of being a little pixel in a grand picture, not terribly important, but with a place and a home.
I was worried about getting sea sick after so long away but even in the lumpy bits (heh, hardly lumpy), I was fine. No need for the emergency barbeque beef flavour hula hoops. I can still plot a course, can still steer to a compass bearing. The relief was the most profound thing - not because I hadn't turned into a complete land lubber, but the feeling of external forces grinding me down had gone. I have been a few places on short holidays this year, but this has been the only one that felt like holiday, that did me any good.
So what did we get up to?
First day we motored down to Kinuadhchrach (pron Kin-u-ch-rah, the "u" almost like the German "ö"), picked up the mooring with our name on (literally). Ravens made a fly-by, an otter popped up to say hello. The sense of isolation was immense, a huge relief. Fishing was no good - I expect the seals and the otters make short work of anything out there, but it's not a good place for fishing in any case. It's wild out there, the Land completely in the ascendant. There are so few people on Jura, easily outnumbered by deer and wild goats and sheep. There are probably more ravens on Jura than there are people. I was struck by how different even the sheep are - aside from having horns, they act differently. They don't bleat to one another like sheep on the mainland do. It's the one place I know where one can go and be justifiably surprised to meet other visitors.
We hiked up to the Corry on the second day, wary of the tide for we had to make it down to Craighouse. Much of the first evening at Kinuadhchradch was spent with Nick and I poring over charts and the Admiralty pilot, working out the tidal streams. Had to make it in to Craighouse before dark to pick up the mooring safely. The Corry was not in its most impressive form, but the currents and upswells still roiled the water into a seething mass. Impressive enough. And a good strong breeze on top of the hill to keep away the midges. Nick walked in shorts and boots, was forever stopping to pick off the ticks. The ground was wet and boggy. Trails on Jura are narrow troughs in tussocky grass and peat, formed by deer rather than people. It's strenuous walking country.
It was hot enough to get in the water when we returned to the boat. I had wanted to go snorkelling ever since we got there, had been worried that the hike would leave me with insufficient time, but we made a good pace, and Nick and I agreed there was time. I struggled into my wetsuit, Frood stripped off for a bracing dip. I was disappointed that Andy didn't have a swim, but more for him than anything else.
I'll come back to this in a bit. Petrol blockages mean I need to get some food in before the supermarkets run out of stock.
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