Lupi New Year

The Italian village of Torri is divided into three areas, corresponding roughly to the interconnected blocks of dwellings that lie each side of the bridge. Our apartment is in one of these, known as Lupi.

The unprepossessing concrete bridge, a replacement for an ancient stone one that the retreating German army destroyed at the end of the last war, is in some ways the centrepiece of the village, a focal point when we look out of the window. The bridge spans the river Bevera that rises miles away in the French Maritime Alps and dives down the steep valley past the villages of Olivetta and Collabassa. Here it passes under an ancient stone bridge, wide enough only for a handcart, but for most of its course, the river is contained at the bottom of a steep sided valley where it has cut its way down to the bare white limestone rock. The valley is so steep that the only way to cultivate the land is to build terraces and stone retaining walls, these being scattered all about the hillsides. For most of the year the river drifts lazily through a dry landscape, pausing in clear rock pools then wandering its way downstream. But there is evidence here of a different sort of river which also passes this way because each side of the river there is an exposed band of white rock, swept clean of vegetation, loose rock and soil. Nothing stops here long enough to put down roots because this is the river's own expansion zone; this is the flood line.

Throughout the time we have been staying in Torri the river has languished in the bottom of its bed showing not the slightest inclination to rise up and show us what it can do. Then, just a few days before Christmas all this changed. The same cold breath being felt in the UK was expanding right across Europe and in a somewhat milder form, even down here close to the Mediterranean. Our temperatures dropped below freezing for several days, snow fell on the mountain tops and in Torri the usual group of river-watchers gave up leaning on the wall and retreated to their homes.

Then there was a sudden change. In the space of 12 hours the northerly wind first dropped calm then re-started from the south. This wind, originating in Morocco on the African continent. brought a warm rain to the Ligurian Alps, melting the ground and any snow lying on it. When the river started to rise, the rain still fell and in Torri's narrow valley the water had nowhere to go, nowhere to expand to. Suddenly the trickle became a flood and the flood became a torrent.

On Christmas Eve the afternoon dragged on as the rain continued to fall. Every building dripped water, every tributary stream boiled and hissed. The River Bevera changed to a pale brown as the level rose. In the space of less than half an hour mid way through the evening the level rose 12 inches to cover a lower bridge support and it then begin to lap across the car parking area which normally lies more than 6 feet above the river.

Anxious car owners had already moved their cars up and away from danger and they watched from above as the flood inched its way over the gravel surface until the whole area was covered.

It pounded and roared all through the evening but some time in the early hours the rain stopped falling so by morning the river level was already falling. Down it went, just as fast as it rose, and finally three days later the water under our bridge has become clear so we can see the fish swimming about again. How they survived the torrent is a mystery they keep to themselves.

All that remains now is for us to organise a trip to the beach at Ventimiglia where the wood swept downstream in the floods has washed up, so we can stock up our log stack in the cellar.

Happy New Year everyone!

Christmas in Italy

For the first time in our lives we are spending Christmas abroad, in a country where the season is celebrated but where we can expect the customs to be different from those we have grown up with. We are also living in a small isolated village, pretty far removed from many of the commercial pressures which have taken over this season elsewhere, and in a home that is not ours, one we must give back in a few months time. We find it strangely difficult to grasp the fact that 25th December is just around the corner as many of the familiar markers are missing - the crowds in the streets, the mad media build-up or the shops hung with flickering decorations. We reluctantly admit that our Christmas here could end up being just another day, one we will spend in the delightful company of my brother Graham and his partner, Anna, but possibly devoid of any mystery.

One of the unexplained mysteries of Christmas is the one about Father Christmas and the chimney. Somehow I can appreciate how he might be able to slide gracefully down a chimney, an activity in which he has the force of gravity on his side even if the traditional view of him is of a plumpish sort of individual. But what about his subsequent ascent. How can anyone seriously be expected to believe that he could climb nimbly back up a narrow, sooty pipe unaided, especially after imbibing the mince pies and sherry left for him by the generous family down below.

Well here in Italy there is no such mystery. They have completely overcome the problem because nobody expects him even to try the chimney (which also neatly solves the problem of modern houses which don't have them anyway). What happens here is that they expect him to come in over the balcony and in through a window and to help him in this, many householders will rig up a convenient rope ladder for him to climb. They even put lights on the ladder so he can find it in the dark.

Whilst I was out on a stroll the other day, a few miles down the road in the village of Serro, I happened to glance up just as Santa was nipping into someone's house to leave some presents. The chances of catching him 'on the job', so to speak, must be very slim so I am rightly proud of this picture. The poor man had clearly started early and was working overtime, delivering in daylight, so rather than embarrass him I left him to it and walked on.

To be fair though, although the village of Torri prefers the low-key approach, a short drive away along the coast (and across the border into France) lies Menton, a place where too many Christmas lights is still not enough. As dusk the coast road becomes a dripping sea of white, lights trailing from every lamp post, draped across the road in huge suspended banners and wrapped around the trunk of every palm tree, all blinking and oscillating randomly. The new kid on the block here is the light emitting diode or LED. Small and relatively indestructible these tiny devices can be wired together in ways never before possible, an opportunity for the designers to come up with many new ways to surprise and dazzle us. And all of this is achieved using less electricity than ever before, unless of course you use far more lights than you did before when the eco- argument rapidly breaks down.

Amongst this sea of white the sodium street lights appear yellow and where an old tungsten bulb still glows it appears tired and tawdry. The new white is LED white, like the washing powder advert says, whiter than white. Before this white came along we thought we knew what colour white light was but put the two together and anyone can see the difference. Is this the end, I wonder, or is there another even whiter white out there somewhere.

Wounded knee mountain

Back in Torri and eager to be walking up mountains again, as soon as we could Kate and I strapped on our walking shoes and were off up the valley to Collabassa. Taking the easier, right-hand path up, we returned by the much trickier, low-level route down beside the River Bevera. This has rocks worn smooth by generations of Italian feet, rocks which when dew-moistened become as slippery as wet soap.

But even knowing this and taking great care stepping cautiously downwards, the mountain managed to catch us out anyway. On a particularly steep section, Kate stepped delicately onto a sizable rock which promptly shattered underfoot, imparting a sharp twist to her left knee. Being a few metres ahead I heard the stone crack and fall but could see nothing of Kate until I took a few steps up again. Somehow, on a mountainside covered with sharp, spiky shrubs, she had dropped onto a soft spot and was lying full length on her back as if she had decided a spot of sunbathing was in order. All was not well, however, and the rest of our journey home had to be taken slowly and carefully, Kate being in some discomfort as the knee swelling increased. She must now endure a regime of RICE - Rest, Ice, Compression and Elevation - with some assistance from a piece of aluminium tubing and lump of olive wood, swiftly fashioned by me into a very attractive crutch for Kate to prop herself up on.

Many years ago I was in the final week's training for a fell-running event of some importance in which I was teamed up with an equally fit friend. I remember stepping off a low wall into long grass in which a rock was hiding, waiting for me to put weight on it so that it could do a sideward shift, twisting my ankle and throwing me onto my back on the ground. Just in that tiny fraction of a second all my hopes of competing the following week evaporated leaving me hobbling around for the next few weeks. My friend had great difficulty accepting the situation and urged me to go ahead notwithstanding my swollen ankle but I knew that it would be too weak to use for running around mountains. Kate must now accept that even when the swelling in her knee has subsided, full strength will take a bit longer to achieve and the rough paths we have been walking on around here are out of bounds for a while.

Having walked extensively in Britain I try to put my finger on what is so different here. I suppose the main thing is the dryness of the land, the absence of running water other than deep within shaded gullies or valley bottoms. Anywhere in the UK it is impossible to venture far into the mountains without encountering water seeping across your path and in winter wet feet are a given for any serious walking. This area of Italy is not barren, far from it, but everything living is geared to survive on far less moisture. Much of this comes from condensation, only rarely from rain. There is evidence, however, that when heavy rain does occur it can do immense damage to the landscape. Deeply cut scars of run-off channels are mostly hidden beneath the undergrowth but it takes little imagination to visualise powerful flows quickly building up carrying rock and vegetation debris downwards at speed.

Down in the village of Torri, part of the river bed only a metre or so above the normal water level has been levelled for use as a rough car park. For most of the year this presents no problems but when the rain arrives and the river goes brown, the locals begin to get nervous. Nobody wants to see their car being carried away by a flooded river. As a result, the inhabitants of Torri are also avid river watchers and most times of the day one or more can be seen passing the day leaning on the low wall beside the bridge, gazing over at the fish swimming lazily in the clear pools below. Happily in recent years the river level has risen dangerously only a couple of times, none since we have been here.

Death and breasts in Lyon

Visitors to Lyon cannot avoid spotting the Basilique, a church/cathedral which dominates the largest hill overlooking the city. To climb the hill on foot is a challenge worthy of a saint but for us the crowds inside took away much of the beauty of the modern frescoed interior. It lies in the old quarter of the city whose narrow twisting streets were filled with tourists, mostly French it seemed, but all of whom seemed to be enjoying the warmth of the day.

Elsewhere dotted around the city are less remarkable but somehow intriguing statues which on careful study revealed some sort of a theme, something I just couldn't put my finger on at the time.

Meanwhile back at the home of our hosts, Guy and Noëlle a deadly drama was being played out. A lone turtledove, one of many who share the garden with the hens, the tractors and the various assorted bits of machinery, was in full flight trying to avoid becoming dinner for a hawk, a kestrel we think. Diving towards a dark hole in its effort to escape, the dove failed to detect the window glass and with its hunter being so close behind, sadly both birds impacted with shocking thuds. The window glass survived intact but both birds fell to the ground instantly dead. Remarkably the bodies were almost unmarked externally, both birds' eyes closed and wings folded as if asleep. Inside the house the noise of the double blows had been loud and shocking, frightening until the explanation became clear and then exciting, something so rare and bizarre had occurred that required the birds' bodies to be posed for photos and emailed to relations abroad. Readers of this blog are saved this.

Not far away from the village of St Bernard, where we were staying, Adolf Hitler's car rests peacefully amongst an intriguing museum collection of vehicles - cars, motorbikes and cycles going back to the dawn of the transport age. Weighing in at over four tonnes with all its armour plating, one of the toughened windows of this car bore the marks of bullets apparently fired from the gun of a German soldier. It was not immediately clear whether this was from an assassination attempt or some sort of a test of the strength of the glass but nonetheless there was a dark presence to this exhibit, somehow out of step with its surroundings. It was not there solely as a car but also as a reminder, I felt, of France's past.

Maybe the same could be said of the Papamobile, as used by the late Pope John-Paul when he went on his holidays. Unlike with Hitler's car, Kate was prepared to stand proudly next to this one. Of all the exhibits at this motor museum, however, our favourite of all was the 'Tue Belle-Mere', a three-wheel motorised tricycle designed with an open basket right up front for the mother-in-law to sit in whilst her loving relatives drove safely from behind. For those not fluent in French, 'Tue Belle-Mere' roughly translates as 'mother-in-law killer'.

Regrettably our sojourn in Lyon came to an end this week and we are now back 'home' in Torri.

The 3-hour delay on our journey back showed that even French railways can be less than perfect at times but none of this really mattered as we were warm and comfortable, the sun shone for us and we had been heavily pre-loaded with pieces of a delicious savoury tart cooked by Noëlle. We arrived back to a cooler Torri, the air feeling damp in the evening as the dew falls. This, so we have discovered, is typical of the place, something the locals refer to as 'umido' meaning damp, but which is really little more than moisture condensing out of the warmer air as it is cooled by the river in the valley bottom. We console ourselves that the shortest day of the year is almost with us and after this the sun will arrive earlier each day in our bedroom window.

This little eye-catcher turned more than a few heads in Ventimiglia yesterday, an off-roader with real Italian country style. Is this possibly the equivalent of the Range Rover 4x4 urban runabout seen in UK cities? I find it Interesting to speculate which of the two vehicles is the first to make it into the Lyon motor museum.

To Lyon

Saturday - Winter is here and we are learning what this means here on the Italian Riviera. This is not winter as we know it but fortunately it is more or less what we were led to expect otherwise we would not have left so much of our winter wardrobe back in Britain. Here in Torri it is rarely windy, the sun may only peep over the mountains for a few hours in the middle of the day but it warms what it touches, and during the course of our visit we have seen little rain, one day at most. We are told that this lack of rain (so far) is unusual but we are grateful to the weather gods for this. Frost is not impossible here but it must be uncommon or else the beautifully tiled roof terraces would have succumbed long ago.

My French vocabulary continues to improve. Recently added are the words for shovel, screwdriver, pickaxe, cement-mixer and pine-cone. This last word causes us much confusion as the French equivalent, 'pomme de pin' translates literally into English as 'pineapple', which is not the same thing at all. Translate this word back into French and you get 'ananas', at which point you have a very puzzled Frenchman on your hands and a difficult explanation to cope with. Until coming here I had successfully lived through nearly 60 years without needing to be competent in a language other than the one I learnt as a child. Now I have learnt that there is no better way to learn another language than to place yourself in the same position as that young child; surround yourself with voices you have to understand in order to survive. When I help Guy to load his trailer with all his various tools, the fresh vegetables and goodness knows what else he plans to take back to his home in Lyon, it will be another dip into the French language pool. Specialised words like rotavator, chain-saw and drill bit, to say nothing of towing bracket and jockey-wheel, just never came up during my language studies in school - I can't imagine why.

Sunday - So much for the lack of rain. The journey to Lyon prompted the worst downpour we have experienced yet and proved to be a nightmare of a drive, the roads being awash for much of the time and visibility reduced. Back in Torri we have heard that the river has risen somewhat but it was so low anyway that this is unlikely to cause any harm.

Now in France (hence the Lyon coats of arms) my language challenge continues. Today's word is 'noix' which is French for nut and and also for walnut. This is confusing as it could be interpreted that all nuts are species of walnut but like many things we just have to live with the dilemma and soldier on.

Monday - It all happens in the village of St Bernard. Guy's chickens found their way into his woodpile, a place they found more comfortable than their own house and this morning he has been rummaging about seeking the eggs they left there. Hens are not blessed with much intelligence, it seems.

A short drive away from us is the Beaujolais wine-growing region, a necessary place for us to visit so that Guy could replenish his wine cellar. After the second wine-tasting my language skills had improved considerably and I was having no trouble at all understanding every aspect of the business of growing grapes. From a nearby hillside we looked down on a brown landscape devoted entirely to growing grape vines, these now being absent of leaves and in the process of being pruned back to blackened stumps. It seems impossible that these twisted twigs grow enough branch and fruit each year to satisfy the growers, but obviously they do.

Tuesday - The Beaujolais region is perhaps less well-known for its tiny airport. As a former helicopter pilot himself, Guy has a dream that one day he will have his own parked in the drive of his house and it is perhaps only his pension and his wife, Noëlle, that prevent this. But an invitation from a friend to view his own recently purchased helicopter was not something to be missed.

Regrettably my spoken French vocabulary again failed me when the mechanic currently working on this machine began to speak, explaining at some speed in technical terms the various aspects of the complex systems which, one hopes, will keep this beast in the air. My own role was to appear interested without appearing dim, something at which I have become quite adept.

Autumn borders

The arrival of Autumn here in Torri has finally brought a slight lowering of temperature and nature is at last showing signs of her preparation for Winter. Just as in Britain, we have had an exceptional period of weather here, in our case much dryer than the norm. Our walks now take us through a painted landscape, still the dark greens of olive and conifer but dotted about now are bright yellows of less common deciduous shrubs, colour which in the course of the coming weeks will disappear as the leaves fall.

Our most recent jaunt took us from the quiet and barely accessible village of Collabassa, perched high between the Bevera and the Roya valleys, and along a mountain ridge to Olivetta, a better cared for village with freshly painted houses and murals like this one opposite the village grocery store.

Clearly there is a spirit present in some villages, absent in others, that brings colour and artistry for the enjoyment of the residents and, of course, for us visitors. This village sits just inside Italy and a tiny road zigzags its way into France from here.

Our path runs somewhat lower, broadly following the line of a ridge separating the Bevera and Roya valleys, the twists and turns taking us first high above one river then the other. It is steep and exposed in places, rough underfoot and damp in corners where the sun doesn't reach but arid it is not. Much of the vegetation alongside our path is tough and spiky, shrubs that we half-recognise but with weapons or armour not found on British varieties.

Fruits and berries abound, most of which we don't recognise and leave well alone, but here and there are small trees with round orange fruits like large marbles but soft and sweet inside a granular skin. We think these are lychees but as yet nobody has been able to give us the local name (suggestions anyone?). They grow alongside our path, a fast-food convenience for us as we stroll along although it may be a mistake to eat too many as there is something in them that accelerates digestive transit.

We traverse a steep slope which has been devastated by fire not long before, the conifers standing charred and lifeless, the pale soil exposed to the sun athough ants are already making new homes for themselves. The contrast is sudden, from green and gold to brown and charred, but the path remains intact here so we pass unhindered.

Further on we hover above the town of Airole, still sunlit despite the long shadows and beneath which, in a long tunnel, runs the railway line heading north towards French and Italian alpine ski resorts. We are close to the border which follows natural features, ridges and summits, twisting and turning east and west oblivious to the demands of modern man. High in the mountains, of course, there is nothing to show ownership or nationality, nothing to mark which laws hold sway.

By contrast, travelling by road closer to the coast there is a strange feeling of unreality when one passes between Italy and France and the language of the road changes - 'servizio' (motorway services ) become 'les aires', 'peddagio' (tollbooth) becomes 'péage' and 'il semaforo' (traffic lights) become 'les feux'. Roadside markers change shape, crash barrier design is different and even the roadway markings are not painted the same colour. Next week we have been invited to the Lyon home of our French friend, Guy. Although he regards himself as French, at least half his parentage is Italian and his surname is shared by many in Torri. This trip promises to be an intensive French language and cultural experience for us but he is kind and sensitive (il a sensibilité) and anyway, life is too short to miss such an opportunity.

Insects, mostly

Just as there are many things about English life that a foreigner would find amusing or strange, here in Italy we remark upon many things that grab our attention for what we regard as their novelty.

There is a commonly seen vehicle that to our English eyes looks like something recovered from a second World War film set but which in reality is the workhorse of many small local businesses. It comes in various forms, all of which are known as 'Ape' (pronounced 'appay'), the Italian word for 'bee', has three small wheels and a tiny 50cc engine which buzzes, under load, just like the insect whose name it carries. Blue seems to be the favourite colour for these ubiquitous vehicles which are steered from inside the tiny cab, either with a wheel or handlebars, depending upon vintage, I assume.

That might be the end of the story but for the fact that there is a vehicle, much more well known in Britain, that has been named after another insect, the wasp.

The Vespa motor-scooter needs no introduction to me as I can recall years as a self-possessed teenager posing on similar vehicles trying to catch the eye of some passing lovely and I am sure that present-day young men all over the world still ride these machines without realising the meaning of the name in Italian. Again the name must surely derive from the similarity of the engine noise to that of the insect in flight.

Rather louder but sticking to the transport theme we move on up the scale to the tractor, and here we thought we were on comfortable ground until we saw the local version of this vehicle, a single-cylinder diesel engine, often with a furiously spinning, unprotected flywheel protruding from the front, a narrow wheelbase and a small cart on the back.

With four-wheel drive this beast is completely suited to the land it lives on. It can pass along narrow village streets, climb twisting mountain roads, carry loads far heavier than might be supposed and will come to no harm if left out in all weathers. It is perfect for our French friend, Guy who takes us up to his olive trees, 300 metres up the mountainside, so we can help with the harvest. Anything bigger would block the road or possibly cause a landslide as it negotiated the hairpin bends. Sadly, despite the racket the engine makes, now a familiar noise to us, the Italians have yet to come up with an insect to name this after.

They say the Italians are a passionate nation, not something I am qualified to comment on,

but the three black beetles acting out this little scene beside a footpath leading up out of Torri, made us think that there might be something about the sun or the air here that promotes coleopteran promiscuity. We were on an afternoon walk up a tiny valley to find the original source of water supplied to our village before mains-purification came along and were following a rough track balanced precariously on the steep hillside.

The upper valley narrowed to almost nothing and the stream fell over a short waterfall, above which there was lush vegetation and a small clear pool, a secret place enclosed within headwalls of rocky crags above. Even in this wild isolated place there is evidence of man's intervention, retaining walls still standing here and there trying to keep the land in place, preventing the fragile soil from washing away so that olives could be grown. The vegetation is mostly green but here and there a striking splash of yellow-orange catches the eye, a deciduous tree succumbing to the shortening days of late Autumn.

Central heating

Our apartment here in Torri is built to a pattern that is common all over the Mediterranean, the walls massively constructed in stone and rooms with high ceilings formed as a curved arch without wooden supporting beams. The interior is painted white, the windows are curtain-less with exterior shutters and the floors are laid with rich brown quarry tiles with the occasional rug to soften the echoes. It is a pattern that suits the summer climate better than it does the winter as the apartment interior remains relatively cool throughout the day regardless of the temperature outside. We are grateful, therefore, for the large wood-burning 'stufa' built into our living room wall which forces heat into the surrounding stonework so that it can seep out again all through the night and into the next day.

In a village like Torri, a compressed village environment set in a deep valley, it is only the very favoured inhabitants who can expect to see the sun shining through their windows all day long, especially in winter when the hills send long shadows across the land. Our apartment is more blessed than many as we live high up on the third floor, higher still if you count the cellar which itself is some distance above the road. The apartment has a roof terrace - not the place for vertigo sufferers - and this is probably the highest point in the entire village. All this height comes at a cost, of course, as there are 61 steps between the road and the front door of the apartment, a challenge on a good day, quite painful on a bad one.

All of which brings me to the explanation for my aching legs and to the reason my arms are longer now than when we first arrived. It is well known folklore that a wood burning fire will warm you twice, once when you chop up the wood and once again when it burns in the grate. Here in Torri, however, they say that wood warms you seven times! It goes like this: First it is cut it from the tree, then it is sawn into logs before the wood is transported down the hillside to be stored for drying. When ready, the logs are split apart, then carried home for storage. Finally the wood is taken from the cellar up to the house and then at last it is burnt on the fire.

Thanks to the kindness and energy of Guy, a Frenchman who has family connections in Torri and who sweeps in from France every so often to look after his various plots of land hereabouts, and thanks to a massive expenditure of muscular effort by Guy, myself and from my long-suffering brother, after two days of log splitting and transportation, we now have a sumptuous woodpile in our cellar. This is mostly olive wood cut three years ago and now nicely dried and ready to burn; for kindling we will use pine cones collected on our mountain walks, these being melon-sized and completely dried out, easily stuffed into a large sack which is then slung over the shoulders as we descend. And as a quid pro quo for his wood, Guy is having English lessons from us, in addition to which, when he needs other help, someone to climb a ladder or push about one of his many wheelbarrows, he endearingly calls for my assistance ('Caan yu 'elp me plees?'). His energy and enthusiasm is boundless but outside of the English lessons, we communicate entirely in French, a challenge for both Kate and I as we to try to recall words learnt at school over 40 years ago. After a day with Guy our brains are buzzing with his language, hyperactive with words and phrases we should have used, things we could have said. Fortunately he is a patient man as well as being excellent company, providing us with a completely new insight into the world that is Torri.

Torri, Imperia

Only in our third week here and we are learning that there is a lot to know about the tiny village that has become our winter home.

The real heart of the village is the piazza, 'Piazza Caduti per la Liberta' to give it its full title, which is a daytime gathering place for some of the more weathered inhabitants as well as being the focus for a random set of local events. The other evening as we returned from one of our lengthy walks a steel caldron set up on the piazza was being lit on which, from 7pm, castagne (chestnuts) were roasted and served to the villagers together with a highly spiced mulled wine. It was warm enough for us to sit around acknowledging the locals, even if conversation was difficult, and admiring the way the young and old were mixing and enjoying themselves. Such events are so much a part of life that there is no advance publicity and to newcomers like us, the way things just seem to happen, without advance notice, is baffling.

To one side of the piazza lies the ancient but well preserved church, appearing quite small from without but somehow larger than life within - carved saints with expressive faces lining the walls and a classic crucifix figure dominating the nave. Aside from it being a place of worship the church has a way of forcing its way into almost every waking moment, and some less wakeful ones too, for atop the church roof there is a tower which contains two bells. And in Italy, bells are meant to be rung.

Looked at in simple terms, the bells are an audible clock. On each hour of the day and night there is a mechanical striking of Bell 1, one blow for each hour. This same peel is then repeated some two and a half minutes later. It is clear from this that both peels cannot be striking the correct time... and as it happens, neither does. Then on the half hour, or thereabouts, Bell 1 strikes once, followed a few seconds later by another complete peel from Bell 2, one blow for every hour. For those interested, Bell 1 is pitched at approximately B♭ and Bell 2 is a major third lower than this. Thus at midnight and midday we are treated to 24 strikes and half an hour later, 13 individual strikes. (Incidentally when the clocks went back the bells struck 12 midnight twice in succession, a total of 61 strikes in two hours.) As if this is not enough, at 7 am each day there is a longer less regular peel of bells and on Sunday mornings both bells are rung together as a call to worship in the church.

Trying to look on the positive side of being woken at three am by the ringing of bells one could argue that it is a handy way of knowing that it is too early to rise from bed, the bells saving us the chore of raising the head from the pillow to look at a bedside clock. How have we managed all these years without these aural signposts to guide us through the night? It might also seem strange that Torri's inhabitants, many of whom live much closer to the church than we do, need such signposts when their wristwatches provide far greater accuracy than the church.

Such speculation is idle in Italy, however, for church bells are not a timepiece, they are a tradition. For Torri's bells to be silent whilst those in the village of San Pancrazio just down the valley, or indeed any other village all over Italy, were swinging would be inconceivable, unthinkable.

But let us return to Torri, this time using the Via Basso route which follows the lower slopes of Bevera valley northwards from the village until it meets the bridge below an amazing hanging village called Collobassa. This ancient footpath, in its heyday, an essential supply route to the upper valley, remains an impressive construction clinging as it does to the steep slopes using both natural and man-made ledges. Today it is in poor shape but in the past these ledges carried not just people but also water along channels, small aqueducts, still visible beside us as we walked. The drop down to the river is considerable but would have been an everyday part of life before the new car-bearing roads were built. The route dips in and out of the strong sunshine and once again there are strong smells that assault us as we walk. Where there are no olives planted there are pine trees and resin is coaxed from them by the sun, blasting us with scent as we bounce our way along the narrow pine needle-covered highway.

Mountain home

This is day three of six months of living in our Italian home in Torri. Easy words to write but not quite so easy to grasp. Almost without exception, visitors to this apartment would be holiday-makers, here for two or three weeks at a time at most, maybe a month if they were lucky. Working people can call this a holiday but for us retired folk we struggle to give a name to what we are now doing here. The atmosphere, our foreign surroundings, the weather, it is all here just as it would be had we come here for a holiday but then we say to ourselves, "We will still be here in six months time." Maybe the reality is that all we have done is to move to another home, one that doesn't float.

All this introspection does me no good at all and does little to ease the throbbing thighs or the calf muscles shouting at me somewhere below. For yes, Kate and I have been out walking. And walking in Torri simply means going up, then sometime later going down. Even if we fancy a little walking on the level the choice just doesn't come into it because the moment we set foot outside our door we are going up or down. Our apartment is at the top of four floors worth of rough stone steps; the roof terrace is higher still up more giant steps. Popping over to my brother Graham's place, just across the village and up another four stone floors, I arrive panting at his door as if finishing a 3-mile jog.

From our walk yesterday I have chosen two pictures to illustrate what we are dealing with. The first is taken from above Torri, looking towards the terraced slopes which loom over our village to the west. The terraces are man-made, earth held back by dry stone walling, constructed to retain the roots of olive trees. Today it is mainly the trees in the lower, more productive terraces, that are maintained, these being managed by pollarding which produces ancient, thickened trunks and slender branches spreading from about head height. Close to the top of the slope in the photo, the faint line is a rough track, just passable with a lot of nerve and a four-wheel drive vehicle. Once you leave the valley bottom, this is what passes for a road, carved out of pure rock and clinging precariously to the hillside.

This next photo was taken from that same track, the camera pointing downwards at an unbelievable angle towards the church in the centre of Torri. Our apartment is just in beneath the shadow to the right - the mountain shades us in the mid afternoon at this time of year, before most of the rest of the village.

In the course of a little over six hours on a magically sunny day, Kate and I ascended the 800 or so metres up to something called Monte Cogorda following vague footpaths created to give access to the higher olive terraces. From here we could look north across the French border towards snow-topped Maritime Alps and in the other direction the Mediterranean Sea glinted at us with Ventimiglia tucked down at its shore.

As we walk, large brown crickets take to the air from under our feet, revealing their ruby-red wings for a few seconds before landing and disappearing into their camouflage again. Bright yellow butterflies dodge before our eyes milking the tiny yellow and blue flowers which hang on in defiance of the approaching winter. In general the vegetation is tough and spiky but the smells of wild thyme, rosemary and lavender assault our noses, the plants themselves sticky with scented liqueur.

As ever, my eyes are often pointed downwards (I like to watch where I put my feet) and once again a wild animal chooses to cross my path. This slow-worm eyeing me up for a meal, decided I wasn't worth bothering with if it meant giving up the last rays of the day's sunshine.

A direct descent down to the valley is an impossibility so our return is long and arduous, traversing the mountainside on a bluff high above our apartment's roof before leading us down into Calvo, a village further down our home valley. We have met no one all day and even here as we peer into gardens cultivated with plants and shrubs we fail to recognise, we have the place to ourselves. It takes a peel of bells from the brightly painted church to wake us to reality as we finally arrive at the main road so we can march our creaking legs back up the valley to our home.

Changing landscapes

In the space of little more than a week our latitude has reduced from 56.4° to 43.8° N and as expected, the most immediately noticeable change we experience is the climate - temperature up and humidity down. The sun has real power despite it being October and even sunburn is a reality for us northern types. Our senses are overwhelmed by much around us that feels different and strange, some things being obvious - car steering wheels appearing on the wrong side - and other things that are difficult to recognise and just seem to creep past the retina. Our brains are trying to interpret a world of unfamiliar lines and shapes.

En route we passed through the cityscape that is London and I was struck there by the preponderance of vertical and horizontal lines. There were tall buildings with flat roofs, offices with windows and doors all rectilinear in shape, lamp posts and even tall buses seem to be designed to this same model, sharp right-angles and hard edges everywhere.

Contrast this with the seascapes of western Scotland we have left behind us. The sea always produces a horizontal plane - the widest horizontal in the world - the horizon (hence the word) stretching as far as the eye can see.

In amongst the islands this might be broken by vertical lines, sea cliffs, with the rounded curves of mountains aged by the centuries - shapes too complex to define but with softer boundaries.

So what then is the shape of landscape of our new home in Torri, this tiny mountain village nestling in the foothills of the maritime alps of northern Italy? It takes time to recognise just what makes this place look so different to our unaccustomed eyes. Then realisation dawns. For here the predominant shape is the diagonal. A long sweeping olive-tree clad slope dives into a deep valley bottom where a tiny river snakes its way seawards. The slope is mirrored across the valley by another identically angled slope, equally steep and equally high but there are precious few horizontal or vertical lines, just a collection of buildings tucked into the rock of the sloping hillside. The contrast with the landscape we have left behind is both dramatic and stunning. Although a cloak of old wizened trees softens the land, with branches going in all directions, unlike Scotland the ground cover is sparse, no spread of heather or bracken covering the soil, for here rain comes rarely and the summer sun burns fiercely.

Our first day here is hardly the time to comment on the people who live here but it seems pretty certain that we can always expect the language to be a barrier to deep conversation. Most of the residents speak a local dialect that renders our Italian phrase books totally redundant although fortunately French seems to be understood pretty well; the border is not far away. I used to wonder what prompted my brother to move here many years ago, until back in Wadhurst near my mother's home I came across this sign beside a newsagent's shop. Is nothing sacred any more?

We have spent our first day here adjusting, unpacking those mighty suitcases filled in Scotland and lugged across Europe, shopping and doing a spot of gardening. My brother has a friend whose allotment just up the valley is available for us to pick whatever is growing there. So we have come back loaded with grapes, tomatoes of various types (including some sweet yellow ones), beans, a small melon and a single chilli pepper with enough power to heat a month's meals to burning point.

Boatyard life

Tonight will be our last night in the marina boatyard on board Cirrus before we depart for our winter home. Sleep might not, however, come easily as we are currently in the grip of the fiercest storm in our experience here. Gusts are whipping across the island and even tucked in behind the raised bank in a corner of the yard our boat is shaking and vibrating beneath us. Our mast pokes up above the bank into the full strength of the wind making the rigging howl and whine, the pitch varying with the wind strength and in the squalls there is a low humming noise as well, as if the mast is being played like a violin string. Leaves torn from the young trees above us flash past our windows, smaller broken pieces of debris settling on our wet deck briefly then flying off again.

As I write the sun shines brightly from a patch of blue sky, as if defying the storm. But every few minutes a rain squall drops from the racing clouds, water accelerates in the fast-moving air and thrashes against us, penetrating every weakness, invading everything it can. All day yesterday the barometer needle swung anticlockwise as the pressure dropped steadily. By evening the wind had reached gale force, the noise rising with it, disturbing our sleep. This morning the air pressure had reached its lowest point and started to climb back up, the barometer needle now moving rapidly. The wind continued to increase in strength; 75 mph gusts are now flashing past us, diving down the slope to the sea behind us then hurtling across Oban Bay, whipping up spray which is driven away into the town. Little is moving. No ferries are leaving port. The population is hunkered down for the duration.

We count our blessings that Cirrus was lifted out some days ago. The marina, still full of yachts, is sheltered by the island but masts are swaying about wildly just the same. We think we are through the worst now; if the forecast is right, the wind will diminish overnight so our journey across to the mainland tomorrow is not likely to be affected.

A boatyard is a strange place to be living, hardly to be recommended. We have mains electrical power here but for the toilet and showers we have to cross the open yard, negotiating puddles and other debris. There are few lights and at night you forget the torch at your peril. Even with this there are hazards, like the sheepdog from the nearby farm who wandered into the yard and tried to round up Kate on her way back to the boat the other night, getting quite cross and nipping at her heels when she would not stay in one place.

On our last brief walk around the island several days ago we found this deserted beach where we added our footprints in the sand to those of the otters who live here. A truly magical place this, the pebbles carried here from a thousand different headlands all with stories to tell of their journeys.

So today we are packing - one large suitcase and one large shopping trolley - ready for our travels. Somehow, possibly with the assistance of a few ropes, we'll manoeuvre our luggage from deck to ground then across the yard and along the pontoon to the ferry. For the next week we have a complicated schedule, a minor surgical operation, and many miles of our own journeying to undertake.

From sea to shore

It was all over in a matter of minutes. One moment we were manoeuvring Cirrus stern-first towards the marina slip, a delicate operation best done with no distractions and with total sang-froid, next we were no longer afloat, our home had grown wheels and was trundling (there is really no other word for it) across the boatyard to her allotted winter home.

An estate agent might say that this is a tasteful location. From our companionway door we now have a view across the bay - plenty going on here, Calmac ferries coming and going from remote islands, the seaplane landing and taking off just below us, all this on our doorstep - with the early morning sun, when it arrives, sweeping across our stern. Cirrus is tucked in behind an earth bank topped by young trees which will serve us well in the coming months by deflecting the worst of the westerly gales. Trees, as everyone knows, can break wind for some distance 😉 and Cirrus has a sleek young neighbour in the shape of 'Footprint', the catamaran of our friends Kyle and Maryanne.

The two boats will keep each other company through the long winter nights ahead and who knows what the result of that will be!

Thankfully the lift-out experience was a good one for us and we have time on board now to potter about getting some little niggling jobs done, fixing some annoying leaks, cleaning and tidying, things only boaty people would understand. There is an unwritten law that says any hand tool used on the deck of a floating yacht will, if dropped, always bounce into the water and disappear from sight for ever. On land, of course, the result is a ribald expletive but at least my toolkit is safe.

I had rather thought that my engagement with the Scottish health authorities might be drawing to a close about now but having been told one date, sadly when written confirmation came I was to find the operation moved back by five days, thus upsetting many of our carefully planned post-op travel arrangements. I apologise to those friends who we shall not now be meeting and I curse the Lorn and Islands Hospital for doing this to me. If I wasn't now the relaxed person I am I might complain bitterly for this treatment. Instead I seize it as the opportunity it is to spend more time in this beautiful part of the world.

Take me away though, as soon as you can! For while the rest of you throughout the UK have been sweltering in the heat under clear skies (including Aberdeen, of all places) here in Oban we have day after day of overcast and a damp westerly breeze. This is hardly fair is it. Even the locals are beginning to tire of it, common though it may be, and the word they have for it - dreich - is on their lips just a little too often for my liking.

Taking off for Winter

In a few weeks time we will leave Cirrus Cat far behind us, leaving her (for in English writing, boats are always feminine) to the tender mercies of Oban Marina and whatever weather the Western Isles can throw at her. We are wrapping her up as best we can, unbending the sails, winterising the engine, protecting things inside that we cannot take with us (bedding and clothing will be vacuum-packed) but the day of our departure will be a sad one. For 12 months now we have lived inside this hull, which has seen us through storm and frost, snow and sunshine.

Cirrus has splashed along the length of England and most of Scotland, sashayed between salt and fresh water in various canals, nudged up to countless pontoons or hung suspended from the end of her anchor chain at the mercy of the elements. Her sails have curved to the winds, her mast always standing upright and firm, her red hulls have skimmed past headlands, crested and dipped through countless waves, overfalls and races but our boat must now lie quiet and lonely until Spring; alone but not forgotten.

We have been long enough in Oban to have almost become part of the scenery and whilst here we have made many friends on and off the water. To mention just a few, this week we waved a sad farewell to Jan and Carin who returned to Holland after spending their summer on 'Helle3' and also Kyle and Maryanne who have sailed many miles on 'Footprint' before ending the season in Oban. Here is the account of their rather fraught departure yesterday: Leaving Footprint Behind.

Soon we too will be away. My internal boat refurbishment work is now complete but Kate decided that she needed to keep herself busy too and as I write she is serving drinks in the tiny restaurant/bar attached to the marina here. Her customers mostly come across on the free ferry from Oban, attracted by the novelty of sitting under a marquee eating oysters and drinking highly over-priced alcohol, but they are always friendly and willing to stop and chat. Even this will come to an end as the bar closes for the Winter at the end of this month.

So after an orgy of Internet-ing, during which the wireless broadband rays glowed red as we booked train and plane tickets with wild abandon, we now have a plan to take us through the coming Winter. It will be a wrench for us but... we are moving to Italy!

A chance chat with my retired brother, who took the plunge some years ago and departed our shores for slightly warmer climes, has secured us an apartment in his own tiny Italian village home where we hope to spend the colder months. We are exchanging Scottish mountains for alpine peaks, albeit lesser ones, and whisky for chianti or whatever it is they drink there.

It will be a strange experience for us in many ways as we lack the language and have no knowledge of the customs and habits of the Italian nation. This will be almost as much of a venture into the unknown as our original trip has been and it will take us far out of the zone of comfort we have felt since we arrived in Scotland. Off we go, into the unknown, for 'nothing is more damaging to an adventurous spirit than a secure future'. My hope is that the scheduled hernia repair will have gone well enough for me to be bounding up the steep valleys of the Ligurian Alps when we arrive there. Kate is a little more circumspect and will no doubt do her best to make sure I fully recuperate first.

The blog, of course, will continue.

Isle of Kerrera

The island on which we now reside is about 9 miles long and 4 across, just about the right size for an energetic day's walk on decent footpaths but sadly with a hernia nagging at me this sort of walking is well out of bounds. Curiously, however, sitting astride a bicycle and pushing the pedals deploys muscles that are not affected by my condition and I am able to ride comfortably for many miles in complete comfort. So it was with this in mind that Kate and I set off on our foldies to try to reach the southern end of the island where Gylen Castle hangs precipitously over the bay to which it gives its name.

Kerrera is a fertile place but the steep hillsides speak of a violent volcanic past and a land sculpted by glaciers which retreated to leave ancient beaches raised many metres above the current sea level. Ancient sea cliffs jut out from the landscape and goats roam wild sharing the rough grazing with sheep, cattle, grouse, even a flock of pink-footed geese. The forty or so human residents are widely scattered around the island and in the past would have used boats to move about.

Today there are connecting roads, if this word can be used, which twist their way across the landscape, but motorised vehicles are few; the rocks and potholes they encounter probably ensure that cars have a short lifespan here and quad bikes seem to be the most popular things to get around on. The absence of proper roads means that Kerrera is one of the few places in the UK where vehicles can still be driven unlicensed and untaxed, always assuming you can get past the local regulations which prevent you bringing your vehicle here in the first place.

It was the current warm, dry spell, our long-awaited Indian Summer, that had tempted us out on our folding bicycles, Grace and Jet. Striking out along the rough track leading south from the marina we soon found this deteriorating from hard packed stone to, well whatever the highland cattle decided it ought to be. We found ourselves weaving from side to side dodging wheel-wrecking obstacles as well as the living obstructions who wandered casually out of our way as we came close. Despite their fierce looking horns these creatures have brains that seem to react slower than a retreating glacier giving the impression, at least, of a docile nature. They are, of course, very beautiful animals with shaggy coats the colour of sunlit teak and always the fringe which completely hides their large eyes.

Our route dips across to the west side of the island following the shore so as to circumvent the impassable heights of several steep-sided peaks and the track's condition deteriorates sharply. We find ourselves fording streams flowing freely across the road as our wheels skid and jump over loose boulders. We have to divert on foot across soft ground on being confronted by a brown lake of uncertain depth into which the track dives innocently but soon we are moving inland steeply rising through fields full of sheep who stare and chew thoughtfully as we pass. Many years ago my first encounter with sheep whilst cycling (me that is, not the sheep) led me to the conclusion that a sheep may not be able to recognise the human form so long as it is astride a bike but the moment the rider steps to the ground, it becomes recognisable and they will run away. I was interested to test this hypothesis here in Scotland and can now reveal that on Kerrera at least, the sheep are of a much higher order of intelligence. They moved graciously to the side even whilst I was mounted on the bike, seemed to give a little nod and a wink then calmly went back to their lunch.

Of course by this time my leg muscles were burning from pumping the pedals up the steep slope so I may have imagined all this. The track improved as we crested a summit on the spine of the island and we began our descent towards the public ferry on the east side. Here the green clad hills rolled away from us as we picked up speed to bump and bounce our way towards the better roads that encircle the southern end of the island. There is a farm at Lower Gylen converted to a small café which sells soup with homemade bread and tempting carrot cake with a pot of tea of your choice, a refreshment treasure trove after our efforts and one of the few commercial enterprises on the entire island.

All day the sun shone powerfully giving us a memorable day out. Our legs and the foldie-bikes had held up well although now having sampled the roads here we are unlikely to repeat the adventure. This place is really a walker's paradise with a landscape rich in history and natural beauty, views to die for on a clear day and a real sense of isolation despite its proximity to the mainland.

Humanity

If you sit long enough contemplating the rain streaming down the windows whilst listening to the noise of a thousand drops a second hammering on the deck above, with the howl of the wind in the rigging and the movement of the boat as the gusts jerk us to the end of our mooring lines and we bob about in what little turbulence makes its way into the marina, the mind begins to wander over the events of the six months that we have spent travelling with no home but the boat that floats around us.

Throughout my working life, and indeed even before this, I have always lived close to or within a city or other substantial conurbation, this being largely for the convenience of either my own employment or that of my parents. Finally, for the three years immediately prior to retirement I was living and working in central London and the people I worked with, had everyday contact with, people I met in the street, were all a product of that same urban environment. I recognise that my experience of life has been tainted by this but what I had not realised before was just how different my behaviour might have been.

Walk down a street in London, as in many other cities, and you will pass many people without your presence being acknowledged. This behaviour is expected and is mutual - I would do the same. People in the street are passing shapes that require subtle evaluation for threat but which are then ignored, eye contact avoided if at all possible. Enter a shop and likely as not you will also be ignored until you have chosen your purchase and the need to make a payment arises. All such behaviour is so taken for granted that we think nothing of it in that setting. But move outside that environment and human behaviour is vastly different.

I might leave our boat now and wander along the pontoon to take the ferry across the bay to Oban. To each person I pass I will express a greeting, 'Good morning' or 'Good evening' as appropriate and the responses are quite likely to draw me into a conversation which could develop into a deep friendship or may just pleasantly pass the time. The ferryman may well recognise me by now and a cheery greeting is expected but I would also expect any passenger near me to engage me in conversation, or me him, just as if we were resuming a conversation from the day before, but when in fact this might be a complete stranger.

Ah, I hear you say, but the marina ferry serves a closed community of boaty people (or 'yotties' as we might like to be known) who will recognise you as someone with similar interests and experiences and quite naturally engage you in conversation. In this you would be right - conversation is easy in this setting - but in so many of the places we have visited, generally small ports, towns and villages, this same behaviour appears in the wider community too. Enter a shop or a pub in Northumberland or in a Scottish village and it would be considered rude not to greet the owner and any other customers who happened to be in there with a cheery 'Good morning'. In any quiet village street it is simply good manners to say hello to people you pass, irrespective of whether or not you know them. Strangely, for me, in the space of only a few short months I too have acquired such habits and now find them second nature notwithstanding the fact that this is behaviour I would never have even thought of before. Indeed it occurs to me to wonder what the reaction might be were I to try this in some parts of the London; probably not very advisable, I'd say.

In many ways it is sad to think that we have come to this. Urbanisation and the behaviours associated with living in such environments are certainly not the norm and indeed they may well be a relatively recent phenomenon. Somewhere and somehow city dwellers have come to lose the habits of exchanging pleasantries with neighbours, the desire to stop and chat with people simply because they are human and you are too. I have now made time for this behaviour that I didn't have before, time for all the little gestures of welcome and warmth that make our lives here in the Western Isles so different from our lives in London. It is a feeling of warmth and trust that I had neither expected nor, were I to be honest, would I have thought myself capable of emerging so far from my own urban cocoon of distrust in so short a period. I might have expected, when leaving my urban landscape behind me, to be treated like an alien in a foreign land but instead I am surprised to find myself like a butterfly spreading my wings into a new world of niceness, a world where there are different rules and few barriers to conversation with strangers. Every day I see this attitude reflected all around me and I marvel at how I could have lived without the experience for so long.

Curiously, alongside my own thoughts on this subject I found myself reading other views that mirrored my own. Back in 1937 Neil Gunn took to a small boat with his wife for a voyage around the Western Isles and wrote about his experience in "Off in a Boat" which was first published the following year. It still makes a good read. He writes "The more I see of life the more I am convinced that there is a primordial goodness in man, a natural generosity." After describing how acquisitiveness and greed can crush such behaviour he then goes on to describe a mechanism for re-kindling the same. "And of all elements for quickening the free primordial spirit of man, what can surpass the sea, with its thrill of life over the near presence of death." And who can argue with that on a day like today.

Time for decorating

Confined to the marina though we are, nothing at all (and certainly not the weather) can prevent us carrying out some home improvement work on board. When we had our acrylic cabin windows replaced a year or so back the internal trim suffered badly from the experience and has been hanging on loosely ever since. It was always on our agenda to repair or replace as soon as we could but just as for you house-dwellers, everyday living generally takes priority and is the best excuse in the world for not decorating a living space. On board Cirrus we have limited space and Kate's patience with the mess I created when ripping off ancient foam-backed plastic and scraping glue-remains from the fibreglass of our coach roof has no bounds, so long as the results are worth it. The before and after pictures below means anyone can judge for themselves. (And you thought you'd had enough of cookery and decorating programmes on TV.) 

Careful observers may spot other features in these shots. On the left Kate is caught using a measuring jug whilst preparing some culinary masterpiece in our galley. On a boat this apparently simple task is not as straightforward as one might think because, as I have mentioned before, gravity misbehaves and creates its own waves in liquids used in a world that is itself floating on them. Kate's technique here is one that could be usefully copied in other gravity-deviant conditions, for example whilst flying, or perhaps in earthquake zones.

The really keen-eyed may identify something else here - evidence of how our diet has changed. Tucked away bottom right of each shot is a box of our current breakfast cereal and in the space of less than 6 months, the evidence is clear, we have migrated from Special K to Scott's Original Porage Oats. Kate's insistence on this particular brand, and here I am about to reveal a forbidden secret, has nothing to do with the vest-clad Scottish shot-putter who disports himself on the box. Kate tells me his name is Ruaraidh (Rory), by the way.

Many of those reading this will not appreciate what an atrocious weather hand we have been dealt of late here in the Western Isles. I am not going to dwell on it but I do worry about how all those living elsewhere are coping with the drought and the heat I have been reading about in the news. It must be pretty tough for you.

Rain and wind

The last 24 hour period, and particularly last night, was particularly scary here in the Western Isles. Or to be more accurate it would have been a scary one for anyone not confident in their anchoring skills or caught in an exposed position.

During the day this cruise ship which normally would have anchored out in deeper water, came into Oban Bay for shelter from the elements. With nightfall the weather came in hard. It was just so noisy. Cirrus was blown this way and that, straining and jerking at her mooring ropes with the wind screaming through the rigging and few in the marina here would have slept soundly.

We have been chatting today with a couple, another set of early-retirees, who went through and survived a terrifying ordeal in their yacht at anchor just south of us in Pulldobhrain. This is normally one of the safest and most secure anchorages and it is very popular for just this reason. We visited the place ourselves some weeks back in more pacific weather and found ourselves in a beautifully sheltered pool, just large enough to take about 12 yachts at anchor.

But changes in wind direction can easily create problems when one boat drifts too close to another and the anchorage is open to the north, that is to say a northerly wind will blow waves into the anchorage rather like water blown into a bottle. For a while last night the wind did howl in from the north before veering suddenly and dramatically through 90 degrees and this would have been enough to turn a safe spot into something of a nightmare. The wind strengthened, veered alarmingly then gusted and whirled about at close to gale force. Some yachts can start to swerve about from side to side under these conditions and the strain this puts on ground tackle can become just too much. Several yachts inside the anchorage began to drag their anchors, one being blown sideways until it actually came into contact with the surrounding rocks and became stuck there.

The skipper calmly put in a radio call to the coastguard to say his crew were abandoning the boat before they made the short step, via the dinghy, to the shore and safety but we have yet to hear the sequel on what damage the boat sustained. This picture was taken at low tide the following morning.

Crews on those boats that did come through the night unscathed would have slept little, watching and listening for the scraping sound transmitted along a taught anchor chain that might foretell a slight movement of the anchor through the mud or sand in which it is embedded. Nights like this are what every yachtsman does his best to avoid. It is the secret dread of all of us and gives rise to smug satisfaction when such a night is endured safely.