What's in a name?

The urge that drove us to put our redundant computing technology out to grass is still with us, driving us in other directions. Cupboards and drawers not opened for months are exposed to the light of day. Bookshelves are examined closely, exposing titles thought lost to us but which in turn make us examine our priorities. Once read, what purpose does a book have? Does it have a right to a space on our bookshelves when it will never be picked up and read? Might we read it again? What about saving it for those who might visit us?

Then, tucked in amongst the hardbacks we spot something else, slimmer volumes, lightly bound things one might have once called 'exercise books'. They are different from the published novels. These are written by us, not as novels but as day to day records of our sailing activities. These are our ship log books, something we decided, for reasons now lost to us, that we should maintain for each of our sailing boat trips, paper records of our own lives that we would never want to lose.

And they go back many years, back to our first voyage in our first sailing boat. However this was certainly not a sea tested vessel waiting for us in a sheltered harbour somewhere. Far from it. She had spent her entire life in the fresh waters of Lake Windermere in the English Lake District. Her name was 'Rondo', a rather dull sounding offering that was never going to suit us with our rapidly growing young family. So how and when did we rename her?

I return once again to the log book collection, amongst which I find a notebook and on opening at the first page I find written in big letters: "JOBS TO DO ON RONDO". The date, which is noted at the top of the page, is 26th October 1985, so long ago that my memory of it is almost gone. It was in this notebook that I used to sketch out my plans for, amongst other things, boat improvements, measurements noted down in feet and inches (not a measurement system I would use now) with helpful comments on how something might work best. There are sketches in pencil or sometimes in ink with dimensions and arrows pointing to particular features from explanatory side notes. It might be a modification to the galley, a whisker pole, coachroof sheet clutches, a folding sink for the heads, a radical self steering mechanism that I designed and built myself, sail measurements, there is even a pre-Holland checklist and then a list of 'Lessons Learnt' from our holiday there in 1988. The variety and the detail is amazing to my present day eyes yet the writing is mine, long forgotten maybe but undeniably mine.

So to return to the name. For how long did we retain the name Rondo and what was the thinking behind any change? To answer this we need go no further than page four of my notebook for here are recorded all the potential names we considered for our cosy little ship. I can do no better than list them all here:

BLODWYN

GOLDEN BIRD

JAMIE FIVE (PIP)

OBSESSION

BLIND PANIC

FURTLE (PIP) FURTAL FURTEL FERTLE FIRTLE

DRAGON

NOGGIN THE NOG

The final name in the list has a ring drawn around it, for the very good reason that this is the name we chose to call our first boat.

So who or what is Noggin the Nog?

This is a fictional character appearing in a BBC Television cartoon series originally broadcast between 1959 and 1982 and in a series of illustrated books which were published from 1965. The creators were Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin who were inspired to create "The Sagas of Noggin the Nog" by the discovery of 12th century Norse chess pieces on the Isle of Lewis which they saw in the British Museum. It is considered a cult classic from the golden age of British children's television, Noggin himself being a simple, kind and unassuming "King of the Northmen" in a roughly Viking Age setting, with various fantastic elements such as dragons, flying machines and talking birds. He is the good-natured son of Knut, King of the Nogs, and his queen Grunhilda and when King Knut dies, Noggin must find a queen to rule beside him or else forfeit the crown to his uncle, Nogbad the Bad. Noggin meets and marries Nooka of the Nooks (an Inuit princess), and becomes the new king.

Whilst pre-dating the lives of our children by many years, the name would have meant a lot to our young boys as they had grown up with us reading bedtime tales from one of the books. To us the name just felt right. It was unique, in sailing circles, it was quirky and of course to anyone of a certain age who grew up when the sagas were first broadcast it would bring a smile of recognition and remembrance. It was also easy to recognise clearly when spoken over the VHF radio when we were entering a harbour, an important point, although cutting out the fabric for the letters on our spray dodgers did prove to be quite tiresome.

She was a compact little vessel, brought across from Windermere on the back of a lorry and launched at Blyth in Northumberland, close to where we were living at the time. Although only twenty four feet in length she had enough space inside for us and our three boys to sleep in, was solidly built and with the benefit of a less-than-reliable outboard engine slung off the transom we made numerous voyages along the east coast of the UK and even went across the North Sea to Holland, as described in the notebook.

On some of these voyages she was accompanied by a substantial fibreglass dinghy which had come with the boat when we bought her. This was towed behind us, even on our passage to Holland, and was later converted into a sailing dinghy by adding a windsurfer mast and sail. She had her own name, of course. She was called 'Darth Wader', again a name that would have meant something to us all.

Redundant tech

Whilst we don't regard ourselves as being particularly 'techy' we do have smartphones and these are used for more than simply making phone calls. In fact for many years computers have had a significant role in our lives, both for work and in the course of our retirement activities. Different computer operating systems don't scare us (too much) as we have just the right amount of background knowledge to transition between one device and another without too much mental effort. What goes on inside any particular electronic gadget might be beyond us but the 'need to know' principle means we can live without this knowledge and focus on the functions instead.

Over time, of course, our needs have changed and a piece of kit essential for one range of tasks - the right operating system running at the right speed and connecting to other things with the minimum fuss - may not necessarily be right for our current uses. We started our computing journey on what are now known as 'PCs', large boxes with noisy fans inside combined with a screen mounted on a desk and a separate keyboard and mouse, whereas today's technological gadgets have touch sensitive screens, are more about using imagery - pictures and sound - and much of the processing and storage is handled by the internet. Previously it was all about recording text and numbers whereas now this is often just supplementary, adding context but not being used on its own. In our working lives computers were first introduced to replace typewriters which created paper documents which were then stored in filing cabinets, in folders kept safe for future reference. But this is a world left far behind us. The focus is now almost entirely on communication and the technology which enables this has shrunk dramatically over the years. Hence the smartphone.

So what's the problem? Well, every now and then we get the urge to have a clear out, to simplify our lives and rid ourselves of the things we no longer use or have need of. This might be a cupboard full of clothes, a tray of assorted cutlery, a sock drawer or a collection of keys, the purpose of which is long forgotten.

Which brings us to the PC, a large box sitting in the corner collecting dust, which hasn't been switched on for months. Then we remember that we previously used laptop computers, which we still have, several in fact, quite powerful things each representing a different time in our lives when the functions they carried out necessitated something more portable. Then when our needs changed (or when something went wrong with them) they were put aside, out of sight and mind. So how do we deal with all this redundant technology?

One of the problems is with what is inside, personal information (the modern term is 'data') and it is partly this that explains why we haven't simply thrown these things in the bin. In those pre-computer days gone by we might have emptied the filing cabinet and thrown all the paper onto a bonfire in the garden. Job done! But there is more to think about now. There is plastic, rare metals, and components that are really not ideal for the bonfire - like batteries. But if we leave the gadget for the bin men to collect and it ends up on the local tip, who's to say what might happen to it then. Are there bad guys out there just waiting to take it away, to plug the thing in and download all our personal emails, my embarrassing photos or maybe even my bank details which they will then use to hack into my bank and take all my money? OK, so this is probably an exaggeration but let's just do a clean-up first on our redundant kit. Perhaps then the old, but still functioning, PC might actually have some value to someone else, who knows.

Which brings me to the cleanup operation. I am sure there are guides online on what should be done so I do not intend to try to cover this here. Suffice to say that what might appear to be a straightforward operation can have its flaws. There is a thing called a Hard Reset which is supposed to wipe everything from the device except the operating system itself and when it has done this it will then try to restart the machine again so someone can use it. If you stop at this point then you effectively have a clean machine, wiped of personal data. But if you do find a buyer willing to purchase your old PC then you will be unable to demonstrate the device actually working unless you once again enter your personal details and log in. Hmmm.

I realise that all this will have been a somewhat dull to those who have no interest in gadgetry of any sort so just for you, here is a distraction. The picture below is of two damsel flies taking a rest on a rock at the edge of our pond. The male is clasping the head of the female and, staying attached this way, they will both fly off to a carefully chosen spot so that she can lay an egg, attaching it to something just below the surface of the pond. They will stay together like this for thirty minutes or more and whilst it may not seem very romantic to us, to them it is...well, just part of everyday life.

 

Buoys that bite

For a few days I am back out on the sea, but not on our own boat and not sailing either. The Scottish Series is a race event for sailing boats of all sizes which has been hosted locally for many years. Entries can run into hundreds of boats so our marina becomes packed out for the duration - 4 days - and the village full of sailors doing what sailors do whilst not sailing, making a lot of noise and having a good time.

An event like this needs support boats which can move around quickly, lay out the race buoys and move them again if there is a sudden change in wind direction. I am signed up as a volunteer and, given my experience on boats, out on the water is where I can be most useful so I find myself riding around on a large rigid inflatable boat, big enough to carry three or four enormous inflatable orange race buoys. Our job is to follow instructions from the race officer who is located on a yacht at the race start line and once the buoys are laid we can sit back and watch the fun. Yacht racing is a serious business, the skippers and crews all wanting to end up on the winners' podium at the finish so there are close encounters with lots of shouting, all within the rules, of course.

One interesting challenge for us was using for the first time some autonomous racing buoys. These strange things have propellors underneath driven by small electric motors, making them self propelled. They can manoeuvre themselves at a speed of about five knots under remote guidance or alternatively they can hold themselves in one position on the sea using electronic satellite navigation. Using these things is something of a game changer for yacht racing, particularly in Scotland where the lochs can be hundreds of metres deep. Instead of having to anchor the buoys to the bottom using lengths of chain and masses of rope, the new gadgets are simply carried or towed until somewhere close to where they are needed then tossed overboard. Their internal electronics takes care of the rest, making the job of laying the course buoys much less labour intensive. At the end of the day though, recovering them and getting them back onto a boat which is bouncing about in a lumpy sea did turn out to be something of a challenge.

For the Scottish Series, in our boat we were using the smaller of two types of these automated buoys which had short fold down legs with propellors at the bottom. Before recovering them from the water the legs had to be folded up so they lay alongside the control box and would not risk getting damaged. In addition the motors should be switched off manually. Having pulled the boat alongside we would have to reach down by leaning over the side in an almost inverted position, something that required a certain athleticism, particularly when the waves were tossing the boat about in an open sea. As it turned out the only way to guarantee the buoys were switched off was to open up the waterproof lid and activate a switch inside, where all the electronics were housed, so it made sense to bring the thing onto the boat first to avoid the risk of water getting in. Unfortunately for one of my fingers, this proved to be a very unsafe thing to do. The small propellors spin very fast and are quite capable of inflicting injury, so I discovered, after one had inflicted a deep cut at the end of my middle finger.

My four consecutive days bobbing about at sea thus came to a sudden end since the cut finger now needed treatment which meant I had to go ashore. I was speedily driven back to the harbour using every one of the 150 horses powering the engine on our boat, itself quite an experience, and I am grateful to all those who assisted in this.

At the time of writing this I am glad to say that my body has healed up and everything is back in working order again.

Polly the tunnel

If you're thinking parrots at this point then prepare for disappointment.

Having demolished the crumbling greenhouse that came with the house when we moved in, our intention was always to make use of the solid concrete base on which it had stood. So having previous experience of one particular brand of polytunnel in our previous garden it was not a difficult decision for us to spend a bit of money on another one from the same stable. These things are well made and designed to be anchored down to the ground to enable them to survive most storms.

They are delivered as a series of tightly wrapped packages, some containing steel and aluminium parts and others with the wooden pieces which are partly precut to length. All this comes together with thirty eight pages of instructions. Just reading these took a good few hours so we decided to miss out on the real entertainment - watching hours of self help videos of people building polytunnels.

With a concrete base we first had to mark then drill holes for the anchor bolts before erecting the basic frame, this being a day's work on its own. Then the following day the rain started and it didn't stop for two days so we set about fashioning the doors and their supporting frames within the confines of our conservatory.

A brief lull saw us outside again drilling more holes and trying to make sure the door will actually fit into the door frames until again this was called off when the rain started. Some of the metal pieces require pre-bending to make them fit, this needing strong fingers and thumbs which, by the end of the day, are suffering and sore. At this point in the construction we just have a tunnel, no poly.

With these initial stages done it was time for the plastic bit to go on (page thirty in the manual). This comes with a rash of health warnings about picking a dry day with no wind so we checked the forecast and immediately spotted the storm warnings, thunderous rain showers with gale force winds, that were about to hit the south west of England. By contrast, however, Scotland was about to get a mini heatwave (sorry England) with negligible wind so we plan an early start the following day.

The enormous sheet of polythene arrives folded into one lump which has to be spread out so it can be pulled over the roof of the frame then stretched taught and clamped into position. At any point a strong gust of wind might carry it away but with the two of us working we soon had it fastened down with the skin tightened to the point where tapping the sides sounded like a drum, a very satisfying sound.

Finishing the job off we are very pleased with what we have achieved. It took a lot of physical effort but as soon as we step inside we can feel the heat being trapped in there. We have seeds and pots on standby waiting to go into action; tomatoes, courgettes, beans, cauliflower, to name but a few, and we look forward to watching their accelerated growth. Just one useful addition is needed inside - some staging to support the trays of tiny seedlings. For this we took delight in recycling various bits of wood which we had retained after demolishing the cupboards inside the house some months away and then used some of the many nails and screws which also came with the house. The result is solid, maybe not pretty, but functional. 

Seedlings are on sale almost everywhere locally just now so an expedition to the shops proved very fruitful.

Then we were offered another batch of tomato seedlings by a kind neighbour so suddenly we are growing at all levels. It feels good when things turn out this way.

Scotland warms up

Having spent the previous week looking from across the world at the weather forecasts for the west of Scotland and preparing ourselves mentally for a twenty degree temperature drop, within a week of arriving home the sun was out and was bringing with it a surprising amount of warmth. And so much had changed. Leaves were growing on trees where previously there were just buds, flowers had emerged on the gorse bushes and the bumble bees were busily searching for nesting spots in the long grass. Each day we looked out at something new, some just emerged shoots or the dandelions bursting into flower, until the day eventually came when it was warm enough to sit outside and take in everything with all our senses. So where do we end up? At the pond, of course.

The water level was high and the garden surrounding it was sodden (hardly surprising as we'd just missed a named storm, Kathleen). But was there life in the pond? Had Spring really arrived?

At first we could see nothing rippling the surface. Then after a few days there it was, movement, first one then more, pond skaters darting around. The weather improved again and several days later we were out there on our pond side seat (a pretty essential garden feature) and there was more; small nymph like beings swimming below the surface and a black beetle or two. Then it happened! A glimpse of movement whizzing across the bottom, tail flapping, then disappearing into the weeds. We have a newt, quite small but looking very relaxed. I have this mental picture of his mum wandering about, maybe getting bored with life on our neighbour's pond two gardens away, or perhaps she trundled down from the burn beyond our back fence, looking for excitement, and suddenly she discovers our little pond.

The water tastes sweet, there are insect larvae to chase, rocks to sunbathe on so she thinks:

'D'you know what, I think I'll lay some eggs here'.

Newts in our pond (we call this one Nigel) know they have humans looking after them as they can see us up on our pond seating and they will get no hassle from frogs or toads as they have yet to find their way here.

In a run of warm dry weather we find ourselves sitting by the pond making new discoveries. One day a water boatman rows himself around just under the surface using his arms like oars and then we spot a greater bee fly on the pond side vegetation. These things mimic bees but have very long noses which gives them away.

Soon they'll all be watching us erect the new polytunnel which replaces our rather broken greenhouse which we dismantled just before it collapsed or blew away in a gust of wind. It's all part of the grand plan, where we have an area of the garden to grow edible things and the rest is as wild as it wants to be. We haven't used a lawnmower since we moved in - why would you - and each day we are increasingly aware of what we can expect from the garden and which bits we have no desire to cultivate so we'll just let things grow. Throughout most of the garden we like to see what will grow without any intervention... and in many places this is moss, great luxuriant blankets of the stuff, soft underfoot (although we try not to walk on it too much) and always changing colour with the seasons. We read with horror about chemicals recommended for eliminating moss from the garden so the grass can grow. Such behaviour is alien to us.

The first few weeks back home after our holiday has taught us something important, something surprising, for which we were unprepared. Suddenly we look out of our living room window at the view below us and we're seeing it with new eyes. We're completely blown away by the beauty of the land we call home and we simply cannot get enough of it. Each day the view changes and excites us once again.

Australia - Brisbane

First impressions... it's an alien world. Well most cities are, to us, but this one is unlike any other city we have ever visited.

Seen from a high viewpoint, the clump of tall buildings appear to occupy quite a small area. Once down at street level however the real city emerges.

First of all it is modern. This is a place that has grown from almost nothing in barely a single lifetime. There is little that is more than one hundred years old; none of the buildings, the infrastructure, the roads, everything visible is freshly made.

There are concrete towers and steel bridges everywhere you look and this sense of fresh youthfulness seems to be mirrored in the age of the people visiting or living there. If there is an older population do they feel, like us, somewhat out of their comfort zone?

Then there's this, a picture taken from the same spot as the one above but looking in another direction. This is a bathing area right in the centre of the city, completely free for anyone to use, with lifeguards and showers thrown in. Just strip off down to your swimmers and wade in. Although there's clearly an emphasis on providing this facility for children, there is nothing preventing anyone of any age from spending all day splashing about there, all at the expense of the city.

Of course the Brisbane climate does have a lot to do with this. We were there coming into autumn but it was at least 27°C every day. This explains the city dress code, shorts and T-shirt for the blokes and as much skin as possible being exposed by many of the female gender, far more than we have ever encountered before. Of course much of this skin, on both genders, was darkened with tattoos, but this is not something unique to Brisbane, just more visible.

On our first day in the city we visited a 'wildlife park', which we might refer to as a zoo. 

Whilst this opportunity to observe Australia's animals was interesting, seeing so many in cages was unsettling for us all. Just one area, a large field, was home to an uncaged population of kangaroos and wallabies, these animals clearly having become acclimatised to putting up with humans in close proximity, although perhaps not enjoying it. For us this was followed by an afternoon dip in the sea and later a meal out in the city eating some excellent Greek food.

 

On our second afternoon in the city we hopped on a ferry for a sightseeing tour along the Brisbane river.

Once again we were amazed to discover that this too was free; you can cruise up and down all day if you want.

Of course Brisbane does provide plenty of opportunity to spend money should you be tempted. Most of the streets near where we were staying were lined with shops and restaurants, clearly catering for tourists and holidaymakers. Walking about though you had to stay alert, ready for the electric scooter whizzing up behind you. These things were everywhere, available for hire, and parked randomly on the pavements. Just use the app on your phone to wake one up, jump on and zoom off along the pavement or into the road. How on earth there aren't more casualties is mystifying but then this is just the perspective of someone who has been around more years than most Brisbane-ites.

Oh, one last positive thing. The Brisbane graffiti is better than anything we've seen before.

Finally the Uber cab to the airport brought our holiday to a conclusion. The long and painful journey around the globe in a plane awaited us, the in-flight movies doing little to take the mind off the hours of sitting still with the roar of the engines in our ears.

Australia - adventures

Ok so perhaps the word 'adventure' is a little too dramatic. We really didn't fly all this way to throw ourselves into anything too exciting or in any way dangerous. The aim was simply to visit and spend time with Kate's brother and his wife who volunteered their home to accommodate us and made us feel very welcome. We were accompanied, however, by our son Ben and his wife Naomi and they are both younger and more adventurous than us. Sitting on the stoop watching the birds come for their morning feed was never going to be enough for them.

A walk in the 'bush' kept them content for a short while, followed by a dip in our host's pool.

A couple of trips to Rainbow Beach to swim in the sea was quite an experience for us all too, the waves being a little too big for any actual swimming and it was really just about being bashed around.

The cooling off in a creek on the way back was most welcome though, surprisingly cool despite the heat of the day.

Our hosts also put some bikes at our disposal, one of which was electric, although ancient and heavy enough to be a serious health risk and quite difficult to manoeuvre around tight corners.

Then there was a bit of dolphin feeding at Tin Can Bay where these animals are so used to us that they come to the same place every day for breakfast.

These might have qualified as adventures for us but for our younger family they wanted more, much more. So first of all they booked us all on a coach tour to Fraser Island. 

This proved to be quite an adventure since the island (known now by its original name, K'gari, where the 'K' is silent) has no actual roads. From the ferry the ruggedly constructed bus took us along the beach before heading inland along rutted sandy tracks which bounced us all over the place, to visit a swimming lake and to show us the dense sub-tropical rainforest that covers the island.

We'd hardly started along the beach when we started seeing dingos, an animal the island hosts a considerable number of. These creatures are not to be messed with nor enticed with food and they will chase anything that runs away from them, apparently. There are strict rules about not feeding them and although we felt quite safe up in our four-wheel drive bus one has to wonder about the other holiday-makers making use of their rather smaller four-wheel drive 'utes' to visit the island and even camping out on the beach itself.

One of the main points of interest on the tour was the wreck of the Scottish built ship 'Maheno' towards the north end of the island

and then another treat for us tourists was when one of our coach drivers pulled out his didgeridoo and started playing, the sound carrying right through the dense forest.

With no time to recover from our island adventure, the following day saw us waving farewell to our younger family who had booked a two day canoeing trip in the Everglades, an area of rainforest not far from where we were staying.

This involved kayaking into the wilderness for a whole day, an overnight camp in a tent -hardly luxury - then paddling back the following day. Apparently there was wildlife a plenty but fortunately no encounters with large biting things.

For us elders, of course, the entire holiday was something of an adventure, even the final few days before our flight home which we spent in Brisbane, on which more is coming soon.

Australia - the language

Just to be clear, unless you're an Australian the word 'creek' is the noise made by walking on a loose floorboard and the word for water running off a hill is a 'stream' or if you're in Scotland, a 'burn'. Using the word 'thongs' to describe a pair of flip-flops could lead to an embarrassing misunderstanding but 'gummies' referring to waterproof rubber boots does seem to make some sense. All these are examples of differences that have crept into everyday use in Australia.

None of which explains how the pedestrian lights in Maryborough transformed into the Mary Poppins 'brolly' down or 'brolly' up symbols nor indeed why this 'sheila' (beautifully dressed lady) was so willing to have her picture taken. (This town is where P L Travers, author of the Mary Poppins novels, was born.) 

Maryborough also gave us an iron pig, 

a close encounter with a train, 

a spectacular 'dunny'...

...and some incredibly old trees.

What more could you ask for.

On our visit there we were blessed with a sighting of a pair of 'brumbies' (wild horses) grazing at the side of the road 

then on our return through Poona we finally got to see what any visit to Australia would not be complete without. (It turned out Poona is pretty much overrun with 'roos'.)

On one of our trips out we visited an 'op' shop, something we might have called a charity shop, and on the drive there we kept seeing yellow road signs with the word 'CREST' on them. At first we thought this was an instruction to hold outspread fingers to the head to imitate the crested cockatoo we'd seen earlier but eventually we realised that it was the equivalent of the 'Hidden Dip' sign used on UK roads. So just a different way of looking at the same thing. Thankfully these subtle changes to the language were easy for us 'pommies' to understand and we didn't make complete fools of ourselves during our time in 'Straya'.