A Journey

For someone who used to 'commute' for 6 months of the year to my other life in New Zealand I find it strange to have to accept that I now find the idea of flying to Edinburgh and staying in a hotel for a couple of nights to go to a wedding quite stressful. Have I got everything I need in my kilt bag? I know I've got my kilt but..... It's not the flying and I'd be okay if it was Glasgow Airport. Edinburgh Airport was always a nightmare even in the long ago days when I attended many meetings at The Scottish Office in Edinburgh. Even my son who is used to international travel on a scale I never even dreamt of can't stand Edinburgh Airport. Ho hum. Time will tell. I'll be on my way to Stornoway Airport in 40 minutes.

My hotel is in the centre of Edinburgh very near the wedding hotel. I'll be going in on the high-speed tram from the airport to the centre of Edinburgh. 

A kilt is very heavy when you are carrying it.  Highland dress is hot and heavy when you're wearing it. Here's hoping for a cool day tomorrow....and a dry one.

I'm back on Friday and my New Zealand Family arrive on Saturday. 

It's going to be a busy and enjoyable few weeks ahead.

Hopefully at least I'll have something interesting to blog about.

Dread

Over the next next four or five months I will have to go to The Mainland on three occasions at least. For my annual CT scan combined with my 3-monthly cancer review at The Beatson (the West of Scotland's cancer centre of excellence in Glasgow). Then, possibly April, to have my uretic stent replaced.  In June there is a wedding in Edinburgh for one of my New Zealand Family. Immediately after which four members of The Family are coming to stay on Lewis. 

All of a sudden I am grabbed by a feeling of dread at the idea of leaving the Island. 

Why?

I don't mind driving (and I have a large comfortable reliable estate car in which to do it). I don't mind the ferry journey from Stornoway to Ullapool (It's only 2½ hours and I'm a good sailor and down the mainland sealoch the scenery is beautiful). If I fly, instead, I am very happy in airplanes despite a loathing of airports these days. And when I'm in Glasgow and other places I have friends with whom to stay and enjoy time.   

So what has happened to me?

After all It's not that many years since I 'commuted' between my home here on Lewis and my home in New Zealand. I did that journey for a decade until I returned to Scotland for good in 2017 when I was basically told that they couldn't really look after my cancer (which had shown signs of returning) if I insisted on being away for 6 months of the year. In any case life was altering in many ways. So Scotland had to become my full-time home once more.

Since then my summer trips to Europe became fewer and ceased when I was refused medical insurance.

Then, gradually, my visits to England became fewer and stopped with Covid and have not resumed.

I'm very happy driving on the Mainland of Scotland - after all it is a stunningly beautiful Country. I have to admit though, that having to meet ferry deadlines and wait a week for a booking in summer if one misses the ferry because of hospital or a road accident (both of which affected me last year) have taken the joy out of summer travel. Ferry cancellations because of weather, which I managed to avoid for 46 years, now loom large frequently.

And I love my home, My family,  my friends, my garden and and........

Am I alone? Is it an age 'thing'? 

Ah well. I suppose I'd better do the ironing.

Friendships and Safaris

I have been one of the luckiest people on this planet in so many ways. Today I was reminded of one of the things which makes that true for me. My life in New Zealand and the wonderful friendships I made there: many of which endure today albeit, for most of them, at a distance.

I started a New Zealand blog because my UK friends and family kept wanting to know what I was up to. The blog was more a diary than anything else. Which, in many ways was how this blog started off.

One day (I can't remember the details) because I had never been up to Northland a fellow blogger suggested that if I went up there she would show me around. It sounded like an opportunity far too good to miss. So on 11 December 2009 I pitched up at Whangerei Airport having made absolutely no arrangements apart from a return flight. I was sure that my fellow blogger would know the most appropriate hotel etc where I could stay. 

The person concerned turned out to be both a superb tour guide and real 'people person' so my natural shyness which can manifest itself in so many different ways completely evaporated. 

We drove out to the Whangerei Heads and I saw a New Zealand that I'd never seen before. It is a country of many many different geographical, geophysical and human personas. I was loving the new sights and the commentary and the company.

By the time we got back to Whangerei it was getting on a bit and I wondered about accommodation. But my hostess just kept on driving....and driving... into the wilds of Northland.  Until we reached her home. Just as it had never occurred to me that someone I had never met except via our mutual blog comments was going to house me for the stay it had obviously never occurred to her that she wouldn't be offering hospitality. 

And so started a truly wonderful friendship with a number of safaris in Northland, Hawkes Bay, Lewis and Harris and the Scottish Highlands. 

What made me think of this today? Pauline's post here.

My first view from the plane of the 'Uppity Downities' although I didn't know that at the time

Whangerei Heads

My first Northland Coffee at Reva's in Whangerei

Reva's Café, Whangerei

The Vodafone Mast on The Uppity Downities - the locator beacon so I knew where I was.

Travelling (A bit of a waffle)

This post was originally inspired by Jayne's post here.  However since then Jayne has posted with more adventures and some of her commenters have added very much to the discussion. Jayne has also added a post Going it Alone. which is a guide to travelling by camper-van alone.

All in all the whole question of travel is so significant in many of our lives that books rather than simple blog posts have been written on the subject. 

It made me realise that we travel for different purposes: work (when I was a young man the 'commercial traveller' was often the most-travelled person I knew);  relaxation and exercise (YP and my Munro-bagging son immediately come to mind); to visit friends, family, second homes and so on; to go on holiday to (often far-away) places for rest and relaxation; and then there is travel undertaken for the pure pleasure of being a tourist. 

When I was a youngster most of my travelling was to spend a fortnight in a country cottage somewhere in Wales or The English Lake District to go walking and visit anything of interest that we could find in the area. Generally most people were not well-travelled unless they were wealthy. Most people when I was young had two or at most three weeks holiday a year. In the UK that would generally be considered derisory today.

Much of my 'travelling' as an adult has simply been driving or flying from home to Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Balearics or Canada and Australia  to stay with friends or stay somewhere on holiday. Ultimately I flew between my home in Scotland and my home in New Zealand for 9 years. In the grammatically correct use of the word all this was travelling.  

However, in reality, the journey was not the point of the exercise. It was simply a means of getting from home to where I was staying. On the other hand I have travelled to and around some of those countries and California, Australia and New Zealand as a tourist a well.

When I was a young man I read the Russian novels with ardent enthusiasm. A friend and I (he became a Church of England priest) planned to go to Russia but I met my wife and got married instead. I never did get to see Russia although I got a taste of what it might have been like when I visited East Germany before the fall of The Berlin Wall.

I'm conscious of the fact that this has been rather a waffle but I'm genuinely interested to know what makes people travel and who travels simply for the experience of travelling rather than, say, business or visiting family.

A few photos of me being a tourist in South Island, New Zealand:

Hele-hiking on a glacier

From a helicopter above the glacier

Flying over whales.

The Chain sculpture, Stewart Island (the most southerly inhabited Island in the New Zealand chain)

Fjordland

Home!

Thank you all for your supportive comments on my last post. It really did make a difference and I didn't feel so alone. I will respond to all the comments individually but I thought I'd update everyone just now. 

I managed to get onto the freight ferry. There was room for six cars. I had stood at the door of the office (which opens at 1am) since 0030 which was a good move because everyone else turned up not long after. 

However the day had been far from smooth. There had been a serious crash on the A9 (which closed it for 5 hours) requiring a detour on the old A9. Unfortunately in places 2 HGVs (very big lorries) cannot easily pass in many places and the 15 mile detour took 3 hours. So when I arrived in Ullapool I'd been driving for nearly 8 hours. 

I arrived in Ullapool and parked up at about 2200hrs. 

The relief when I got the booking was colossal and I went back to the car and fell asleep until we boarded. Seeing the ship with only 6 cars' passengers was really weird. Of course there was no catering or anything else. I then slept until we arrived in Stornoway. 

As we were about to leave the vessel one of the staff told us that Lewis had had a power failure during the night and they couldn't get the linkspan to work. So we were stuck on board for a further hour.

I always look for a positive in everything: at least by 0630 the supermarket was open for milk and bread. 

I arrived home and slept. Woke mid-morning and emptied the car. Slept all afternoon. Shopped in the quiet of the evening so that I'd not have to shop on a busy Saturday morning. 

Today has been catch-up day with folk and in the garden and polycarb which ran amok whilst I was away. 

Now it's 9pm and when I've published this I'm going to sit in the living room and perhaps answer yesterday's comments and perhaps chill out for an hour if there is anything on the television.

Travel Update

I was supposed to be home and on Tuesday.  Instead I ended up in the Royal Infirmary in Glasgow in agony. Problem solved and a couple of nights in hospital and I was released late yesterday afternoon after a wait for most of the day for my medication. 

On Monday I rang CALMAC to tell them that I would not be on the sailing on Tuesday evening and could I move to the Thursday evening sailing. No more room until the 2 August.  WHAT? If one lives on Lewis one cannot get back home for 7 days!  

The implications of that could be colossal for lots of people. It could be a serious problem for me because I have commitments as well as no clean clothes nor enough of my medication (the cancer medication is not generally available on prescription nor in any pharmacy) nor of my 'external plumbing' stuff.  Why did I chose this occasion to break the habit of a lifetime and travel light?

Apart from that a hotel or other accommodation in Scotland in the middle of the holidays is impossible or prohibitive anyway. 

My son is away on the mainland but I do have friends and neighbours who will look after watering the vegetables in the polycarb and garden, the birds and so on.    

What if I had a job to go to? As it is I have missed a funeral, medical appointments and a civic reception at which a friend of nearly half a century is to be awarded the Freedom of The Western Isles. In the greater scheme of things none of that matters.

What matters to me as I write this is at lunchtime on Thursday 27 July is that I just want to be home!

I'm about to drive up to Ullapool and try and get on the Freight ferry at 3am tomorrow. 

Please wish me luck. 

Ferries and Electric Cars.

The Havila Ferry Company in Norway (which has state of the art hybrid ro-ro ferries wandering around pristine fjords for 4 hours on electric motors) has banned carrying electric cars.

Lithium batteries burn longer and hotter than conventional car fires and require thousands of gallons of water to extinguish. That is not something you want sloshing around inside a boat any more than you want a fire in the first place.

I live on an Island 2 ½ hours by ferry from the mainland. 

This could be a problem if the same ban were to be introduced. Given that the ferry company, Calmac, is ultimately owned by the Scottish Government (with it's green ambitions) they could be between a rock and a hard place if the operators decide it's too dangerous. 

I travel from home to Glasgow through the Scottish Highlands where electric charging points are notoriously few and far between and unreliable. Because of that I have absolutely no intention at the moment of buying and electric car anyway. Indeed as they are just becoming slightly more expensive to run (according to my car magazine) and are seriously more expensive to buy, my current chariot may well see out my driving career notwithstanding the ban on new emission-emitting vehicles after 2030.

Wonderful hens?

Well that's one way to start the day. I ate two of my wonderful neighbour's hens' eggs. By which I mean my wonderful neighbour. I have no idea whether her hens are wonderful. Firstly I have never seen them because they live on her croft up the road behind loads of trees. Secondly I couldn't tell a wonderful hen from any other sort. I'm rather glad she doesn't have room for them in the garden next door. If she did have room and they did live there, they would come foraging into my garden and do even more damage to my plants than the dreadful cold winds over the last few days have done.

The journey down on a beautiful Sunday had been driving hell and took well over an hour longer driving time than usual. I returned from Glasgow on Friday with little traffic. I crossed The Minch yesterday evening on a ferry full of vehicles but with the area I usually sit in virtually empty. Given that I was almost the last car on and therefore almost the last passenger upstairs I was fortunate and got 'my' usual table. Despite the southerly gale the ferry crossing wasn't too bad.

I was down for my final drugs trial review. The trial is now over. It's been a great success and I'm still on the drug but the NHS is now paying. The best news for me, though, is that I shall remain under the care of the Oncology Prof who looked after me during the Trial. My visits to The Beatson will be fewer for reviews and scans but the intermediate interviews will continue but by phone or video. My August appointment is already in the diary.

My relatively short time in Glasgow was partly because I wasn't having scans and partly because Anna went to the opera in Glyndebourne and partly because I was very anxious not to leave my garden for too long despite neighbourly help watering etc. 

I left Lewis after the best day of the year so far on Lewis and arrived home to wind and rain. The photo is me getting ready to feed the birds this morning

Home and Gardening

I am stiff this morning. Yesterday the weather changed and the rain and gales were superseded by full sun, light or no wind and bitter cold: perfect weather for doing so heavy work in the garden. So that was where I spent the day. I dug out some more cotoneaster roots to make way for wild flowers and Leucanthemums. I dug out Geraniums which had almost stopped flowering because they were busy fighting for dominance of that flower bed with the Astrantias. A lot of the Astratias have gone too. I also cleared a mass of Mombretia which had become unproductive through being overcrowded. The hundreds of Daffodils in beds around the garden spent a day trying to revive themselves from the gales but many were simply too far gone and a lot of the flowers had simply broken off.

I love Astrantia as individual flowers but when they get overcrowded they lose their individuality and their collective beauty is not great.

I've got a lot of seeds germinating in the polycarb and on the bathroom floor at night for those needing a constant warm temperature. The bathroom floor has underfloor heating but until now the last thing I've though of was using it to germinate seeds.

The pond is full of frogspawn but I've not seen a single frog this year which is unusual.

My trip away was successful. Well I assume it was but I've not had the result of my bone scan yet which is  unusual. I had my scans and the drugs trial review was okay and I have my drugs for the next 16 weeks until the next review.

What struck me most when I was away was the total lack of traffic on the main arterial route (the A9) through the Highlands from Perth to Inverness. In 50 years of travelling that road I've never seen it so empty.

Whilst I was away the Scottish Government changed the Covid level for the Islands from 4 to 3 so the day after I got back we were able to meet in a café (a maximum of 6 people from not more than 2 households).  So I've been having morning coffees in The Woodlands with friends instead of phone/video chats. Yesterday was an exception. It's back to The Woodlands this morning.

Catching Up

We've had some good weather. Well, when I say 'good' what I mean is that it wasn't raining and the wind was absent or a tolerable whisper instead of the usual eye-watering gale. In fact on a couple of days we had sun as well. So I've spent a couple of weeks in the garden. I've cut down bushes and spent hours removing the roots to make way for a wild flower bed. I trialled one last year and got lots of pleasure from the colour and the increased bee and insect population.

Many of the plants in the garden are Alpines and they are not in suitable conditions so I've dug out an area and am making a rockery of sorts with a more suitable growing medium.

I have also been moving lots of tubs of daffodils and tulips as well as humping 100litre bags of garden compost etc around.

One thing all this has taught me is that I'm not as young as I was this time last year. Then I could actually pick up 100l bag of compost and put it in the wheelbarrow. This year I struggled. So now I'm planning the garden on the basis that there will come a time (if it hasn't already come) when I have to ensure that things are done in such a way that it minimises lifting large, heavy things.

At 0500 yesterday morning my body sprung (well as springy as my body does anything these days) into action and I set off to be on board MV Loch Seaforth for the exciting journey to Ullapool from whence I would drive to Glasgow for my 16-weekly three days of scans and my drugs trial review.

The main arterial road through the Scottish Highlands from Inverness to Perth and thence towards Glasgow is the A9. As you can imagine it is a very busy road carrying most of the freight to and from the North of Scotland.  However most of it is still 2 lane with occasional 4 lane dual carriageway. I have been travelling up and down it for nearly half a century. I think that I can safely say that I have never seen it as quiet as it was yesterday. It is a road controlled by average speed cameras so people rarely speed on it. Heavy goods vehicles, however, have a speed limit 10 miles an hour less than cars and one often gets stuck behind them until the next dual carriageway or overtaking lane. Not so yesterday.  

There are no toilet facilities open anywhere in Scotland so I made no 'comfort stops' either.

As a result I was in Bishopbriggs in a record time of about 4¼ hours after leaving the ferry in Ullapool.

Today has been shopping day for all the messages I've been asked to get for people marooned on the Island plus, I have to say, some odds and ends for myself.

The next few days will be spent having scans and my drugs trial review. Hopefully. I'll be home on Thursday evening.

Where's Schrödinger’s Cat?

In the 5 months up to the beginning of August I had used the car for a handful of miles - principally for medical visits in Stornoway. In the last three weeks I have driven around 1500 miles including two round trips to Glasgow. In the next three weeks I will make another two trips to Glasgow and Ayr to have my two pre-op appointments and my kidney stent replaced. In between I will have to isolate for 14 days at home on Lewis. I've gone from the peace and quiet of lockdown with no deadlines to meet or appointments to keep to a hectic 'up at 4am to catch the morning ferry' lifestyle again. I know which I prefer....and it isn't the latter.

So my recent visits to Blogland have been few and far between and my life is the poorer for that.

However I did visit Bob's post "I wish they would tackle world peace instead." which, as the title might not readily suggest, was partly about the Schrödinger’s Cat Paradox. 

I have, on several occasions, with Wendy (of my New Zealand Family) sat up into the wee smae hours with a bottle or two of New Zealand's finest red discussing the topic. So the post made me sit up and take notice. The first thing I did was go to a particular place on my bookshelves for the book entitled "Schrödinger’s Cat" or something containing those two words anyway.

To my puzzlement it wasn't there. A search of the rest of the bookshelves and the shelves in the loft all drew a blank. I'm not going to pretend that the loss of the book about Schrödinger’s Cat Paradox is going to change my life.  However the fact that a book, any book, is missing from its proper place is disturbing. What next?

Home Again (Again)

I arrived home late on Sunday evening after a good journey up the road and a remarkably calm ferry crossing given the huge storm on Saturday. 

Sailing out of Ullapool and down Loch Broom to The Minch

It had been a Good Week. The scans were clear and I'm continuing on the drugs trial. I've spent a couple of days getting back into my daily 'routine' (a silly term because I have few actual routines). I'm up at crack of dawn in the morning to take Gaz to the airport and his return to Italy.

Settling back in wasn't helped by the fact that the internet had, once again, disappeared in my absence. This time it was because the box on the telegraph pole had been destroyed in Saturday's storm. I was reinstated yesterday.

An Engineer up a telegraph pole. He's spent a lot of time mending my phoneline one way and another

My last day in Glasgow included a visit to one of my favourite (and much blogged about) places: Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery. A visit is never complete without seeing the Glasgow Boys exhibition.

Old Willie - The Village Worthy -  Sir James Guthrie 1886

The Last of the Clan -  Thomas Faed 1865

A Highland Funeral  Sir James Guthrie 1882 
The cottage in the picture still stands but is in a derelict state.
It can be found alongside the Black Water river just up the lane from The Byre Inn public house in the village of Brig O'Turk,
As can be seen women did not generally attend funerals at that time

To Tour or Not To Tour.

Today, Cro of Magnon's Meanderings, wrote a post entitled 'Itchy Feet', It's not as long and boring as this one might be so it's worth popping over to get the background reason for me writing this post.

Yorkshire Pudding said in response "I think it is very possible to be rooted to one spot like your old neighbour and to be wiser than somebody who is well-travelled. Some people travel without really seeing. The notion that travel broadens the mind is often fallacious."

A friend who is coming this evening to stay with me for the week is one of the most widely travelled people I know. She and her recently late husband travelled extensively in India and the Far East as well as in Europe and did it the 'intimate' way. They travelled by train from Scotland to Hong Kong and from Scotland to Moscow. They were rarely 'tourists', always travellers. They also lived the later years with houses in both Scotland and France dividing their time between the two. I cannot recall them ever, in the 45 years since we met, going to the USA except possibly when travelling around the world but even then I think they missed it out. Even in his last months when he was terminally ill and wheelchair bound his wife ensured that he was able to travel in Europe. 

My brother, on the other hand, has taken the view in life that there is so much to see in Great Britain that he has never even wandered across the channel (despite his degree being in Librarianship and French and doing his dissertation in French and being pretty good at the language). 

All of them had excellent careers and are/were very interesting people. 

I have never been on a 'hotel holiday' or a package holiday. My wife and I and two children spent a number of years reciprocally staying with German friends for a month each year in Germany and weeks with Dutch friends in The Netherlands. I holidayed for many years after I retired with the friends mentioned above at their house in France. I have travelled by car through a lot of Western Europe and stayed in Italy enough times to have seen a great deal of Tuscany and Umbria. I also lived for 10 years commuting between here and New Zealand as some of you will know from 'A Hebridean in New Zealand'. I've holidayed in Australia too, and stayed with family and friends. 

I think that I have managed to get a feel for the people and cultures where I have stayed that I might not have got as a 'tourist'. However I accept that even that experience has been limited. 

I think, therefore, that there is a distinction to be drawn between those who 'go abroad for a sunshine holiday' and those who go abroad to travel to experience and see other cultures and places. To that extent I can agree with YP's remark that travel does not necessarily broaden the mind.

As for wisdom I think that travel is irrelevant. 

A Heartwarming Welcome

I arrived home last night after a good drive up the A9 and across to Ullapool and a good sail over The Minch. I arrived in Ullapool to find that I wasn't on the manifest for the evening sailing and that it was pretty full. Fortunately I had the emailed booking on my phone so all was well. However moments like that are always a bit heart-stopping. What if I had booked the wrong day? What if....? The chap marshalling all the vehicles seemed surprised that I wasn't annoyed at Calmac's failings. It hadn't actually occurred to me to be annoyed - relief being my principal emotion.

Today has been spent trying to sort out all the shopping I brought back (for me and for others) and unpack, attend to mail and all the other odds and ends that need doing after a fortnight away. 

I went into town and the shopping having been done (ablative absolute) I decided to visit The Woodlands for coffee and a cream donut and to write a few notecards. The place was packed. Jean Anne, one of the wonderful young staff there, remarked on my absence and asked if all was well. I explained that I'd been off the Island for a couple of weeks. To which she responded that they had missed me and that she was glad that I was back. Well that truly happified me. I've felt on Cloud Nine ever since.

After I arrived home from town I managed to get the recalcitrant lawnmower working. The grass hadn't been cut since last September because I was away and when I got back it was too wet and has remained that way until just before I went away when the mower, despite having been overhauled, displayed it's usual Spring obstinacy and refused to start. The sky was promising rain so I set forth and spoke sternly to it and it roared into life and I filled a large wheelie bin with grass clippings. 

I'm hoping to return to Blogland again this week. I've really missed you all.

Post script: I've been wondering how the saying "On cloud nine" originated. It would seem that a commonly heard explanation is that the expression originated as one of the classifications of cloud which were defined by the US Weather Bureau in the 1950s, in which 'Cloud Nine' denotes the fluffy cumulonimbus type that are considered so attractive. It sounds a good explanation to me. 

Home - again.

I arrived home last night. The original plan had been to come today but several texts from Calmac made it clear that the weather could well affect the ferries today and tomorrow and they could be cancelled. As I had to be back this weekend and for appointments at crack of dawn on Monday and visitors arriving on Tuesday, I decided to make a run for it yesterday. I was obviously not alone and the ferry was full of vehicles. The ferry was actually the MV Isle of Lewis which is covering for the MV Loch Seaforth which is having her annual overhaul in Aberdeen.

Today broke with a stiff breeze from the North (the worst direction for the Stornoway to Ullapool ferry) but cold and sunny. As the wind rose the sea swell got worse. The ferry left Stornoway after lunch but it came past my house and when that happens you just know it's going to be a choppy crossing in places. Shortly after these photos were taken I received a Calmac text saying that the ferry would not be coming back tonight. There could be considerable disruption because the supermarket was short of some things this morning and the freight ferry won't be running today or overnight either and they do not open on Sunday.

The picture on the right shows the position of the ferry in the last of the photo sequence below.

Sailing up the coast and towards the rainbow.

Into the rainbow

Turning across the direction of the swell

Turning towards the South and East

Next stop Ullapool (nearly two hours away)

Er, Pardon?

I'm not sure how many posts I've started over the last however many days since the last post. I never managed to finish any of them. However I'm now back home from my 'three days away'. And therein lies the tale and (with apologies to John Steinbeck) the fact that the best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley.

I've learned one thing, though: never travel light. I always take the kitchen sink: two if available. Twelve days ago on the Monday when I left on the ferry I knew that I would be back after my pre-op check on the Tuesday and a service for the Volvo. Apart from anything else my accommodation was only available for a few nights. So I travelled very light (by my standards).

At the pre-op the nurse practitioner said that the consultant surgeon wanted to see me.  He did and we had a chat. He then casually said "Right. I'll see you on Monday." Er, pardon? 

Apparently when the pre-op had been moved because of my visitors the operation had not but the letter hadn't arrived before I left home. 

The ferry was fully booked and I couldn't get back to Glasgow if I returned home. So I had to find alternative accommodation and get additional 'supplies'. Fortunately I do keep some necessities and clothes at my friend, Anna's.

So on Sunday night I found myself, once more, in Ayr Hospital and on Monday I had my kidney stent renewed and some radio therapy damage tidied up again. I was out on Tuesday and home on Wednesday night. Yesterday I was shattered despite a good night's sleep but by this morning after 8½ hours without moving a muscle I was alive again.

I've no plans to be away from the Island again until September so, hopefully, I'll be back in Blogland and catching up with what has been happening in my absence.

Gone

I have just watched The Family's international flight land in Auckland. It's quite strange to me who, as a youngster, had schoolfriends who had fathers at sea. They could be away for many months at a time and any letters with their whereabouts or intended destinations or return home might take months to arrive. 

Now it is possible to follow their every move and even speak to them or hold a video call almost anywhere in the world. 

Interestingly the flight went over the Cocos or Keeling Islands of which I had never heard. 

As I write this it is 54 hours since they left. To me it seems like they left yesterday and then I realise just how much I've done since they left including having two nights of sleep.

They have spent an overnight in Edinburgh and caught up with family and spent the rest of the time in airports and on planes travelling to just about as far away from here as a commercial airline can take them.

So much happened when they were here and yet the week went so quickly. The Heb Celt Festival was on and they went every night. It is many years since I had been and it has come a long way from being a local event to being almost international. There were certainly visitors from all over the place who had come principally for the Festival. It was a sell-out with a capacity of 5,000. It still manages to feel homely though and I enjoyed the events I attended which included Blazing Fiddles.

Whilst they also went visiting (Wendy and Martin lived here years ago) they also showed Catriona some of the history. It was 2010 when Wendy, Fraser and Catriona last came and, now that she is older, Catriona has a much keener interest in the history of the places she's been.

On Sunday we all went to Garry Sands and, despite less than perfect weather, we had a lovely time just chilling out and walking where we had walked so many times before. As usual we were waiting for Martin who was having a last long look at the beach.

Brief Encounter

It seems like a month since I spent a weekend in Glasgow 7 days ago. Since then my son has been home from Jakarta, been to Italy, got a new job and I took him to the plane this morning for his trip back to Italy where he will be working on a new-build super-yacht for the next year.

I have visitors whom I met through blogging and whom I feel I've known for ever we are all so comfortable together.

On their first night staying with me I was carted away to hospital at 2am by a couple of paramedics in an emergency ambulance. It must be very strange getting up in the middle of the night to go to the toilet to be met by a paramedic in the hall. However they took it in their stride and coped for the next day and night until I was deemed fit to be returned to life on the outside of a hospital. The irony is that I actually felt very well despite the fact that a kidney had closed down and my blood pressure had gone through the metaphorical roof. 

Anyway I was released on Sunday morning in time to prepare dinner for five that evening.

So that's why I've been absent from Blogland for a few days.

Talking of my trip to Glasgow, Anna came part of the way home with me (the first 70 miles) to Dunkeld where we had breakfast and then she got the train back to Glasgow to go to a luncheon.

She caught the 1033 train from Dunkeld station.

Hopefully normal service is resumed again.

A Wee Jaunt

I've just been away for the weekend in Glasgow. It was lovely to be able to drive down for the weekend without worrying about hospital visits. I stayed with my pal, Anna. We had planned quite a few things including the Glasgow Contemporary Arts Fair where friends were exhibiting. Sunday was an afternoon Rachmaninov Concert at City Halls which is a delightful concert venue. On Monday I drove home via Ullapool and Anna came as far as Dunkeld before getting the train back for a lunch in Glasgow.

I'm finding that the 500 mile rounds trip plus the ferry seems to get shorter every time I do it.

We had an early evening meal out at a favourite Italian restaurant near the City Halls. When we arrived home we decided to go for a walk along the Forth and Clyde canal near Anna's home.

Through the Highlands there were quite a few hold-ups for road repairs after the severe winter. As I was sitting in the car on the moors perhaps 20 miles before Ullapool on the way home I couldn't help thinking that if I had to sit in a traffic hold-up this was as good a place as any to do it.

Travelling: The Scottish Borders

I have so many things to blog about I don't know where to start. I wish that I was organised like YP or Cro who manage to blog almost every day regardless of distractions. So far, since I left home, I've spent 4 nights near Glasgow, 3 nights in the Scottish Borders and this will be my fourth night on The Wirral before my brother (CJ) and I go to Exeter for three nights. Then we embark on a long journey back to Lewis where we should arrive five days later. 

I have gathered enough material for dozens of blogs but I'll try and get a few posted before I get home.

After a few days with a pal near Glasgow, I spent some time in the Scottish Borders with friends whom I was surprised to realise that I've known for 35 years (where do the years go?).

We set out to walk round the paddock and ended up starting to walk to England (which, I was assured, was just half a mile along the line of the old Waverley railway). Well after a mile and half I decided to check the map on my iPhone. Hmmm. England was still a good distance away so we turned around and walked back. An enjoyable walk it was too (but very cloudy, wet and green).  

Sue striding forth  (Brian and I following but you can't see us!):

Not far now!

I did meet some Blue Grey Cattle. The first I'd ever seen. They have a reputation for being unfriendly. I got that impression just from looking at them looking at me.