et in arcadia ego

Madness and Death

I was called up last week by C's psychiatrist to say that, although his memory is not deteriorating, his mood is. She did not disagree with my suggestion that he is actively suicidal and we talked about the problem with C rejecting - angrily - offers of help. Since he has rejected the idea of drugs, the only help that is available is sectioning him in the case of a crisis. We agreed that a CPN should visit him in the hope that, if he gets offered care from a variety of people, eventually he may come round to the idea. We talked about how C's increasing mania with regard to his wind turbine (ignoring and often rejecting all other activities) has left him vulnerable to crushing and dangerous depression when he is forced to give it up (because he doesn't have the spare £30,000 per annum that it swallows up). I found myself getting angrier and angrier as I walked home at C's new friends who - with no idea of the context - have encouraged what they see as an endearing enthusiasm in wind energy. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing - in this case it's my father's sanity and life that's in danger.

This weekend was a quick dash down to Glasgow to say goodbye to the lovely Frankie (lodger from Bristol who is heading off to Paris for Erasmus) and hello to the (probably lovely but let's just wait) Radostina who is moving into my room. In the brief gap between them I got one, glorious night in my own bed. Otherwise I managed to ignore Glasgow's cultural life (I know it's stretching it to call my bed cultural, what with it having clean sheets and all) limiting myself to Byres Rd's poncey cafes. I took C and Marc out for dinner at Gandolfi Fish on the Friday night after a magical flight down (only marred by the cost-cutting removal of a free drink - would it look greedy if I started a campaign to get it reintroduced?). C started off very weepy and went downhill getting very drunk after about an hour (and 3 drinks - not sure how much he'd had before we arrived) and got gently poured into a taxi. I called him up the next day when I got back from coffee with Peter and Norma (excellent french cakes from Cranston's and gossip from the Citizens') and he was much more coherent but didn't want to see me again and still regards his visits to the psychiatrist as a challenge that has been imposed on him.

Another lovely flight back to Benbecula and I found myself almost crying as we descended on a curve across the water-speckled land. A mixture of relief and comfort at coming back to these broad lands.

and it was going so well

The new year really was going well.

I got the last ferry off the islands on Christmas Eve and drove through bits of such outstanding picturesqueness hat I quite forgot myself and started driving to Inverness instead of Fort William. The Christmas bit itself passed pleasantly enough given that there was no water (I'd brought 5 litres of drinking water with me and - together with a bathful of water for flushing the toilet - I just managed to eke it out 'til defrost on the 27th without having to do a run to the burn) dodgy electrics (the dipstick had been left out of the diesel genny, spraying oil everywhere and leaving it in danger of seizing which is a bit of a problem since the batteries are fucked so the genny's coming on every 5 minutes and we're running through fuel like it was going out of fashion - and it so isn't oh and the water turbine controls have failed as shown above) and a fridge and freezer that had both been switched off and left closed for a month (the freezer was truly disgusting and my car still smells of a mixture of offal and blackcurrants from transporting the rubbish over the track to Drimnin). I didn't get the second potato bed dug (frozen ground) or all the fruit trees pruned (too many trees) and I nearly missed the ferry on the way back (I think the ferryman recognises me from the last time: as I bombed down the hill into Uig in my exhausted wee panda I did consider crying to see if that would get me on but apparently folk try that all the time and the ferrymen are hardened, it's a funeral or nothing) ... but ... but I spent a lovely time breathing the air at Drumbuidhe and arrived on the islands smiling in the winter sunshine. A gentle start to work, a run along Culla Bay and a bracing walk in the south Uist and it's all looking good.

Alas the madness of Campbell is still there in the background and the kraken has started to stir. He's been in Glasgow since November (with Christmas in Devon) and his social life seems to be slipping into negative figures - he's rejecting everyone (friends, lovers...) and I think I'm the only person he sees in Glasgow (and since I'm based in Benbecula that's not good). He must be aware that he can't go up to Drumbuidhe by himself (I tried to be gentle about it but his memory is too bad to be in charge of the electrics we have up there - if the genny had seized it would have cost thousands to repair and we're losing probably £100 a month through excess diesel use with the crap batteries not to mention the cost of spoiled food from the freezer) so his cunning solution is to get a series of random families that we don't know to come and stay in Drumbuidhe for free and look after him for a week at a time. Oh and Emma Wright (who lives in Yorkshire) would organise the bookings for this.

Campbell is trying to recreate a period in the past that he sees now through very rose-tinted glasses since he finds the present so unbearable. I think that's also why he doesn't want to see people he knows - they would see him as he is and he would have to acknowledge that he is a confused old man. On the plus side he's getting closer to the power of attorney stage but it's not really much of a plus side.

sub-zero sally

This last week it's all been about the temperatures: hovering around the minus five mark with clear blue skies and picturesque levels of snow. I almost made a clean sweep of walking to work each day with each morning providing another spectacular series of sunrises. Friday was the final day when it would have started to get tricky (rain freezing on contact with the ground so that every tarmac surface was lethal which I wasn't looking forward to negotiating in the dark) but I got a lift home with my new hoover. This mundane domesticity contrasts with the heady glamour of Wednesday which saw a Countryfile ceilidh at Carinis on Wednesday attended by Matt Baker, John Craven and Matt's dance partner Aliona Vilani. Steven (the other Comhairle architect) and I turned up overdressed and skulked around in the background drinking cheap beer and sneaking wee peeks at the famous people. We did join in as extras for the Virginia Reel but it turned out we were too far down the line (or possibly just not good-looking enough) to get filmed. Apparently I did turn up on the BBC Alba Gaelic news but it's not available on iplayer so my dancing is lost to posterity. Still I got to share my views on haggis and black pudding with John Craven.

On a semi-professional level Bonnie Mealand called to say that she and Dave have, after 3 architects and at least 4 different house designs, decided they liked the design I did for them back in November 2009. Hey ho.

On a gastronomic level the cold weather and walking to/from work has led to a craving for comfort food and, after some rather too solid white chocolate muffins, I've struck gold with sourdough lemon & poppyseed pancakes (freely adapted from the Joy of Cooking). All quantities are approximate and it's still fine, although a different shape and texture, without the sourdough bit.

1 egg

1 large handful flour

1 tablespoonful sourdough

juice & zest from 1 lemon

1 dessert spoonful poppy seeds

1 dessert spoonful sugar

1 tablespoonful vegetable oil

milk

mix the sourdough, sugar, flour and milk to form a sloppy dough and leave for a couple of hours or overnight. In the morning mix in the lemon, egg, poppy seeds and vegetable oil with enough milk to get a texture a bit thicker than double cream ..... fry small pancakes about 10cm across and serve with yoghurt and maple syrup

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.