1. We are here

From: Stokes, Mark.
Sent: Friday, January 12, 2007 10:13 PM
                Subject: Blog One: The First
               
               
                Dear All,
               
                We are Here….. Here being a very secluded spot in the remote east coast of one of the Islands of the Outer Hebrides. First morning, I stepped out for a crafty cigarette and listened to the noise of nothing, then I heard the churning of the burn in the bottom of the glen, and the caw of a raven riding the morning thermals, after that the world was filled with sound, sheep, windrush, the rattle of dried summer plants in the garden, water dripping from innumerable spots, a cacophony of nothingness.
               
                Arrival was fun, travelling to the island a day sooner against my best advice we came in on the Stornoway boat, colloquially known as the 'Vomit Comet'. After Austin had deposited his dinner over his clothes and mine and Fiona had turned a shade of green I haven't seen on somebody who didn't puke before we retired to a less food orientated area of the boat, I think Morris handled the journey well, but it is difficult to tell with a seven month baby if he is travel sick or if it is just normal sick.

MV Isle of Lewis

               
                Arriving at our rental at about 9pm having collected coal, milk and bread on route, we discussed the bail out plan in the last ten minutes of the journey. After only five minutes searching I found a well hidden key and let us in. The beds were unmade and the cottage had not been visited since ourselves in September, this later turned out to be an administrative error due to our landlord's father going into hospital the day before we arrived (Ahem!) as it was only our own mess about the place it didn't seem half as bad. Especially as we kept finding things we knew we had lost in the past few months of life. All the ice blocks from our cool boxes, a set of Austin size cutlery, several other kitchen related items and a once cherished toy etc etc.
               
                Day One consisted of a shopping expedition to Stornoway, two full trolleys and some four hours later  we returned home with enough food for a month.

Stornoway harbour

               
                Day Two, 'The recovery of the Lorry' We fetched the lorry in the stealth of mid morning, unfortunately Bernie the landlord of our local, which is just thirty minutes drive away was out  some scousers camping in the pub car park chatted with me for a bit and then I fired up the beleagured lorry and drove it home. As I left the car park I had noticed some broken glass on the floor which I tidied up, as you do. Ten minutes into the drive I was convinced there was something wrong, I go out to inspect the front wheel which sounded like It was about to drop off, it was just bodywork catching on it, the broken glass was from a busted headlamp and all the bumper was broken. It seems the Lorry had suffered a bit whilst away from my care and attention. Reasoning that one should expect no less for a vehicle parked in the only pub car park for a 50 mile radius, for over a month over the christmas and new year period, I pulled the body work off the wing got back in and drove off. (I did wonder about those scousers in the car park, I mean ok they had a camper bus and all but it was January!)

The van - an A reg mercedes horsebox

               
                I have been avidly examining the weather station I received as a 'leaving gift' from our new year group of friends, It is a brass reconstruction of a barometer, thermometer and hydrometer, all contained in a glass bell jar on a timber plinth. For some days I had been convinced that the temperature reading had been a bit low. Having recovered the lorry to the house I was able to quickly lay my hands on a few more thermometers and make an approximate mean calibration, the gift is highly accurate and has been correctly recording temparatures of 3-4 deg.C. within the confines of the house. (I am expecting a 1000 kg of coal to be delivered tomorrow to slightly rectify the situation). With regards the barometer element of the weather station I suspect it is not quite fast enough to keep up with whats happening. I have been working today in bright sunshine, horizontal hail, and anything in between, when I do check the barometer its either pointing at rain or fair, sometimes within minutes of each other, I have never seen something made wholly of brass move so fast. I'm worried the parts might wear out on it prematurely.

No. 10, our holiday cottage

               
                Day three, A collective sigh of relief went up as the final doorway gave in and our own sofa was esconced with the confines of our huge living room, having ousted a few armchairs to the master bedroom to make way I have finally got a sofa back that is long enough for me to stretch out 6'3'' without touching at either end (just!) Although second hand when we purchased it, our sofa is of the sort that when people sit in it they struggle to get out at the end of a visit, usually acommpanied by such stocks phrases as, "this is a nice sofa". Here is me at 10:30 pm with a glass of wine, an open fire and a glorified bed typing to the world about how great life is. Of course before I could remove the sofa I had to get out and check all the more pragmatic items such as back up stove, generator, battery lamping, and extension leads etc all the necessary stuff when you move into a place such as this. If we lost power we would lose lights, heat, cooking, hot water, and probably sanity, the latter would be down to having to go outside every four hours to refuel the generator, in what would probarbly be pretty minging wheather to have caused a power cut, say 60mph winds or something, thus requiring being roped to something heavy in the house before going out for fear of being blown off and away someplace other than the generator and weighted down jerry can.

Glen Gravir

               
                Day Four, a glorious day of perfect weather, we got a whole five hours of wonderful daylight to do things in. Austin was out playing with all his outdoor toys which I had unpacked, Fiona took morris of for a walk to find out whether the more derilict buildings down our road really did have people living in them or was it just sheep. All of the croft shed has been tidyied up with all of the owners tools on a new workbench I made from some scrap wood and breeze blocks. I have got my own tools and 'things' arranged down a ten foot trestle table made out of our scaffolding. The generator is out and arranged with its fuel supply, the battery pack invertor is now plugged in on trickle charge, and one of the metal storage boxes is lashed down to the floor with survival gear in it. In the evening it started to get a little bit windy, by 1am Austin had woken up and called me upstairs to tell me excitedly 'dat wind roar like a dragon'.

               
                Day five, a late start, sunrise around 11am, sunset about 3.15pm. The wind didn't die down during the night and now we can visulise better what is happening outside. Every time you see a squall of rain passing horizontally for 15 seconds at 70 mph you really do start to get a feel for how windy it was at night. Had the coal delivered today. Sure enough I went out and helped the unload it. Then I barrowed it up the drive and around the back into the newly refurbished coal shed. I admit I nipped into my shed for a fag every time I saw a heavy squall running down the valley. Even so it was a good solid three hours of hard labour. I knew it was bad when finally a wheel barrow with three 25kg sacks of coal in it, left my hands as it flew away in a 3ft arc! As I had my next cigerette I decided to reflect on how hardcore this was. I was wearing a fleece rompasuit from my caving gear, an offshore survival boiler suit. Two fleece hats, ear defenders, goggles and a hard hat, and I had just been considering breaking out a rope to get my self back to the house, when the wind died down?!? I took the opportunity to go and examine the tree I had just watched blow over and then blow down a field. It was still in fairly good nick and I have manged to negotiate the firewood salvage rights over it if I chop it up myself with the chainsaw. Unfortunatly, a lot of the bark is missing from it as it was all stripped off by the wind. Evening, wind dies down about 9pm, fiona and I remark on the sudden silence of it all. We discussed things like how it was possible that a double glazed house could have draughts etc.
               
                Day six, this day was scheduled for Fiona to drive off on her own with just Morris and explore the extensive shopping precincts of Stornoway for a few hours in the afternoon. The romanticism also involved Fiona having some sort of arty farty lunch on her own of possible danish with latte or some such and being engaged in conversation by other liked minded yummy-mummys. The reality of the day was, roaring dragon back with us by 6am, no sunrise till 10.45am kids going beserk after being shut up for a day with the possibility of more days being shut up. Fiona expressing concern about keeping hold of the pram in the wind and driving rain as she popped from one shopfront to the next. So we all went, just to have lunch and go to one shop. Lunch was hardly danish and latte though, it was cheesy chips in what is now the independent school cafeteria, with formica tables and chairs, a hugely noisy heating system, loud music and the chatter of 150 schoolkids playing pranks on each other.

Closest thing to a Macdonalds 'cheesey chips'

I think Fiona is trying to discourage me from going into town, we had to walk past fourteen, pubs, bistro's, pastry shops, coffee bars etc to get to this place. Maybe she couldn't see them though as she had her head down leaning into the driving rain at the time clutching Morris back to her everytime the wind tried to take him away across the bay. We got home to the finally expected power cut. Breaking out the head torches and getting my wellies back on to go out and get the camping stove out for tea I had a revelation. I checked the meter and sure enough we hadn't put any money in for a few days. Bless us though we were good to go with the whole emergency plan 6b, doing dinner bath and bedtime with no light and heating, I think if we can do that then its about time we started applying ourselves to something more productive!

               
                Tomorrows plan is to make wooden boats from scrapwood in the shed and then surf them on the whitewater stream under the foot bridge in the field behind the shed. It’s a bit more sheltered there and I wont need to rope Austin to me. Fiona can do landslide watch from the kitchen window and call us on the radios if we need to run for our lives. I can see about forty false calls should be about enough exercise for both Austin and me.
               
                Hope this finds you well and enjoying your first week back at some desk job, discussing anecdotes with your colleagues over the christmas and new year antics, don’t forget us, as I'm sure we are going to make a heck of an anecdote.
               
               
                Mark and Fiona, Austin & Morris