Hospitals

Finding ourselves getting to know the centre of Glasgow so well was not something we really expected when we came to live in a remote part of the Scottish Highlands. Throughout our working lives we had been committed to living close to one large conurbation or another – in alphabetical order the list is Canterbury, Exeter, Ipswich, Liverpool, London, Newcastle – but we had been tempted to think that on retiring from work the dubious delights of city life were behind us. Not so, it seems.

On our second visit to accompany Mike and help him secure the treatment he needs, non-stop rain suited our mood but otherwise added nothing to the experience. Across the city large ponds of water spread out over the roads - something I believe the forecasters describe as ‘localised flooding’ - making walking on the pavements risky and needing sharp reactions when a bus sprayed out of the dismal light and swooshed past us. Everything about us was shiny and wet and the water gradually penetrated our shoes as we tramped about the streets. It was weather to stay out of, and normally we would, but on this occasion we needed to be here in the middle of this big city. Mike has many more visits to the city to endure over the coming winter and he will be getting to know the ins and outs of the Scottish health system better than is probably good for him. The experience is not always entirely beneficial to good health, particularly if you ever have to rely upon hospital transport to carry you from one hospital to another.

 Expect a long detour around the city, many hours of sitting uncomfortably in the ambulance staring out at the rainy darkness with no idea of where you are going and no end in sight, before finally going anywhere near your destination. They call this “patient care” and it is strangely at odds with the otherwise attentive and professional service being handed out by the medical profession.

Throughout all this, and without really having to say anything, spiritual and moral support for Mike has come pouring in from our village community, from family and from friends old and new. We are grateful beyond words for this.

Then, just when we thought things could get no worse for our family health-wise, my mother has her own turn in hospital – Campbeltown and Oban for her – with a chest infection. Once again the Scottish Ambulance Service rolls into action and takes her on a lengthy and uncalled for detour through Inveraray so we are beginning to think that this is the norm here for hospital transport rather than the exception. Normally one would not complain about a free ride through beautiful Highland scenery but to be put through this unexpectedly when not feeling in the best of health is maybe not a good recipe for quick recovery. Maybe they have confused their motto with that other SAS; ‘Who Dares Wins’ has become ‘Who Cares for a Spin’.

There is one member of our family who favours concert venues over hospitals and this has taken him around the country once again with The Albion Band. Ben’s role playing lead guitar

is gaining him rave reviews in places that matter, cementing his position and gaining recognition for his talents. The Band have just finished their Autumn/Winter tour and the video is from their final gig at the Great British Folk Festival at Butlins in Skegness. Thankfully Ben is keeping himself well away from hospitals.

Turning out to be quite a year!

When starting to write this blog nearly five years ago we had only a vague purpose in mind and even vaguer ideas on what we would write and who we expected to read it. Our primary thinking was that whilst travelling about on our boat it would be a means by which family and friends could keep track of our progress without us having to send out loads of postcards. Over the years it has gradually taken on a life of its own, has acquired some unexpected followers, and has also become a place we can ourselves look back on to recall earlier moments in our lives. But we have always been conscious that by using a public webpage as a medium we are exposing our lives for anyone to see and that this raises some important issues, the main one being to what extent we are willing to expose to the world events in our lives that are unpleasant or make us unhappy, the less desirable things. This year, as it seems to be turning out, we are getting a good sprinkling of these.

When our son Mike joined us here in Carradale some months ago it took him no time at all to integrate and find work for himself, which surprised and delighted us all. He admits that the work he found, mowing people’s lawns and doing other gardening work, was physically demanding at first but he enjoyed the freedom of being outdoors after his previous deskbound existence. Village life here suits him well and there is little he misses from his earlier life, so things were looking good for him. What none of us expected was a serious health problem to arise for him, and coming after Kate’s diagnosis this is a double blow to us. Mike’s medical care and subsequent treatment is being managed from Glasgow, our closest specialist care location, and our normal lives are on hold for the time being.

The journey by road to Glasgow from Carradale takes around three and a half hours, on a good day.

Fortunately the Scottish Health Service takes a pragmatic view on providing treatment for those in remoter areas of the country and puts patients on the plane that flies from Campbeltown airport, a thirty minute hop to Glasgow. This is a service that would barely survive without the business the Health Service provides and it is just part of the way of life for us, living so far from specialist medical care as we do. So Mike and I were not unduly surprised to find ourselves bouncing around in the sky over Arran on a windy day in a small twin-prop aeroplane heading towards Glasgow. It may not have been a pleasure flight for us but nevertheless we still took delight in from seeing Arran from above, looking at places we know from a different angle… except that this time we flew in thick cloud all the way and the rain streamed across the windows all the way.

Despite this health setback Mike is remaining his usual cheerful self as we all prepare for this new phase of our lives. Ducky, our newly acquired motor caravan, may well have a support role to play and as autumn closes in we realise that we need a heater which can run independently of the engine, an alteration which will give us the freedom to camp anywhere, at any time of year.

Our new gas-powered heater is a splendid thing, enclosed within a large red box, but as this takes away some of our internal storage space we have had a new high-level cupboard installed to compensate. We are now firmly stamping our own individual mark on the vehicle.

Again, thinking through what might be needed for camping ‘off-piste’, so to speak, we have had a roof-mounted solar panel fitted which will keep the caravan battery topped up all year, we hope. And for those cynics who might think that at fifty-five and a half degrees north and with an annual rainfall of some two metres we don’t have enough sunlight to justify such an extravagance I would point out that when the sun does shine here, which it frequently does, it shines through air so clear and free from pollution that our solar panel just pumps out the volts. So there!

Whilst we are basking in the sun here in Scotland, of course, the news from America is alarming. Our friends Kyle and Maryanne, fellow catamaran mariners who we met in Oban a couple of years back, are spending this winter living aboard their newest acquisition, Begonia, in a marina in the centre of New York City. We were greatly relieved to hear that against all the odds and with destruction all around them they and their boat have come through Super-Storm Sandy unscathed. Nice one, guys!
Oh, and there has been an election over there too.

The otters of Kilberry

A journey of less than forty miles from our house, a drive of nearly two hours as it is almost exclusively along single track roads, brings us to a spot where Ducky can stop on a patch of grass just ten metres from the sea and, it being a camping site, we can spend as long here as we wish just gazing out westwards across the Sound of Jura.

The famous Paps dominate our horizon with the isle of Islay hiding just behind them and away to the south there is Gigha floating on a sunlit sea. The breeze gently nudges at our van but it is the sound of wavelets tumbling onto the tiny patch of sand which we hear as we drift off to sleep. This tiny cove of white sand gives the place its name, Port Bàn.

Seen through twenty-first century eyes this is one of the remotest places on these isles, on an isolated peninsula of land almost, but not quite cut off by long sea lochs which slice into the rugged coastline. There are isolated houses dotted about - at Kilberry (the accent is on the second syllable, by the way) there is what tries to pass as a village; well, there is a small bar – but nothing around here approaches the size of what could be described as a township. The single-track road meanders on and on endlessly as it circumnavigates the land making access by road a slow and painstaking process. Blind corners and summits follow one another, simple passing places providing the only refuge when meeting a vehicle travelling in the opposite direction. To drive as far as the most westerly piece of land, Kilberry Point, requires determination and in poor weather something else again, a risk-taker’s temperament perhaps.

What tempers our thinking today is that we get about on roads, strips of tarmac artificially constructed to enable us to travel across land which would otherwise be almost impassable. So, faced with a single long and winding road, wide enough throughout most of its length for just one vehicle, we tend to regard destinations far along that road as remote, difficult of access, isolated. But it was not always thus. Man has lived in this place long before anyone thought of building roads, long before anyone even thought of putting one wheel beside another one to take the weight of goods or family on a journey. People arrived here from the sea, such an obvious trunk route that why would you even bother to construct anything on land. Difficult land too, full of hills and forests, mountains and valleys. So putting on ‘ancient eyes’ enables us to see this place differently, not as a remote point of land but as a convenient hub, a stopping place on a longer journey perhaps, a place to trade, to live and farm. If the waterways, the deep sounds that separate the islands, are the trunk routes then this place becomes a service station, a place to rest awhile and re-provision, a place to make a home, to spend your whole life. Thus our remote camp site is not remote at all, it is merely our modern way of living that makes it so.

None of which makes getting Ducky to the campsite at Port Bàn any easier, of course, but we are determined, not least because we are reliably informed that the place is home to the one particular creature that Kate has long wanted to catch a glimpse of. Once persecuted almost out of existence these elusive mammals now thrive best in places where there is an absence of humans, places just like Port Bàn in fact. So where are they? Seals lie about in full view on the rocks. Buzzards soar all along the raised cliff line, calling to each other and showing off acrobatically in the air. We pause for lunch on a walk inland and hear the roar of a rutting stag echoing around us then again close by in the forest. A heron drops out of the sky close to our van just as the sunlight fades away but still there is no sign of the creature we most want to catch a glimpse of.

One evening we take a stroll along the shore, walking into the wind so our scent does not carry, and scan the rocks and kelp beds for a small dark head peeping above the waves.

 I sense that maybe they are watching, for I spot a line of footprints in the sand next to my own, small ones with tiny claw marks, a row of them heading towards the sea. We even find a scat, a fishbone-filled residue, which we are certain our animal must have left behind. We are surrounded by such a variety of wildlife that you would think inevitably sooner or later one small otter would come into view somewhere along this coast. But no, it is not to be. And when finally we take our leave of Port Bàn we are still otter-less, devoid of otter, otter free, with neither sight nor sound of the beast. Otterly disappointed, one might say.

There are compensations, however, for the absence of otters. The land, sea and sky to the west of us together put on a endless show of colour second to none. The Paps of Jura, volcanic remains with scree-covered slopes, look almost snow-covered and the deep Sound beneath them swirls with powerful tidal currents. The clouds are in a world of their own.

Moment by moment the scene changes.

Rain squalls drifting along the Sound create this bizarre scene looking like something T M W Turner might have painted. He would have placed some small boats in the foreground, painted the sea in wild turmoil and might then have faced criticism for being too surreal or impressionistic. But we know better as our camera cannot lie.

Returning home after all this is tough but we know we have to come down to earth, to face reality and not complain. We have a boat to sell so we spend the day at Tarbert removing all the personal belongings and detritus we have accumulated over the twelve years of our ownership. Strangely Cirrus Cat floats no higher above her waterline after all this effort. Click anywhere here to see what is now on offer.

Fungus and ducks

It is that time of year again, that brief period when the woodlands erupt with pustules of fungal growth. Living things that have kept themselves hidden beneath the soil all year have been waiting for the first signs of autumn to send shoots up above ground so that their spores can be released into the air. Mushrooms and toadstools spend most of their lives in a dark underworld but need to poke something up into the air to propagate their species. The size, shape and colour of what rises above ground will vary but they are mostly soft, delicate, and vulnerable things which are easily damaged. Emerging by night or day seems to make little difference because they may only last a few hours before they are eaten or just blown to bits by the breeze. I cannot resist them. My camera swings this way and that focussing here and there in the quiet damp of the forest, trying to capture their essence as well as their image. The light is often dim between the towering spruce trees so a good photograph requires a steady hand. I do my best to snap what I can, quickly, before these exotic fruiting bodies, sporocarp, break apart and dissolve back whence they came.

Autumn brings out another creature around these parts. Bright yellow in colour, each one marked clearly with their own number, they are released into Carradale Water to bob off downstream, eagerly egged on by a sizable proportion of the population of the village.

Once again this year the weather on the day is kind to the Duck Race organisers (the ducks themselves don’t seem to care) but just two days earlier we had such a downpour that it seemed unlikely we would even have a village left. We needn’t have worried though for unlike many parts of the country, here in the Highlands no matter how much rain falls from the sky it just runs away into the ground. The river, although deep brown in colour, settles back to its normal level very quickly.

After a promising start duck #431 just seems to miss the point entirely and puts in a disappointing performance, swimming around in circles then hiding beneath a grassy bank whilst all the others hurtle off downstream towards the finish line. So no prizes for us then.

The inhabitants of Carradale have another treat in store on Duck Race day. For this we only have to wander along to the bus stop at the top of our road at the right time when along comes the Kintyre Schools Pipe Band, marching in formation and playing at full volume.

As the sun slowly dips behind the hill this multiple competition winning band give their all with a repertoire of familiar tunes and much drumming and twirling of drumsticks. We all feel very honoured and proud of these highly disciplined and impeccably dressed youngsters who must practice long and hard to reach this standard. The event just says ‘Scotland’ as powerfully as it can and makes us feel good to be here.

‘Duckie’ comes out - round two

Boots nicely muddied we leave Glencoe and take Duckie to Glen Nevis where we rub shoulders with some ‘proper’ motor caravanners on another highly organised site. It being quite late in the season we can park anywhere we fancy so position ourselves so that Carn Dearg’s quartzite summit winks at us through the trees just beneath the shoulder of the Ben Nevis massif. It appears that our new battery, which provides power for lights and also enables us to pump water inside the van, is not getting charged from the engine as it should but such a minor inconvenience does not prevent us from hitting the road again the next day, beating into a westerly blow and driving rain as we press on westwards to Arisaig. This is a place Kate remembers from her childhood holidays – this trip is turning out to be full of reminiscences.

Although we are fully equipped and happy to camp ‘wild’ we are finding that often this is discouraged where there are already camp sites to choose from so here on the Keppoch peninsula we locate a site that looks good, with a view across the sea to Eigg, Rum and Skye ready to greet us when the rain blows itself away.

The campsite owners have bravely placed a notice here stating that nightlife is likely to be absent, unless it is of the small flying and biting variety, but we find this encouraging rather than discouraging and soon the gentle rocking of the van in the wind lulls us to sleep.

Dawn brings with it a change in the weather and peering out at the view this confirms our decision to stop here. Pink-tinted clouds hover over a sea which is loaded with islands right across the horizon, a real treat for our eyes. Having had some experience of the changeability of Scotland’s weather, of course, we know better than to expect it to remain fine for long so after dawdling around on the beach for half the day we drive off again, making it as far south as the Ardnamurchan peninsula before the clouds once again roll in.

 A long, ridiculously narrow road brings us to Sanna where the mist hides the few small islands which lie between us and America, but we know they are there just the same. The beaches here are bright and clean, made not from sand but from coral and tiny pieces of shell which gives them a special quality, one that is favoured by a taller variety of limpet and cockles with shells that come in rainbow colours. Despite the damp the air is quite warm beside the sea but it is getting late so we retrace our track along the single-track road to find a spot where nobody is likely to disturb us, a place where even a large white van is lost amongst the heather and coarse grass. The sense of remoteness here on Ardnamurchan has a new order of magnitude. The by-road past Kilchoan is like a thread winding onwards over the hills, passing through a land shaped by nature where man’s influence is barely a scratch. Rounded boulders stick out of the heather-covered ground, formed volcanically then scraped smooth by glacial ice and still bare of soil after thousands of years. Either time moves more slowly here or else the land just resists change, of its own accord.

Driving slowly on, still on roads barely wider than our wheels, we reach Loch Sunart and follow its northern shore to a village called Strontian, a name made famous by the element Strontium, discovered in the now disused lead mines which lie hidden in the mountains close by. If ever there was a village which matches Carradale in terms of size, (in-)accessibility, general surroundings and sense of community, then this is it.

We find houses built to exactly the same pattern as our own, from the same set of bricks almost, and the midges even looked at us the same way as they do back home. Just like in Carradale, walk a short distance up the hillside and you are treated to a terrific view, in this case westward along the longest sea loch in the Highlands. Our camp site owner is an enthusiastic entrepreneur who was drawn to the Highlands in a similar way to us and is making a great life for himself and his family. Even in these remote places many of our overnight camping sites have been full of tourists, from England, Europe and the USA, so clearly there is a living here for anyone who has the imagination and enthusiasm to take advantage of the opportunities on offer.

The world of caravanning is slowly opening up before us as we travel about in our new home although we sense that we might not quite be doing things as others are. We don’t have a table and chair set to erect outside the moment we arrive at a camp site, somewhere to sit around eating supper and shivering whilst the midges feed. We sense others looking down their noses at our lightly equipped style and our one night stopovers but we don’t care. Before leaving Strontian, though, we have to take advantage of the fine morning to visit the ancient Ariundle oak woods. Amongst these trees are moss-covered stones, some of them once used in building a croft or an ancient fortified structure, which lie sleeping beneath the oaks and birches. The area is being actively preserved from intrusion by sheep or deer to preserve it as a uniquely valuable habitat and we would like to linger longer but need to head back to Oban to try to sort out the van’s electrical problems. From Strontian the quickest route is to use the ferry at Corran, a place where Loch Linnhe narrows, forcing the tide to rush through a small gap beneath the mountains of Ardgour. The crossing turns out to be very easy - we just drive up and bounce on board - and the meagre cost surprises us. We were expecting to pay more for our large vehicle but we grin to ourselves and keep quiet about it,  especially not bragging to the gang of bikers who are crossing with us.

These are serious tourists most of whom who have travelled up from England to a meet at Kilchoan on Ardnamurchan and we feel sorry for them later when the rain begins to fall.

At Barcaldine we pull into the former walled garden of a once great estate, now converted to a grand camping site, and have barely parked before the heavens open. This site has such a high sense of order about it that it terrifies us. The toilet/shower block closes for cleaning on the dot of 12.30 each day. It is beyond spotless. The grass grows only where it knows it must and there are gates which close at 11pm to prevent foolishly disorganised campers from arriving or departing. Despite these (in our view) failings there is a warm welcome from the managers who clearly run their lives around the camping season.

Our little break over, all that remains is to trundle back home. The electrical problem in the van persists and will need further attention by someone with greater skills than I but everything else works well and promises to deliver us a whole new world of adventures.

‘Duckie’ comes out

With a rumble of diesel exhaust our newest acquisition trundles slowly out of Carradale in the rain, heading for a spot of wild camping further up the Kintyre peninsula. Several things strike us immediately. The enormously long windscreen wiper blades that shoot across our field of vision every few seconds taking a bucket-load of water from the acreage of front windscreen at each stroke. These are a feat of engineering on their own. Then there is the seven-speed gear box (one of these gears is for going backwards) which encourages a new way of thinking about driving, one where engine speed is almost as important as road speed. And once we are moving we are struck by how quiet it is, the powerful engine barely catching its breath on the single track road along Kilbrannan Sound. Some miles later we simply turn the wheel to the left and glide to a halt on some grass beside the road in the dark, a road that ends just beyond the next bend or two, and we listen to the sound of the sea not twenty metres away from our back door.

We also count the traffic passing us; there were four cars that night and then at around eight in the morning the bus came along.

We are still babies at this motor-caravanning stuff, mere novices at the game. Our first night we sleep soundly on the cross-wise double berth which we later realise was at a considerable angle of tilt. We have the technology on board to adjust this – some ramps to raise up the lower wheels -  but in the rain and dark it hardly seems worthwhile. Sleep is more important. Our mobile escape pod has brought us somewhere different but the ‘where’ is not important just now, nor is the position of our heads relative to our bottoms.

We are heading in a northerly direction and next day find ourselves in Oban where we stock up on food and acquire a new battery to provide us with light inside the van. A cool box is installed which is supposed to provide us with the means to keep food fresh but we discover later that this was a poor investment which draws much electrical power for very little cooling effect. Beyond Tyndrum the road rises to the bleak wilderness that is Rannoch Moor then suddenly around a corner the ‘Big Shepherd’ of Etive comes into view, dominating the landscape and I am transported back forty years to when this massive mountain signified the end of a long overnight drive from London and the start of a week of climbing amongst the peaks and valleys of Glencoe.

For more years than I care to remember this place has been a favourite of mine, top of the list of places I want to be. It comes with so many familiar corners all of which are full of memories, of experiences with friends I have long lost touch with, and then more recent adventures with Kate and our young sons. We recall that it was in May 1987 that we walked and carried our children up a path leading out of the Glen to the magical Coire Gabhail, known to all as the Lost Valley. Our youngest, Ben, was barely two years old and bounced along in a backpack papoose slung on our shoulders. The other two boys climbed with only our encouragement to spur them on. Would the weather hold for tomorrow so we could retrace our steps of 25 years ago?

In the campsite called ‘The Red Squirrel’ we park our bus beside the river Coe then tramp up the road for a meal in the Clachaig Inn, thus opening up another set of memories for me which I shall keep to myself for another time.

We are learning rapidly about the art of caravanning, setting up on a level site, taking time to explore to make sure we can locate the toilets and showers which may be tucked away out of sight in some odd corner. Our van is equipped with everything for basic needs but not being a professionally done conversion it is delightfully quirky inside, which makes using it a real pleasure. It feels very big inside but we soon realise that compared with most motorhomes it is quite compact, bijou even. On the road it feels like we are driving in a big bus and then when we pull up for the night it suddenly becomes just the right size for us. Experienced caravanners the world over will know that the waste water bucket has to be positioned just so beneath the sink pipe and it is important not to drive away over it in the morning but these are skills we are just acquiring. Many campsites offer mains electricity for caravans and although we can connect our van to this we are puzzled as to what use to make of it. Life aboard a boat has taught that there is little that is essential to life that needs mains electricity to function so for the moment we save our pennies and manage without. We are self-contained and self-sustaining in our own little world.

The next day, after breakfast and a short drive back up the glen, we park Duckie (‘Ducato’ is the Italian for duck, surely) then leave behind the coachload of Japanese tourists to follow the trail to the Lost Valley. A descent to the river then we climb solidly for the next hour and a half, take an unwanted detour up some loose scree, but finally re-locate our route through the boulder-field that once formed part of the side of the mountain of Geàrr Aonach. Many thousands of years ago there was such a rock fall here that the route into our valley was closed off forever, lost from sight. The stream (Allt Coire Gabhail) dammed up behind the debris caused a build up of small stones which now form an almost level gravelly base to the valley floor, the size of three or four football pitches, and the stream now disappears beneath this, to emerge innocently much lower down from beneath one of the enormous fallen boulders.

The path up weaves in and out of these colossal lumps of rock before emerging onto the valley floor which is such a surprising contrast to the steepness of the surrounding peaks that it just takes the breath away.

I cannot explain the magic of this place but here is Kate carrying a two year-old Ben and here we are in Coire Gabhail twenty-five years on – we keep coming back. I would like to say nothing has changed but even the mountains, which change on a geological timescale, will not be quite the same as they were then.

A world away

Our son Mike, whose decision to relocate to Scotland and make Carradale his home was made just a few months ago, is astounding both himself and us. Unlikely though this might have seemed when he first chose to move, he has found work here, regular and enjoyable work that will keep him active and healthy. Anywhere in the world this would have been impressive. In our tiny village this is astonishing and we are proud of him and his achievements. Each morning he is picked up by Matt, whose ancient red van is well known around these parts, and the pair of them drive off somewhere and work together through the rest of the day, largely engaged on cutting lawns at the homes of our residents and the holiday homes of our non-residents. If this sounds uninspiring, then put yourself in the position of someone who has spent the last five years working in the pressured environment of a busy call centre where you are treated like a piece of furniture, where you have to ask for permission to carry out basic bodily functions and are then threatened with losing your job for talking too long with callers who may only have called in for a chat in the first place.

Working out of doors at a steady pace in a fresh seaside environment whilst surrounded by beautiful forests and hills is suiting him just fine, indeed it is just what the doctor might have ordered. He is finding out for himself what we too have discovered… that once they know you are here, if they like you then the people draw you in to the community and will support you just as you support them.
Oh, and Mike has cut his hair too.

I now turn to the subject I can avoid no longer – I must write about Kate.

Her recent diagnosis (skin cancer identified in a mole on her left arm) has left her with a mix of emotions ranging from fear through anger to resignation and defeat and has crashed open the door to a new phase in her life. At this stage there is no ‘treatment’ as such, it is merely a matter of close monitoring, particularly for the next two years or so, in case further instances are discovered. But the shock of the discovery of this unwanted guest is profound, to her and to those around her. Exposure to the sun’s rays, never wise for the fair-skinned, now forever carries a far greater risk for her and this must be avoided in a way never before considered necessary. To someone who loves the outdoors as she does this has all come as a dramatic blow, such that the last month has been tough, with much soul-searching and self-analysis going on. But the diagnosis leaves no alternatives, no way out. The door behind her is closed for good.

Part of what she finds most distressing, of course, is the effect of her diagnosis on those of us who are close to her, those of us who must now pass through the same door to stay with her. Having Mike living with us has helped enormously in getting her though this since his arrival has brought with it changes and adaptations inside our house, pointing the way forward. In any event we do have considerable experience of changing course mid passage when a sudden squall threatens to overwhelm us. We are plotting our way towards a new destination and making radical choices along the way.
A sailing vessel of one kind or another has been a part of our lives together almost from the start and our present one, Cirrus Cat, has brought us through storms, tidal races, tumbling turbulence and through many a rocky close shave. Finally she brought us here to our home in Scotland. But soon our lovely red catamaran is going to be on the market for sale. No matter how much we enjoy sailing, we must all accept that for Kate, exposure to sunlight both from above and reflected from the water poses too great a risk for her. Exploring the land via the sea, something we have long taken great pleasure from, is just not an option any more.

This new chapter in our lives will be different from the last but in many ways we hope to achieve the same goals. We still yearn to explore this beautiful country, to peer into its remote corners and islands, to walk ourselves into the ground trying to climb its many peaks. So since boating is no longer an option we must travel by land and this time the shell we will carry with us is a motor caravan, or as the French would say, a ‘camping car’. To my way of thinking Scotland is the ideal place, in fact the only place where I would be prepared to drive such a large vehicle simply because the roads we intend to explore will be remote and relatively traffic free. I derive no pleasure from driving when it is accompanied by the stress of high volumes of traffic, but negotiating the back roads on Kintyre and elsewhere in the Highlands is often done without meeting a single vehicle… so the pleasure remains.
Then barely had we made this radical decision when fortune suddenly smiled upon us. A tip-off pointed us towards just the very vehicle we need, at a good price, in superb condition and in Carradale too! It is a former minibus (although some might say it looks more like an ambulance), converted privately by the owner before sadly he became too ill to drive, and it is deliciously quirky inside, conceived in the owner’s mind and executed by him with a high standard of care. We feel instantly comfortable with the way the van is fitted out inside and are already imagining ourselves pulling off the road and bedding down for the night with the sound of the sea shushing close by and the wind rustling the trees. Maybe we will peer out at the stars, a whole Milky Way full of them, or just close our eyes in total darkness.

Journeys

I take a weekend off to visit friends Rich and Gerry and help them celebrate Rich’s retirement from full-time work. Joining us is the other Richard whose retirement last year we tried to celebrate in a weekend of sailing on the sheltered waters of the River Swale in Kent, and when due to atrocious weather we were forced indoors.

This time around the weather looks far more favourably upon us and in the middle of a brief heat-wave, we all take to the water on board Waxywoo II and Courageous, respectively a yacht and a sailing dinghy. The silt-laden waters of the Swale and the River Medway are places where traditional sailing boats are plentiful so it is far from unusual to pass by some beautifully restored piece of floating wooden history like this ancient fishing smack. Our own craft are a little more modern but over two days on the water we manage to sail, swim, potter around a few creeks on the Isle of Sheppey and generally have a ‘Swallows & Amazons’ type adventure with plenty of scrapes and jolly fun. Just what I need to take my mind off the madness of house removals.

Rich and Gerry generously feed and water me at their Dungate home where we find that in our absence, Wendy, one of the badger-faced ewes who live in the orchard behind their house, has given us a real treat by producing two fine lambs. She manages the whole business entirely on her own, with no human help, so we are very proud of her, although she does look a little sheepish in this picture.
Hovering expectantly around the comfortable barn where Wendy had installed herself was our old friend Hot Horns, a ram who loves having his thick coat tickled just behind his head.

In fact he is tolerant of almost any human attention he can get and although he wasn’t saying much one has to wonder whether he was an active participant in Wendy’s big event.
My mother is now finally re-locating, making the long journey north, and will stay in our home until she can take up residence in the house next door which she is buying for herself. She has great plans, naturally, to add new features here and there, to decorate the place to her own taste throughout, to tame the wilderness that is the garden, and no doubt there will be a long list of other jobs in the months to come. Once again a member of our family plunges into a house renovation project. Mere age alone cannot stop this – it is in our genes, I fear. At least it will take Mum’s mind off of the fact that she has left behind the over-crowded warmth of south-eastern Britain with its tame hedgerows and tightly clipped lawns as she struggles to adjust her eyes to the rather less kempt surroundings of the scenic Highlands with its dramatic views and rugged mountains.

The final part of her journey is inside the fuselage of a twin-engine Otter aircraft piloted by a lady we all assume is the air hostess… until she takes her position in the driving seat. Flying in a plane this size is flying in the raw, intimate and noisy, unlike the insulated, flying-above-the-clouds Airbus 319 that brought us as far as Glasgow. Propellers whirling we pick up speed then spring into the air and level off just high enough to clear the chimney pots then head towards the Isle of Arran whose mountains loom at us on the horizon. This being a new experience for me my camera is shooting in every direction, sometimes capturing part of the plane in shot (oops, is that the wheel!) or sometimes a yacht sailing not far below us.

At times we are so close to the ground that it feels like we might just bounce off it and a power station chimney we pass over looks almost close enough to touch. But we do clear the peaks of Arran then soon we are starting our descent to Campbeltown Airport where we make a gentle landing then taxi towards the tiny terminal building just as a fire engine rushes towards us – normal procedure, apparently.
Kate has driven out to meet us to complete this lengthy journey, the finish for me but the start line of a brand new journey for my mother.

My leisure-time reading has just taken me to a book by Mike Carter, a man who cycled around Britain a few years ago, coincidentally going the same way around the country as we did on Cirrus Cat, anticlockwise. As it happens his journey took place during the same summer as well, which may account for the fact that the conclusions he draws on the state of the country, and the welcoming attitude of its people, were very similar to our own. But of all those he met and wrote about I was most struck by his account of Steve, the ferryman who takes passengers across Salcombe Harbour in Devon. Himself a well-travelled cyclist, the simple wisdom of this man almost took my breath away. His view of life and of how he feels we should view life’s many challenges, made me re-read this section of the book several times until I had committed to memory something I felt I should take away with me. “Finishing lines are good”, the author quotes, “but their most important role is to get you over the start line in the first place.” How true this rings today when too often we are focussed upon goals and achievements, so many of which are meaningless in their own right, when it is the journey itself that is important.

Our son Mike’s journey is now complete and whilst Kate is supervising his introduction to Carradale life, something he seems to be taking to rather well, I am wrestling with the estate agents dealing with the sale of my mother’s house down south here in England. I feel as though I am having to push through treacle to get anyone, solicitors included, to even attempt to speed things up. It is as if the whole English sale and purchase system is geared towards sloth and even to suggest that things could be done quicker is met with surprise and alarm, horror even. Small wonder the housing market is in recession at the moment. The contrast with the more efficient Scottish house buying and selling process, where much of the work is done up front by the seller, is self evident and I know which I prefer. Estate agents, however, are of the same mettle all over the universe.
Grumbling over.

Family on the move

Our eldest son, Tony, has paid us a visit for the first time.

With a bit of reasonable weather, with all our first time visitors we like to show off a few of the treasures of Kintyre and seem to end up at Skipness Castle, a place with a fascinating story to tell despite barely having experienced combat. Far from being a ruin today, this place was inhabited until the seventeenth century, lived in by the favoured few with their servants no doubt, but the place is now said to be haunted by a Green Lady, although we did not see her on this occasion. Within the castle walls today the light seeps through small window openings casting shadows on the quiet world within.

But the stones used to build this castle glow with colour. A pink sandstone etches the corners of the structure, surrounds the windows and the fireplaces and picks out other details in a way that would not be out of place in a modern dwelling. Built by ‘Sven the Red’ when the Western Isles were part of Norway, he clearly had an eye for colour and wanted to create an impression on anyone approaching its walls. The roof balcony, created for the more liberated to wave from, was however a later addition.
Of all the new sights around him on his visit, Tony seems to be most impressed by the green lushness of the undergrowth that surrounds us, this being such a contrast with what he is used to seeing deep in the south of England. Frequent and persistent rain over recent weeks has promoted accelerated growth of everything with roots to suck it up and leaves to wave about. Bracken has been shooting up out of the ground, uncurling its long fronds, roadside verges have grown hairy, encroaching on the space available for cars, and trees now full of sap are bowing under the weight of their leaves. Everything is rushing, it seems, to get from flowers to seeds in the shortest possible time before the summer is over.

It is this point in the year, when the land and the sea are finally beginning to warm up, that Kate and I might have expected to find ourselves exploring the Highlands and Islands under sail aboard Cirrus Cat. Instead of castles, this blog would have been dotted with pictures of island wildlife, perhaps of tidal shores, of windblown spray and seaweed strewn beaches. Instead, I must report that these plans have yet to come to fruition, and may yet stay on hold until next year the way things are going for us. And the explanation for this starts with a journey south that will end when we have radically changed the lives of two members of our immediate family, and our own too.
Our first port of call is Yeovil in Somerset where we arrive to help our middle son, Mike, move from a place that has been his home for many years. He is coming to stay with us in Carradale. Moving to the Highlands of Scotland can be a life-changing experience, but living back with Mum and Dad can be even more of a culture shock - Mike thought he had left home for good over fifteen years ago - and his presence in our home promises to turn our own lives around as much as his own. In the intervening years we have each changed a lot so we are eagerly looking forward to having this older person around us and getting to know him better.

Closely following him on the journey north, as soon as the sale of her house in Sussex allows, will be my mother, her arrival establishing a three generation family set here in Carradale village. Neither of these moves are part of a long established plan; this is not how our family does things, it seems. For example our own decision to move to Scotland, although based upon solid reasoning, was implemented ruthlessly quickly as soon as we had reached our decision. House hunting via the Internet got under way then, almost before we had told anyone else, we found ourselves moving in. The whole process from deciding where we wanted to set up our home to re-locating lasted no more than three or four months, a remarkably short period of time in which to be turning your life around. Surely other people don’t do things this way. But yes! I had not previously appreciated that this was a family trait, something I should find comforting. But in some strange way I find it rather disconcerting that all of us move around so readily, following the advice of Albert Einstein who once said ‘Life is like a bicycle. In order to keep your balance you must keep moving’.

Midsummer snaps

Observing the wildlife, rabbits and birds large and small, as we sit eating a meal in our living room is like having a widescreen TV tuned to a wildlife programme. Naturally, without the breathy Attenborough commentary we don’t get the detailed explanations of what each animal is doing but this just means that we have to make our own interpretations of the behaviour we are witnessing.
Why do the rabbit’s ears point to the rear when it is head down feeding? Our explanation is that like us, it has a blind spot behind its head where it cannot see. So having large eyes covering the front and ears ‘keeping watch’ at the rear saves continuously head turning.
Why would a rabbit feel comfortable sitting on the pavement or in middle of the road? We assume that tarmac absorbs heat from the sun and probably feels warmer underfoot than damp grass.
We note that they seem to prefer sitting away from cover, presumably because a clear all round view enables them to see predators approaching. The road is ideal in this respect since motorised traffic past our house is rare.
Rabbits are now such regulars around the house that we are beginning to think of them as pets. They tolerate our presence at the window and are slow to move even when we emerge from the house so we have to remind ourselves that these are wild animals and their choosing to feed and spend time with us is driven by some advantage the place has for them and not by a desire to be friendly towards us. Perhaps our washing lines over the garden deter aerial predators and the large mesh boundary fence through which they routinely hop may be small enough to discourage cats and foxes.
The only piece of land we protect from their increasing numbers is our small front garden where we are growing a few herbs.

Parsley seems to be a favourite of theirs and it would not last long if they were able to get at it. Some low reed fencing surrounds what we would rather the rabbits not devour and to date this has been successful in keeping them out. I speculate that as well as forming a barrier over which they cannot easily leap, the fencing prevents them from seeing what is beyond. Sooner or later they might decide to eat their way through and I hazard a guess that if food were scarce then holes would begin to appear in the fence. But so far, with a plentiful supply of grass and weeds in our neighbouring garden, our herbs are growing well. I did read that a single female rabbit can become 800 rabbits in one season, given the right conditions and in the absence of predation. This number might be more of a challenge for our fencing.

‘Old Scarface’  (formerly known as ‘Flopsy’ until we spotted the mark just above his/her nose) appears to nod off on the grass just outside our living room window, perhaps meditating upon which particular blade of grass or clover leaf to nibble next. Choices like this must be tough for a rabbit, tiring, exhausting even. This one found it all too much on a summer’s day.
Midsummer’s day, in fact. A day when the sun sets later than at any other day in the year. In Scotland it sets far into the north-west, barely leaving us long enough for the sky to darken before it rises again in the north-east a few hours later. A wander down to the harbour gave us a real treat, a sunset with a sense of calm and peacefulness. I took a few photos, which seemed to turn out fine, then I decided that the mood could only be re-captured with a bit of music. This is the result:

So Carradale Harbour does have its attractions (and its own website) after all. And since gentle strolls about the village are all I am permitted for the next few weeks while I am recovering from my operation, I find myself steering a course to the harbour more frequently now, by some devious path or other. One of these leads over the golf course, a place where there is grass trimmed to within an inch of its life on the fairways which exist side by side with untamed wildflower meadows. These are loosely kept in check by the feral goats which seem to have little interest in playing on the greens.

For reasons I cannot fathom (without Sir David’s help) the goats seem to ignore the Heath-Spotted Orchids whose flowers are dotted around everywhere right now. The flower stems stand around bravely, each one displaying the most delicate of patterns etched on each petal by someone using the finest of paint brushes. I have always thought of orchids as exotic and rare things and it seems odd to see them growing so plentifully.
The rain we have had of late has made the vegetation lush and green. Bracken has reached shoulder height in places and the bramble stems seem to get noticeably longer each day, lengthening almost at walking speed.

One damp morning at home we look out and spy our first deer, just beyond the garden fence. I can see she is heading for a patch of fresh undergrowth and manage to press the shutter just as she sticks her tongue out. But tempted as I am to think of her licking her lips in anticipation of the next juicy mouthful I fancy this human interpretation is not appropriate. I am aware that this deer is easily capable of hurdling our fence in one bound, were there something attractive for her to nibble on. Perhaps our herbs are less safe than they might think.
As it happens in our part of the world, young deer have their own natural predators and later in the same day I spotted one of them, Aquila chrysaetos, gliding on the breeze as I drove north to Tarbert.

Although not our first sighting, this was the first time one had come remotely close enough to take a photograph (eventually). Flying with wings held flat and the body hanging below like the fuselage of a plane, this distinguishes golden eagles from other raptors when their enormous size is difficult to judge. Their long primary feathers stick out beyond the end of each wing like thin fingers and when they are hunting, little is safe from them that lives out on the hills.

Around the village

Pictured here, the Carradale beach-clean team having just spent the morning cleaning up what had collected in and around the bay over the last few months. Most of us were there to pick up litter but Rupert the horse was there for a gallop along the beach and then to eat some of the juicy grass growing on the dunes which is very much to his particular taste.

There was excitement in the village this week as various local groups had meetings with an architect engaged by the Harbour Group to come up with a plan to develop the harbour area. Carradale Harbour was once busy with fishing and even as recently as ten years ago it was very much the place for anyone living nearby to go and spend some time on a fine evening. There was always some activity going on, fishermen arriving back in port, tying up and unloading their catch, so it was the place to go for a blether, a natter. It was the place to be, a place to stroll down to for a promenade beside the sea, the harbour being the centre and focus of village life.

Over time all this has changed. The fishing fleet has declined due to over-fishing (and some would say over-regulation) and as the village population has changed (and become older), the strong bond that the village had with its harbour is being put to the test. Usage of the harbour declined to the point where it is now no longer the centre of the village and sadly it has now taken on an appearance which reflects this.

No longer is it an interesting and attractive place to promenade about at the end of the day. More usually now it is quiet and comparatively empty of life. When viewed from the sea this is hardly surprising as part of the private land beside the harbour has become an eyesore, a rubbish dump, due to the untidy lifestyle of just one owner.

Time cannot, of course, be made to run backwards so the harbour can never be re-created exactly as it once was. The world we live in is forever changing and on our travels Kate and I have seen the effects of this in old fishing harbours all around Britain. Some have remained unchanged, stuck in the past, but there are many that have adapted successfully, bringing in people and life once more. Who would have thought, though, that one day we might find ourselves participating in efforts to re-vitalise a small village harbour, to breathe new life into the place? We certainly didn't. Yet here we are right at the sharp end doing what we can to improve our home. Not everyone in the village is involved, of course, but there are enough here who feel like us and will try to make a difference, who will keep on pushing to make better things happen, to make this a better place for the community and for visitors alike.

---

Medical update: Once again I find myself under the surgeon’s knife in Oban Hospital with Kate anxiously waiting for me nearby. For the second time an inguinal hernia has popped up and I need patching up. As I lie here writing this entry I am feeling sore and rather sorry for myself but I know this will soon pass and in a few days I will once again be leaping about, maybe gently at first.

To take my mind off the soreness in my groin we are planning for a couple of momentous and life-changing moves, not for us but for two members of our family. Carradale is sucking them in, just as it did for us. First is my mother who will buy the house next door to ours and, some time in the next month or so, move in. Then there is our middle son, Mike. He too is re-locating to Carradale. It makes me wonder whether I have painted too rosy a picture of this place in these pages. No, not possible.

Time off on Cirrus

We start our wee break on Cirrus (not a holiday, of course, as retired people don’t get these) by having a close encounter with a paddle steamer, none other than the newly restored steamship, Waverley.

She was making a brief stop in Campbeltown, just as the steamers would have done a hundred years ago, and her departure, reversing away from the quay at speed, her decks lined with waving passengers, was exactly how it would have been on any of the Clyde steamers. Out in the centre of the loch she performs the nautical equivalent of a handbrake turn before steaming off south (forwards) around the Mull and heading off north to Oban. As it happens we time our own departure just before she got underway and thus we have the best view possible of this little slice of living history.

The rest of the day passes more gently as we drift north trying to persuade Cirrus’ sails that there is enough of a breeze to fill them. Unlike on our two previous encounters with Kilbrannan Sound, both in strong winds, we now have a chance to sail and then motor close by the shore, dipping our twin bows into each bay in turn. First we pass the ruins of Kildonan Dun, where we are surprised to note how the tiny Ross Island creates a good sheltered bay, an attractive place for the ancient people who settled here to build and set up their home. The relationship between land and sea is not evident from on shore – only from a boat does this place become a logical stopping point.

At Saddell Bay the castle peeps out from the corner in fine style as we creep in, as close as our echo sounder tells us is safe. The sun beats down on us as we cross Torrisdale Bay then finally we slip slowly to anchor in Carradale Bay, just a short distance from our home. Three and a half metres of water is all that separates us from the bottom but it feels like we are in a world of our own here, bobbling gently up and down on the slight swell. Those on land are no doubt suffering the midges, which are particularly troublesome just now whenever the wind falls light, but these little insects are poor flyers so we have every hope that they find it difficult to cross the short stretch of water that separates us from land; and so it proves.

After a peaceful night we wake early to find the motion of the boat has changed. Now Cirrus is wobbling from side to side as waves pass beneath her although the wind is still very light. Whatever is happening it is getting uncomfortable so we decide to leave, early though it is, but as soon as we leave the shelter of the bay the true wind hits us, a north-easterly blast at 15 to 20 knots, and the waves driven by this are rolling down Kilbrannan Sound. The nearest shelter from this wind is Lochranza on Arran, some 10 miles away, so we motor upwind as best we can and attach ourselves to a blue visitor buoy there. This place, which lies west of the most mountainous part of the Isle of Arran, has a reputation for ‘williwaws’, strong wind gusts which can occur to the lee of high ground, and these now sweep down on us throughout the rest of the day and through the night, creating much noise and fuss. Cirrus takes all this in her stride, however, so we feel safe and secure.

The following day is a Sunday, and to our surprise we notice buses running on their usual routes around the island. So after pumping up the dinghy we scuttle ashore and soon find ourselves on our way south to the settlement of Blackwaterfoot which lies in the Lowland part of the island. Like Bute, Arran is also bisected by the Highland/Lowland divide and the character of the south of each island is typical of the Lowlands in both places. There are steep cliffs of red sandstone here, identical in every way to the rocks we noticed just south of Rothesay on Bute only a few weeks ago yet the two islands are separated by the waters of the Clyde.

In both cases these are all old sea cliffs, formed before the land rose up above its present level and on Arran around 6,000 years ago the ancient sea cut massive caves, one of which was reputed to have been once used as a hiding place by Robert the Bruce. This would have been around the same time as he visited Port Righ (royal port) just across the Sound in Carradale. Of course Uamh an Righ, or King’s cave as it is locally known, is bound to have seen human habitation prior to King Robert’s time, it being such an obvious choice for someone needing shelter from the elements but lacking the time or the skills to build. This imbues the place with almost mystical significance, in my view. Of what other places of human habitation can it be said that so little has changed. The walls, the floor, the smoke-stained ceiling, are all exactly as our ancestors left them.

And as if to emphasise this quality just along the shore only a short distance from the cave there is a ‘grove’ of stone cairns, each stone magically balanced on the one beneath and somehow surviving despite the ravages of wind and rain. Created by some unknown artist, perhaps, or else by ancient man and lying undisturbed ever since. And maybe there is some critical alignment of the stones that I missed for out across the sea to the south lies Sanda Island off the tip of Kintyre and beyond this, Ireland, another country. Arran is full of mystery, it seems.

When the morning brings us lighter winds we motor off across Inchmarnock Water to the island of the same name. Uninhabited, unless you count the cattle, there is a small cove on the eastern shore in which a boat like ours can drop an anchor so the crew can eat their lunch. We take shelter from the powerful sun for a time then raise sail to float away northwards again up the West Kyle. White sails are now to be seen in most directions, although this place can never be called crowded, but as the Kyle narrows we begin to wonder whether our chosen anchorage at An Caladh will be full. Not to worry, of course, for there is always Wreck Bay on the ‘Buttock’ of Bute with space for us to drop the anchor, pause to ensure it is well dug in, then settle down for the night.

Come the morning, Cirrus is still in exactly the same place, which is always a comfort when you are attached to the land only by a slim length of chain. The day started cool so we light our diesel heater (the same troublesome stove we were swearing at only a few weeks ago but which now has a ‘New, Improved’ chimney attachment to carry the waste gases higher than ever before into less turbulent air) and just as it was supposed to, the temperature inside our boat begins to rise. A heron lands with perfect grace on the edge of the shore beside us then stands motionless waiting for fish to come its way. This is the most patient of birds and lives by proving the adage, ‘Dinner always comes to those who wait’ and is a treat to see at close quarters.

Our local weather forecast promises some south-easterlies so a plan is hatched that might give us some decent sailing a little later and we motor off down the East Kyle towards Rothesay.

Imagine our surprise on arrival, however, to find the substantial Victorian houses here dwarfed by a mighty cruise ship, the Ocean Countess, which has dropped its own anchor in the bay. I wonder whether the captain goes through the same procedure as us when anchoring – let the boat run back until jerked to a halt by the anchor biting into the sea bed, let out some more chain, check the boat has enough room to swing, set a depth alarm, light the anchor light – or does he just give orders and let someone else worry about these things. I rather fancy things might be dealt with rather differently on a ship of this scale.

After passing Rothesay, Bute’s principal harbour, there are two more islands, Great and Little Cumbrae which we motor past because the wind has not as yet performed as the forecaster promised. Indeed we soon begin to feel he was having a little joke with us for instead of a ‘south-easterly backing easterly’ the wind is set firmly in the south, exactly the direction we had decided we might like to head. Since beating upwind is not something we choose to do with any relish, and having the whole of the Clyde at our disposal from which to pick an alternative destination, we bear away (a nautical term for steering away from the direction from which the wind is coming) for Lochranza and soon find ourselves charging along at 7.5 knots with all our sails straining hard. Massive dark clouds blot out the horizon and are creeping ever closer so that by the time we pick up a mooring in Lochranza the rain has overtaken us.

Thus it continues throughout the night and early morning, to the disappointment of many, no doubt, who would have arisen early to try to catch sight of the transit of Venus across the face of sun. Our own position, with Arran’s biggest hills to the east of us, gives us no chance at all of seeing anything close to the horizon no matter how clear the sky.

So instead of Venus, here is a nice picture of a swan.