Oars and Plumbers

Looking through the water from my rowing boat

The rivulets slip easily, silently - silky threads, dripping softly into the dark sea water from the tips of my honey coloured oars.  Dip, pull, lift, dip, pull, lift.  The water gurgles lightly at the little bow, forms a small wake at the stern which is easily reclaimed by the smooth curves of the gently rolling swell cradling us on its sympathetic surface. 

I like rowing.  Here within the encircling arms of Millport Bay, I can pull fast and strong till my breath comes in gasps, and the water froths astern, or I can drift calmly wherever the currents take me. 

It was here, as a little girl of 5 or 6, that I learned to row.  Mr. Brown taught me. 

My father’s best friend, but much older than him, Mr. Brown had a rugged, friendly face and pure white hair usually tucked beneath a tweed skip bunnet (cap).  I think his eyes were bright blue, but I could be wrong.  They were certainly kindly.  He had been a plumber to trade, but now retired, he lived in a house in Glasgow with a long thin garden filled with plump vegetables, and indoors a plump wife swathed in a floral apron and residing permanently in the kitchen, or so my childhood memory informs me. 

Millport Bay

Once each year, when we were on holiday in Millport, Mr. Brown would come to visit, and my sister and I would get our annual rowing lesson.   Mr. Brown was an expert.  He told us how, as a little boy, he and his brothers rowed across the Clyde from Langbank, about two miles or more each day to get to school and back.  The image of Mr. Brown as a little boy was beyond me to grasp, but my imagination placed him firmly in a boat full of school bags and lunchpacks, rowing to school, complete with white hair and skip bunnet.

Down the rough grey stone jetty, we wait in the queue to hire our heavy wooden rowing boat.  Once we’ve boarded it in wobbly uncertainly, Mr. Brown places my sister and me on the central thwart, and sits facing us.  We each grasp the seemingly immense oar in both hands, and he then folds one of his huge, strong, warm plumber’s hands over both my childish fists, his other over my sister’s, and off we go.  He teaches us how to push while he pulls, to pull while he pushes, how to steer by using the oars separately, or backwards.  

I’ve been able to control a boat confidently ever since, confidence drawn from the memory of his powerful hands safely over mine.

My current boat is a little blue and white fibre glass cockleshell, named Forget-me-not, and with good reason.  My memories have now translated the little girl learning to row into the young mum, visiting my parents who lived at that time in the tiny village of Minard on Loch Fyneside.   We’d pile into the car, drive the long and twisting route up Loch Lomondside with Ben Lomond towering across the still grey waters ('Mummy, are we there yet?'), over the Rest and Be Thankful mountain road (rock falls were not infrequent  from the often mist wrapped steep mountain slopes above – my father’s car was once hit by a huge boulder that came tumbling, bouncing down the precipes), through Inverary with its grey fairy tale castle of spindly turrets ('Daddy, are we there yet?'), at last arriving at my parents house, white painted, dormer windowed, staring out across the silver loch to the peaks beyond ('Gran!  Grandad!  We're here'). 

One day, I and Douglas, then about 6 - tufty blond hair and big blue eyes - went wandering along Minard's stony beach.  We came upon some small boats, drawn up on the grass for the winter.  One was the wrong way up, full of water, its keel bending ominously, its coaming twisted off.  We ran home, found a bucket, and bailed her out, our fingers red and cold.  The lady in the village shop thought it belonged to an Englishman who had used to live in the village, but had now gone south, back home. The man along the road might know.  He did – said he’d phone him.  Maybe we could buy it?  Hardly any chance we thought.  The kids were small.  Money was tight.  Owning our own rowing boat could only be dream. 

Next visit, Douglas and I went back to ask.  Yes he’d spoken to the man who owned it.  If we wanted it, we could have it for free.  Running home excited.  The whole family helping carry it onto my parents’ sloping lawn. 

And so Bill repaired it.  My father made two beautiful oars for it, honey coloured, varnished wood, so shiny they felt like glass to the touch.  They still do.  We called her Forget-me-not.  We rowed the dark waters of Loch Fyne in her.  We took her to Orkney when we lived there, and rowed with the seals from the beach at the back of our house.  Then to Millport, where she was shipwrecked in a storm, where she was stolen and found abandoned on the rocks, where she tipped me into the freezing sea near the pier one day.  And where now I sit in her, watching the rivulets  slip easily, silently - silky threads, dripping softly into the dark sea water from the tips of the honey coloured oars my father made.

Inky Fingers

Preparing to decorate the bedroom, I clear a clutter of miscellaneous ornamental flotsam and jetsam from the wide window ledge.  In my hand I find a little cube, about two inches high, with a hole in the uneven top.  A swirl of blue and purple through the wobbly clarity of rough glass.  I have another one, somewhere else.  Shaped like a little cup, the top dips into it in a short tube, like a glass lobster pot on end.  Its glass is rough and full of bubbles.  Functional objects, appearance an after thought.  Inkwells.  No-one uses inkwells now.  My fingers skim across these computer keys, but I remember other ways of conveying the written word. 

I can see again the scratched wooden desk I sat at.   Its top slopes like a shallow easel, hinged to form a lid which, when opened, reveals my crumpled blue jotters, my name scrawled haltingly across the front.  These jotters, as I recall, have lists of Imperial measurements printed on the back – mysterious things such as furlong, chain, link, rod, pole, perch - which we are supposed to learn off and recite without any real understanding of why.  

There’s a shallow groove running between the black hinges, and along this I lay my pencils, end to end.  They are constantly escaping and rolling off.  As they bounce across the wooden boards of the uncovered floor, I know that yet again I’ll be forced to raise a nervous little hand, and, when permitted, make my way across to the teacher’s desk.  This involves crossing the open floor exposed to the forty pairs of my classmates' eyes - brown tunics, cream blouses, each fastened into their wooden desks, neat rows, five across, eight deep.  At last I attain the teacher’s huge wooden desk, on the corner of which is my objective – a large box-type pencil sharpener.  It rattles and wobbles as she turns the stiff handle.  I watch the wood curling off and falling into its tidy plastic box.

Pencil tip viciously sharp, I slip back onto safety of my desk’s wooden bench seat, shiny from the restless wriggling of so many brown tunic-clad little bottoms.  At the rightmost end of the pencil groove, there is a round hole, and sitting in this is a little white ceramic inkwell.  Oh, and here’s the Janitor, navy blue serge uniform and official peaked cap.  He’s carrying a jug in which he has mixed up some kind of powder to create the ink we are to use - a thin, gritty, greyish green liquid.  He pours some into each little hole atop the wells.  

I observe my pen with dislike.  It has a wooden handle, a bit like the paintbrush I use in art classes.  At the end is the nib, a metal teardrop shape, split at the point, curved to hold the precious drop of ink and ready to dispense it at exactly the right speed as the pen floats elegantly across the white expanse of the page.  Or at least that is the ideal.  My trembling little seven-year-old hands pick it up and dip it tentatively into the inkwell.  The page seems large, blue lines marching across it with military straightness.  The ink drop obstinately refuses to tuck itself neatly into the back of the nib.  My first insult to the page is only a faint scratch.  I try again.  This time, the ink comes precariously with me, wobbing ominously.  I place the nib on the paper and begin to shape uneven letters approximately along the line.  Hope rises as the ink flows evenly, but a little thin.  I press the pen down harder.  The forked tongue of the nib opens with a protesting squeak, the ink departs and to my horror swells into a dark, forbidding blot.  I raise the trembling fingers again, and attract attention from behind the vast wooden desk.  Blotting paper, white and soft, is presented.  Too anxious, I quickly squash it down and the blot spreads, wide and jagged.  In future years I’ll recognise the result as one of Rorscharch’s Ink Blots, but now I see only as a mammoth catastrophe.  I start again, heart beating, mouth dry, to replenish the ink in the nib.  But it won’t fill, despite increasingly frenzied dipping so that the nib bangs its metal point hard onto the bottom of the little well.  I withdraw it and inspect it.  The forked point is twisted, its two tips intertwined like crossed legs.  I try to straighten it, and my fingers tips become stained greenish grey.  I can hear the other forty pens scratching and squeaking their way across their straight blue lines.  There is no despair like a child fearing peer ridicule and adult critique.

Somehow, I learned to write with a dip pen.  Then came the revolution.  We were permitted to bring fountain pens to school.  I loved my tortoiseshell pen, and the bright blue ‘Quink’ which came in little fat glass bottles.  Carefully inserting the pen’s golden nib into the dark viscous surface, you manipulated a little golden lever on the side.  This compressed a small rubber tube within, and so sucked up the ink.  If you reversed the process, you could form a froth of bubbles in the bottle.  

And then came the Biro, plastic and multi-coloured; the typewriter, its keys set in a small amphitheatre, beating a rat-a-tat-tat as they sprung up in meticulous, choreographed order; the carbon paper which blacked fingers and clothes; the Banda copier, whose purple print would have intoxicated you in a haze of methylated spirits; the dot matrix printer that so impressed us all; the vast photocopiers you had to queue to use.  And now we take it all for granted.  Where’s the cartridge; I’ll print out twenty copies; the spell checker caused that stupid error, not me.

And a whole host of skills fade into history.  But the forked tongues of those sharp nibs have scratched their spidery words indelibly upon the lined pages of my childhood memory.

The Career Ladder

It was quite a tall ladder, unused silver rungs propped against a signpost in the DIY shop car park, label flapping in the breeze.  Leaning one hand against it, Bill waited for me to park the car, protected from the early spring chill by green overalls and a tweed cap.  8.30 am, and we await the other half of Lindsay & Son Electricians, who rolls up a couple of minutes later, and the ladder is roped to the roof rack, tools transferred and off they go – this customer needs a security light, the next wants several new sockets and there’s an estimate to be assembled for a possible house rewire in Perth.

Bill has become a serial retiree.  After two attempts to leave it all behind and put his feet up, he’s back at work again, this time returning to his first love, electrical work.  When we met, forty four years ago, he had not long emerged from the chrysalis of his apprenticeship, and was testing out his new professional wings with increasing confidence.  I remember listening with the fascination of young love as he described his days working in the Ship Model Experimental Tank in Dumbarton, careering from end to end of the long narrow strip of water, atop a complicated electrical contraption.  Or his first job in the shipyards, where, as a naive 15 year old, he traversed in terror those bouncing planks, jutting precariously between the high red rust walls in cavernous empty hulls of half built ships.  I even bought a copy of ‘Teach Yourself Electronics’ in an attempt to understand what he was talking about, but I didn’t get past page two.  After all, the mystique of a world I knew nothing about was more alluring and romantic.  Better to keep it that way.  As our courtship (do they have courtships now?  Probably not – a pity.  It was a gentler start to a relationship) – as our courtship developed, Bill moved to work for British Steel, and gave me vivid mental pictures of the huge furnaces, the white hot molten steel, the red dust everywhere, the heaps of railway lines stacked for testing by mysterious electronic devices whose function I could only vaguely grasp.

Then came University, a career in teaching, the first retirement, ten years in running our shops, more retirement, and now Lindsay and Son Electricians.  Why?  Well, that’s where the ‘Son’ comes in.  And he’s now high atop that new silver ladder, green overall-clad, tools slung around his hips, manipulating some mysterious wire into some minute aperture.

For - like father, like son – Donald has also had a career change.  A Scots musician, he played in London’s Barbican and in grey Scottish castles; in lofty St. Paul’s and tiny Muthill Church cradled in the green Perthshire hills; at funerals, weddings, Hogmanay parties; from Italy to the Dominican Republic; from Catalonia to Crieff - music that makes the heart pound with excitement, yearn at the pathos, or tingle with anticipation.  The green overalls make a change from the kilt and bagpipes, as, now retrained, he’s following in dad’s footsteps.

Hannah and I deliver coffee and bacon rolls, and squint anxiously up the ladder.  Bill comments on progress, offers suggestions, combines decades of electrical and teaching knowledge and fond fatherhood with a smidgeon of humour, and trips over a concrete flower tub. 

And then, suddenly, the light flashes on, and we all cheer.  It works.  It all works together.  It works.

Path

On the train today.  Reminded me of an earlier journey, from Dundee to Glasgow.....

Path

Elbow to elbow

Rhythmically sway

Packed in our box

Rush on our way

Fold up my papers

Tuck in my feet

Musn’t protrude

Outwith my own seat

Watch out for the trolley!

Pull in my knees

Triangular sandwiches

Biscuits and teas

Where is my ticket?

My coat’s on the shelf

So sorry, don’t worry

I’ll get it myself

And out there unfolding beyond the thick glass

Pale pink and gold blossoms on fragile spring grass

Banks rubbed by the whorls on the river’s broad back

And pools of white gold where the current is slack

And under bare arms of those spindly trees

A black path uncurls and seems to say “Please –

Please stroll on my now, in the thin golden air

Hear the river converse, feel the wind in your hair!”

But I would be empty, as one and not two

So I’ll wait till I walk there, together with you.

5.2.2012 Dead Pigeons as loft insulation (Millport, Isle of Cumbrae, Scotland)

Dead Pigeons as loft insulation

On TV they make it look so easy – fun even.  Teams of dungaree-clad, muscle rippling tradesmen stride up the path and in half an hour (including advertising breaks) the house is transformed from a rot infested, dank, old fashioned three bed semi into a sleek minimalist pad with double height ceilings, walls of glass, glittering recessed lighting, pristine white ceilings and calm, suave owners.    The before and after shots look as if someone has just pressed a button and hey presto, transformation.

So why is it that our attempt to refurbish our pretty Victorian cottage has already taken us a month and so far we appear only to have succeeded in creating dusty chaos throughout.  We started by inviting our local timber specialist, Angus, to squirm down a minute hatch under the floor, where he found no rot but offcuts of timber that the original builders left lying about in 1897.  No point submitting a complaint however.  As we say here, ‘The man who did that has’nae got a headache noo’.    

Angus then wriggled himself up the tiny aperture into our tiny loft.  There he encountered the comfortable abode of numerous generations of pigeons, whose nests, feathers, unhatched eggs and even three and a half desiccated corpses were providing a somewhat unwholesome layer of insulation above the bedrooms.  A whole new meaning to the phrase 'pigeon loft'.  So Bill, masked like Darth Vader, ascended the ladder, and, not being as slim as Angus, coaxed his ample form through the limited space, clutching a bucket and rubber gloves, and anticipating that he would be up there till he lost enough weight to get back down again.  Several hours and eight bulging black sacks later, the loft was clean.  So now we are insulating it with massive thick brown cushions of fibre glass.  These were purchased at an unbelievably low price owing to the generosity of the government, which is anxious to save money by reducing the number of elderly couples that need to be thawed out courtesy of the National Health Service.

So now half the loft is insulated, and I am getting used to the ladder in the bathroom, the black polythene which is carpeting the kids’ bedroom, the mattress propped against my wardrobe such that I have to grope for my clothes and be prepared to wear whatever I pull out, sight unseen.  Then there’s the cupboard in the hall where the chair should be, and that same chair temporarily re-homed in front of the TV making viewing just a little tricky.  And the spare bed, empty of bedding and upended precariously.  And of course the dust, fine and clinging, covering everything with a light, greyish powder.   

And the fact that you can’t find anything.   The stapler is as likely to be in the vegetable rack as on the desk; that red screwdriver that was definitely on the bookcase in the hall yesterday is in fact in the sock drawer, and what on earth is that scarf doing in the coal bucket??

And this is only month one – insulation.  We still have to put up the special wallpaper, do the plaster repairs, the painting, re-carpeting, re-curtaining, installation of central heating, total repaint of the outside, digging out the garden, repairing the woodwork on the dormer.  That’s assuming I haven’t forgotten anything.  Makes me exhausted just to think of it.   Why can’t that team of dungaree-clad, muscle rippling tradesmen stride up my path I’d like to know.  But I have just noticed that my own personal dungaree-clad muscle rippling man is no longer snoozing peacefully by the fire.  A distant rumbling and bumping indicates that he is roosting in the loft again.  Maybe pigeon comforts have something to commend them after all.

Wednesday February 1st. Ice Flowers and Silent Pines

Ice Flowers and Silent Pines

I saw them as soon as I opened the blind in the sloping attic bathroom window – like tiny white daisies, scattered across the pane in the night.  Frost flowers, delicate and transitory, edged the pane, framing the picture beyond.  A picture of grey green grass, dappled with icy diamonds; of trees, bare of leaves, their delicate twigs a fretwork against a sky of clear, duck-egg blue; of dark hills rimmed with black pines; of grey cottages, smoke rising ramrod straight from their stubby chimneys.  Just out of sight, I visualise the Cairngorm Mountains, huge pillows of white, appearing soft, belying their granite hearts.

Cairngorms under snow

It’s over 20 years since we bought our week in the winter days of Speyside.  We first came the year my father died.  We couldn’t face New Year without him – the family parties on Hogmanay in the tiny cottages on Loch Fyneside where we stayed, near to my parent’s house, to see the New Year in.  I can see them yet - the children spending all day preparing party pieces, the laughter as ridiculous sketches were rehearsed; bending down to dance the Dashing White Sergeant with wee partners, whirling little hands in Strip the Willow.  My sister and family came from Ireland each year to join us all.  Once I remember Douglas and Alison performing Highland and Irish dancing together in front of the log fire.  And then the New Year dinner – a scrum of sixteen adults and kids crushed around the table.  Broth, steak pie, trifle, black bun; my mother sipping her sherry, the one and only alcoholic drink of her year.

But when he was gone, we knew all that was all gone too, that we’d have to find other ways of doing family.  And we did.  But that first year after he went, we came here, to Abernethy, for the first time.  And we’ve been coming ever since, for 26 Januaries.

Rosie

Some years I have come alone, and worked to author reports or design research, breaking to walk through the forests of Scots pine, cathedral-like in silence; other years Bill and I have come together, reading by the fire as snow swirled past the wide glass doors, huge soft flakes covering the sloping grassy bank that leads down to the lochan, slate grey in the winter light.  Other Januaries have seen tiny babies curled in our arms – Ben at 12 days old, Molly at six weeks, Rosie at ten weeks.  Toddlers have splashed in the small swimming pool, children have tumbled giggling off sledges, groups of adults and kids have laughed uproariously at board games around the oval pine table.  One year we walked along the old railway track to Grantown, Molly high on Calum’s back.  Wide expanses of fields and rough grasses stretched out on either side, reaching from the silent birch woods on one side to the dark broad waters of the River Spey on the other, deep and deceivingly calm, only occasional whorls on the surface denoting the urgency which rushes it towards the distant sea.  

Walking to Grantown

The red squirrels flicker up wide trunks; roe deer, unexpected across the road ahead or silent at the edge of the trees near the lochan; rabbits whose burrows pock mark the grass; crows caw, the fluttering sheen of their black wings; at night the stars, unearthly bright; once, the northern lights – the heavenly dancers – silken skirts of red, green, gold, whisking across the velvet darkness in an ethereal waltz.    

This week has been a thread woven through the family’s life for decades.  It’s a recurring verse – a chorus - in the poem of our family life.

27.1.12 Wings

I heard it.  They don’t really twitter, they twinkle, little glittering sounds like tiny silver bells.  I couldn’t see him – his tiny form, a ruckle of brown feathers, must have hidden somewhere among the sterility of chrome and steel vents and grills above my head.  He could flutter there, perch on his bony little feet, to stare down, head askew, eyes like bright black berries.  Below him, the flocks of migrating humanity strode by, important and focussed, looking at screens, phones tucked between shoulder and cheek, bags following neatly behind on obedient little wheels or strapped heavy to their backs.  They queued, they waited, patiently or not, drank tea, opened laptops, but always with an ear for the metallic voice that would tell them was their turn to take to the air.   

But I heard him.  His sweet little voice spoke of the clarity of mountain air, the freshness of a treetop, the bloom of snowdrops by the burn, the promise of springtime amid winter frost.  He can fly without a cardboard ticket, passport in a battered blue cover.  No security check for him, no need to chaotically divest himself of belts, shoes, bags.  No body search for him, no waiting, waiting, waiting to spread rigid metal wings and drag himself to the sky.  He’ll be off, swerving and gliding, rising up in a series of loose curves, like waves on an empty beach.  He knows how to fly.  I can only wait for my noisy imitation.  

But I’m glad I listened to him.  For a few seconds he took me with him.

15.1.2012 ‘Born on a Volcano’ Santa Cruz de la Palma (Canary Islands)

Almond trees in flower

The wind was ripping white foam off the wave tops as we arrived in Santa Cruz de la Palma, the pale clouds scudding across the sky, the ship’s flag stretched out flat at the stern.  The third smallest of the Canary Islands (only El Hierro and La Gomera are smaller), La Palma lays claim to one of the largest caldera (craters) in the world, and this was what we set off to see.  The road uncoiled, snake like, up through the town and into the foothills, passing flamboyant bourgainvillia in magenta, orange, scarlet; blood red poinsettia, taller than the houses and perennial here; prickly pears, like bushes of bright green table tennis bats.  Then came the deciduous sweet chestnut trees, unusual in their autumn colours; laurels; almond bushes, their tiny flowers blushing with the most delicate of pinks. 

A little church, white and volcanic grey rested easily beside a shaded village square, perched on the steeply sloping mountainside.   Large trees grew as they had done for centuries through the neat cobbles.  It’s Sunday and the priest’s voice, deep and rich, echoes through the sun and shadows.   Past the church, the ground fell away, ledges crowded with banana palms and jostling tobacco plants surrounded white houses, dotted across the crevasses below and above.  The church was lit by chandeliers, which picked out the ruby red drapes along the walls.  Altar nooks were home to carved saints, one surrounded by baby clothes – a tradition to donate these at Christmas time, so that they can be distributed to needy families in January.  The most detailed Nativity scene I had ever seen filled the entire front of the church – behind the stable scene, little caves contained figures and animals grouped with their animals around tiny camp fires – the more one peered the more little little tableaux appreared.  Instead of the usual little family in a lonely stable, this one was in the heart of a whole community of activity.

We travelled onward and upward through the precipitous slopes.  Then a tunnel punched through the massive heart of the mountain, and we emerged into bright sunshine and tall Canarian pines, their soft thread like leaves, bunched like feather dusters, moving gently in the breeze, the ground below dappled with sunbeams on dry tan pine needles.

The rock faces of the caldera were stark – brown rock so sheer that not even the ubiquitous pine trees could cling on.  To convey the precipitous nature of the landscape is impossible, even by photographs.  Place your chin on your chest and stare down – you cannot see anywhere near the bottom.  Now raise your head till your neck cricks, and, shading your eyes, you can just pick out the fretwork of trees rimming the cliff tops.  The sight inspires awe; the total silence of it, reverence.

Across the chasm, one tiny house perches on the cliff face, a green field surrounding it.  Its occupant, we are told, lives there alone, making his own cheese and wine, producing his own meat and vegetables.  It takes him forty five minutes to walk and scramble to his van, in order to begin the long, twisting descent to the market to sell his goods.

Back down again we find Santa Cruz de La Palma is a relatively small city, as yet largely unaffected by tourism.  Two storey houses line the shore, old carved balconies slightly askew with age.  This is the most volcanically active island of the Canaries.  Out of the thirteen eruptions there have been here in the last five hundred years, seven have been here, the most recent in 1971.  Our guide could remember it – a deep forbidding rumbling that foretold what was about to happen, but not where.  This was the most terrifying bit.  Once the volcano showed itself, you knew where you were.  In fact, it was good for business – tourists came to see it, and it ended up producing acres of extra land that went on to be sold for banana plantations.  In fact, the neighbouring island of El Hierro is erupting right now, underwater near the island, and a new island is beginning to break the surface.  But it has also killed all the fish, and as that island’s main economy is fishing, that is a real anxiety.

Our guide said people ask her if it doesn’t make her nervous, living here.  ‘No’, she said ‘I was born on a volcano.  I live on a volcano.  That’s just the way it is’. 

14.1.2012 Las Palmas, Gran Canaria (Canaries)

Last time we were in Las Palmas in Gran Canaria, we had hired a car.  Ignorant of the layout of the town, we spent the afternoon wandering down streets lined with office blocks.  To make matters worse, it was raining.  I have never felt that interested in Las Palmas since.  So this time we invested in a guided tour.   This pointed out that there was a huge golden beach, only minutes from where we were, and which we had totally missed last time.  We then went to the old town.  A fairy tale hotel building, nestling in palms and Bird of Paradise plants, built originally by a British guy – the Brits appear to have been quite influential here.  Trade had achieved what Nelson could not (it was in the Canaries that he left his arm behind).  The old town is elegant, with tall, pastel shaded buildings, carved dark wood balconies, flowing bourgainvillia, little open air cafes.  Dragon trees, stubby branches and blood red sap.

Like the other major towns, it claims Columbus for its own, even though he was Italian.  He stayed here in the Governor’s house on his way to ‘discover’ the USA (we suspect the native Americans actually already knew perfectly well it was there).  The house was built of volcanic rock in three colours – black, being lava cooled in the sea; tan, lava cooled on land; and green, lava cooled in fresh water.  In typical Canarian style, the building cradled a quiet courtyard in its midst, where a tall palm reached for the blue rectangle of sky, past carved wooden balconies, a fountain, and two parrots, red/green and blue/yellow, who were preening each other on a small stone birdtable.  

Columbus was Genoese, and tried to get Italy and then Portugal to pick up the tab for his daft-sounding idea of sailing west to get to Japan.  They decided it was a pretty dodgey business proposition, and would probably end with their investment tipping off the edge of the world.  However, the Spanish Queen, persuaded perhaps by his swarthy Latin charm, coaxed her husband to cough up the necessary, and so with three little ships – minute compared to our cruise ship – he arrived in Gran Canaria to get kitted out for the journey across the ocean.  Then off to across the seas to Japan (he thought) but not before stopping off in nearby La Gomera to spend some time with a local lass he fancied – and by all reputes, left a memento with her nine months later. 

His success led to Hollywood and Big Macs, but the locals there experienced even worse problems as a result of Columbus’ tourist adventures.  The Guanches of the Canaries could have told them what was coming their way. 

A tragic sculpture in a lush garden depicted three of them throwing themselves from a high cliff into the sea.  Apparently, the Guanches were so distraught at the loss of their islands to the Spanish, and the prospect of years of serfdom, that they committed mass suicide in this way.  History is a harsh story teller.

That night, a walk on the deck, staring down at our neighbours in the next berths - two elegant square riggers, rigging a tracery of spider webs among their masts, shining ethereal in the darkness.

'Christian Radich' and 'Lord Nelson' in Las Palmas

16.1. 2012 A Life on the Ocean Wave (Madeira)

We woke again in beautiful Madeira, our cruise circle complete.  The sun was warm on our backs as we strolled along the waterfront beneath the curving palm branches, and settled on little white chairs constructed of twirling wrought iron, to sup our last milk shakes of the holiday.  Soon our bus would sweep us back to the world of endless airport queues, security checks - unpack computer, take off belt, strip off jumper, walk here, stop there, don’t forget your boarding card, watch the overhead screens for details of gates etc. etc. etc.  But for now a chance to absorb the cheerful tourist chatter, watch the little boats in the bay.

Cruising is something you could get used to.  Amazing how quick you develop a routine – get up, peer out of the porthole – a new dock, a new landscape each morning.  Then the big decisions of the day begin, ie which venue to have our breakfast – the Seven Seas Restaurant, crisp white clothes, cheerful waiters, or the Lido Cafe – round white tables with green and blue chairs, buffet service, views over the polished stern deck area.  And what to have?  Juicy fresh pineapple, melons red and white, grapes, raisins, walnuts, cheeses, all manner of fries, toast, jam, muffins and more besides.  When breakfast stops, lunch starts – Chinese noodles, vegetable korma, shepherd’s pie, golden roast potatoes, turmeric rice, soft twisting pasta.  When lunch stops, afternoon tea begins – scones, cakes, biscuits that taste like shortbread, and bowls filled with mounds of jam, others brimming with cream.  And afternoon tea runs straight into dinner, dinner into supper. 

 

Out on deck, we can find a sheltered nook and get out the books and crochet, or, Bill’s favourite, the onboard crossword, new each day.  Or sleep in the sun.  It’s also possible to play board games, compete in quizzes, watch films, play table tennis or deck quoits, listen to singers, have a massage, take dance lessons, and so on and so on – you get the idea.

And yet a man declared he had nothing to do, and another that there was nothing to eat.  Some people just refuse to be satisfied with anything.

Vegetable bouquet

One afternoon on the pool deck, there was a demonstration of fruit and vegetable carving.  Three chefs sporting their tall stiff hats and armed with knives which they whipped and twirled in their fingers, took melons, small tomatoes, oranges, onions, carrots, and sculpted a huge bouquet of flowers, a little girl’s face, trees full of small fat birds.  Another sunkissed afternoon, a huge block of ice, like misty glass, was chopped, filed and planed until a horse’s head, mane flying behind it, appeared from within.

Evening dinner was either formal – five courses in the Seven Seas Restaurant, waiter service, shining glasses on white clothes, and followed by singing waiters full of fun, or else informal – little candles on checked clothes in the Lido Cafe.  And then the rush to make sure of seats in the theatre at the bow, glittering song and dance routines, singing to rival the best you could get onshore.  Normally, we avoid holiday entertainment like the plague, but this was different.  Youthful energy and enthusiasm coupled with skill and professionalism.  It was all colour, brilliance, movement and music.

And the most regular activity of all – wandering the polished wooden decks, watching the crew deploy the ropes as we docked, and loose them when we left, coiling them into tidily huge cushions, ready for the next port.  Watching over the rail as the foam glowed white in the moonlight, expanding along the ship’s sides, as like a plough cutting soft earth, she cut the ocean before her, wrapping it over on itself in soft folds.

'Destiny'

It was fun, it was relaxing, it was a break from the hurly burly of life at home.

13.1.2012 Santa Cruz de Tenerife (Tenerife)

Santa Cruz de Tenerife

1490 they came, 2000 Spaniards with permission from their King - permission to take over the nine Guache kingdoms of Tenerife.  I’m not sure how you can give permission for someone to take something that isn’t yours, but the King of Spain was not the first and certainly not the last to do so.  So the Spanish came, bringing with them a wooden cross, since known as ‘The Cross of the Conquest’, a name which in my view is a libel, given all that Jesus both taught and modelled about how we should treat one another.  But again, it wasn’t the first libel of this sort and it certainly was not and will not be the last.  But that is how Santa Cruz – Holy Cross in English – got its name.

It crouches at the foot of some extremely jagged and irregular mountains, making some attempts to struggle its way up into the foothills with modern apartment blocks.  The hills are dry and dusty, much more so that they were the last time we were here, four years ago.  At that time, the north of the island was green and lush, and only the south was dry.  It appears that Morocco’s shortage of rain applies here also.  (The cynical Scot in me wonders if this is because we have taken everybody else’s rain this year as well as our own generous share – certainly feels like it).

The city centre is a mixture of modern rectangular boxes, romantic Spanish-style houses in green, yellow, cream, peach, with swirling white decoration and an air of elegance, and dramatic modern designs, some breath taking and some in the ‘why did they bother?’ category.  In the dramatic group was an opera house which, although smaller, could rival Sydney, with a huge, free standing arch, open at one end, sheltering a series of smaller arches.  It looked like the white sails of a ship, about to be overwhelmed by an immense wave. 

There are small squares, one resplendent in ceramic tiling which covers the ground, the benches and the pool; another with a magnificent marble fountain, in which plump cherubs pour water into fluted basins while above them a man appears to be wrestling a snake into submission.  A large park, full of whispering bamboo walkways and unusual grey-green palms, concealing in its greenness fountains, and modern sculptures in a range of shapes that teases the brain and the eyes.  A floral clock, (Gifted by the Danish Consul), less intricate than the one in Princes Gardens in Edinburgh, keeps time with a splash of joyful colour.

We came upon a market, a peach and white wall surrounding market stalls.  It was a much neater, cleaner and less vibrant version of Morocco’s souk, but beguiling none the less.  Outside, a mammoth motor bike stood, flags of several nations flickering atop, two conventional wheeled suitcases strapped to the sides, and names of far flung destinations painted all over it.  Its owner, who was deaf and mute, proved to be a somewhat mature Hell’s Angel, who had in fact ridden all around the world on this between 2000 and 2011.  A map defined his route, which wiggled its way over the many continents of the world, showing he had touched everywhere, just about, from Shetland to South America and all points between.

Later, we strolled along the colossal quayside as the evening light faded and the glimmering lights of the city reflected across the water.  Three muscular tugs, with trimmed Goth- style necklaces of huge black tyres, bucked in the swell, and a flotilla of tiny dinghies whispered across the wave tops, while behind us the Destiny glowed and hummed with life.  Tomorrow another day, another port.

12.1.2012 Bikes and Germans (Lanzarote)

I like Lanzarote.  Its black glittering beaches, its conical brown mountains, its sea - royal blue and warm, its square white houses, its pitch black rocks pock marked with holes like Swiss cheese.  Not everybody does – ‘Lanzagrotty’ some call it, shocked perhaps by its violent geology, its brutal volcanic landscape, its black gravel replacing grass.  When I first saw it, I was unsettled by it too.  But it needs a second take, a chance to absorb, a determination to abandon one’s assumptions that landscapes should be pretty, soothing, green.  Then you become thrilled by its difference, excited by its drama, charmed by its architecture, awestruck by its volcanic power.  Well named ‘ Lanzarote - the Flame Thrower’

On arrival in Arrecife (capital of Lanzarote) we decided to go cycling.  This seemed a good antidote to the endless buffets, afternoon teas, five course evening meals, midnight suppers etc. etc., available night and day on just about every deck of the ship.  Not that we have over-eaten.  Well, not a lot.  Ok – a lot.  We had tried to fight back by avoiding using the lift and climbing from our cabin on Deck 2 to the Sky Lounge on Deck 12.  But as we had not packed oxygen cylinders, we didn’t try it again, and instead reverted to scones with jam and cream as a restorative.  Hence the bikes.  

We met at the desk on Deck 4, kitted out as best we could.  One fellow cyclist was waiting already, a chap about our age.  Good – he’s likely to sweat and puff as well, we thought.  However, brief conversation revealed that he got rid of his car some years ago and now pedal pushes everywhere, rain, hail or shine.  Then Raoul turned up, a Brit with a similar figure to ours, but considerably less of an antique.  Somewhat intimidated, we suddenly recognised the attractions of the Lido Cafe, by now serving morning coffee - but we resisted.  Perhaps because we were suddenly joined by our guide, whose lithe and muscular physique appeared to have been poured into red and black lycra, whose sleek black hair and golden skin denoted many a mile spent on the saddle.  His designer sunspecs reflected rainbows making him inscrutable.  He told us he was Brazilian and that his name was Abraham.  The cycles were produced, along with red and white cycle helmets, and so down the gangway, we followed Abraham into the desert.  Having nearly fallen off my bike in the dock car park, Bill and I took up position at the rear of the party, a position which we maintained throughout the day, with varying distances separating us from the rest of the group.  In fact, Abraham proved to be an excellent guide, long suffering of his puffing, red faced charges, and providing local information as we went along, although often we were too far behind to hear it.

Abraham surveys his charges

But it was exhilarating, gliding down hills past the fat little palm trees; gardens in which the snake-like irrigation systems refreshed the cacti, aloe vera, and red hot pokers sprouting from the black gravel; the jagged black rocks over which the sea broke in mists of sea spray which brushed our foreheads.  Costa Teguise, our objective, was reached at last - a little resort with lots of charm and golden beaches on which red and blue sunshades sprouted like colourful mushrooms.  The sea was rough; grey green waves which gobbled up the few windsurfers, and, curving like polished glass, exploded onto the soft sand.  

As Bill and I collapsed into the nearest cafe, there arrived another group of about twelve cyclists - slim, muscle bound, lycra tight, sinews taut, not a bead of sweat or a tomato coloured face amongst them.  These, Abraham told us, were a group from the large German cruise boat berthed behind ours in the harbour.  It has 1,900 passengers as against our 1,450.  Unable to manage the arithmetic, I was hopeful that our four against their twelve did not reflect too badly on us Brits.  Abraham then told us that this was only one of three groups of cyclists from that ship – in total there were at least 70 German cyclists out today, and the others had all gone to the volcanoes, a 50 km route up inclines that would terrify any sane person.  Ah well.  But Abraham used to work on that ship, and he says he prefers cycling with fat Brits any day.  So our national pride remains intact.

Back on board, feeling very virtuous and fit we stroll to the Lido Cafe past the plump forms of fellow passengers occupying the deckchairs all over the pool deck. Until we spy Raoul, our fellow cyclist, already in the pool, arms powering through the water, feet producing a froth of bubbles behind him.  Maybe we should join him?  Maybe...  But those scones smell awfully good.... And then surely we deserve a deckchair too?

11.1.2012 Goats in trees and snakes in boxes (Morocco)

Tree climbing goats

City walls

The dawn had drawn a rumpled, fleecy blanket – fiery red – across the sky as we clanged down the silver gangplank and made our first ever arrival in Africa.  A light mist of smoke hung over the city below us; a square orange castle clung to the hillside above.  Obediently herded into the bus by Hassan, our guide, cool in his flowing cream robe, we watched as Morocco unfolded – white or terracotta cube houses, wide open plains stretching dry between the blue Atlas mountain ranges,  which trimmed either horizon.  The dryness was punctuated by prickly trees with dusty dark green leaves and small yellow fruits, by plump, dusty sheep herded by men in flowing black or brown robes, and goats perched high in the trees, cropping their sharp leaves.  Rich terracotta walls, battlemented with rectangles that made you want to jump up and walk along them – up, down, up, down - their straw and mud manufacture conjuring up pictures of Pharaoh and the Israelites.  Here and there, weather and years had worn away their neat corners, leaving a row of orange teeth, bared against the open plains all around.

Mint tea

An hour later, an elegant entranceway of cool tiles, a ceiling decorated with the twisting plasterwork patterns, and into a tranquil cafe, its greenery an antidote to the dust outside.  Open tents of thick, rich fabric - maroon, gold, blue – settees upholstered in peach and red velvet; a man serving mint tea from the curving spouts of silver and gold teapots - pouring it, sparkling amber, from shoulder height and with complete accuracy, into tiny glasses, filled with fresh whole leaves of mint and stacked on embossed silver trays.

Then the walled city, its cream ramparts shaped as in a children’s fort, square battlements, wide curvaceous gates, arched at the top, pinched in the middle, like a plump lady whose corpulence is nipped at the waist with a tight belt. 

And so into the souk or market.  Narrow passages under a high roof, the pungent mix of herbs and spices fills the nostrils.  Stalls crush and compete.  Piles of plump dates, shiny nuts, dried prickly pears (don’t eat too many for fear of dire effects on the digestion) all piled high; spices in drums, each carefully shaped into neat cones at the top – orange, yellow, black, white – every shade of each.  Boots hanging neatly in pairs from the ceiling; robes and scarfs of every colour and pattern; leather shoes, with long pointed upturned toes, in yellows, browns, greens.  Carved wood, butchers stalls with meats hanging above the counter, metalwork produced while you wait.  A whole alley of furniture makers, chiselling and sawing, create small tables, huge dressers, wooden spoons; elsewhere are baskets, two handled, in all sizes; woven panniers for the donkeys which are to be seen in the streets outside, laden and pulling carts while the bikes and motorcycles weave between them and the long glossy tourist buses.  Vegetables of every colour and shape, some recognisable, some not.  This year, the rains which should have arrived in October and lasted till mid-February, have not yet appeared, and it’s early January, so fruit and veg have quadrupled in price as a result.  Pottery, mostly brown, and featuring everywhere the shining tagine pots, with their typical conical shape and tiny chimneys. Fish, displayed packed tight like silver leaves; velvet cushions in high wobbly stacks, purple, blue, gold.  The stall holders call out, entice, beseech.  Bill tries a bit of bartering, but the deal does not turn out to our satisfaction, so no purchase ensues. 

Music!

We arrive in a broad, open square with trees scattered across its cobbles.  There’s a man with a cobra in a wooden box.  He sits on a carpet, trying to drum up business before beginning to charm it with his pipe, but interest is sparse, and apart from once raising its sinuous silver head briefly, the cobra makes no further appearance. Two musicians entertain, broad smiles, long striped gowns and pill box hats.

Groups of men, swathed in the traditional robes – long, with a pointed hood, wizard style, at the back – are sitting in the shade of the trees, talking and smoking.  A group gather around a tall, dark man, a blue turban wound loosely about his head.  He has a carpet thrown out on the cobbles, covered with dried herbs and small bottles, and he’s doing a hard sell on what appear to be medicaments of uncertain origin.  He soon draws a sizeable group of men to watch, little white woven hats, like small baskets, leaning forward and nodding.  He’s doing much better business than the snake charmer.  There are men everywhere, bartering, smoking, sitting at the round cafe tables, laughing on the pavement.  But very few women.  Pondering on this mystery, we depart, airconditioned, to the high white walls of the Destiny - a little bit of Britain, roped to Morocco by seventeen stout ropes. 

Some of the other passengers have refused to leave the ship today, staying by the pool, anxious, they say, about the culture, the country, the people here.  For us, admittedly cocooned as we were in a tourist group, it was not as much of a culture shock as we expected.  The hubbub was not as relentless as India, the market similar to Romania.  But yet different it certainly is.  60% Berber, 39% Arab, the population presents a mixture of history and culture that is largely unknown to us.  Worth the visit without a doubt.

9.1.2012 - Moonlight on the water (Madeira)

On board ship at Madeira

Like a torrent of amber gemstones, tiny lights flood glittering down Madeira’s steep ravines into the black sea below.  Slowly they shrink behind us as we power our way along the road the moon has laid towards Morocco, 399 nautical miles distant.

The day started wet and dark in Glasgow Airport, and progressed uneventfully towards the soft palms of Funchal, and the technicolour of Bourgainvillia, flowing over its walls and roadsides. 

Madeira is steep.  That is the word, but not one that really conveys the narrow winding streets that rear up at what seem near vertical angles.  Yellow buses, no way discouraged by the mountaineering task before them, twist their tortuous way upwards – on one side of the street the roofs spread below them, on the other, steep gardens with houses perched atop.  Every home in Funchal has a spectacular view, down the precipices to the harbour.  There the cruise ships lie, great white swans amidst the tiny fishing boats, which foam in and out past their towering sides, while their fishermen in orange T-shirts and work roughened jeans heave fish boxes across decks tangled with ropes, floats and nets.

Viewed from the wide wooden decks of our ship Destiny, the city look like a child’s ambitious lego creation, tiny box homes scattered, one above the other, over a rumpled green blanket.  Here and there a thread of road hurls itself from cliff to cliff, lightly springing across spindly concrete pillars.  High above, a fringe of tall trees marches through the clouds.  Had I not been here before, I might have assumed that this was the peak of the mountain, instead of only the lower foothills of a volcanic giant.  Madeira is steep, steep, steep.

Towel elephant

Destiny is an old boat.  But her thirty years of providing holidays afloat have imbued her with an atmosphere of calm and welcome that makes you forgive the occasional dented table or section of scratched deck.  The crew are numerous, neatly dressed and endlessly friendly, cheerful and humorous.  Food is good and everywhere – you mount the stairs to yet another deck and find yet another buffet confronting you.  Likewise entertainment – a full scale musical performed with a dizzying range of twinkling costumes and energetic singing and dancing on one deck, quizzes, dance classes, even towel folding tuition available on others (when we arrived back our cabin tonight, a towel elephant welcomed us).   

Tomorrow the day starts with compulsory tuition on how to abandon ship, to be provided in the CanCan Lounge.  Hopefully we will get through the night without needing the details of this – the sea is gentle, and the boat rumbles on, rolling softly as she goes.

And so we will see if Destiny can do her job of refreshing us after what has been a pretty frenetic autumn.  As we watch the ruffled silver sea below, this seems quite possible.

5.1.2012 The Winds of Time (Millport)

There are winds and there are winds.  Some are gentle, soft, brushing your cheek and ruffling your hair like affectionate hands.  Some are brisk, fresh, making your face tingle and ruffling the sea into diamonds.  And some are roaring ferocity, rumbling in the chimney like a monster trapped, making the curtains tremble in terror, hurling rain like bullets against the glass.  They tear down aged grey trees, swathed in soft moss, and leave them, branches twitching, to die on the wet grass.  They torment the ashen faced sea into a fury and then smash it against the wet rocks into ragged, sharpened shards.  

And they rip up the spindly heights of pylons and hurl them onto the forests below, and so condemn us to the silence and the darkness.

So here we sit, faces orange in reflected firelight, the flickering shadows like children’s drawings on the walls, little oil lamps glowing on the mantelpiece.   Dependent on battery, candle, paraffin and coal, we are refugees to a bygone era.

It was yesterday morning, after a night when the gale hammered on the roof like a giant possessed, that I reached out for the light switch and nothing happened.  That was 40 hours ago, but still I reach out to the light switches and wonder why nothing happens.  I think I’ll find out when the power will return by just turning on the TV...... The man from the power company even advises (by 'phone - amazingly still functional) that they’ll keep us informed on the internet – of course, why didn’t I think of that.  Just turn on the router – oh ah.  He asks for my account number.  I visualise trying to search through the filing system by the light of a guttering candle.  I decide it can’t be done and he is a bit disappointed.  He’s sympathetic but he’s also in Portsmouth, about 500 miles south.

This morning at the town grocers, a generator greeted me with its rumbling hum as it sat on the pavement.  That and a lantern illuminated the shop while we queued at the tills, which of course were not functional, and our purchases were laboriously calculated on scraps of paper.  Tonight the pubs were open, lit by the glow of candlelight, and no doubt providing a bit of welcome warmth, internal as well as external, for their besieged customers.

This evening at home, pork chops and onions cooked over the coal fire in the living room, and eaten by candlelight, was our cordon bleu meal for the day.  Meanwhile, our freezer, full of future meals, thaws slowly and silently in the kitchen.

But heating by portable gas, or being cold, lighting by tottering candlesticks or stumbling in the dark - this is the stuff of which accidents are made, especially for the town’s population of numerous elderly people.  Last night we watched as the helicopter’s lights grew larger and brighter, at last enabling us to make out its grasshopper outline as it bounced onto the dark wet turf of the football pitch, to take an injured islander to a mainland hospital.  But at least our little island hospital does still have power – it glitters on the hill behind our house, shining alone against the blackness, its generator glad of a chance to show what it can do.

And yet there are unexpected pleasures in this involuntary step back in time.  There are so many things you can’t do – hoover the carpets, do the laundry, wash the dishes, waste time and money on ebay, get the gossip on Facebook, watch meaningless TV.  

So I settle down to crochet a bedspread for my granddaughter Molly’s teddy bear.  Bill starts a crossword.  Time even to write this blog.  Simple pleasure we wouldn’t have made time for if we had had electricity.  It makes you think..... 

Right, I’ll just upload this blog now.  Uh oh.......

28.5.2011 - Rubbish and politics (Millport, Isle of Cumbrae, Scotland)

28.5.2011 - Rubbish and politics (Millport, Isle of Cumbrae, Scotland)

We had an election in Scotland while we were in India.  We knew it was happening, and scuttled down to the tiny internet cafe cubicle in Tirur, sweating it out in more ways than one in order to get the results as soon as we could.  And what results they were!  The Scottish National Party won handsomely - a landslide of formidable proportions, forming a majority government, something that Westminster had tried to make impossible when the form of proportional representation was chosen for us eleven years ago.  I was delighted, even though I could not take part, as my postal vote got lost.

Politicians will do a lot for a good photoshoot - look at Barak Obama and David Cameron, manning the barbecue in London last week.  The press photographers were hunting in the usual packs, and got the shots they and the politicians wanted.  I wonder how many sausages they burned before the genuine cooks took over - we shall never know.  But there are more ways than that of getting to know your local politicians.

Shoreline, Isle of Cumbrae

So today, at home in Millport, I got very close to my local Member of the Scottish Parliament - there are few things more personal than clambering over rocks, falling into rockpools, slithering on seaweed, in the company of your newly re-elected representative.  Today was the annual event of volunteer rubbish collecting on our beaches, which Kenneth Gibson, MSP, master-minds each year.  So as the sun glittered on the sea, we donned our yellow 'Keep Scotland Tidy' tabards, grasped our litter pickers in one hand and tried hard to hold onto our black bin bags in the other as a brisk wind attempted to tear them from our grasp. 

Kenneth's car deposited us at a somewhat inhospitable section of the island's coast, where brambles curved over our path as we scrambled down to the rocks and shingle coves.  Amazing how much rubbish you find when you look - plastic bottles, multi-coloured straws, bits of green and blue rope, sections of tattered black polythene, flapping in the grass like wounded birds.  All mixed and mingled with the white and brown razor shells, the pink nodding Thrift flowers, the pebbles of every hue, size and shape. We picked at it with our litter pickers, we wrestled it into the disobedient bin bags which were forever making a bid for freedom, we foraged further and further along the shoreline, buffetted by the wind and occasionally soaked by showers that appeared from nowhere in the otherwise blue skies

Holy Island and Wee Cumbrae from Great Cumbrae

As we stopped for a breather, Kenneth remarked, (slightly acidly, I thought) "And people ask me why I went into politics! It was for the glamour, of course!!!"  And then he spied a bent drink can wedged under a rock, and dropping on his knees in the slimy weed, began to haul it out.  And not a newspaper man or snapping camera in sight....