Visited with solar power

Complex travel arrangements are made so that our son Mike can join us in Edinburgh where we all get to see and hear The Albion Band perform a gig at the Queen’s Hall with our youngest, Ben, playing lead guitar. It was a great night! Once the band started playing, not one of us in the audience could keep still. Feet were tapping, hands waving, heads nodding, whoops of joy, whistling and clapping. This was folk-rock at its best, music that touched us all and really got us jumping. Naturally Kate and I were overcome a bit by the proud-mum/dad thing on seeing our Ben up there on stage blasting away on his Strat (Fender Stratocaster guitar) - it was amazing how he connected with the audience – but everybody just wanted more and more. What a band, what a sound, what a night!
After the gig we brought Mike back with us to Carradale for a week’s visit, his first time here and it was intriguing to see his reaction to the place, a far cry from his home town of Yeovil in deepest Somerset. I was watching his face for reaction as we turned along the single-track and he realised that he had yet to endure many miles of the twisting and turning road. Traffic was light, almost non-existent, but nevertheless you are always straining to catch a glimpse of what might be a car coming around the next bend before it is too late to brake, hoping that you will spot the deer at the side of the road before it jumps out in front of the car, dodging the sheep too. Mike only knew this place from what he had read in this blog and it was difficult to guess how it would match up to his own mental picture. As it turned out the lurching along our bendy roads almost got the better of his stomach, spoiling much of his appreciation of the landscape around him.
The views were not at their best anyway as a white haze hung low over Kilbrannan Sound, masking the detail of the indented coastline beside us and completely hiding the coast of Arran. Naturally, we would like Mike to see and experience where we live as it more normally is - the air clear and sharp, freshly scrubbed after rain, a cooling breeze rippling the sea, cloud cover high above - but looking at the forecast for the week ahead we might only be able to offer him clear skies, sunshine and warmth. Convincing him that this weather is a far cry from normality is difficult but he seems happy with this weather nevertheless.

We do the tourist thing and take him out and about, showing off some of the local sights. We begin with what is left of Saddell Abbey, most of the stone from which was taken for use in other later construction projects like the castle by the beach or possibly for local houses. My research tells me that construction here started in 1148 (although how can anyone be so certain about this date is a mystery to me) and our eyes tells us that ever since then, even after the monastery had crumbled away, local people still regard the land as sacred, the gravestones clustered amongst the shadows of the former monastery walls bearing testament to this.
Later we move back in time to view Kildonan Dun, trying desperately to imagine what it might have been like to live in around the year 100 AD when this was most likely built.

The view across the sound from here is impressive today and almost certainly this will have changed little in the last 2000 years. Even the archaeologists can tell us little about this place beyond that it was constructed as a fortified settlement surrounded by farming land. Did the people also fish from boats which they drew up close by in the small bay? Were they able to live peaceably or was life constantly under threat? The stones in the boundary walls are beautifully set together, shaped and positioned back then exactly as they remain today. But by whom? Where did these people come from and where did they go?

Going further back again in time, our next trip takes us to the vitrified fort at Carradale Point. There are a number of these constructions in Scotland all dating from around 1000 BC, the real mystery being how it was possible to raise the temperature of the fort walls to the 1100 degrees Celsius needed to get the rock to melt and fuse together. Once again, nobody will ever know for sure.
Mike’s week with us ended with Betty’s dog, Ailsa, taking us for a walk up Deer Hill then on around the bay. Or at least, this is how she would see it, I’m sure. This normally golden retriever ended the day covered with black mud from the lower belly downwards after she decided to take a dip in a dark peaty pool, but this failed to dampen her enthusiastic tail-wagging. She just sprayed the stuff all over us.

Then having juggled emails with the solar power installation company for some weeks, finally one sunny morning a van-load of men arrive en masse and they are soon prancing about on our roof. It takes them but a few hours, during which time the sun shines effortlessly down, sunlight that is wasted until the final connection is made.

Suddenly we are online. From this moment on we are part of the National Grid, making electricity for the rest of the country (and ourselves), a thought that gives us a warm cuddly feeling as well as putting a little in the bank. And as we suspected the end result is visually striking, making our house stand out from the rest, the panels being a landmark we can now use to direct visitors by, a side-benefit we had previously overlooked.
‘Just look for the house with the solar panels.’

Highland life

Progress on scraping blue paint from Cirrus’ bottom continues slowly and tiresomely, the job being made less pleasant by a fine rain which serves to keep the blue dust down but wets the ground on which I kneel. This alternates with bursts of sunshine; as ever the weather here is in constant change.
After many hours scraping I am tired, dirty and damp so I flop back into the car and set off home again. En route, as I cross the highest point of the Kintyre peninsula, a lady dressed in rough clothing steps out into the middle of the single track road, waving me to a halt, so I pull over and lower the window.
“Can you pull over here please for the Highlanders coming along the road”, she says.
My brain goes into overdrive as I imagine the approaching regiment in full dress uniform, bagpipes blasting out a marching tune and kilts swinging to and fro in time with each step.

Then I think how unlikely such a sight would be in this remote location and I peer ahead down the road to where a large brown animal is just coming into view, a huge pair of horns confronting me. Understanding dawns. These are the Highlanders. A herd of massive hairy ladies and one rather smaller but equally hairy calf come lumbering past us along the road, glancing warily at me as I take the picture. The ladies are all pregnant, I am told, due to give birth in May by which time there will hopefully be a little more warmth about. I bid them farewell and carry on homewards.

The procreation theme continues as in the damp area behind our house, just across the burn (Alt na Caillich or Stream of the Old Woman), there is evidence of an outburst of froggy promiscuity as the spawn bubbles up thickly forming small hillocks on the surface of a pool. Further away beside the forest track there are larger pools where frogspawn lies in dark masses and newts patrol the clear water around this like jackals weighing up their prey. There must be a balance here – the newts falling prey to something larger perhaps or maybe their bellies simply cannot accommodate all the tiny hatchlings before they grow large enough to defend themselves. Chaffinches are at it too, dividing their time now between our feeders and the task of collecting dried grass stems for their nests and sheep grazing beside the road leading down to Carradale bay appear more solid than usual, full to bursting with this year’s lambs.

Carradale Point offers another spectacle to those who are prepared to risk injury clambering over the jumble of rocks out on the end. Our feral goats are looking particularly stunning just now but to get a close look stealth is required as they are always alert to the slightest sound or movement. The landscape here offers plenty of opportunities for creeping up on them though – large tilted boulders to hide behind then peer over or else stay low and lift the camera up high enough to get a clear shot. Struggling around one obstacle I startle a heron standing up to its ankles in a shallow pool, waiting for his lunch to appear, no doubt. I am not sure who is more surprised, the bird or me, but it takes off away from me with much straining of its great muscles. Not having been this close to a heron before, less than 2 metres, I was struck by how little flesh there appears to be on the bird. The neck is stretched thinly out ahead as the bird strains for elevation and the body is no more than a swelling located some way further aft. The most spectacular feature is, of course, the wings that whistle downwards through the air on each stroke. When standing upright on the ground the eyes of an adult bird would be almost level with mine yet despite their size they build nests in the topmost tree branches, typically of conifers, from where their fledglings will sit and squawk monotonously all day long. I have always found the idea of our larger species of bird nesting in trees somewhat hard to comprehend. Years ago I was taken aback to discover that a peacock, a ground-loving bird ludicrously over-endowed with plumage, will roost in a tree at night. Which perhaps proves that gravity is not all it is cracked up to be.