spidery ink

Webs of hair thin black lines creep from the letters. The ink I use is too heavy and the pages bleed, smudges abound and my hand cramps as the day's happenings come back. I sift through what matters and doesn't, what doesn't matter but amuses and what might matter later, when I think about it. Down it goes. The narrow roads, the hills, the water, the endless sheep, the horny does and hornier stags, the endlessly changing sky, the vast expanses, the towering mountains appearing from the clouds in silence. The teasing sun, occasionally shining a spotlight on some deserted stretch of nowhere, drawing our eyes towards yet more indescribable beauty. 

It's all there, in my swollen notebook - over a thousand miles of notes, snippets of tales, beginnings and endings. 

An adventure.

limping pizza

Right. I think I need to stop eating pizza. In fact, I'm not going to have a pizza again in 2007. Pepperoni, jalapenos and extra cheese have done me in for the last time this year. 

In other news, I've thrown my knee out and am limping like a gimp. The tale surrounding it is one of complete and total idiocy. I'm not quite ready to tell it yet. 

Tomorrow is another adventure. And adventure with a limp.

overdue

Different inks from different pens - twenty or thirty pages of notes taken a year ago almost to the day. It's a chronicle, a diary, a journal of a small adventure, a road trip throughout the highlands - from south to north and from east to west and back east again. It starts with a night in the great hall at Tullibole and finishes somewhere along the A9, heading south. 

I was diligent in keeping notes and narrative. Every night before bed, every spare moment I updated. I lost pen after pen. I don't think any entry is in the same ink as the one prior. The routine grew on me. The questions of the day settled by chronicling them. Sleep never eluded me on that trip, though it was a strange and different bed every night. 

The plan was to clean it up. Type everything up, flesh it out, give it some reflection, then shop it. 

Instead it sits among my pile of the unwritten. I read it now and I'm surprised at how much I've forgotten. It needs work. It sits there and I feel urgency and trepidation in turn.

Sunday sees another road trip, to even more remote corners of the north, to Scotland's empty quarter above Ullapool. Gnarled coast and tiny roads await, as does my notebook. Perhaps this new adventure will stir the memories of the old one. Perhaps. 

I hope so. The pile of unwritten is growing, and there's too much overdue.

And I need a new adventure.

monday boredom.

The bar's quiet - a bunch of drunks, Scots and Yorkshiremen, sit on the couches and mutter gibberish. I can't even be bothered to eavesdrop. We've shut the doors to keep the cold out. The tide's receded and there's little sound from the sea. The boom of distant fireworks thud and echo every few minutes. It is the fifth after all - remember, remember and all that.

Only yesterday the car swerved along the wee highland roads like a roller-coaster, surrounded by the autumn's silent fireworks, vibrant in defiance of the dreich, overcast skies. We pulled over and wandered through the woods, following trails and half-trails towards a lazy stretch of river. Small adventures are better than no adventures, and this seemed perfect for a brisk November Sunday.

Afterwards the fire popped and the soft scent of wood smoke drifted throughout the pub. The food and beer warmed our bellies. We chatted in quiet, happy tones, planning new adventures.

Monday comes first though, and the rest of them. And sometimes a quiet bar with loud, irrelevant drunks isn't a bad thing.

Photos here.

Edinburgh Airport without a pen

I had no pen.

I scratched my head and looked around the stark, strip-light glow of the departure lounge. The fluorescent bulbs hummed in the background. My rucksack bit a bit into my shoulder. My clothes had that awkward discomfort that you get in anticipation of flying. I don't know what it is, but if you've flown - ever - you know what I mean.

Duty Free offered a whisky tasting and I accepted. A new range from an old distillery - shiny new packaging, aged in all manner of oak - genuine differences wrapped in layer upon layer of marketing bullshit. The modern booze trade to a 'T' as it were. To be fair, the whiskies tasted nice - better than their predecessors. My cheeks felt a quick flush.

I had no pencil.

I handed back the miniscule plastic tasting beaker and wandered past the rest of the shopping area. I couldn't afford anything but asked to see one of the cameras anyway. Eventually there will be money in my account - eventually I will be able to afford it. I handed it back with a smile to a bored sales assistant who didn't deserve it.

My notebooks sat in my rucksack, but no pen, no pencil, not even a stubby one, sharpened to the eraser.

The mutter of footsteps and quiet chatter, BBC News 24 on the widescreens scattered throughout the terminal, everything sat subdued in the boredom of waiting. It was a perfect time and place to scribble.

I didn't have a pen. I had my notebooks, but no pen. My laptop was in the shop. I couldn't write.

It was an odd feeling. It started as a slight discomfort. I flexed my fingers and thought of all the things I wasn't writing down. Ideas arrived from nowhere and I tried to etch them into my brain. It didn't work, so I popped into the newsagents to buy a book and some pens. I needed to write. I wanted to read, too.

Nothing moves at pace in airports. Everyone's flight is delayed, and so they wander. They shuffle along the linoleum tiles, bored, uninterested that they're going somewhere. The queue in the newsagents shuffled, uninterested. Their eyes wandered, their hands clutching bottled water, sweets, vapid magazines.

I found a book, but no pens. That couldn't be right. An entire shelf of puzzle books, crosswords, sudoku and mad-libs, but no pens? I looked again. Fat Crayola magic markers? Yes. A simple biro? No. My turn at the register.

'Just the book, sir?'

'Do you have any pens?'

'Hey, Kenny, do we have any pens?'

'Uh... dinnae ken... no. Nae pens.'

'Just the book, please.'

No pens.

My new book and I walked by our gate and to the coffee shop. The smallness of Scotland struck me as I recognised at least 4 of the people sitting at the gate. Not friends, or even acquaintances, but faces seen in passing, either on the street or in the paper or some such. An MSP, a Lord - the disturbing familiarity of strangers lingered as I ordered a mocha and a sandwich.

Dark Star Safari, by Paul Theroux, took me elsewhere as I munched and sipped. This was not the bored, lackadaisical traveler with a muffled shuffle through the airport, staring at a magazine or texting wantonly. His next flight wasn't just another aluminium tube to shuttle him to another bored and antiseptic terminal. He was going somewhere to fall off the face of the world, to leave the texts, the magazines, the email, the New York Times, the world where travel was just another commute, where stepping on a plane was as mundane as stepping on a bus. There may be anguish, discomfort, fear, disease, triumph and all manner of surprise in store, but there wouldn't be boredom, nothing would be same-old.

Notebooks, no pen.

Ten pages in, my sandwich and mocha finished, I looked around the airport. I needed to write, to do, to go somewhere, and not to Heathrow. Where else? Nineteen departure gates to choose from - surely one of them would have some preferable destination, somewhere far from the comfort zone and familiarity of Britain or even Europe? A glance at the departure board would quickly answer my question, so I didn't look at it. It was time to explore, even somewhere as boring Edinburgh airport warranted a bit of exploration.

I went to the far gates: 17-20. Southampton & Exeter, the other gates closed. Both lovely in their own way, but well within the comfort zone. Still, there was another newsagent. And they sold pens. I bought a couple and headed back towards the main terminal. The connecting walk had a skywalk (or whatever they call what are just flat escalators) and gorgeous panoramic photos of Edinburgh punctuated by grand quotes by the great and good, extolling the city's virtues. I ignored the flat escalator and strolled along, still inspired.

I had pens.

The international departure gates lay in darkness, all closed. Only then did I look at the boards, seeking some flight elsewhere. There were none. The remaining flights were all shuttles, commuter flights to the main hubs around the island. Even the last Belfast flight had gone. The flights for the next morning were posted - several to the continent, Paris, Munich, Madrid... the only one that interested me was Stornaway. Still Scotland, but remote, isolated, surrounded by sea and wilderness.

I shrugged and walked back to my departure gate. I couldn't have changed flights anyway, not these days, not checked in and through security. Even if I could have, like the camera, I couldn't afford it. But it was nice, for twenty minutes or so, to look. To question where I would go, and what I'd do when I got there. To not mundanely text, to not play solitaire on my iPod, to not stare at the other bored passengers-to-be, but search instead for something else, something different.

Back in the departure gate I saw an old friend and his new girlfriend. Familiar reintroduction and pleasant, staid chat commenced. It was nice, comfortable.

But throughout my thoughts drifted, turning back to my pocket, to my new book, my new pens, and where I could go.

white horses

The white horses are gone, departed with a whisper. The sea's calm now and the night is settling with mild temperament. Pastel clouds brush the sky and the seals are swimming about with a nonchalance that only sea mammals can pull off.

The water on the sea walls is just a hush, a whisper, a memory of the sea's rage of the days before.

Perhaps that's why the seals are so nonchalant.

Not nippy.

The cold bites. It's not nippy.

It doesn't nip.

It bites - with fangs.

Usually at this time of year I'd make some unsubstantiated prediction about the winter.

'It'll be a cold one' or 'I reckon there'll be a lot of snow this year' or some such rubbish.

It's very old-man-ish. There's no logic behind the predictions. I just spout them out because it seems like something to say when a new season's upon you.

This year I have no idea. It's cold now - I know that. Fashion is an issue of layers at the moment, and I have several. My army of jumpers is being put to good use after a summer of hibernation.

Today is a fuzzy day - several beers and a rare couple of herbal refreshments last night have left me feeling a tad... behind...

paper storms and needless nerves

I'm bad at paperwork. The thing with being bad at paperwork is that there's always evidence. Piles of it - stuffed into drawers and cupboards - demands, reminders, requests, citations - all sorts really. It builds and builds. Sometimes it catches you.

I was meant to be in court yesterday. Unpaid road tax fines or some such disaster. What with moving twice in the last 6 months and a true cowardice when it comes to officially postmarked letters, I'd just let things slip. I panicked. A sense of despair and doom lingered for awhile. Beer didn't taste as good as it should. I wondered what I was going to do.

The court notice had a number to phone - a direct line. It daunted me. It was just a phone number. I could phone and claim my total ineptitude. I had images of someone on the other end of the line, bored and vindictive, listening to me squirm, throwing my pride away and begging for a stay of execution, waiting for my last gasp of an apology before telling me I could turn myself into Fife Constabulary immediately. Do not pass GO. Do not collect £200.

I phoned with trepidation, after running out of excuses not to. No one bored or vindictive answered. A nice lady let me pay over the phone and the crisis was averted. No court appearance and no warrants for my arrest.

I've got two jobs at the moment, and they're overlapping a bit more often than I'd like. 9-5 followed by 6-12 doesn't leave much room for anything else. Once again I'm living on espressos and wondering what I felt like going a whole day without caffeine. It's a mystery. It's also a bit weird - when you work that much, you forget you get paid for it because you don't have any time to spend what you've earned. It's a nice surprise to find money in the bank (or wallet) at the end of it all.

Until the paperwork rears its ugly head and spends it all.

On the plus side, there are strong signs that both jobs are to fall to the wayside in favour of something better. Right - time for caffeine.

whipped cream & duffel bags

My mother refused to buy cans of whipped cream. She wasn't worried about whippits. I was a little sheltered for that sort of thing. I was also only about 9 years old. The thought of using whipped cream to get a buzz other than a sugar rush was alien. Besides, I was hyper enough. No, her rationale was that she could whip better cream than came from a can. She was right. What she didn't realise was that cans of whipped cream were fun. Junk food and a toy, all in one. That was the killer for me, that was why I complained, why I folded my arms in 9-year-old indignation.

My mother refused to fold to my indignation. Much like the cereal wars, this was a battle never to be won. All was not lost though. Instead of buying me cans of whipped cream she taught me to make my own. It wasn't hard. Good double cream or whipping cream, sugar, a big bowl and a whisk. Playing with a whisk beat fiddling with a can any day. In retrospect, it was the first food I ever really made. Frozen pizzas in the toaster oven and milk over cereal didn't really count. Too much sugar and it was inedible, too little and it was sickly. Over-whipping lead to a churned, butter-like mass. Over-whipping happened a lot. I loved making it. I didn't need to be hungry, or even wanting dessert. It didn't matter. It was mine - if it came out right, it was because of me, if it was ruined, well, that was my fault too.

Cooking the other night I pondered my whipped cream days. The gravy bubbled and reduced (a touch more stock and a hefty splash of red wine for good measure). The smell of caramelised onions and roast tomatoes with garlic permeated the kitchen.

I've not made whipped cream in years. I've not thought about it in years either. Its resurfacing is a bit of a mystery. There's no terrible whipped cream tragedy that blocked it from my consciousness. It's just one of those things that lies buried in the bottom of an old duffel bag. I was just rummaging through some old memories and out it popped.

Speaking of old duffel bags (this is a link), I have one that sits in a corner between my standing wardrobe and the door to my room. It's old military issue - army or marines - a sort of desert tan canvas. At one point it fit in everything I could possibly need for a summer. At the time, I think it could fit me in it as well. I was twelve. Somewhere along the way it went missing, transferred from London to Florida. Later on, years later, I found it again and brought it back to the UK. An old address is stenciled onto its canvas. It's beaten and battered but still strong. I found myself rummaging through it for a jumper yesterday.

Summer's retreated. It's time to empty the duffel of my jumpers, scarves and gloves and fill it again with shorts, flip-flops and linen shirts. Stew on the stove, simmering for hours on end - pots of tea brewed strong and my woolen hats pulled snug over my ears.

The cold's come back. Proper cold, the sort that defies the sun, that joins with the damp to chill the bones.

Indian Summer

I'll take any summer I can get. My shorts and flip-flops have not been retired yet. Jumpers hang around the waist. My sunglasses are fixed to my face and I eat ice cream every day. Beer tastes better, earned by merely enduring the warmth of the sun.

The joy of falling asleep on top of the covers and waking up without a chill.

The light fades a bit earlier though, and the sun's lazier in the morning. Indian summers tend to be short, but I'll take what I can get.

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Some new pics up here and here. Weddings and wanderings from a brilliant weekend.