Yellow warning

Has our weather recently got worse?

Whenever stormy weather is imminent we start to get warning messages beamed at us telling us what to do and more importantly what not to do in order to keep safe. All very helpful, of course, although I have doubts about how much heed most people take of it. Why else would there be traffic jamming up our roads in the middle of a storm. We are conditioned to believe that our houses are secure and our roads are there to allow us to move about freely no matter what the weather is doing outside. Modern cars are built bigger and stronger than ever before and the messages put out by advertisers encouraging us to buy them are aimed at making us believe how indestructible they are and how safe and secure we are inside them.

Over the last year or so, however, there seem to have been more of these weather warning messages which raises the question posed above as to whether there has been a significant shift towards a different pattern of weather in our world. A greater frequency of warning messages does not necessarily mean this is the case. It could, for example, simply be that the wind strength or rainfall warning level has been reduced or perhaps it is simply that the media have convinced themselves that people are excited by those rare weather events and there will be more viewers on a particular TV channel if it shows footage of massive waves smashing into someone's house. It matters not if the footage was shot in another country where the event occurred many months ago. If it gets more viewers then put it on.

We have recently been sent four warnings about strong wind and rain - yellow is the colour - but when we look deeper into the areas affected we discover that the south west of England will bear the brunt of it. Here in the west of Scotland it will remain calm for the time being but a different storm might affect us several days later. Of course if we were planning a drive to Cornwall then we might be interested in the warning message but how many others are like us and go behind that initial warning message to see what it means. If most people assume the warning is directly personal to where they live then when the wind does not arrive they will have learnt not to trust the media and might pay little heed to subsequent messages. The ease of communication in our modern world will have let us down by failing to be tailored to where each of us live.

All of which leaves us with the question 'Has our weather recently got worse?' unanswered. What is certain is that reporting on weather events throughout the world has increased, which leaves us with the impression that we are facing climate-altering changes and the prevailing view is that these are brought on by our own behaviour.

Time will tell how immune we are from the worst of these changes in our part of the world - perhaps less time than we think if the latest weather warning proves to be accurate.

We prepare ourselves for what is coming by taking a look around the garden to see what might get blown about. Our compost bin lids have a habit of taking off but we have no overhanging trees and so far as we know there are no garden trampolines in our neighbourhood. Our conclusion is that so as long as the house roof stays on we should be safe. The predicted wind direction should mean we will have some shelter from the surrounding hills although we know from experience that this is not necessarily true. If this blog gets posted online then it probably means we have survived.

What we can see from our home's high vantage point is that the harbour below us is filling up with work vessels that normally spend their time at sea supporting the local fish farms. Tarbert is a naturally sheltered place to moor up when the weather is bad so the storm warnings have clearly been received and are being acted upon.

Later...

This one had a name, storm Boelo, and yes, our house has survived intact.

Not so lucky was the reclaimed greenhouse roof that we had repurposed as a log shelter attached securely, so we thought, to the side of a shed. Sometime in the night a gust of wind arrived, so strong that it caused the roof structure to break free and take flight, the whole thing being lifted up over the top of the shed and then thrown down towards the road. It landed rather uncomfortably on our garage roof leaving us the job of cutting it into pieces with an angle grinder so that it can be taken to the dump.

Strangely this event does seem to have provided the answer to the question posed here at the start. The log store shelter had been happily in place for years and had survived gales coming from all directions...until now, when a single unimaginary blast of air caused it to take flight. We shall try not to dwell upon what might have happened had it gone just a little further and landed on someone in the road.

Keeping clean

One of the nice things about living in a small rural community in a place to which many would apply the term 'remote' is that when there is some work that needs doing, something that impacts on us all, then there are always those who step up to help. We live by the sea in two directions, to the east and to the west, being at the root of the Kintyre peninsula, so dependant upon the wind direction the shorelines facing each way tend to collect rubbish. This may either be tossed deliberately into the sea, from boats or from the land, or else it may originate from sea-based industries, mostly fishing. A lot of this rubbish is plastic of one sort or another and this will gradually break up into smaller pieces when it reaches a rocky shore or even a sandy beach and gradually these small pieces accumulate along the shore or are blown inland into surrounding woodland. This does not sit well with many of us locally so we have organised beach cleaning parties where we try to pick up as much as we can then dispose of it sensibly.

Although we might try to arrange such events on days when the weather is kind to us this is not always possible as one recent event demonstrated. Our efforts to clean Escart Bay, a beach at the end of a long west facing sea loch, coincided with a westerly wind that most would not normally venture out into. Despite this the event was well attended, everyone being well wrapped up against the wind and, inevitably, the rain showers that came with it.

The physical part of picking up the rubbish from the shoreline is only part of the process. In order to monitor the state of the beach over time and to enable us to compare it with other beaches we try to document the amount and type of material we find. This is done by isolating one five metre section of the beach and recording a description of everything found there, something that is not easy to do when a strong wind is blowing.

Sadly the job all these volunteers are doing never leaves the beach totally clean because the smaller pieces of plastic become intermingled with the shoreline soil but we do what we can. Much of the plastic material we find is clearly fishing related, tiny rope strands from nets used in fishing activity and this may have originated many miles away before being carried by the currents onto our shores. It is disheartening to see so much of this locally but we do our best.

A rather more deliberate type of rubbish dumping also occurs in less frequented spots. A collection of old steel kitchen sinks clearly did not drift in from the sea by accident. They could only have been deliberately placed in the trees beside an old shoreside road by someone who had no thoughts regarding what this type of behaviour might lead to if we all did the same with our rubbish. Similarly when a number of very fresh looking beer cans, all of the same make, turn up on the shore this points to one individual tossing them carelessly away, perhaps from a boat, after drinking their favourite brew. These are things it is best not to dwell upon.

The next cleaning party was at a South facing beach in Loch Fyne, a place where we had a session last year, and we were all interested to see how much had come ashore there in the interim and what the rubbish consisted of. As it turned out there were very few larger pieces on the shoreline so we ended up crawling through the branches of brambles and other wild shoreline vegetation to get down to the tiny pieces of plastic mixed in with the sandy soil underneath. Old crisp packets, bottle tops, short lengths of rope were all dug out and recorded although this time we had almost no wind and the sun provided us with quite a warm day. Perhaps the most exciting find of the day was a knife, in perfect condition, buried at the top of the beach. We have a special container where we put 'sharps' that we find but in this case we all had a good laugh because the knife was a plastic one.

Mixing and chatting with a friendly group of like minded people adds to the pleasure of the beach party and brings a sense of achievement in doing some small thing to improve our world.

Hugel culture

Hügelkultur is a German word describing a form of culture involving a raised planting bed. The technique is said to have been practiced in German and Eastern European societies for hundreds of years but for us there was one significant benefit, one that was less important to those early cultivators; it is a way for us to dispose of significant quantities of wood. This is something that we have rather a lot of, cut down from the land just beyond our back fence. What it consists of is mostly long, odd shaped lengths of gorse and rhododendron branches, not really thick enough to be suitable as fuel for our home log burner stove, but rather than leave it lying about in heaps where the undergrowth will eventually swallow it up we have moved some of it into our garden where we have a particular use for it, in a Hugel bed.

Perhaps at this point some explanation is needed.

The idea is to create a raised bed for growing plants, some of which we might eventually eat. To do this, however, we first have to dig a large trench in the ground, putting the soil to one side so that eventually it can be heaped on top.

The trench is filled, first of all, with pieces of wood, in our case, mostly gorse branches. On top of this there are layers of other material such as cardboard, inverted turfs, cut grass, leaves and then eventually layers of compost. The idea is to create a raised heap so that vegetables or other plants can grow on it. The bed can be contained within a box like a conventional raised bed but this is not essential. The important part is what is at the bottom, the wood, which retains moisture and as it rots down will release nutrients for the roots of what is growing on top to burrow into and absorb.

At the start our Hugel bed looks a complete mess, a heap of long, awkward shaped sticks. We have more wood to fill in the gaps but we need a reliably dry day for this so I can use my electric chop saw outside in the garden and just now we are not getting many of these. In fact the amount of rain that has fallen of late has made it impossible to do anything outside. The season of autumn has arrived.

But a few days later the rain pauses and phase two follows. A few noisy hours are spent cutting long lengths into short sticks which are used to fill in the gaps in our wood heap then we lay some leafy hedge trimmings on top of this. A layer of wet cardboard (packing material from something we bought a while ago) goes on top of the wood and to hold this down we dump some wet turfs on top so it doesn't get blown away. It now looks even more of a mess and after all the rain there is a soggy patch all around the edges into which our feet easily slide but the heap is growing in height with each layer. The next rain will start to consolidate the heap so for the moment we can rest.

For phase three we raid one of our garden compost bins and spend the morning layering the contents on top of the heap, trying to create a uniform smooth surface. Once again we know that when the next lot of rain comes along it will soak into the heap but hopefully it won't wash away too much of the soil. There are unwanted weeds in the heap and we know that some of these will need to be removed but once we have planted things on top the weeds will have competition and it should be possible to keep them under control.

At this point we are not planting anything on the heap, the idea being that it should be left to consolidate for a while.

The Hugel bed now represents an impressive landmark in our garden, a conversation piece if nothing else, and a considerable amount of wood has disappeared out of sight.

Sailing yet again

We went through the process of selling our own boat more than nine months ago now. She (boats are always feminine) was a 'Cornish Shrimper', nineteen feet long and a classic sailing boat built by a company that has been around for many years. Ours was a MK1, which means she was quite elderly, dating from 1985 as I recall, and since then there have been MK2 Shrimpers of the same size, almost identical to look at such that only an expert could tell the difference.

Taking a picture of one's own boat under sail is always a challenge when you are actually on board sailing so here is what Eun na Mara once looked like from a distance, before we sold her. Living by the sea as we do I might have expected further adventures on the water but it is safe to say that I did not expect to be sailing again in a Shrimper. 

Then something strange happened. Just along the road from us lives a man called Chris and as it happens he is the owner of a Cornish Shrimper, a MK2, but it was perhaps inevitable that we would become friends at some point. We had plenty to talk about, tales to tell of our sailing experiences, things that can go wrong with this particular boat, mishaps they are called, and the pleasures of sailing in perfect conditions too. His boat is called Loup, and on passing his home we would frequently pause to admire the work he was doing on her as she lay on a trailer in his drive. We are now late in the sailing season and just recently we noticed that Chris's Shrimper had found her way back into the water. He plans to keep her in the marina just below us during the winter months. Then suddenly, out of the blue, I received an invitation from him to go out on a day's sailing.

My first point of call was to check the weather forecast, quite important since we had been going through a run of windy and wet days, sunshine alternating with torrential downpours. On the proposed day in question, however, things looked reasonably good; a light breeze from the west and just a forty percent chance of rain. What could possibly go wrong.

My next stop was the cupboard in which I had stored away my sailing clothes, the waterproof leggings and matching jacket, a hat and of course the lifejacket which thankfully still had a viable inflation cylinder inside it. Decisions on appropriate warm clothing needed to be made (it is always significantly cooler at sea) and I also raided the kitchen snack cupboard for a few nibbles. As it happened there was a box full of recently made cheese straws lying about so I stuffed as many of these as I could into a smaller container then the following morning, loaded up with all these things, I strode down to the marina where Chris was getting Loup ready. Although his boat is equipped with an inboard diesel engine Chris has been experimenting with a small electric outboard engine mounted on the stern which he prefers to use so we whispered our way out to sea with no noise at all. Sails were raised and off we sailed, the light breeze carrying us away from the harbour, in and out of the light rain showers that were drifting about everywhere, so it seemed.

He seemed happy to let me take turns on the helm and before long we had sailed out into Inchmarnock Water, the joining point of Kilbrannan Sound, Loch Fyne and the Kyles of Bute. It was here, when looking ahead, we saw an enormous flock of birds, mostly seagulls, take off from the water all in one go, rising like a cloud into the air. From past experience we both guessed that this might indicate the presence of a whale, or some other large beast so we watched and waited as we slowly sailed towards them. And sure enough, before long we could see some porpoises leaping out of the water and then the larger fins of some dolphins some distance away.

We were sailing quite slowly as the winds we were getting had been variable all the way so at this point we decided to turn and begin to make way back up the loch. This decision which must have caught the attention of some of the dolphins who suddenly decided to have some fun with us. It seems strange to think of animals like these 'having fun' but there is really no other explanation as to why they would want to swim right under our bow and stay with us as we sailed quietly along. It seems they are stimulated by the pressure of our bow wave and want to swim close by to expose themselves to this as much as possible.

The pleasure for us on board (boosted by the cheese straws of course) was just as great and when a couple of dolphins came close for a peep at us we thanked them and wished them well. It was a if the whole sea was alive with dolphins and porpoises, just for our benefit.

The rest of the day went well. We paused for lunch by dropping into Portavadie, a marina and swimming pool complex located across the loch from Tarbert, then set off towards home nicely refreshed. The wind had become a little more steady and the rain was just about holding off as we tacked across Loch Fyne back to Tarbert and then just outside the harbour we lowered the sails and once again switched on the electric outboard engine so we could ghost our way back to a marina berth in complete silence. As it happened the timing was perfect as soon after we were back the rain came on with a vengeance with more wind than we would have wanted out at sea.

Bad gardening

Not for the first time the subject matter here will deal with some of the less palatable aspects of 'gardening' that we have come across. Soon after we moved in to our present house we encountered a range of unpleasant items hidden in our garden, things that took us many hours of toil to remove. We found it very upsetting to think that our garden had been used as a dumping ground by someone who had lived in the house, a carefree attitude that tainted our early days of living here. We overcame this gradually and since then have managed the garden on our own terms, relishing the wild look by keeping the grass mostly uncut so we can take delight when something new emerges unexpectedly and bursts into flower. We have had wild orchids popping up here there and we relish the thick bed of moss that covers significant areas of the garden. These are things that are normal for our local rainforest climate and they would simply not be there if we mowed the garden regularly.

It has taken a lot of effort to get the garden to a point where it is manageable on our terms. Which was perhaps why more recently we began looking further, beyond the rear garden fence at what was growing wild there, much of it very close to or in contact with our back fence and threatening to invade us. Our efforts to tackle this are once again documented here. Having spent many hours dealing with the gorse and rhododendron growing beyond our rear fence during the cooler months of the year this work slowed down when it became warmer and the midge season arrived. Much of the area we cut back has since hosted a regrowth of bracken and stinging nettles, plants previously hidden from the light. We occasionally try to tame some of this, with limited success, but in doing so it has recently exposed the efforts of our house's previous owners to spoil not just our garden but land beyond it as well.

Once removed from the ground this is what five gravel bags look like, all bundled up and ready to be taken to the dump. These things are used by building materials suppliers to deliver sand or gravel and on each one there is a note to say that it can be returned 'for disposal'. But clearly this was too much for whoever put them there and since they were tossed over our back fence the roots of numerous wild shrubs had grown into them which made them extremely difficult to remove from the ground. And sadly in the process of digging them out something even worse was exposed.

We now have the job of picking up a mass of broken window glass which was scattered there along with the bags, the remains, we suspect, of a long gone greenhouse or conservatory. It is impossible to remove every last tiny sliver of glass from the ground but patient work spent kneeling down and picking the bits up piece by piece with gloved hands has produced enough to fill two large buckets ready for proper disposal.

Admittedly the land beyond our garden fence does not belong to us. It is, however, wild and completely unmanaged by whoever does own it. It is a wilderness occupied by a healthy deer population who do nothing to limit the spread of the gorse but will nibble at any tree saplings they come across.

Then, just occasionally, we see this, a raptor of some sort (maybe a goshawk) pausing in the shelter of what is left of the undergrowth to dry off his feathers after a heavy shower of rain.

The hill rises steeply beyond our back fence to a rocky summit 170 metres above sea level and we welcome the view we have of this, especially when we spot an eagle or two soaring above it. But none of this justifies using the land to dump rubbish simply because it is more convenient to do so than to dispose of it correctly and we are horrified to think that someone would do this. It is evidence of an attitude to the world in general that is ignorant of life in any form outside of one's own.

An odd couple take the lead

The way we currently live our lives, the way we get about, the things we spend our money on, the way we manage our garden, the food we eat, so many of these things exhibit how our behaviour differs from the way other people live their lives. We are, of course, in retirement so this of itself frees us from many of the constraints that working life imposes. A day that is governed by a particular routine in order to meet the requirements of an employer is something we left behind years ago and looking back now it seems that for us our transition away from some of those routines occurred gradually rather than in one go. Nevertheless the overall effect today is that we have become rather odd, so it would seem. Some of these oddities have been recounted here already - having an electric car and keeping it in a garage, riding around on electric folding bikes, maintaining a wild looking garden - but it seems that there are other ways too in which we don't follow the herd, things that it might not occur to us that we do differently until something brings it to our attention.

A news item that recently caught our eye highlighted the build up of rubbish somewhere when the refuse bins were not collected on time. One such bin, so it was reported, was for food waste, clearly something that would create problems if it were left lying around. Family dramas on TV frequently show food being left uneaten when a distraction occurs during meal times and we see the remains being scooped up and thrown into a waste bin. But we throw away almost no cooked food. Unlike as shown in TV dramas we try to eat only what we need and if this leaves cooked food remaining then this is stored away to be re-heated the next day. Waste arising prior to cooking - potato peelings, apple cores, etc. - find their way to a garden compost bin along with cut grass, unwanted plants (weeds), and even cardboard egg boxes. The compost bin has its own lifecycle (as well as providing a home for slow-worms) and the contents eventually become a source of nutrients for the garden. We choose to live this way because it seems to make sense but if those TV dramas in any way represent the real world then this makes us rather odd.

The way we do our shopping is governed, to a large extent, by the shops we have available in our small village. These are small and have only limited choice on their shelves but they are within easy walking distance so this is how we choose to visit them. We trundle a shopping trolley down the hill to our nearest food shop then once loaded we pull it back up again, the exercise being quite a welcome part of our day. The downside to shopping locally is the lack of choice, something that hits home when we do occasionally visit a large city supermarket and stand open-mouthed staring at the choices on the shelves in front of us. Driving to one of these places routinely is what many people do and since big supermarkets have large car parks then this is convenient. In fact these places are laid out in such a way that accessing them without a car is quite difficult. Public transport links are often missing and walking or cycling there can actually seem quite hazardous.

Something else that is often missing from supermarket car parks is a charging point for an electric vehicle, largely because these places were built before EVs became widespread. Charging an EV takes longer than refueling an ICE car so it would seem to make sense to park up and recharge your car whilst you go off shopping. Many would consider this line of thought quite strange, something which highlights the negative attitude towards EVs that we have encountered since we ventured down that road. The explanation for this is nothing to do with the car itself but instead it lies in the belief that a car without an 'engine' under the bonnet is missing something, a vital component that for generations has been admired and fiddled with by so many. Whilst it is accepted that things like windows and windscreen wipers have electric motors there are still many out there who cannot deal with the absence of a large chunk of metal that has pistons flying up and down inside it because it carries with it a status that is simply not present in an EV. Owners like us of such new fangled things are looked upon as being rather odd.

A neighbour of ours willingly churns out all the negatives regarding both electric cars and bikes and he sent us this picture in a message. Clearly he thinks that coal is the primary fuel used to generate our electric supply here in the UK. Not only is this wrong for Britain as a whole (where wind, solar and gas generate most) but when we look at Scotland on its own it is wind and hydro that produce by far the majority of the electricity and indeed there is a surplus which is exported into England. The last coal fired power station (Ratcliffe-on-Soar) ceased operating on 30th September 2024 and in 2025 the UK recorded its first calendar year with no coal power since electricity production began. Our neighbour's misconception is perhaps a symptom of the way the world we live in is changing in ways he finds difficult to come to terms with.

So if the way we live is regarded as odd, perhaps in many respects we are leading the way forward into a different world. Taking cars as an example we see the whole world changing course with EV sales overtaking petrol and diesel in many countries today, a change that has occurred over the last ten years.

Alongside this many cities are cleaning up, spending vast amounts of money on improving their cycling infrastructure whilst reducing the space for cars in general, and the popularity of electric bikes in recent years seems to have gone hand in hand with this. London is just one example of this as is shown in the graphic here which illustrates how nitrogen dioxide, produced primarily by high temperature fuel combustion, has declined. One might think that such a dramatic and beneficial change would be widely talked about and admired but clearly our neighbour never got the memo.

Bob. The sequel

In the ever changing world we live in there is one essential thing that has existed unchanged for many centuries.....Money.

The image shown here is simply what comes to mind when I hear that word. It is an album cover, for those who don't know, from a band who had a hit song called... 'Money'. But I digress...

Money is the thing we exchange for goods and services. I believe it may have superceded a process called barter. It exists today as a measure of value which can be stored and saved for future use, is supported by government decree and can exist as banknotes or coinage or else as digital balances which are controlled and accessed electronically.

Being a car owner for many years I have always had to use money to pay for the fuel the car's engine needed to burn in order for it to rotate the wheels - the whole purpose of having a car. I have little recollection of those early purchases, most being lost in time, but I am certain that for a significant part of my car-owning life I would have used cash, money in the form of bank notes and coinage. In today's world many transactions are done electronically, typically using a plastic card which communicates with a bank in some mysterious way and reduces one's own digital balance at the same time as increasing someone else's. Strange as it may seem we accept this as perfectly normal so that goods and services can change hands without the need for our wallets to hold wads of banknotes or our pockets to be weighed down with coinage. The fossil fuels needed for burning in those cars can, of course, still be bought with cash if this is what one chooses to use and one of the advantages of money in this form is that it does not rely upon electricity in any way.

Enter the electric car world (in our case, with Bob) and suddenly cash is useless. It cannot be used to buy the electrical energy to put into the car to make those wheels turn simply because the charging locations are unmanned; there is nobody to give the cash to. Invariably these places are situated away from other retail premises and seem to be run by remote national organisations with no local presence. In order to buy the electricity (kilowatts) needed one has to rely upon the electronic wizardry of the modern world to transfer money to someone unknown and unseen. How we do this might be slightly different at every charging location - there seems to be little consistency - but there is another modern invention that can make this process easier. Indeed one might go as far as to say that life with an electric car is inextricably linked to this thing - some would say impossible without it. I am, of course, referring to the mobile phone.

Again, thinking back to my youth, the telephone (as it was then called) was a heavy object made of bakelite (a hard plastic material invented in 1907) with a dial on the top which was rotated using one finger.

The telephone had a single use; it enabled voice communication over any distance. For many people today the device we now call a 'phone' might be only rarely used for voice communications but it has a range of other uses. One of those involves linking wirelessly to the car, especially those like Bob that use electricity to get around. Regardless of where he is, Bob is continuously being monitored by my phone and it seems I can even flash his headlights remotely should I feel this is necessary! Our first attempt at using a public charging point left us confused until another kind electric car owner arrived and advised us to point the phone's camera at a QR code so we could start charging and then pay for the electricity we were putting in the car. The 'phone' is, of course, no longer simply that, any more than the modern day car is simply a way of getting from A to B. Both have become transformed in our modern world by adding functions barely conceivable just a few years ago.

Coming back to Bob, we are still on a steep learning curve as he can do so many additional things that have little to do with him moving us from place to place. Many of these are hard-wired into the car in such a way that they cannot be switched off. The steering column itself has so many mysterious buttons and knobs that there is a genuine risk of touching something whilst driving that can put the whole car at risk. Then there is the display screen (described as the Multimedia System) mounted centrally on the car's dashboard. Given the narrow twisty roads we drive on in our part of Scotland this unnecessary distraction seems a rather bad idea but fortunately it can be switched to 'Standby' mode so that it becomes a simple clock. There is also the slightly smaller screen in front of the driver which has a mind of its own as we discovered when a large message appeared advising us to check the tyre pressures. On doing so, after we arrived home, we discovered them all to be at the correct pressure and it turned out that the system merely wanted us to do this and then confirm we had done it.

There is one thing we can take advantage of on our roads and that is 'Regen', a feature which can come into effect when descending one of our steep hills. If this is switched on then as soon as the right foot is lifted from the accelerator pedal there is a gentle braking sensation which will gradually bring the car to a halt whilst simultaneously converting the kinetic energy into electricity for the battery. The effect is small but there is a sense of satisfaction in knowing the process is happening. Some caution is also needed, however, because when Regen is activated the car's brake lights come on as soon as the driver's foot leaves the accelerator pedal, something that could cause the driver following closely behind to panic. Perhaps the next generation of electric vehicles will have solar panels on the roof and an exercise bike connected to a generator fitted inside so the passengers can keep themselves fit whilst at the same time topping up the battery. (This may not be as weird as it sounds. There are already roads with charging systems built in so that EVs are topped up wirelessly as they move over them.)

On a positive and more serious note, we are pleased to announce that our bikes will fit into the car, folded of course, and we have discovered that unlike in most fossil cars where winding down a window to let in fresh air also brings in a lot of noise (from the engine) in Bob's case there is almost no noise at all. Best of all we can plug him into our home electricity supply and programme a schedule using Bob's Multimedia System so that the charging begins at night when the electricity being provided by our domestic supplier is at a reduced cost. Programming this was not easy, however, despite my reading two different user manuals (each of which has over one hundred pages), but eventually by trial and error we worked it out. All this was to ensure that Bob had enough kilowatt-hours in his battery to take him as far as we needed by morning.

We have no intention of using Bob for longer journeys but we did recently use him for a trip into Glasgow, a distance of over one hundred miles. This highlighted another distinction between ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) and EV cars which is that it is best  for us to establish the mileage to our destination before setting off so that we know whether or not the car will need a top-up charge on the way. A charging stopover needs to be factored into the timetable for the journey - a twenty minute break from driving which can be quite welcome - and this way of thinking was never necessary with an ICE vehicle.

For those long journeys Bob will sit comfortably in his garage at home as we would normally use the buses which pass through our village and these can take us to a train station if needed. Both of these things can take us, plus our bikes, anywhere we want to go without the stress of driving on and fighting the traffic on our busy roads so we think we have made a good move in changing to a small EV. So far we have yet to meet anyone who seems motivated to make a similar change although occasionally we do get the impression that some of our bizarre behavioural traits are admired by others.

Families

There is an assumption in the social hierarchy of our world that we start as children, grow into parents, then become grand, or even great grandparents. Inevitably though there will be those who, for whatever reason, do not follow this beaten path through life but can still experience the joys that go with the grandparent role. For this to happen the same level of trust must exist between adult and child despite them not being related to one another. The trust might take longer to build but it is entirely possible and as it happens this is the position we find ourselves in since our own lives have not taken the path towards becoming grandparents.

Some years ago we got to know a growing young family, which now consists of no less than four children, and we have been a part of their young lives as they have grown taller and wiser, this being something that children do. We think of them as if they were our grandchildren and to an extent we fill that role in their lives since they now live quite close by whilst their 'real' grandparents live many miles away in the south of England. The trust that they have in us must be handled carefully, as is true in many other situations but the pleasure that comes from being with them is immeasurable.

Which was how I found myself teaching a ten year old boy how to ride a bike in our local play area. The bike involved, my old mountain bike with knobbly tyres and front suspension, had been at home sitting around unused for some years but after a bit of cleaning, fixing a puncture and then lowering the saddle it found a new lease of life in the hands of this young boy.

So how does one go about teaching someone to ride a bike? Well fortunately we had a head start since a 'balance bike' had been part of his upbringing so we started by discussing brakes - what they do and how to use them. Our first riding session was in the road outside our house, which is on a slope and therefore far from ideal, but with me supporting the saddle from beneath he wobbled his way slowly downhill as he got the feel of using the brakes to slow down. Next came pedalling, the most difficult part being setting off from a standstill. We took this in steps. First, balance the bike with one foot on the ground (holding the brakes if needed). Next, the other foot is used to lift the pedal close to the top of its stroke then place the foot on it, ready to push. Finally on the count of three pedalling starts and one might think the rest is easy but it is not. Each action requires concentration and whilst correcting a wobble with the handlebars his legs temporarily pause until he remembers what they should be doing. What he did understand from the start is what he called 'muscle memory', the idea that he could focus on doing one thing whilst another part of his body continued doing something else, and this helped him a lot by encouraging him to keep trying to ride, each time getting better. By the time we got to the play area later in the day he was pushing off without my support, using the steps we had gone through to get going and riding on his own with only my verbal guidance and encouragement as I jogged alongside him.

I have no memory of learning to ride a bike myself. It is a skill that once learnt at a young age lasts a whole lifetime without any conscious effort. The thing we refer to as muscle memory is what enables us to do both simple and complex tasks like swimming, playing a musical instrument, even just walking, and it can last forever. I had no preconceptions about whether I would be able to pass on my own knowledge and skill but I seem to have managed it and found joy in doing so. I look forward to his next visit then perhaps one day soon we can take him on a ride with us so he can master the basics of riding on roads and coping with all the hazards that go with this.

Electric power

Big changes in our lives have been taking place recently. If I were to spell them all out here then most people would switch off or go away and do something more useful with their day.

But as it turns out many of our lifestyle changes are associated with electricity in one way or another. Take our bikes, for example. From riding on machines for most of our lives which moved about solely by the power of our leg muscles we transitioned to ones that can move easier and quicker through having a small electric motor. After we moved into our our present house we changed it from one heated by gas to one using electricity both for heating and for cooking. This made even more sense (to us) since the house came with solar panels on its south facing roof, the effect of which is that when the sun shines brightly a lot of our electricity needs are met at no cost. We make best use of this by timing some things so they switch on at around midday when the sun gives us most benefit. As I am writing this the sun is beaming down outside and as a consequence we might be tempted to monitor this constantly so as to switch things on to coincide with the sunshine, making best use of the electric power coming from our roof. But we choose not to live in a sort of electricity paranoia, waiting for the sun to shine before boiling a kettle. Instead we take the more relaxed view and accept some of the inefficiencies that go with this.

Things began to get even more exciting for us when we reviewed our transport needs and we realised that after transitioning to folding bikes our large road vehicle no longer made sense. Once folded, the bikes could be carried inside a much smaller vehicle. We began thinking more about this as we realised that although our small village does not have a petrol station it does have electric vehicle (EV) charging points, six in total at three different locations. If we decide we need a car, surely it makes sense to have a small electric one (indeed one wonders why every local car is not electric). We clearly needed to learn more about these relatively modern machines and inevitably when you start searching the internet for advice on a new topic you soon get bombarded with offers of all sorts. I believe this is called 'marketing'.

Despite this we carried on and, once we had discovered the cost of using those public charging points, we realised that it would be cheaper to charge up an electric car at home by connecting it to our home electric supply, especially if we could arrange a cheap overnight rate. Home charging an EV might sound simple but in fact for us it was not, due to the position of our house above and away from the road - an overall distance of over ten metres. Worse still, our electricity supply enters the house at the rear, about as far away from the road as it is possible to get, and since wires that carry electricity longer distances need to be thicker, this adds to the cost of setting up a charging point in order to get those kilowatts into a car. Our EV investigations suddenly came to the fore when we agreed upon the date on which we would bid farewell to our campervan; soon to be sold to someone who will make better use of it.

It seemed to us that implementing such a change in the way we live our lives was less straightforward than we might have wished but we pressed on regardless, taking one step forward at a time. 

One thing that has come sharply into focus is the way cars have been 'spreading' in recent years, something that is particularly relevant to us given that a lot of our cycling is on narrow roads where the competition for space is limited. We soon discovered that there are only a limited number of small electric cars available in today's marketplace, although once again this research led to intensive marketing from enthusiastic car dealerships.

One thing that separates electric vehicles from those with internal combustion engines (these can be regarded as fossil cars) is the 'range', the distance one can drive with the amount of charge in a battery. This figure is always quoted in the vehicle specifications as if it is cast in stone and can be relied upon as being accurate - which it is not. (Strangely our electric bikes have a small display screen which also shows a 'range' figure, ignoring the fact that cyclists can use their legs to extend the range quite easily, not something that is possible with EVs.) Most batteries work better if they are warm, something that might increase the range just as on a cold day the temperature will decrease it. Energy is also needed for the heater, for the windscreen wipers, cooling fans, lights, etc., and it appears that some of these things run off a separate twelve volt battery mounted under the bonnet of an EV. Charging this from the traction battery that moves the car about must reduce the range to some extent. None of this has ever been relevant in those fossil cars where a heater makes use of waste heat from the engine and electric power for the wipers, lights, etc., is produced by the engine spinning an alternator and the energy for this is never measured. It seems that the only vital figure here is the number of miles that can be driven on a gallon of fuel, although this is a number which one might expect to decline as vehicles become bigger and heavier.

The whole world of EVs has been one of discovery for us and a steep learning curve fraught with misconceptions and steered by biased car enthusiasts. Nevertheless it was at this point that we committed ourselves by putting a deposit on our own small EV.

Having done this the next part of the process began with some space reorganisation, starting with the garage, where we planned to store the car. Again, it is a strange feature of modern life that few garage owners (nobody we know) keep their cars inside. Could this be due to the car-spreading phenomenon mentioned above which has rendered garages unsuitable for car storage?

Next we committed to some investment, getting an electrician to fit the electrical wiring through the house to give us an external socket at the front that we can plug into. A lengthy connection lead was also ordered although there was some doubt as to whether this would arrive before we had the car so we waited impatiently until suddenly, both the electrician and the lead, which fits into a rather nice bag, arrived on the same day. We solved the conundrum of getting the heavy car charging plug across our steeply sloping and overgrown front garden to the car by means of a zip wire which allows us to slide it safely downwards. We emptied our garage and measured the internal space carefully then finally, one rainy morning, we set off to catch the early bus to Dumbarton where 'Bob', as we decided to call him, was waiting to meet us.

We were confident that Bob's range would get us home without needing an electric top up but as soon as we drove away from the dealership the rain started, torrential bursts which swept across the busy road. Frantically we searched for the controls for the wipers and the demisters so we could see out of the windows and avoid bumping into anything but in the end we decided to pause in a layby so we could work out where everything was. Like all modern cars there were switches on stalks behind the steering wheel with meaningless symbols on them and these had little in common with those we were used to on the campervan. A short while later we set off again and thankfully made it home safely, still with a comfortable thirty three per cent of battery power remaining.

Bob seems quite happy with us and is delighted to be out of the rain in a home of his own.

Rained off

Having just re-read my previous blog entry I find myself asking why we haven't been spending all our spare moments riding our new bikes. 

The explanation is summed up in the image opposite, an illustration that highlights clearly a distinction between England and Scotland's weather. And this is not just about rainfall. There are similar maps showing temperature variations across the same area which show a pattern highlighting the places across England and the European countries further south that are experiencing heatwave conditions similar too, or worse than, what brought our cycling holiday to an early close a few months ago. However this grim picture painted by the weather forecasters does not necessarily represent a reality for us. Movements within the earth's atmosphere must make forecasting the weather for the days ahead difficult, especially for those places which lie close to the border between the wet and the dry, or the hot and the cold. The south west corner of Scotland that we live in frequently lies on that border, the Atlantic Ocean bringing a milder air stream which reduces the impact of European weather systems.

So it was that just days after the rainfall accumulation image was released the sun emerged from behind the clouds and soaked us with its radiation, which was soon to become rather too much.

Typical for where we live would be variable weather, difficult to predict days ahead, but recently we have been locked into one weather pattern or another, days of rain or days of heat. To avoid the heatwave that found us whilst we were on holiday we took avoiding action - an early ferry back to a cooler place called home - but this solution is not available to those living in France or Spain any more than avoiding endless days of rain is possible for us.

Our solution when it comes to cycling has been to grab whatever short interval we can between showers and ride locally on the few quiet roads we have. The road through our village ends at a beauty spot, a viewpoint where there is a bench looking out across Loch Fyne, and it has become a convenient place to ride to when the clouds threaten but the rain just about holds off. Then again we have carried the bikes folded up in our van to the start of a ten mile bike ride on the level towpath to Crinan where we grab a coffee before returning the same way. We now have kickstands fitted to both bikes which make things easier when we stop for a rest and we are both getting used to the folding up process too. There is a four part sequence of moves that follows the acronym 'BFHS' (Backwheel/Frame/Handlebars/Seat in case anyone is interested). In order to remember this we say 'Brompton Folding Has Stopped' whilst performing the fold. (Unfolding has a slightly different sequence so we have to remember 'How to Start a Folded Brompton'.)

 

We are trying to avoid the temptation to attach accessories to the bikes beyond what is necessary, particularly anything that might constrain the folding process. Every gram of extra weight is important as once folded the bikes become luggage that has to be carried. However a well designed bag attached to the rear carrier is a must for carrying essentials like extra clothing or snacks on a ride. Fine details like getting the right tyre pressures and saddle height for maximum comfort also have to be resolved, these all being part of our Brompton journey. As it happens the makers have thought of this last one, an elegant solution which enables the saddle to be returned back to the same position as it was before being folded away by means of a piece of plastic, cut to length and inserted inside the seat tube. This is just one example of the many clever features that our bikes come with.

So to test out some of them we needed a ride that would challenge the bikes and enable us to know our limits whilst riding them.

Finally the weather delivered us a run of dry days although the south of England was suffering a heatwave which was threatening to creep northwards towards us. We made a decision to take the ferry across the loch and ride ten miles northwards to Otter Ferry. The name implies a crossing point over the loch but this no longer exists although there is a pub there, the 'Oystercatcher', which was open when we arrived. Was this the challenge we wanted, just ten miles? Surely not.

Had we looked more closely at the route we might have noticed the rivers we'd be crossing en route and realised that these run in valleys between hills, some of them being quite high. Then just after setting off from the Portavadie ferry terminal the route offered by the app on my phone sent us along a steep gravel pathway through the forest which had us bouncing about and worrying about how long it would be before our tyres punctured. Thankfully the full heat of the day had yet to arrive so we managed this part quite well and the bikes just seemed to take it in their stride.

We did decide, however, to stick to the tarmac roads for the return and this was just as well since by the time we had lunched at Otter Ferry, chatting with a motorcyclist outside the pub in the sun, the day had warmed up to the point where we would normally decide not to go riding.

We set off again from sea level, inevitably up a long hill, then on reaching the top we took off downhill again at speed, although we could see the road ahead where it went uphill again. Indeed the hills seemed endless and although there was a cooling breeze we were riding straight into the wind for the whole return, not making it any easier.

The ferry was a welcome sight at last and here we chatted with a friendly Dutch couple to whom we were able to brag about our adventures in their country. They were visiting Scotland in a large campervan but without bikes, which seemed strange, coming from a country that lives by them. When asked they confessed to being put off by the thought of cycling up Scotland's hills, something that actually made us feel quite good about our achievements that day.

First rides

The day we made the bus journey into Glasgow to collect our new bikes turned out to be a wet one, heavy rain all the way there, the bus splashing through the enormous puddles that had formed overnight. It had eased a little by the time we left the Buchanan Street bus station for the short walk to our bike shop and as soon as we walked in the door the weather outside was forgotten as our two Brompton foldies were lined up in front of us ready and waiting. Our first attempts at folding them up were laughable - there is a technique which involves lifting and twisting each part in the right way - but we had guidance from the staff and were shown how to fit and remove the batteries too. We also experimented with fitting them into the bags that came with the bikes, these being needed for our return bus journey home None of this took long and soon we were mounting up outside for the short ride back to the bus station.

We had quite a long wait for our bus, time for some food and also time to speculate on whether we'd be challenged by the bus driver when we tried to load our bikes. Folded in their bags the bikes still represented a large piece of luggage. Then there is the issue of them being electric, the batteries being in rather attractive bags which we carried inside the bus as hand luggage. None of this turned out to be relevant and if the driver knew they were bikes, he never mentioned it. We felt a sense of relief once we had set off, knowing for certain that we now had bikes that could travel anywhere with us on public transport. This had always been an essential part of the plan.

Several days later another heatwave landed on Britain, something we had had experience of whilst touring abroad earlier in the year, but for some parts of the UK the temperature went significantly higher than what we had then experienced, and escaped from. Scotland avoided the worst of it but it was still much hotter than normal. Living here means we are not used to the heat, even in the height of Summer, so we notice its effect on our bodies when it comes.

Before the worst of the heat kicked in we took a ride to try out our new beasts, to test their performance on the flat and also try them on a few hill climbs. We needed to assess their riding comfort, to make sure we had our saddles set at the right height, to see how the smaller wheels coped with road potholes and gravel and also to consider whether we should fit a smaller chain ring which would give us lower gearing for our steeper hills. All of this was in our minds as we set off along the Crinan Canal towpath and on reaching the sea at Crinan we paused to take stock. Our riding speed on the flat seemed to be roughly the same as with our larger bikes (once we had discovered how to convert from kph to mph) but we both were using just our lower gears (we have a choice of four) which suggested that a switch to a smaller chain ring might suit us better. Starting off on a hill, even in the lowest gear, seemed to require a lot of effort unless we used a boost of electric assistance but this might just be down to us getting used to the bikes. As to the potholes... the ride comfort felt a little different from what we are used to due to the more upright riding position. The steering is also more reactive as one might expect with the smaller wheels but we both felt we could easily get used to these differences. We tended to use electric power when the gradient increased but for flat roads this wasn't needed at all. Switching off the 'pedal assist' is what we were used to doing even when our old bikes were fully loaded with luggage so there's no real change there. One good thing is that our foldies have hydraulic disc brakes which were powerful enough to slow us on the steeper downhills so all things considered our first ride went well. Folding up the bikes still needs more practice but we are getting better at this too.

One thing we both miss is our kickstands. Reluctant as we are to add anything that will increase the weight of our bikes, the ability to stop anywhere and prop the bike up on its own stand when there is nothing to lean it against is something we miss.

Then there is the absence of the rear wheel bike locks which we had fitted to our old bikes during the first Holland tour. These come as standard on nearly all Dutch bikes. Sometimes known as 'cafe locks' they were so easy to set whenever we stopped somewhere and they allowed us to walk confidently away from our bikes knowing that they would be safe. Regrettably they cannot be fitted to our foldies without impeding the fold so we need to come up with another solution, something light but just sufficiently strong to deter a passing thief. We are on a learning curve, discovering more each day about our new bikes. Storing them at home, finding a place from where we can easily unfold, jump on and ride away, has taken us through several different solutions. The flexibility offered by their prime feature, foldability, gives us so many new ideas.

Time to think

There are many unpleasant things going on around the world at the moment that are having an effect on our lives, not directly perhaps, but we are sensitive to what we hear and read about and these events do make us consider our own lives and how we are living them. Wars are being fought which are impacting on the stability of human societies around the world as well as the resources they need to sustain that stability. The world's climate is also changing, something we discovered first hand on our cycling tour earlier this year, and all these things can have an influence upon the way we live our lives on a day to day basis. We could simply carry on as before, ignoring the world around us, or we could make changes to the way we live, changes that make us feel we are doing something better even if they have little effect upon anyone else.

We have a large road vehicle, a campervan, but it has dawned on us that we make little use of it as a mobile home. We use it for short local journeys when we need to, maybe the odd shopping trip, but we are aware that we could manage these things just as well if we had a smaller vehicle and if we wanted to go away somewhere we could probably find somewhere to stay overnight for less than the cost of driving our big vehicle to the same place. So is it time to rethink things? Could we manage with something smaller or indeed could we manage without a vehicle of any sort?

But then of course there is the cycling. We both enjoy this although we are conscious of the fact that the area we have chosen to live in is a place that has few easily accessible places for safe cycling if, like us, you wish to avoid busy main roads. So we use our campervan to carry our bikes away from home to places where we can enjoy the type of cycling we like, far from the roar of the traffic and the stress of not knowing if the next driver approaching at speed from behind will respect our vulnerability and slow down to pass giving us a decent space. But without a vehicle big enough to carry our bikes this might not be possible any more. The solution to this conundrum and indeed the other issues mentioned above were explored here before and during our time away on a cycling holiday we have given these issues much more thought. Then, strangely, just before we left to go on holiday we met a couple of friends who seemed genuinely interested in buying a campervan, ours in particular. Read on to see where all this is going....

We awoke early and arrived at the bus stop at around seven in the morning just before the scheduled arrival of our large but comfortable conveyance. Our plan was to travel into Glasgow by bus, a journey lasting nearly three hours on our narrow twisty roads, and after arrival at the Buchanan Street terminus to make the short walk to Dales Cycles, a shop which just happens to be the nearest dealer for Brompton folding bikes. No appointment was necessary; we had been told we could just turn up to test ride on the foldies they had in stock.

On arrival we met Krister, their Brompton expert, who immediately took us to the shop's Brompton corner and introduced us to an electric version of the G-Line bike we have been looking at online. We had a list of questions for him, all of which he was able to help us with and then we went outside in order to test ride the lovely orange machine up the hill in the street. He seemed quite impressed with our recent cycling adventure and also recognised our needs so far as the type of terrain we might encounter close to our home, making recommendations as to the gearing we might need for some of our hills. By the time we left the shop we were both convinced as to what our next step would be. We would be ordering two new bikes.

Then, quite by chance on the bus home, another three hours of being rocked and bumped about in our seats, we received a follow-up message from our friends confirming their interest in buying our campervan. All this in one day. It was almost too much to take in.

There will be more to come here but we could not resist this image. When folded away this is what our bikes will look like, one in orange and the other in green. The folding up process is easy but our first attempts in the shop were clumsy so we'll need to practice until we can do it slickly, like proper Brompton owners. There is little more exciting (to our way of thinking) than buying two new bikes and as I write we are just days away from their delivery to our Glasgow shop. Once they have been checked over and we're told they are ready for collection we'll be on the bus again to pick them up and bring them home with us. We'll have bags to put them in, folded up, so they will go in the bus's storage area underneath.

Next steps....sell our present bikes, of course. We can't have them lying around getting old, so we have done a thorough clean up job on them and taken lots of pictures. We are told that there is a thriving market for electric bikes at present and since ours are only a couple of years old we live in hope that they will go quickly.

Meanwhile we have plenty to do around the home. The garden is still wildly overgrown but with day after day of rain we are not keen to go and tidy up. And there is also a midge cloud out there waiting for us, one of the joys of living where we do.