“Will ye go, lassie, go..?

Arran definitely delivered for the memory box. Peat-sprung pathways, wild mountain thyme and purple heather (where the lassie will go if she’s minded - as per the song) were a feature of one hike we took from one of our wild-camps. Crystal clear mountain waters gushed into deep pools that invited dogs and hot sweaty hikers to take a dip, so we did.

As well as hiking, Arran is an easy place to idle in (if you’re like me), and to bike around, if you’re more actively inclined, and that’s what Gareth did when he had the chance. While he muddied himself mountain biking I was happy to be parked up on the seafront at Lamlash, a pretty little village reliant nowadays on golf and tourism rather than fishing, especially since the bay is now a ‘No-Take’ zone. Sadly its sea-bed and fish stocks were ravaged by what was once an annual fishing festival. This year tourism has of course been difficult to fully service, with COVID still lurking but we found enough to enjoy and folk were friendly and accommodating. We got to know the island’s wild-camp spots and made sure we thanked the communities for the free motorhome service points by leaving donations and where we found litter, which was very rare, we cleaned up (#FB Wild and Wombling). The wild camping that we’ve seen is generally considerate and responsible, while stories of trashed sites and lack of etiquette elsewhere has featured in the news and social media. We have heard that where tolerance of wild campers in other parts has been sorely tested, signs are going up prohibiting it. ‘Leave no Trace’ is our motto, though given the amount of hair that the dogs and I shed, I guarantee that we’ve left a lot of DNA about the place.

 

I think the people of Arran were pleased to see tourists, whether free-camping or otherwise. There wasn’t capacity at the few campsites on the island so well behaved free-camping was accepted. Elsewhere it’s been more difficult to find suitable spots, or campsites for that matter.

So Arran scored well with us but we did leave it after a two week stay, taking the ferry from Lochranza to Kintyre seduced by the opportunity of a sea-food lunch at the Skipness Seafood Cabin, and which was indeed a lovely treat. Views of Arran from across the waters are dramatic. An island of two halves geologically and geographically, it looms out of the sea and from our wild-camp on the seashore at Skipness I gazed for hours at the rolling silvery waves and the mystical crags of Arran on the horizon. We toured Kintyre in one windy, rainy day and, yes, it’s worth another visit some day. This western part of Scotland is wonderful and more island hopping is a definite for a future trip. Our struck-lucky night spot as I write is at Stravanan Bay on the Isle of Bute and we are again looking out at Arran.

A useful bit of information to have when travelling around Scotland is a midge report; smidgeup.com is a good site listing different levels of threat. At level 1 I can cope but I don’t ever want to encounter level 5! I quickly found out that not having equipped us with Smidge was a mistake and now I need therapy to cure me of midge paranoia. I’ve had to accept that I’m a wimp and while I love being able to park up on a breezy seashore, camping in the forests and moorlands of Scotland just doesn't do it for me during any part of midge season, I’m afraid. I like seeing such places through the window as we drive along but the midges can keep them, as far as I’m concerned. Maybe the Scots have a DNA that makes them midge-immune, but clearly I have a different Celtic strain and am a bit tasty, at least as far as those beastly biters are concerned. They’re not so fussed about Gareth.

Midges aside, we are enjoying this unintended summer staycation, whatever a staycation means. Assuming it means staying in the UK instead of heading to foreign climes then we are doing our bit for the country’s economy. UK means unreliable weather and we’ve had a mixed bag. A trip to the outdoor shop in Brodick provided us with a couple of items of suitable outdoor clothing and some Smidge (phew!). Gareth was pleased to have got a good deal on a biking waterproof that next day he was too slow to put on as the heavens opened on him. He returned muddy, wet and bedraggled while, from inside the van, I enjoyed watching a little girl, dancing in the rain, clearly loving the sensation of it’s freshness on her summer skin. When skin is such an amazing coverall, why do we need all the very technical, environmentally toxic coverings that other creatures don’t bother with? Now there’s an idea to help save the planet! Let’s all become naturists and give up all the clobber we drag around with us.

Economically, we’ve had a couple of lucky strikes. Gareth is having a long paid holiday, thanks to Rishi Sunak’s furlough scheme and the National Trust. Then we won thirty quid on the lottery which paid for the Arran ferry and to top it off, the seafood lunch turned out to be half the expense we had pushed the boat out for - it was apparently subsidised by the August ‘Help to Eat Out’ scheme that we knew nothing about. 

As an end-note, here’s a quick reflection on social distancing. The other day I saw an (older) woman wearing a T-shirt on the back of which was written “Social Distancing: if when I turn around I can punch you in the face you’re too close” (I guess she must be from Glasgow). It does occur to me that hugging and kissing anyone other than your lover or your child is a modern behaviour. Maybe the non-tactile behaviour of earlier generations that we thought of as repressive, was actually behaviour that made sense. Without vaccines, everyone is a threat to one’s health, aren’t they? It would seem that hankies, keeping a distance and hand-washing are codes of behaviour that we all have to learn anew in this COVID-19 era. What goes around comes around, eh?

Unlocked

Waking gently to the sounds of sea birds and the gentle lapping of waves on a gravelly shore infused with the oystery smell of kelp is a sublime experience; one for my treasure box of memories. My mother used to talk about how she held in her head a ‘jewel box’ in which she kept her special memories safe, to be taken out every now and then to enjoy looking at them. I have a delightful collection of childhood camping trips in my memory box and our camper is providing more to add to their shimmering beauty. We’re currently in South West Scotland, on the Isle of Arran

———————

This journal is described as being about learning to live differently. Through lockdown I guess we all had to learn how to live differently. Should we or shouldn’t we wear masks? What is a safe social distance? Is it ok, now, to socialise indoors? What about travelling abroad? Will people continue to work from home in preference to the old way of working? What about schools? How infectious are children? Is it safe to eat in cafes and restaurants? How deadly is the virus, really? There is just so much we don’t yet know about this flippin’ thing. I’m 67, nearly. Gareth is younger but we’re both feeling rather vulnerable, to be honest, like so many of the older generation, wondering if this is nature’s way of correcting the population imbalance. 

Although the pandemic isn’t over, the country is having a break from the months of containment. Cases are low enough for the powers-that-be to figure we all need a summer break -  a recharge before there’s another ‘spike’ (the Economy needs a recharge, too, of course). So, like midges hatching from standing waters we’ve all risen into the summer air. Our little ‘pond’ (the caravan site) sprang to life and immediately became a booming, buzzing confusion of activity; quite a shock after the months we’d spent in splendid isolation! Lovely though it was to see friends again, and to see everyone’s joy to be back at their seaside retreats, we packed the camper and took off for Scotland where dark sky zones promised dreamy stargazing nights. Gareth is still furloughed and the National Trust doesn’t seem in any hurry to open things up at Rhossili. We also made the caravan, with the little salad garden we’d nurtured through lockdown, available to Owen, Jess and the children, who’d had to cancel their planned trip to Portugal as two weeks of quarantine on return wasn’t an option for them. 

So here we are again, splendidly isolated in Hymer, self-contained with two crazy spaniels and a sufficient supply of food and drink. We haven’t changed our lockdown comfort-eating (and drinking) habit yet, though we’ve taken note of the government’s warning about obesity being a very significant risk factor in contracting COVID-19. We keep eyeing up each other’s abdomens to assess whether or not we fit the obese category. If I can still look down and see my toes, does that mean I’m ok to eat that bag of crisps and drink the rest of my wine??? Gareth is working off a bit of it on his mountain bike when he finds a suitable place, but my walking is apparently getting slower so maybe I’m not burning off enough of that comfort food. 

From what we’ve seen so far, Scotland does seem to be taking a more cautious approach to the pandemic. Shopping with everyone compulsorily wearing a mask seems so much more sensible than Wales’s ‘it’s-up-to-you’ policy. In our experience, the ones choosing to wear masks are generally the ones who are most vulnerable; older people on the whole. Younger people seem less concerned and less likely to be wearing masks or social distancing. That’s the wrong way round, surely, given that mask wearing is to protect others, rather than oneself. In Castle Douglas’s Tesco, I felt a bit safer seeing everyone wearing a mask. Good on ya, Scotland!

We have taken risks, however. No way can I not hug my family after seeing so little of them, and it is easy to forget to always wash hands or sanitise after touching things others may have touched. This is all SO unnatural! I feel sorry for people like the owner of an Isle of Arran campsite, whose business season is so short this year and in his seventies having to COVID proof his facilities dressed in PPE. He was nevertheless in good spirits and gave us a warm welcome as he assigned us a pitch on account of our being self-contained. Other campers were being assigned their own family toilet and shower, significantly limiting the number of campers the site can accommodate. 72 hours between guests in self-catering accommodation in order to isolate any lurking coronavirus is also a significant impediment to tourism businesses like this one, along with all of the other health and safety requirements.

It’s really lovely here, though if the virus is spreadable by midgies, I’m in for it! Arran is a beautiful island with lovely rocky shores, lush wild flowers, vivid cerise heather, little roads that wind around the coastline and clamber up the hilly northern end with its craggy skyline. Seals, dolphins, herons, cormorants, gannets, sea-faring swans....... they’ve been our neighbours while we’ve settled ourselves for a couple of days on the shore of Kilbrannan Sound. The call to venture further out into the Scottish Isles is getting louder, though. Do we dare to take advantage of furlough time to extend our holiday? Hmmmm.

Post script to ‘Enjoying the Ride’

“For the want of a shoe.........”

Gareth read the piece I posted today (‘Enjoying the Ride’) and asked me where I was going with it. Fair question, I suppose. I’d been wondering about whether I really am negative in the way my son says I am. His observation was made in a conversation we were having about what the future holds for the children and I confess, it’s something I worry about. I haven’t seen much recently to give me faith in humanity’s survival value, much as I would hope that we can survive, and in a world that we have nurtured back to good health. I do therefore feel it important to convey the urgency of our need not to return to the old normal, but when I do, my reasoning seems to create anxiety for my loved ones. I don’t want to scare them so what’s the best thing for me to do? All I can do, it seems, is hang on to hope, my stubborn optimism, and give love.

Dog daisies

Enjoying the ride

My son tells me I’m rather negative. Hmmm - I thought I was practising ‘stubborn optimism’. 

Pause for thought, then.

My last blog certainly doesn’t reflect much optimism and I’m still having weird, often scary, dreams. Am I anxious? If I am I’m not aware of being so. As I told Owen - I think life is a wonderful gift; a great adventure. We don’t know what’s in store for us, what’s around the next corner, what it’s all about......but it’s an adventure nevertheless.

The other day I was trying to recall the potted wisdoms that my forebears would present as answers to a worry or calamity. One that makes me smile as being the epitome of stoicism is “Well, this is what you find”. A friend reminded me of another version - “It is what it is”. My paternal grandmother was an eternal optimist and would always calm a worry with “It’ll all turn out right in the end” (we never questioned what ‘the end’ might be). “Live and let live” is another one. These ancestors were all church or chapel goers. 

My father, while also innately optimistic, was a bit of a heretic, like his own father, and would say “Cheer up! We’ll soon be dead”, and laugh, of course. If I were to parrot that in a pandemic I would definitely be seen as a doom-mongerer.

And so what if I am? 

It’s the last day of June as I write, and we’ve been in lockdown here in Wales for over three months. There’s been a bit of loosening up; nothing like the loosening in England, but out and about you wouldn’t think there was much of a lockdown at all. Since Cummings-gate (as it’s become known) a great many people have abandoned social distancing, mask-wearing and restricting their travel. Recently a bus full of Londoners had to be turned around at one of our local CLOSED beach car parks! On the same (admittedly hot) day some youngsters looking for somewhere to party arrived on our beach here having travelled from Cardiff, well outside their five mile limit. Littering day trippers are arriving regularly and in greater numbers. If they are following the rule of ‘two households only’ some of these households must be pretty well populated!

So, we are living with the virus, some of us still exercising common-sense (whatever that amounts to), some of us in stubborn denial and some quaking anxiously in their homes. The UK is coming out as the worst in all measures in terms of infection and death rates compared with other first world countries. What a tribute to our Brexit-focussed, Boris Johnson-led government! Not!

Through the virtual window we’ve seen a great deal happening out there in the wider world. There have been regular mass “Black Lives Matter” protests (some mask-wearing, but....) and statue toppling (any historical figure associated with racism and the slave trade). Elon Musk’s manned space-craft launched safely and arrived at the Space Station. Non-essential shops opened across the UK and people queued for hours to get into places like Primark and IKEA (WHY?). In the ‘small print’ atrocities continue in places like Yemen and Myanmar, stories about trade deals, corruption and Climate Change receiving little attention. I’ve given up shouting about such things on social media, giving Facebook a wider berth after being offered badges for following particular sources. What the heck! (I would put a stronger expletive there, but....)

So, ‘this is what you find’, or ‘it is what it is’. Maybe ‘it will all turn out right in the end’, and I’ll ‘cheer up because we’ll soon be dead’. I don’t think I’m negative. I’m stubbornly optimistic that all is as it should be and I’m just going to continue enjoying the ride, scary dreams and all.

Happy thoughts?

What if the plane of humanity, earthly life itself, even, is going down? How do we spend those last minutes of existence.

Right now, it seems that First Class has shut the door to keep out the babble and commotions from the rest of the plane. They continue to enjoy being waited on with champagne and caviar.

It’s not as though the problem hadn’t been noticed early on and those that noticed have been doing their best to mobilise others to help fix the problem. They’ve been mocked and dismissed as fear-mongers as always happens when someone disturbs the peace by raising an alarm. “Look, the sky is blue and we’ve never before had such an easy ride. Stop with your story of doom! Sit down and let us enjoy the film” is the general response.

But there are pockets of great unease on the plane, too. Arguments are breaking out. People clutch their wallets, handbags and children seeing things getting nasty. People are fighting each other for things that won’t matter a jot when this monstrous human edifice hits the ground. Panic hasn’t quite broken out yet, but the flight is feeling different. Something isn’t right. Most aren’t hearing the call to do something, the alcohol is very relaxing, but there are some looking to fix things. Inevitably, because we are humans, there is no agreement on what the problem is and how to fix it, so the efforts are unco-ordinated. 

What is the pilot and crew doing? Is there a pilot? Is there someone in the cockpit wrestling to keep this mega-plane in the air or is it someone with a deeply sinister death wish? Are they all dead in there? The door to the cockpit is tightly shut and the rest of us are flying passively and blind, going down.

I hope, of course, that life as we know it is not going down like a massive plane crash, but if it is, and the way we are behaving so far is just as I describe - how should we spend those last minutes?

Stubborn Optimism

Things are getting strange, very strange. Apparently a recent survey showed that almost half of us in the UK now hold some sort of conspiracy theory about this pandemic and I came up with one of my own. News breaking of Dominic Cumming’s unapologetic rule-breaking has had me wondering whether we’re being herded, dull as sheep. And like sheep, when we break loose we run aimlessly in different directions. Was that his intention, I’ve wondered - as a way to put herd immunity back on the agenda? 

There is a ‘Matrix’-like quality about it all, too. I’m trying not to be too fanciful about it, but when my window on the world is TV and Social Media, the view out shifts occasionally and I catch a glimpse of something odd. When the Cummings episode hit the news, at the same time my Netflix menu of “because you watched....” offered me ‘Brexit: the uncivil war’ with Benedict Cumberbach playing Cummings. Was it because earlier in the week we’d watched the 2011 film “Contagion”, a story spookily similar to the current pandemic? In our splendid isolations, are we being watched and herded in different virtual directions? Of course we are.

Listless and aimless one day, my morning cuppa accompanied by a browse on Facebook and a few short Messenger chats, l see a post pop up on Facebook that has the black dog baying at my door. It’s a photo of surgical masks being fished from the sea.  Our friend Nick tells me that it’s click bait, and so it is, but it had already plunged me into a pool of hopelessness, a feeling maintained by more stories of mindless littering now that people are venturing out more. Is my environmentalism being fed by Facebook? Undoubtedly.

The Net is reading us, watching us closely. At the time of writing this on my iPad working off-line, suddenly a notification popped up with reference to a Matrix. How spooky is that? 

Ok, I’m getting a bit paranoid. I’m also getting shouty. As my equanimity is disturbed by some new shock via the media I am likely to spring into Facebook with BIG WRITING and show how angry or shocked I am. I’ve given up my mad clapping into the emptiness on a Thursday night for the NHS et al and taken to being indignant about something on Social Media instead. 

There is an awful lot to be indignant about though, and I’m trying to figure out which things are worth getting my dander up for. A lot of people are talking about tyranny and oppression but if I let myself be herded into corners of indignation I could be letting myself be made a fool of. I am questioning what’s worth getting upset about, otherwise Gareth may as well sign me up for counselling when this is all over, adding me to the legions whose mental health has been impaired by this whole thing.

So what is worth getting on a soap box for? What about Cummings? It’s Boris’s handling of the situation that I am crossest about. I am informed by my Conservative cousin that whatever his inadequacies, Boris was the man for the Brexit job given his accurate reading of British feeling (not mine, I have to say). However, our PM’s lack of appreciation for how Cumming’s behaviour makes fools of so many is unforgivable. It is such a reflection of how little he does know about us Britons that the first unlocking was good news only for the affluent -  gardeners, golfers, tennis players and car owners. Does he care about the others? It doesn’t look like it.

 BUT! We live in a democracy, apparently. We all (I do anyway) cherish the freedom, like Cummings (though unlike him, I’m not the rule maker) to exercise our own judgement and whether to abide by a rule or to do what each of us personally feels is best, with the proviso that it doesn’t impinge on the rights of others. Unhappy as I am that Cummings believed himself to be an exception to the rules, being hounded by a mob of angry and aggressive protesters at his home is not ok to my mind. While free speech is a basic tenet of democracy we do need to keep it civilised. I will continue to make my feelings known about such issues, when I think it’s important to do so, but I will make an effort to address the issues, rather than attacking the person. 

What else? Well, while I’m on the topic of free speech, there’s Trump and I’m thinking about the contrasting assessments of him. He’s as entitled to free speech as anyone else, I guess, though he is the President and I’ve been shocked, angered, dismayed and amused by some of the things he has said. All I know of him is what I see and hear in the various media - his Tweets for instance. Of course I haven’t had the privilege of meeting him in person, not that I’ve ever wanted to, but if I had, would I be as concerned about his proximity to machinery that could extinguish much of the planet? Would I be as concerned about his sanity as I am currently about my own? He leads (if that’s the right word) the biggest, richest country in the world (Sorry, but this line from the song ‘Ernie’ popped into my brain -  “and he drove the fastest milk-cart in the West”). The US was built on the values of freedom and while historically those freedoms didn’t initially extend to everyone (slaves, women...) it has nevertheless been a beacon of freedom for the whole world as we’ve come through the years to today. BUT.....now the war between Trump and the Media is escalating. As I write, he’s threatening to shut down Twitter for fact-checking and obscuring his tweets that breach their rules (incitement to violence, for instance). What price ‘freedom of speech’ when it threatens harm? What a conundrum, especially when ‘harm’ these days can mean anything from murder to feeling a bit hurt by some innocent remark. I don’t want to be too ‘Woke’ and become fascist in my left-leanings, but I’m as worried about Trump’s often aggressive statements as I am about the mob outside Cumming’s home. Nor is the violence acceptable that has apparently exploded in the US following the death of a black citizen in Minneapolis, at the hands (knee, actually) of a white policeman, however much that anger is understandable. The death is a horrible story but if we are worried about tyranny and oppression we should not resort to being tyrannical ourselves or we just bring about further oppression.

Anger is spilling over, and it’s scary.

And now we have the ‘New Normal’ - all of us trying to move around the virus and get back to work, school, and being together. Rule followers need to know precisely what is and what isn’t allowed; others put their faith in common-sense, others are still in denial and others are flailing around looking for something to vent their frustration on (I may be one of those; poor blog reader).

After a lot of mooching about like a dark cloud one day, carefree the next, deep in anxious thought on another, so much of my activity has been pretty pointless. But, it has been the Hay Literary festival this week, “Imagine the World”. Being on-line this year has made it really accessible and how glad am I! The talks I’ve signed into have been very helpful in adjusting my balance as they have all been fascinating and inspiring. From watching a Ted talk I now also have a new mantra (did I have an old one?) - Tom Rivett-Carnac is a campaigner for the Climate Change emergency and worked for the United Nations. So many of his fellow campaigners are keeping hope alive in the face of so much obstruction to their agenda of creating a healthier planet. He speaks of having to maintain a ‘stubborn optimism’. What a perfect mantra. 

There may be troubles ahead but I must avoid being herded off cliffs. I have a choice. I could flock with the angry, the disillusioned and the fearful or I can doggedly continue from where I am, making my way with eyes wide open and treating my world with respect and loving care. I stubbornly and optimistically hope that everyone else does the same.

Dream on

Such weird dreams; such mood swings! My condition seems to be a common symptom of this pandemic related lockdown and many are finding that the enjoyment of an enforced holiday is starting to wear thin. Each morning I, for one, wake from a dream that I can’t relate to anything going on in my life. It’s a shame these dreams aren’t more fairy-tale-like or I could enjoy them.

Boris’s message last Monday was that now, instead of staying at home to help the NHS and save lives we are to ‘Stay Alert, Control the Virus, Save Lives’. I don’t feel very alert at the moment, preferring a nice nap on the sofa. The message was only for England anyway; Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland preferring the old one, and keeping the locks on for a while longer. Our much reduced police force now has the added duty of patrolling the Welsh and Scottish borders to stop the English invaders who’ve now been let loose to travel at will (provided they are back home by bed-time - the travellers, that is; not the police). Will the dreams get weirder as we emerge from our caves, I wonder? Will ‘staying alert’ mean constantly looking over one’s shoulder for the ‘invisible mugger’? There has been much derision over Boris’s bumbling delivery of his lifting-the-lockdown plan, and his new confusing message. For sure no one knows how to proceed safely from here.

In June, English schools are expected to take some of the children back. Now that has created quite a stir. While Michael Gove insists that it is perfectly safe (why is he always so ‘certain’ and ‘clear’ about everything?), many others are not convinced, so the Unions are involved. We are assured that children are statistically much less affected by coronavirus, but may nevertheless be infectious and therefore a threat to their older relatives. This pandemic is certainly fracturing human relationships, quite apart from its effect on economies around the world.

Gareth has been spending his furlough time learning about economics and stock markets. The US is about to go down the pan, apparently, and are busy shoring up stocks artificially using Federal (i.e., taxpayer) money in order to give the billionaires time to get out before a crash. That’s going to be a fun scenario! Where will they place their billions, I wonder, assuming their dollars are still worth anything? And will there be any tax-payers left to pay back what has been filched from the Federal Reserve? How will it affect us here in the UK? Quite severely I suspect, given the importance of the dollar in global economics.

I’m doing a lot of wondering and not a lot of doing nowadays. I read a bit, sew a bit (a little super-hero outfit for my grand-daughter Ivy’s birthday, for instance), a bit of crochet, planting a few things in whatever pots we can cobble together (we might achieve a couple of lettuces if we’re lucky), a bit of walking to the extent that arthritic hips allow, a bit of mediocre cooking, surfing social media...... In terms of social contact there is so little to talk about, other than the pandemic. Phone and Zoom chats are getting fewer and further between and TV is having to find ingenious ways to entertain and inform us (production of “Line of Duty” is on hold! Oh, no!!) It all makes me wonder about the ‘old days’ when info about the outside world came by word of mouth only and entertainment was around-the-fire storytelling.  What would we have known about a situation such as this?

Well, I continue with this ‘bloody blog’ so that I, or maybe my descendants, if they survive, can look back on this time and be reminded of how it felt to an ageing grandmother.  Someone, somewhere suggested at the start that we should all keep a journal so I’m on board with that idea. It’s a bit different from the travel blog, for sure. 

I’m off now for a snack followed by a nap and probably another weird dream. Let’s see what week 8 (or is it 9?) brings.