I'm 3 weeks into my year's stint here in Benbecula and the sitting room floor of the wee cottage I'm renting is still invisible beneath several layers of stuff (books, newspapers, files, postcards, scalpels, software). It is, however, less invisible than it was this morning. The trauma of moving is fading fast but the combination of driving, humping boxes, decisions about stuff, boredom, shouty phone calls to call centres and more decisions about yet more stuff is and always will be grim. I'm still fantasising about transport possibilities to/from Morvern after my first attempt at a weekend jaunt 2 weeks ago: 1 hour drive to Lochmaddy, 2 hour ferry and then 5 hr drive to Drumbuidhe; on the way back I had to spend the night in the Uig youth hostel in order to catch the 9am ferry and I discovered that there's also a 5am ferry to Stornoway which means I got 3 hour's sleep. All this for £100 odd.
The weekend - well 24 hours - in Drumbuidhe was filled with lush autumness and the fervid glamour of the Lewis wedding (the scaffolding was removed from the chapel just 12 hours before the festivity started). I drove Campbell there and back and I did manage to have a reasonably calm conversation with him about why he's staying up here - no answer to that of course but I think the gentle prompting did get him to have a tiny bit of insight that isolating himself may be contributing to his depression. Unfortunately I take his isolation personally and I find it hard to be calm about his tactic of being nasty to me so that he can feel that he doesn't rely on me. Hey ho. On the positive side he's not going to be around at Christmas and I get the full week off so I can do a load of solitary revelling.
On the way back I stopped off to see the glamorous new building above Glenmorven which looks set to be spectacular (note to self, must get note of the owners name from Campbell and start cultivating a glamorous relationship with them). Work on Monday was grim after just 3ish hours sleep but, in general, I'm having a ball. A slightly incompetent ball but a great one nonetheless. Many, many years ago when I worked for ICI (great development courses, crap working environment) and I was on an outward bound course I had to describe my ideal day and it was, well, this: cycle to work, spend the day wisecracking over creative stuff then cycle home to an idyllic cottage. Obviously it's been adjusted for reality so my bicycle is currently broken and sitting in the yard of Mr Uist-Bicycle; the cottage is in a rather bleak idyll and I'm 9 hours away from everything but I'm delighted nonetheless.
