Bramble extraction [✓]

The longest and most challenging of the tasks on our ToDo list is finally ticked. Job done! That is not to say that there is no single piece of bramble left on our land - far from it. But we have now clambered over every inch, gone into every corner, fought our way along each boundary fence and dived down beneath each clump of dense, overgrown plant life to find and cut off those stems as close to the ground as possible. Once having pulled those long strands out from their tangled home we have created a massive pile of vegetation in the rear garden which one day, perhaps, when it has dried out, we will set fire to. The brambles will regrow, we know this as the roots are still in the ground, but at least we'll be ready for them when they do. 

It has been hard work, very physical, and quite satisfying to get as far as we have. Sadly though such a thorough exploration of the garden has revealed something else, something we did not expect and which we find quite offensive. 

Whoever had responsibility for this garden in the past seemed to think it appropriate to throw things away, to dump stuff there, mostly amongst the denser growths of vegetation so that it would be hidden in the shrubbery or the long grass. The bramble invasion ensured that once lost from sight these items stayed that way and would still be hidden today had we not bought the house. The latest discovery, buried beneath the grass, is another Jewson's bag, a bulky sack used to deliver sand or gravel to your home. These things are made to last, a tough nylon mesh with four handles for lifting the immense weight as it is craned off the lorry. They are indestructible by any normal standard and will certainly not biodegrade by being buried in the soil. However this is the third bag we have pulled from the ground since we moved in a month ago, along with plastic bags, glass bottles, lumps of iron fencing, plasterboard, some sheets of corrugated asbestos, broken flower pots and a host of other things. One of the Jewson's bags was full of tiny pieces of broken glass, too heavy to move until some of it was shoveled out. This goes way beyond a lack of care for the garden. It is as if someone has deliberately thrown these items away, guiltily hiding them perhaps, instead of disposing of them properly.

On the positive side, during all our outdoor work, carried out in between the rain showers, we have had a small companion.

He will fly down almost as soon as we start work somewhere and stare at us from almost beneath our feet, hopping about looking for any insects or worms to feed on. He is a robin, but one with almost no fear of humans. We call him Rob and rather obligingly he has let me take his picture. He's a real charmer.

Mahonia

Mahonia is a large genus of woody evergreen shrubs named by British botanist Thomas Nuttall to honour Bernard McMahon, a colonial nurseryman from Philadelphia who was Thomas Jefferson's gardening mentor. It is also one of the many gifts left to us by the previous owners of our new house.

Like others in the Berberidaceae order this plant has shiny leaves which are spiky, rather like holly, and we have several massive bushes in our garden which have not been pruned or cut back for many years. Pruning them, however, means braving not just the spikyness of their leaves but also another invader which hides itself in an impossible-to-reach spot amongst the cluster of stems at ground level. The green stems from this plant rise up within the bush until they reach the daylight nearly three metres above then continue growing to drape themselves downwards around those spiky leaves until eventually they reach the ground again. Here they grow into the long uncut grass surrounding the tree where sooner or later they will decide it is time to send out new roots into the soil. By this time their spiky stems have grown to some six or seven metres. No amount of pulling on the exposed stems will break them; they are strong. Only by cutting off the stems from within the bush can they be removed, torn away with with every ounce of strength as each spike tries to hold on for its life. But to do this you must get inside the bush, braving those spiky mahonia leaves again. I am, of course, referring to bramble, often named after its fruit, the blackberry.

Suitably protected by my boiler suit, with thick leather gloves tightly fastened on each hand and armed with some long handled loppers I attack the shrub from the outside first, nipping off each cluster of leaves until I can see deeper in to where the bramble is hiding. I am ruthless, this is not an exercise in prettiness. The aim here is to reduce the whole thing to a size which enables us to walk around this part of the garden.

I soon notice, however, something quite surprising. The flesh inside a mahonia branch is bright yellow, thicker stems also having an internal ring of white with more yellow inside that. This takes me by surprise as I apologise to the plant for any harm I might be causing. Then eventually I can see the bramble stems deep inside rising from the ground and I push the loppers in to cut them off as close as possible to the ground.

I have nothing personal against the bramble (I would be the first to eat jam made from its fruit) but we have just bought a house with a garden completely overrun by this plant, to such an extent that normal gardening cannot even begin until the long trailing stems are cut out. By their nature the strength of those stems and the roots that feed them is quite remarkable, impressively so. Human strength alone will not break them. Instead each stem must be traced across the ground or through whatever plant it has invaded until it disappears into the soil where it can be cut so that the whole stem can then be ripped free. Inevitably during the process of doing this the spikes will find your flesh, usually the wrists, but eyes and ears are equally vulnerable unless great care is taken. So far we have filled our trailer three times with bramble stems, each time jumping on the load to squash it flat before taking it to the local tip. Then, realising the futility of wasting fuel by driving, we began to pile the material up in the garden, awaiting the next dry spell when we will have a massive bonfire.

Changing the subject a little...I believe I may have mentioned before the 'stuff' we have been (un)fortunate enough to have purchased along with our new house. The quantity of garden tools alone, particularly small trowels and forks stashed in both sheds, in the greenhouse, or just lying about in the garden, is hard to comprehend. Someone who once lived here clearly had a fetish about nails and screws too. These come in all sizes and are invariably in little packets, carefully wrapped then placed in larger bags or boxes or rusted tins. The space beneath the house (we call this the understory although this normally refers to the area beneath a woodland tree canopy) is the best place to find screws although on each visit down there something else is discovered. There was a considerable collection of long playing records, most of which date back to the 1960s and were welcomed in our local charity shop, an elderly knitting machine, a wooden table and two benches lay dismantled alongside a box of hinges and a bagged up gazebo. It is clear from the layer of dust that none of these items have been touched for years; they were forgotten long before the last owner chose to forget to take them away when she moved out.

A tasteful cluster of tiny drawers was fixed to the wall high up in a kitchen cupboard, not the sort of place where one might expect to keep a ragged assortment of screws, small electrical bits, hooks, tiny nuts and bolts, a random collection of washers, assorted nails, plastic wall plugs and 11p in coin (that is if you ignore the Belgian francs). The sheer randomness of each little drawer's contents speaks volumes about the mind of the person who put together this collection, a level of disorderliness to which I can only aspire. Indeed it has made me recognise one aspect of my own make up which results in my recoiling in horror when faced with having to deal with something like this, casting over 90% of what is before me into the rubbish bin. Each item was clearly manufactured with a particular purpose in mind, a destination which it should have shared with others of its kind or indeed a role which it might have uniquely held for many years. All that is now lost.

But I have gone on long enough here about the discoveries in and around our new home and since for some days rain has discouraged further play out in the wilder areas of our garden we now indulge in some indoor relaxation by planning how we might change the inside spaces to suit our tastes. Lots of thinking and months of decorating lie ahead.

Moving in and on

We turn the key and the door to our new home opens smoothly. Some might be tempted to go for the over-the-threshold carry but we have already agreed to go for a threshold rollover instead, purely for health and safety reasons. Finally we are inside and look around. It is all ours, warts and all.

It is, in fact, only the second time we have stepped inside the property, this despite various requests for another viewing and a lengthening list of things to check or measure. Can we look inside the shed(s)? What are the house carpets like? (Who thinks to stare at your feet when you are being shown around by the charming resident owner, a lady who offers us coffee and a plate of biscuits.) Is there a space in the kitchen for our dishwasher? Can we take a peek in the attic? Will our Martin fit in the garage? (Actually we discovered the answer to this one by a sneaky drive past and rapid deployment of a tape measure. The answer is... not without some modifications to the garage roof.)

When it came to collecting the keys to our new home, and given that the estate agent's office is twenty miles further on down the road, we asked if the keys could be left somewhere nearer, with a neighbour perhaps. We'd almost lost hope of avoiding the forty mile round trip when word finally reached us that the keys would be left for us to collect, in the village post office.

Then another call came in, this time from our removers, saying that they were at that moment emptying the house we are buying of its contents and, because no packing had been done in advance, this was taking far longer than planned. Would we mind some stuff being left behind in one room until our moving in, four days later? This we agreed to, for the sake of the sanity of the removers, but little doubts were beginning to sink in.

We were, therefore, beginning to feel a little more apprehensive than we might have been. For the last seven weeks we had been asking ourselves whether we had missed anything, whether our memories of that all too brief viewing were accurate and more particularly, should we have lifted at least a few carpets or peered into a cupboard or two before we made our offer. Looking back it seems like a mad gamble - not the sort of behaviour we undertake routinely - and our sensible selves are shouting back at us, telling us off. Then, added to this, we would be moving into a house which still has property of the previous owner inside, something any solicitor will tell you is a no-no. It can lead to chaos. It relies on trust, which the solicitor never recognises as existing. In the real world, however, trust does exist, hence our acquiescence to this arrangement. But is it misplaced?

Then it got worse. Midway through the very day we are supposed to be collecting those keys and getting access to our new home, crossing the threshold, we hear the owner has not moved out and has yet to sign the necessary papers transferring ownership. We are now getting frantic. Calls to the estate agent and to our solicitor take place with little joy. It is a Friday and nobody works at weekends, of course. We have packed almost everything, disconnected our appliances and our removers are booked for the following Monday. Do we have to cancel this? We pace around our box-filled house like people possessed.

The weekend passes with no communications from anyone, our blood pressures are rising steadily as we know that at 9am on Monday a team of removers will start loading our belongings into vans but we have nowhere for them to go, no house to move into. By 11am the first van is loaded. Then, finally, at 11.30 the call comes. We have a house (something that should have happened three days earlier) and we can now collect the keys. We all hit the road early afternoon then climb the steps to our new front door an hour or so later.

Our vendor has indeed left belongings in one bedroom - it was full to the ceiling - but she had neglected to mention that neither of the sheds had been emptied, nor the space beneath the house. Odd items of her property are scattered everywhere indoors, left behind as she moved on.

Oh, and this is what we missed underfoot.

Our team of removers did their best, emptying the bedroom and then taking away two lawnmowers, but this left a long list of items (nothing of particular value) for us to deal with. When you buy a house, unless agreed otherwise everything within it becomes yours, which means you can dispose of it as you choose. But why should we have to?

All this additional hassle and stress we could have done without; any sympathy we had for the previous owner evaporated from the moment she began to mess us around by delaying the sale. But we now put behind us the distain with which we have been treated by the seller and we move on. The new house is just what we need and we love the location. There is much about the house we want to change (starting with those carpets) to make it ours but we shall enjoy the big project that lies ahead.

Packing and moving house

There must be a simple mathematical formula associated with living in a house for any length of time, expressed as a relationship between the number of years occupancy relative to the amount of accumulated 'stuff' stored therein. No amount of careful hoarding-avoidance changes this. It is an inescapable fact of life itself, part of the human condition that remains hidden from view until moving day arrives when everything you own has to be packed into boxes.

Boxes, boxes and more boxes. We have more on order and cannot wait for them to arrive so we can start filling them.

The whole process of moving house, selling one place and buying another, has its own timetable, one that runs at different speeds from one end to the other. Here in Scotland an up front Home Report is the seller's responsibility so the sale starts slowly, visits by the estate agent then a surveyor. These are busy people, so they always insist. After they have seen all they need to see, asked those important questions and taken those carefully stage-managed photos time slows down as you wait for their efforts to manifest themselves; your approval of their expert preparatory work is needed before the process can continue. Finally our house is out there, pictured in glorious colour, online for all to see - the modern way - and displayed in a high street window - the old fashioned way. The next day we get a call for our first viewing, as if someone was just sitting there waiting. This is soon followed by another. I check to see if there is a queue outside.

House purchase is somewhat different. Estate agents are tripping over themselves to get you a viewing of your chosen house then can't wait for your views. Once an offer is made and accepted though, time grinds to a halt and no amount of nudging makes any difference. The legal process has its own pace and we just have to live with it. We wait and wait for something called a 'date of entry', something that must coincide with the seller leaving the property, leaving behind an empty house.

These changes of pace are hard to understand and put pressure on us as participants in what is already one of the most stressful of life's events. We need a distraction, hence the boxes and the packing, which we continue with on the assumption that the two separate processes, the sale and the purchase, will deliver at roughly the same time. Our spare bedroom gradually fills with boxes until we can hardly close the door but it all seems strangely unreal. Our attic is now an empty space, its contents divided between the spare bedroom, the Wheely bin, the charity shop and the local tip in roughly equal proportions. We try to think positively by reminding ourselves of the effort our family will avoid by us doing this now instead of leaving the sorting and the boxing to them at some future date when we pass on. I'm sure their gratitude will be unmeasurable.

There are many checklists associated with moving house and many different outside parties to be notified. But no matter how much time and effort we put into researching the contract or arrangement with each one we keep coming across surprises. It seems there are unforeseen consequences to moving house. A year ago we signed up for a fixed price deal with our electric supplier. It still has 18 months to run but it appears we cannot carry this with us to a new house. Any new contract will be at a higher price....of course.

Then there's the broadband, another fixed term contract. This time there's either a cancellation or a moving charge even if we want to install the same equipment in the new place...which we don't.

Conclusion - you cannot win!

Moving house is not, of course, something you do alone. Normally you become part of a chain of house moves all of which have to synchronise at more or less the same time or else nobody gets to move. It's rather like a line of swimmers along the edge of a pool, all holding hands and leaping into the water together. It doesn't work unless you all jump simultaneously. If just one holds back then it breaks the chain and when it comes to houses, if the chain breaks then someone is left homeless. For both swimmers and houses there is, of course, always a beginning and an end to the chain, a first time buyer at one end and an already empty house at the other perhaps, but generally the longer the chain, the longer it takes and the greater the pain. Thankfully our chain is short but we do have other delays, not least of which is what happens when one of the solicitors involved catches Covid and drops out of action for a week or so.

Then finally we have a date, at last. Six or eight weeks was what the estate agent predicted but he was wrong. It was seven. This is what it has taken, from end to end. Actually we have two dates, one to move in and then seven days later, one to move out. This gives us the chance to clean and polish our old house leaving it ready for those moving in then bid farewell to the neighbours and to the village that has been our home for the last eleven years. Removers are arranged, now it is simply a matter of going through the multiple checklists we have prepared to make sure nothing is forgotten. Oh, and more packing. Boxes, boxes, boxes.

Lindisfarne

We don't often have it, but when something called 'spare time' comes along then one of the things that often emerges is an old photograph, maybe discovered in an album previously hidden beneath a pile of papers or perhaps slipped between the pages of a long forgotten book. This is because 'spare time' is often used to move our 'stuff' about, to shift it from one place to another within the house. We might call this 'tidying up'. It achieves two things; firstly it can dramatically change the appearance of one corner of the house by moving the 'things' somewhere else (or better still out of sight into a cupboard) and secondly it makes those 'things' impossible to find should you later want them. Which is what happened once before to that old photograph.

But all that was before photos changed from ink on paper to bytes, a name for a system of electronic codes first coined in 1956 to describe an ordered collection of bits, which were the smallest amounts of data that a computer could process. I am guessing that we are unusual amongst our generation for storing all our old family pictures as electronic codes, inaccessible without artificial intelligence in the form of a computer, but this is in fact what we do. And there are many advantages flowing from doing so. For example it requires far less 'spare time' to find them, they can no longer be moved into cupboards and they can't be folded up or spoilt with tea stains. It is even possible to reverse the process that got them into this form originally, to change them back to paper and ink. It's called printing. But why on earth would you want to do this!

All this brings us to a picture of our son Ben taken over 30 years ago, one which has lost none of its charm since. We were visiting Lindisfarne at the time, an island off the north east coast of England often referred to as Holy Island due to the priory which existed there thousands of years ago and was an attractive target for invading Vikings. Our memories of why we were visiting this place or even how we got there on that particular occasion are lost to us but the image of our young, red-haired son is not, thanks to this photograph.

Just recently an opportunity came to meet with Ben in Berwick, a town not far from Lindisfarne, this being a place to which we could all travel without too much inconvenience or long distance motoring. Being less enthusiastic drivers we stopped overnight en route, parked up beside Traprain Law, the remains of a long extinct volcano which we then had to climb to the top of... because it's there, then booked into a proper campsite in Berwick for day two. Ben being tired from his own long drive we fed and watered him first before waving the photo about and telling him of our plan. Could we somehow create an equally charming adult version of this photo?

The first things to be considered are the props, which in this case consist of a big lolly (preferably one with 'Holy Island' written on it) and a van, for the background, both of which must be red. Then of course we had to be on the island itself, a place that is accessible via a causeway which is only revealed at certain states of the tide. But a quick check of the tide tables revealed a low tide, an opportunity, the following afternoon. So it was mission on.

As luck would have it the scorching hot weather tempted us to the Berwick seafront in the morning and from there into the sea for a revitalising early morning swim. Then after sustaining ourselves with some exotic paninis we spotted a giant red lolly for sale, exactly what we needed. So the mission is underway and we head off to the island...but then we met the crowds. It is a fine day in summer and a convenient afternoon low tide encourages every man, plus his two dogs, to drive over the causeway to the island, park in the enormous allocated car parking space then walk the half mile or so to the castle, this being the most visible attraction for miles around. The place is absolutely heaving, dogs running everywhere, hot sweaty children who would rather be anywhere else, elderly grandparents who can barely walk the short distance through the village having reluctantly agreed to go but who are now regretting every step, they are all here. This is not ideal when you need a quiet place to try to try to recreate one very specific set of criteria. It is nigh on impossible.

Then, as we briefly escape the crowds into the maze of back streets which house the guardians of the castle, we spot it - a small red car. It is not a perfect match but red is not a popular colour, it seems, amongst the inhabitants of Lindisfarne so we must grab the shot while we can. Ben takes a stance, we snap off a few trial shots... Yes, with a little editing this could be it.

So, did we nail it?

Over thirty years separates the two pictures.

Has he really changed?

Can this really be the same person?

Was it worth the effort? Most definitely yes. The modern day Ben may not remember his first visit but he will most certainly remember this one.

Another retirement

Both our lives are due to change this year. We are retiring!

But wait a second, didn't this happen once before, somewhere around the time this blog started, a good few years ago? Ah yes, but back then we retired from paid work. This time we are retiring from unpaid work, volunteers as it were, fulfilling roles in running our local community through a sense of commitment and having responsibilities without expecting or receiving reward. But make no mistake this is still work. It has many of the features of work that tend to make it so unpopular - the way it takes over your life if you let it, the pressure to get things done on time, the boss...well no, perhaps not this one. Kate and I have both been linchpins in different community organisations for a good few years, longer than most others would wish, and we have gradually become aware of the impact this has had on our lives. The many hours we spend emailing, telephoning, organising, these are hours that are no longer ours to do with as we want.

This is not to say we regret having taken on these jobs - there are rewards to playing an active role in a small local community, a feeling of satisfaction that such involvement inevitably brings - but we both feel that it is time for us to step aside and for others to step up and fill our shoes. This is not a sudden decision and we know we may experience a certain emptiness once we have taken this step but this will be as nothing, we hope, to the pleasure we shall feel from regaining control of lives.

It is, however, easier said than done, to resign from an organisation when so much of the working knowledge of that organisation is stashed away inside your head. Things you have done at certain times, procedures you have followed as a matter of course without thinking, little bits of knowledge that reside in your head without you realising, this must now be documented so others know what needs to be done and when. For example my position as treasurer of the local community trust has put me in possession of a plethora of passwords which I use to access a range of different online services. Many of these are hidden away, saved by my computer, but I must now remember them all so I can pass them on. And what of all those emails now stored on a server somewhere, addressed not to me but to the organisation I have been representing. Will they ever be read again? Does this matter?

Then there is the physical stuff, papers going back years. Should stuff like this be stored away for future reference? If so, where? Or is this a good moment for a big bonfire? All in all the handing over process seems like it is going to need more thought and consideration than the actual job.

Meanwhile...

A quick march around Carradale bay is always a good boost for the brain cells. So when coming across the only mermaid on the beach we are naturally inclined to stay a while and admire her many attributes. She's a stunner!

Distractions

The hot weather continues, apparently. Just not here on the west side of Scotland. Over and over again we have to listen to the same thing, to hear the BBC weather man banging on about how hot it is going to get in the next few days. It is tiresome. It is sheer rudeness, deliberate perhaps, since as a UK weather man he must know full well that there are people out there who will not be experiencing the heatwave he is so confidently predicting. That's his job, after all.

Then finally it does get warmer but somehow at the same time there is a day of constant drizzle, a fine spray of water that wets everything yet the sun penetrates through this at the same time tempting us outside. Warm rain is an improvement on cold and wet, but only for a limited period; until it penetrates everything and drips off the end of your nose. We need a distraction, and the first one arrives in the form of two small children who we were allowed to take care of for a few days to help out their mum. And wow, it's a distraction! Outdoors is wet so we must find indoor distractions and the telly goes on (these are modern kids so it's endless Minecraft movies) then finally they are bored enough to venture out in the damp so it is football in the park (not really part of my skill set) so I am greatly relieved when two other football playing children appear and are happy to share the experience, for a while.

Fortunately, to follow this we have arranged another appointment, with horses. An opportunity has arisen for a trial ride on a horse, for Annalese, who is 11, and has never ridden before. We arrive at the field where three large beasts await us and they come over to meet us. They belong to Tabitha who has agreed to give tuition, which she proceeds to do, very gently and with immense patience.

It turns out Annalese is a natural and even Max, aged 6 is completely comfortable patting and stroking them, although he will not ride.

Annalese tries riding both with and without a saddle, the latter being a strange experience as the horse's muscular back moving beneath the bottom is an unnerving sensation. Such an opportunity as this coming without any strings attached or expectations is as valuable as it gets. We are so grateful to Tabs for this opportunity.

Our next distraction comes straight after the smallies are delivered back to their mum but it involves a long drive across country into a different world, one where the sun shines all day and the mercury has zoomed up inside the thermometer. The east side of Scotland always surprises us for it is so different from the west. There are less hills, just smooth rounded bumps divided into fields of sheep or growing corn. The roads tend to be straighter, although sudden changes of direction do jump out at you from time to time, and the unfamiliarity of the place names brings an unexpected level of entertainment.  Longformacus is one, Papple is another and we feel sorry for those living in Clappers or at Purves Hall.

Arriving in Berwick brings back fond memories of us sailing into the harbour in our first boat, Noggin the Nog, and hearing our two year old son Ben's voice as he repeated the depth sounder readings Kate was calling out to me as I steered across the shallow harbour bar. Some thirty five years later it is Ben who has prompted us back, this time to hear his band, Blackbeard's Tea Party play some loud music at a festival in nearby Horncliffe. Now there's a distraction!

The music is supremely danceable so once they begin to play the band are hidden behind a forest of gyrating bodies but we sit there entranced, proud parents who will leave late that night with ears ringing but no regrets. All this from a simple harbour entrance. Who'd have thought it.

Bobbing about

Eun na Mara is not a large sailing vessel. Ocean crossings in her would be difficult, not because the boat couldn't survive (she's a toughy with no qualms about going out in a good blast) but simply because the humans on board would need food and water and to carry enough of this would be difficult. Her little cupboards and lockers will only take so much and too much extra weight would make her low in the water and slow her down. So she takes us on short trips, and since she has a summer berth in Tarbert then this is the area where we sail, Loch Fyne and around the islands of the Clyde.

She will sail downwind happily, quite fast for one so small. Upwind she will go too but being so small, if this involves crashing into choppy seas then upwind sailing is hard work. The trick is to keep her moving quickly so her momentum pushes through the waves instead of bouncing off them but this is a mental challenge for the skipper who wants to gain ground to windward and tries to point the bow where he wants to go. Loch Fyne is particularly difficult because the wind tends to follow the loch, funnelled between the high ground on both sides. Exiting Tarbert harbour the choices are invariably upwind or downwind, no in between bits where the ideal sailing conditions lie. For a day sail I might choose upwind first to get the hard work out of the way early. If an overnight anchorage is planned, however, then the next day's forecast is equally important. A change in direction from one day to the next could be a real winner, played right.

On arrival at the marina I start with the plan I've had in my head for a day or so, sails up, turn right, head up the Kyles of Bute for one night, potter about, then return home. It's a scenery loaded couple of days, perfect. But as soon as we're clear of the harbour we are beating into a short choppy sea, spray flinging off the bow, strong gusts forcing me to clamber about putting a reef in the mainsail to prevent the boat leaning over too far. It is cool, the sun has barely made an appearance, and with this and the slowness of our progress upwind in mind after 30 minutes or so I review the plan. In between watching my belongings inside the cabin being tossed from one side to the other and hauling on the tiller to try to keep a good course I remember tomorrow's forecast. Today's south westerlies funnelling up the loch will become tomorrow's north westerlies, a crucial shift which, if I changed the plan, might just give me two consecutive days of downwind sailing, an unheard of event! Surely this can't happen.

I make a decision, pull the tiller towards me and ease the sheets, then we're off. Suddenly there is white foam beside me from the bow wave as we surf down the first of thousands of waves. I haven't time to check our speed but experience tells me it's over 6 knots, compared with a reluctant 3 going to windward. The boat stays dry and the gurgling noise from behind means we are flying. There are no other sailing boats in sight, just miles of sea then somewhere, up ahead of me a green concrete post marks the end of a spit of gravel and rocks. Behind this lies Otter Ferry, an anchorage where the lumpy seas can't go. All I have to do is keep steering downwind, eat the sandwiches I thoughtfully prepared earlier and keep my excitement in check till I can round up and drift into my safe haven for the night.

All goes well and once we are secured to the bottom, on a mooring, I can take stock and check the forecast again.

It's not perfect, rain is coming in overnight but it is quite warm and almost still. I erect our small homemade canopy over the cockpit, cook a meal then gaze around me. As I passed the end of the spit a trio of wetsuited swimmers was wading into the water and now I watch them arrive safely back at the shore having swum from where I had just gracefully sailed. Each to his own, I guess.

The rain arrived as predicted overnight, which was encouraging, and the morning came with a damp drizzle. Our little cockpit cover did its job well, keeping us dry. If the forecasters had got it right then around midday the sun would come out and the wind direction would change, a north westerly breeze being perfect for my return leg. The tide would also then begin to ebb, a happy coincidence (or else my perfect planning). All I had to do was wait, watch the gulls and drink tea.

Then suddenly it happened! The rays from our closest star found a gap in the clouds and flooded the world with light and warmth.  Welcome to a new world. Time check, yes the tide should now be on the turn and there are faint ripples on the water too, from a new direction. Mainsail up, cast off the mooring (thank you Otter Ferry), steer towards the end of the spit (which is now under water). Jib is unrolled and we're moving, slowly, barely a sound but there's a wake left behind us. The faint wind is flukey, turning slightly in our favour as we approach the concrete post again. One tack and we're drifting past it, bearing away and picking up speed. The hills are sheltering us no more and there's a fresh little breeze but this time the sea is flat and we accelerate smoothly away. Tarbert lies 10 miles away, still under a heavy cloud but we have blue sky above us, all is well in the world.

The passage home is quick, reaching along at 5 knots, admiring the hills, the absence of other sailing boats, and the warm breeze. 

The colour of the sea reflects the sky and reminds me why we live here. As I approach the harbour a large motor yacht emerges on a converging course which he holds for a while so I can pass ahead of him, then suddenly he veers to cross my bow, dangerously close. Priority to sail is obviously not in his vocabulary so he gets a raised finger before I'm tossed about by his massive wake. But it is just a minor event in an otherwise faultless day.

In no time the sails are lowered and we motor back to our berth, the first use of the engine since we left port the day before. I am still smiling from the two days of fast downwind sailing.