material girl

A gentle weekend in Shropshire (which is a very long way away from Benbecula) spent fondling oak in all its forms: Mandy Raven is starting to gather her thoughts about what her artists retreat at Ardtornish might look like and this was a meeting at the house of Liz Walmsley & Jim Partridge to discuss it further. The Shropshire time was bookended by driving very fast down the motorway smoking and eating glazed doughnuts in a white ford focus st (since you asked) and then being very, very late for Ali & Em at the Hempel Hotel. Now I'm being indulged by Em's hospitality and Tim's coffee and thinking about heading off to do Londony things at Somerset House and the British Museum.

riding before the storm

I scraped together every last little bit of flexitime to get a weekend in Drumbuidhe and set off (at 6.30am to catch the 7.30 ferry to Skye) with a sinking feeling after increasing weirdness from Campbell.

When he spends more than about 5 days up at Drumbuidhe his diet, drinking and isolation mean that his dementia becomes more apparent. This would be fine(ish) if he followed the gently dotty stereotype but alas in his case it means he gets abusive and erratic. Since he's been detained once already by the police for assaulting me I always get nervous when his behaviour deteriorates. Once the conditions are set up for him to get violent almost anything can set him off but in this case it was my refusal to pay for the mending of the grasscutter (I pointed out that it has never worked since Rene & Louise broke it) and my comment that abandoning our landrover halfway along the track for a week (this was Campbell's other new friend, Mike Kelly... he does pick 'em) is not what I would expect an 'expert on mark I landrovers' to do (there was no great drama with this: I walked 4 miles out on a sunny day and drove it back but it was rather rude of "expert" Mike).

Thankfully by the time I arrive at Drumbuidhe (after 10 hours straight travel) Campbell had calmed down so there was just the standard stuff to deal with (filthy bathroom, lots of rotten food, unemptied fires) on top of the garden work I had to do (collect seaweed, dig over potato beds, protect beans and salad crops, plant out beetroot seedlings ...). It's only when I write things down that I realise I'm being thankful that all I had to do in my spare time was skivvying (instead of skivvying plus domestic abuse).

To celebrate the calm I made some of Joanne's Spaghetti Carbonara: not the traditional Carbonara by any means but our much-loved family recipe which has been spread to everyone I've ever lived with. I've always passed it on by demonstration but my attempt to codify it goes like this:

Joanne's Carbonara

(serves two)

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 medium onion chopped finely

6 rashers streaky bacon chopped

4 cloves garlic chopped coarsely

1 tablespoon plain flour

100ml milk

100ml single cream

50g parmesan

black pepper

nutmeg

* fry the onion and bacon until browned

* add the garlic and stir for a minute or two

* add the flour and stir to form a roux

* add the milk and stir as it comes to the boil (add more milk if it's too stiff)

* add the cream and parmesan and heat through

* add black pepper and nutmeg to taste

* serve with freshly cooked pasta

After the trauma of last month's drive to the ferry (180 miles pedal to the metal and I only caught it with 4 minutes to spare) I set off with plenty of time and managed to buy stacks of gourmet goodies (olive oil! fresh peppers! poppy seeds!) in Fort William. The weather was so beautiful that I stopped by Loch Garry to photograph the mist rising off the still water feeling terribly smug. The smugness disappeared about 20 minutes out of Skye when the clouds darkened and the wind picked up. I found it terrifying but all other passengers seemed dead laconic and the crew didn't even lash the lorries down. On the positive side the fear did stop me throwing up and we made it into Lochmaddy OK - apparently if it gets too bad to dock in Lochmaddy they will turn around and go back to Skye.

Also on the positive side Campbell had to call the local garage out (although 'local' in the context of Drumbuidhe still involves at least 3 hours wait and a 4WD vehicle) to get his Honda started to get back down to Glasgow and he's decided that this means he shouldn't go back up again 'til the New Year. Hurrah!

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.

heading west

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.