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.