concrete dreams

The Royal Glasgow Institute has sent out a call for entries for its drawing competition 2011 and the current aim is to submit 3 views of the Balivanich water tower. The structure fascinates me, even more so now that I've discovered (via MacGillvrays giftshop opposite) that it's never actually been used: it was built by the military in the 1950s for use in emergency but, since there was no emergency, it has lain dormant with demolition imminent. The ministry of defence passed its water infrastructure over to a civilian contractor so the tower is not part of the military base any more.

When I first came to work on North Uist last year I found the flat landscape and indentikit nature of the housing disorientating - I ended up navigating by cars parked in driveways. The tower is the only constructed landmark in the islands and this distinction makes it almost too neat a metaphor for the military work in the islands. This banter is all very well but I have to actually get down and start drawing the thing: I've done a couple of sketches but I still have to plan the layout on A2.

The islands enjoy a fabulous mail service (all hail Amazon!) and I've just discovered the magazine subscription site which will get me my fix of feminism and shallow US beauty commentary (magazines Bust and Allure respectively) but apparently fancy artist paper is a request too far. When I tried adding A2 Bristol block to my Amazon order the delivery cost went up to a prohibitive £25. So my personal import list is growing (capers, poppy seeds, fancy paper, creme brulee chocolate, coloured tights ...)

I will forgive Amazon for it has delivered the bestest Christmas presents so far: a lego advent calendar for my nephews and the Flavour Thesaurus for Campbell. The thesaurus is compulsive reading and has led to my best sandwich invention so far:

sourdough bread

pastrami

grated carrot

capers

mayonnaise and mustard

Still awaiting a name but no less delicious

two wheels good

The saga of my bicycle continues (the story started 22 years ago with my 21st Birthday gift so it's a fair bet that it's going to run for a while yet). I got involved in a three-way bicycle / pavement / gate argument after I tried to avoid the cattle grid at the Comhairle entrance (I've still got a scar on my elbow, the bicycle was a bit poorly and the gate's seem better days so I think we'll have to say that the pavement won). The next day the derailleur fell out of my bicycle halfway into work. The rear dropout has split (obviously it took a fair bit of google action to check what it was actually called - I kept having to refer to the problem as "the axle-holding bit at the back is buggered") and the bicycle is now resting with the only bicycle shop in the Uists (Rohan bicycles) which is run by one of the most hesitant men I've ever met. I had to physically force him to take the bicycle away: it needs welding and, while it may be difficult for him to find someone to fix it, it's completely impossible for me.

After the grand breakdown I came up with a different solution each week: week one was getting the bicycle fixed (no local welders presented themselves so I reckon it'll have to wait 'til I next drive down to Glasgow in December? January? August??); week two was getting Mr Rohan to find a bicycle from his existing stock that I could use (my request disappeared into a silence at his end of the phoneline and he eventually suggested that, since he'd put all his cycles away for the season - who knew that bicycles were like swallows and basking sharks, just here for the summer - it might be just too difficult for him to actually sell something); week three was getting a bicycle through 'cycle-to-work' (this started off really hopefully with an application form on the website and everything, alas the gentleman up in Stornoway who actually has to administer it proved almost as hesitant as Mr-Uist-Bicycles and it turned out that, after I'd waited two weeks before chasing, it would take 'two or three weeks' to set up a new supplier on the system - this was before he'd even noticed that I was only employed on a 12-month contract, one month of which had already passed); week six was getting a bicycle from the existing Comhairle supplier in Stornoway (on the positive side I got to make another entry into my forthcoming guidebook "hesitant men of the western isles" but on the practical side he failed to call me back to let me know if he could get a fancyish women's trek bicycle for me - and this was before we got into the tricky "shipping it to Uist" stuff); week seven saw me call up Evans Cycles and order a Specialized Dolce bicycle (£150 more expensive than it would have been 3 weeks ago: aaarrgghh). I ordered it on the Tuesday and it arrived on Friday: I got the saddle sorted on Saturday and hit the road. In general Uist has coped well with my distinctive cyclewear (pale green legs, pudgy green thighs in black lycra, pink gloves and a knitted bunnet). Since it's a fancy dancy road bike I'm not sure how it (and me) will cope with the wet (and ice and wind ...) but it's looking lovely so far.

Saturday was a trip down to Creagorry (admiring glances aplenty) and today I went off to the east where I met Donald Macdonald out on his newly-enlarged croft at the edge of Eilean Floddagh. He suggested I have a look round his self-catering thatched cottage tigh curstaig which features as a fine backdrop for the new dolce. Remember, it's all about the bike.

farewell to summer

I'm lying in bed (2pm!) with the remains of my second cup of coffee and three banana, orange and chocolate muffins contemplating some relaxed exercise, long overdue unpacking (I'm beginning to think that I may never actually unpack - I could live my life here in a slowly increasing sea of discarded newspaper and mismatched envelopes) and another week of seafood-based meals. Yesterday I tracked down Kallin seafood's shop and got 2 scallops, 3 langoustines and a smoked mackerel - I'm going to make a saffron and pea risotto to go with the scallops; cobble together ingredients for a kind-of-Thai soup for the prawns and either go for kedgeree or pate for the mackerel. Last week was filled with seafood brought back from Drumbuidhe (razor clams and mussels - in the end I couldn't face the mussels - a mollusc too far) and salmon from the Hedridean smokehouse. It's all terribly healthy but a teensy bit repetitive, hence the muffins. These extremely high fat thanks to some out-of-date greek yoghurt from Maclennans. The basic recipe (adapted from Joy of Cooking) was:

1 orange (rind grated and juice squeezed)

1 cup orange juice and yoghurt

2oz (very approx) melted butter

2/3 cup sugar

2 eggs

2 cups self-raising flour

3 mashed bananas

1 bar maya gold chocolate cut into basic chips

mix it together, divide between 12 paper cases and bake at 200C for 15 minutes

very nice results if I say so myself and I'm now using my sugar and caffeine combo to order Christmas presents on-line. Strangely I always seem to end up spending more on myself than on others. Despite spending Saturday exploring the deserted Aird a' Mhorain on Saturday (giving a farewell to the sun - it's been glorious but that's the last we'll see of it in the morning and evenings 'til April) which counts as pretty hardcore Scottish rural, there's a large part of me that thinks I should be a groovy wisecracking jewish new yorker and buys books accordingly (Sloane Crosley, David Sedaris, Thesaurus of Flavour). I got a couple of nice sketches out of the walk and one of my current resolutions is to start a series of drawings of the Balivanich water tower to enter into the Glasgow drawings competition.

I spent last weekend at Drumbuidhe (yay for flexitime!) basking in gobsmacking weather and getting a stack of stuff done: boat pulled up and turned over for winter; last of the autumn planting (fennel and spinach) done; pea trenches prepared (and vandalised by pine marten); edges strimmed. The grass cutter is completely broken now (the history of its breakdowns would take too long but it's just 3 years old and was doomed the minute Campbell took ownership of it) and so I'm saying "to hell with machinery" and buying a sycthe. Women (well my mum and I) have struggled from time immemorial to work out how to protect machines from Campbell but it just can't be done so - since a fancy-dancy scythe will cost only £100 compared with £3,000 for a new grass cutter - I'm giving up the fight. The cutting of the grass will have to be done if the meadow and orchard is to be saved: since the grass cutter has never worked properly the poor meadow has had weeds and couch grass running rampant for the past 5 years. It will be a winter job alongside: pruning, rescuing and rebuilding my kiln and rewiring (dementia, alcohol, electricity and water are one of the alltime terrible combinations) the shower Capmbell installed in the fank. This last task is part of a campaign to get the fank set-up so that Campbell can live there rather than the main house. The stairs are treacherous in the main house and the rubbish that Campbell generates is hard to live alongside.

My next trip to Drumbuidhe is planned for 5th November but I'm still desperately searching for alternative routes. I got held up on the way back last time (road resurfacing at the head of Loch Sunart) which meant I had to do 180 miles to Uig on Skye like a bat out of hell (0vertaking anything and everything) in my fiat panda with the last 10 miles particularly nail-biting (taking every corner at 80, watching the clock tick on and then having a car pull out in front as I entered Uig). I made it with 5 minutes to spare but the cost in stress and petrol is too high.

lightning passing by

A bouncy gale swept across the islands this afternoon followed by lightning this evening. All this elemental stuff is set against my attendance at the weekly boxercise class in Scoil Lionacleit: full of plump, red, sweaty ladies it was threatening to become a poster case for early-onset menopause but we were saved today by the arrival of a brave solitary man who made everybody else look coordinated. Thankfully the chronic incontinence of the first class has faded so now I can just concentrate on the pain. Back to tea of scalloped potatoes, smoked salmon and broccoli. Calabrese was the only green vegetable left in the coop this weekend (3 for £2!) so I'm going to have to learn to love it. My wee cottage here is now knee-deep in pending tasks (unpacking, washing-up, emails about feed-in-tariffs, CDs to be sent down to Devon ...) but it looks like it'll be an expedition (waterproof trousers, the works) to walk int work tomorrow so the tasks will have to pend a bit longer.