2. Meeting the Community

The beautiful and quiet Glen Gravir,  road of holidays houses

Sent: 06 February 2007 20:03
From: Stokes, Mark.
Subject: Blog Two: Meeting the Community
       
       
        
       
        Day Seven:
       
        As planned today I took Austin up to the shed to introduce him to the mans world of shed life. He seems to have developed an apprehension of Hoovers based upon the noise they make and this also seems to extend to power tools. This is obviously a shame and something we will have to cure him of over time. Especially if we want him to do the hoovering around the house or if for example I tell him to go warm up the chain saw for me or something. We managed to cut a plank up into two and then put a ' vee ' into one end to make the pointy bit on the boat. The two bits got screwed together to give it some weight and then I drilled a hole through the front and attached 15ft of rope to it so that we wouldn't have to go through the rigmarole of making a boat again. Austin would perch  on the armchair in the shed watching me working, and then when I had everything set up for a quick flurry of power tool action he would go and stand outside in the rain by his own preference to be away from the noise, and fearsome whirling things. This system seemed to work quite well and to be honest I really didn't want to confront his fears there and then by waving a circular saw at him or anything.

Taking a break from the shed and power tools

       
        When we had made the 'boat' we went around the back of the shed to the little gate that leads to the valley and fields at the back of the house. There is a burn which runs down from the moors up to through this valley, and about twenty paces from the gate is a concrete foot bridge which we intended to stand on and throw the boat in the water. The level of the burn had risen up quite considerable and I had to wade out to the foot bridge and plonk Austin down on it. All was fun, we had a good two hours of walking along the burn trailing the boat on the raging torrent, occasionally having to drag it back from the bottom of a ten foot deep boiling back stopper of a wave where a small trickle over rocks might have previously been. Although it rained all day the wind had died down to a negligible pushing.
       
        Day Eight:
       
        Another gloriously sunny day, unfortunately also being a Sunday we couldn't make best use of the weather. Ideally on dry days I like to get the lorry opened up and aired a bit, and also rearrange stuff in there to make it easier to get to things. I would also have liked to set too on the downed tree and get it chopped up however, working on a Sunday around here is severely frowned upon, in fact they are still very unhappy if you so much as hang washing out on a Sunday. Instead we went for another little walk, Austin played outside in the good weather, and we had 'a day off' just like everybody else around here.

       

Glen Gravir, quiet on a Sunday... not unlike every other day...

        Day Nine:
       
        Fiona has been doing the paperwork element of our move, and whilst registering us at the doctors she enquired after a dentist for me, some of you may know, that since August of last year I have rather urgently needed a root canal drilling out and filling on one of my teeth. This exposed nerve in my mouth has not only hampered my intake of pleasurable foods such as chocolate and sweet fizzy drinks, but also plays up when eating anything but soup and bread as invariable some lump of grub gets wedged in the cavern in the side of my tooth and presses down upon the exposed nerve. This situation has not helped my general mood much over the past six months, but it has been quite a motivator for getting things done, as whilst I am occupied I tend not to notice the pain quite so much.
       

Keeping busy to block out the toothache

        I had gone through the process of getting the treatment lined up whilst we were still in Coventry, a protracted and expensive situation that culminated in a missed appointment three days before the completion of the house sale. Had I known that I would be spending the next month in and around Coventry anyway trying to get the lorry sorted and the last of our overstock of stuff sqiurrelled away I might have accepted a re-booking, however hindsight is something I'm not very good at in reverse. Anyway…. Fiona had got me booked into a dentist today in Stornoway for mid day. As the weather was pretty attrocious I gave myself an hour to get there and half an hour spare in case I had to sit anything out on the road. Flooding seemed to be the word for the day, with all the hillsides having changed from heather brown to white water. I had to stop at one point on my journey to take a video on my phone of a backwards waterfall. It was a large grassy slope some two inches deep in water running down to a fifteen foot or so drop. The water was running off this drop from the slope across a length of about 30 ft. However the water would only get a few inches down on its plummet to lower ground before it would be driven ten feet up into the air in a backwards solid sheet of water by the wind. This water was obviously falling back down onto the grassy slope with a fair few buckets of rain per second and perpetuating this bizarre phenomena.
       
        When I got to the dentist, having filled in the perfuntuary forms and put myself on the 12 month waiting list to be registered with them, I didn't hold out much hope for getting any treatment this side of next christmas, I was already hatching plots in my head for a specific trip down to the mainland to visit a dentist, when I was ushered upstairs by a pleasant young scot. He was the dentist, and his assistant could have been a catalogue model, I always wonder how it is that dentists surround them selves with pretty young girls, What happens to dental assistants when they grow up? Surely they don’t all marry the dentist, otherwise they would never stand for him having another pretty young assistant in to replace, perhaps dentists are not monogamous, ah well who knows. Anyway the chap told me he'd have the tooth out If I wanted, I discussed the long term effects of losing yet another tooth from my mouth at such a late age, and he reassured me that I would still be able to eat steak?!? Fortunate that I am not a vegetarian as I might have been offended. Ten minutes later I was sat back in the car slightly shell shocked and examining the tooth, still covered in gobbets of flesh. Ho hum, back home to not drinking (Alcohol), smoking or eating until the next evening. If I had realised I was going to lose one of my teeth I might have had a better breakfast and eaten a big lunch before the treatment, I spent the rest of the day moping around feeling hungry and pretending I couldn't talk. Within an hour of being home we had quite a good sign language thing going on, what I don’t understand is why the rest of the family weren't talking back but signing as well.

Listened to shipping forecast at six and we were due Storm Force 10 winds for the rest of the night. Built the fire up and read some more book for the evening. I might be able to put the tv back in the lorry soon, as we only use it in the mornings to occupy the children with their video's or DVD's whilst we get the fire lit and make breakfast etc. To be honest that’s mostly me as Fiona actually plays with the children first thing in the morning, something I can never bring myself to do.
       
        Day Ten

Austin and his mini toothy-pegs

       
        Another moochy day I guess, weather reasonable, Jobs achieved a few, I am talking again now, and we regularly examine my ex-tooth. It has become the new weapon in the 'war on toothbrushing' which is waged nightly with Austin. Generally he will only allow you to brush his teeth now if you first open your mouth wide in order that he can examine all your fillings and 'bad' teeth in minute detail, whilst you brush his tiny milk teeth in a desperate attempt to prolong the life of them before they are pushed out by his adult teeth in a few years time.

Dodgy dial-up

During the day I did some more lorry stuff, and all our computers are now in the house in pieces, and the contents of our previous kitchen cupboards are being revealed under the layers of mould that have formed on all the old fingerprints and unseen spillages that a few months storage in a damp lorry in Scotland expose. I have one of the Computer keyboards to do that I am delaying, it looks like it had a cup of coffee or something spilt on it ten minutes before it was packed, the streak of mould is bizarre! I can tell you what colour the world would in two months, if we were all abducted instantaneously by aliens right now, it would be a bluey-green layer of mould.

Unpacking...

The weather wasn't bad today, Fiona disappeared off to one of the neighbour's house's for a nose around and a cuppa, whilst I did the Lorry stuff and Austin got intimate with all the storm drains around the house. At one point I heard a far away echoing of 'dad, dad, daddy, I'm Stuck!'  wandering over to investigate, and I must add wandering as the tone was neither shrill nor squeaky, a sure sign of genuine trouble, I eventually found Austin up to his knees in water trying to ram his push-along-ride-on Thomas the tank engine down a narrow culvert which he was trying to negotiate. It wasn't Austin who was stuck but Thomas who had streaks of genuine coal muck on his plastic face. I couldn't help but smile of the irony of a plastic steam engine replica with fake coal truck, actually streaked with coal dirt from where he had been rammed repeatedly into our coal bunker. Aren’t two year olds great at getting genuine with their toys. That night at dinner Austin and I discussed the possibility of buying a toy digger, dumper and bulldozer for exclusively outdoor use, pushing real mud, water and stones around, as opposed to a pile of pencils or whatever he imagines up in the living room, I think we are both in favour of the idea.

Our neighbour's 'toy' digger, it may need a bit of oil to get going

       
        This evening our neighbour came to introduce himself, another incomer, like most of the people I have met here, Gary is certainly a character with the pulse on everything. A former double bass player with the East London Philimonic Orchestra, he is now erm…. Up here. I am going to get involved in dragging his Yacht higher up the beach on Monday when the tide is at a high 5.1m I think it might be a good in for myself to the Men of the area. It was a nice night listening to somebody else talking about themselves and their experiences up here since they arrived.
       
        Day 11
       
        Today has been a pain of a day, I have spent a lot of time trying to achieve things with call centres, whether that might be closing down final accounts with utility companies or moving address with our bank's etc. Every establishment we have dealt with between ourselves over the past four months does not recognise our new postal address code. So none of their websites will update our address's, and quite often you have to get quite insistent with the telephone operatives in India that yes it is a valid uk postcode, it's just that it only covers 13 houses of which only two are occupied, and thus it doesn't feature highly in the  post code distribution list. I can see now why there are companies that market themselves just for this function, reregistering yourself with everybody you deal with. Admittedly in your initial interview with said company you might have to be on the phone for three hours whilst you real off all your personal details about your whole life, but blimey its only three hours!

Our remote postcode, not always on the call centre database

Today I'm particularly cross with Npower, I've managed to close my electric account with them but my gas account after 25 minutes on hold to be put through to be somebody who said look we are really busy right now give me your number somebody will phone you back one day, all I wanted to do was reel off my card details and pay a final bill, for which I have received fourteen separate pieces of mail in 20 days. When they did ring me back four hours later the only thing the guy could do was give me a free phone number to start over with, as nobody in his building had the authority to receive payments. God knows who the consultants are that are restructuring that customer and data management system but they are doing an awful job as far as the end users are concerned. Whoops sorry Tom, but really sort it out!!!!
       

IT consultants playing aeroplanes

        My bank was great, I was on hold for fifteen minutes after which I was told I was locked out on security coding due to a computer error, and my phone and internet banking were frozen until I renegotiated access through a convoluted series of questions regarding the weight of my mothers aunties cat or some such, which couldn't be undertaken right now as the computer was on go slow, could I hold a bit longer…. My reply,' yeah sure I'm legally obliged to inform you of my change of address so why not' ten minutes later the girl picked up on me again to say sorry but they were all packing up for the day and the servers were down and IT couldn't get the bank back online for four hours or so………?!? WTF, a bank have total systemic failure, I think I'll be changing bank soon and getting the calculator out to check the interest calculations on our small fortune. This is of course the same bank who have written to advise us that they want to close our savings account as we are earning too much interest on it. This isn't actually what they said but they other products they offered us were poor by comparison, and ours was regrettably being withdrawn from the market place. I remember the same thing with Orange, who basically threatened to terminate my account because I was one of their customers still on Everyday50 after six years. Its amazing the effort that institutions will go to, in order to get you off incentive deals that backfire on them.
       

        The weather has been medium today, this evening though it is particularly calm, I'm not sure whether I was lingering over the cigarette or the stars this evening when I was fetching in the bucket of coal at tea time. I love the stars and to see like this before usually involved spending a few nights out camping twenty miles up landrover tracks in the deeper wildernesses of wales in the middle of winter. Here I can pop outside for ten minutes look up, and lose count in a split second. I have seen constellations here by looking up whilst having a fag that I only knew about in theory, it really is quite special. No Aurora yet, but its getting a bit late in the season for that, plus I'm rarely up that late. From what I remember in Canada and from what I've heard since the Aurora is best just before or around dawn, and is often affected by solar flare. The chances of me being awake at dawn now that Morris sleeps through the night again are pretty slim. Fiona on the other hand is regularly up at six am, checking Morris is still alive and then coming back to bed, perhaps I ought to get her to go out and look at the sky then and take pictures if its there, I'll ask her if she knows what she is looking for,……. And another evening of chatter went by.
       

Clear island skies with no city light pollution

        Day 12
       
        Good strong sunlight through the curtains this morning, that a good sign. Got up after breakfast! Even better. For child related tasks we have a daily rota for certain stuff, including getting up and supervising. I relish my mornings in bed, reading a book with a coffee and toast. Fiona sleeps through hers! We have a set time for when the 'Working' day begins but I think most people would be envious, of our one on one off days!
       

        As weather was so good I was outside from 9.40 ish when the sun had warmed up until about 3.40 when it really started getting cold. Have done crappy stuff like getting more things out of the lorry. Jet washed all the slippy slime and moss of the paths so we all slip over a bit less now. Opened up the drainage ditches that were clogged with grass and rocks. A lot of the standing pools of two foot deep water have now disappeared from around the house so I'm a little less worried about Austin driving Thomas into every puddle. Austin was filthy after his morning play this morning, he had dragged the full ash bucket over to a ditch as was throwing handfuls of ash into the water and watching it drift away. He only went indoors because he got scared by a tornado bomber 15ft above his head at about 500 miles an hour. I had not yet told them all about that bit! I found Austin a few seconds later, mud splattered, and screaming, he had chosen to grovel under the land rover for safety, and because of that I gave him much praise.
       

Bright skies in Gravir

        We had a another visitor today, the island equivalent of a yummy mummy, she walked the 2 miles from her house to ours pushing her pram and she was fair well puffed out when she got here. After Fiona chatting to her for about five minutes at the gatepost, I eventually suggested they go inside for a cuppa so I could get back on with jet washing the pavement they were stood on. Fiona is now going on a yummy mummy date to the local playgroup, 10 miles away. Its ok as its an english language one, Fiona had the option of a gaelic playgroup, but as she can't speak it herself yet, how could she imagine that Austin might learn it all. Especially at his age!!

Up the hill in the sunshine

This afternoon we all just ended up on the top of the hill at the back of the house again. I found a really good viewpoint that looks over the whole island to the TV transmitter, unfortunately somebody elses ariel was already there hidden in the heather. I need to have a better look from our own land.  I got a mobile signal the other day just by driving out the other side of the valley and getting line of site with the TV mast. It’s a shame nobody does Geographic shadow maps related to the tops of TV transmitter masts other than the big boys. Guess I'll have to do my own at some point to help with choosing house sites. That aside the views were glorious and the quality of light was fantastic, Fiona even walked back down the hill and up again to get her camera.

Austin and I just sat on a grass hummock looking at the tiny world below us until after about five minutes he announced that he was bored ( a new word for him!) and so we set off scrambling up again. Austin loves going up, he is not so keen on coming down. He also finds the heather quite bothersome, as it is at waist height for him, but he gets on well with it all.

Gorgeous day to discover the moors

We all crossed a really good old peat hag on our way back, about five foot deep and four feet across. Helping each other down and up again was fun. The kids went to bed early tonight absolutly shattered, Austin sat for an hour watching dvds barely keeping his eyes open after the walk, and had to be spoon fed his meal at tea time as he was so tired out. For the past week he has been trying it on at bed time, lurking around at the top of the stairs for the early part of the evening until you shout at him sternly enough and then he stays in bed. Tonight though we nearly didn't make it to the end of his story. That’s what I like to see. I just don't know what we'll do when his body adjusts to the extra exercise levels, he really is going to run us ragged soon. I can just hear it now 'come on dad lets go up the hill again' with my reply of 'but that will be the third time this morning' falling on unhearing ears as he runs off ahead of me.

Fiona's off to town tomorrow to get the groceries and do her ritual failure to go to anywhere but the supermarket. I am planning to take Austin for a pic-nic/hike, I'll take the kiddie pack with me so I can always carry him comfortable if he get tired or it gets rough. There is a hill I have seen that I want to go to the top of….
       
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        To be continued…..but at a weekly run down from now!
       
        Oh yes, and our phone number now is 01851 880 335!