Change of address to https://feastokes.wordpress.com

In a few days it will have been 11 years since we moved to Lewis. How wonderful to feel rooted here now,  how many things have changed and how many things haven't. It seems a fitting time to sign off this blogger site, in favour of a wordpress site at the anniversary of our arrival. I feel a little embarrassed by some of the earliest assumptions I made about the place and people we met, but I am glad to have created a little time capsule of our life changing move.
Find the next 11 year chapter here....!

Life set free again!

Hooray! ITS PROPERLY SPRING AGAIN!
While England seems to have jumped straight into summer, Lewis is throwing off the shackles of winter all at once - the gorse, the daffodills, the grass the lambs - everything is coming out at the same time this year.

I also manage to have coincided my time time off work with the boy's Easter holidays, which is just as well as our first orphan lamb has arrived!

The boys have called him Barry  - I have recorded him as No. 11.

 

As he is the only one so far, I bring him into he house for spells so that he has some company.  He is managing with the laminate flooring quite well, skittering about in his tippy-toes and so long as I take him back to the polytunnel to feed him, he doesn't make too much of a mess...
Hopefully he'll get some pals to play with soon.

Little random flashbacks

Its been 2 years since we were lucky enough to have a fabulous family trip around California, yet today I had a little flashback to being in Grand Canyon 'village' at the post office.  I don't know what was so exciting about it that it logged itself in my memory, I was posting some postcards back home, and I walked along the shopping area to the post office.
The radio was on in the background and I had to ring the bell for attention, prompting a hello and exchange of friendly tourist chitchat while I got the correct stamps.
There were postal boxes in the entrance, for the kids travelling around the country and using them as a forwarding address. It reminded me of getting packages from home when I was working at a summer camp in New Jersey as a teen.  If you're not living at home for a while, how else do you get your mail forwarded from your old address?
I haven't yet identified why I was so taken with the moment, but today, there it was again. The excitement of having real, hold in your hand post, is something that electronic communication will never quite match.

The post on Lewis can be attrocious - only one mail plane comes onto the island a day, so if you put a letter in a post box on, say, a Thursday, it doesn't leave the island until the Saturday morning!  I have a great game I play with my Mum when she posts us birthday cards or presents, where she works out when she posted it and we count how many days its taken to get here - its usually quicker coming onto the island from the mainland than it is going the other way round, but you can never bank on it. It could be foggy at the airport somewhere!

Mark has been working as the local postman for over a year now and is just about to be taken on permanently by Royal Mail. He loves it, he calls it extreme postman-ing. Finally all the driving skills learned green-laning in Wales have paid off.  There is an unorthodox level of other roles involved in being the postman in a remote community like ours too.  Social worker, care worker, tow truck, plumber, cake tester and message-conduit are all part of the job as well as making sure the mail gets through.

The wrath of God

It's a bit late this year, but we're just getting battered by a mild storm today and it really makes you feel like the heavens are against you.
We, as Hebridean's, new ones though we are, soon learn how to hunker down and weather the storm, but the noises of your house whistling and shaking, still do strike fear into our hearts and wonder whether terrible things are about to happen.
And yet, on Monday this week, the daffodils were poking through the soil and spring was coming...
I really don't understand it...how things can change as the week goes on...

And thats great though  isn't it it...

Another funeral in our community

Epitaph
Don't cry for me, I am not gone,
I am the wind on the grass and the corn.
Don't feel my loss, I've not left the land,
I am a billion grains of sand.
Don't think that I've left,  I've gone back to the shore,
I'm in between waves and the ocean floor.
Don't hate this event, unhappy no doubt
It won't last forever, all fires will burn out

Don't cry for long, there's more sadness to come
Regain your humour, you have to be strong
Cry quickly for friends and my family
Who can no longer laugh and talk with me
Then cry for the billions disrupted by war
Dragged from their houses and forced to conform
Heaven is not for us mortals it seems
Heaven exists in our innermost dreams
But if you do one thing. Please do this for me
Make me a heaven on earth, for us 'we'

A sea of people

Gravir church

I was in the congregation at our local church today.
Two of the kindest, most generous and welcoming people passed away together and the church was completely full for them.

The service was mostly in English, but as is normal with the Western Isles Free Church, there was some psalm singing.
I have not heard so many voices joining together to sing Gaelic psalms before and the effect was quite literally moving.
Psalms don't seem to follow the same rules that other group singing has.  It is usually led by someone with others joining in, in what sounds like their own interpretation of the same song.  The pace seems to vary from person to person and people move from high to low notes in different places.  But it literally sweeps you up like waves in the sea.
Imagine wading out into the sea to shoulder height and feeling the rolling waves pulling you in different directions, tugging at you and carrying you off your feet.  This was what being a part of the service felt like today.

When we first moved to Lewis, amongst a sea of new faces, Boy & Maureen stood out.  They were the very first people we met on the day we arrived - they ran the local post office and we stopped to ask directions for the house we were staying at.  When Mark took over as their postman 10 years later,  they became a part of his everyday and over that year they all got to know each other not just as colleagues but as friends too.

They supported every local group and always attended every event.  They talked to everyone, whether about the latest news in the area, or with a heartfelt story from the past.  I cannot think of one person living here who didn't know them.  As Mark said in his own tribute, everything they had, they gave.

They will be very missed when we all finally believe that they are gone.

Halloween in the Hebrides

An important occassion on the calendar, Halloween has become, most certainly, the scariest night of the year in our area.
As my boys have grown older, their costumes seem to have crept closer to the border, from chilling to disturbing. This year, Austin was the butcher of Kershader....

But this is not what makes it the scariest night of the year.  For me, the frightening part is when all the parents emerge from their separate houses and congregate together for the annual Halloween party followed by trick or treating. 
It is always a brilliant night, lots of fun, the kids have the best time ever, running from house to house in the dark collecting bucketfulls of sweets, but the pre-party nerves make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up alarmingly.
(This year Morris peaked too soon, having already been out guising somewhere else the night before, he had a melt down and refused to go to the local party.  A parental nightmare, the indecision of whether to force your child to join in, or let them just be - horrific.) 

Some villages are hyper organised, they plan times, meals, drops off points and are joyous in their togetherness.

My village and the one next door are often at war with each other for a large part of the year, have no communication skills and have the largest amount of children to appease. 
But again this year, it all worked out for the best in the end!

I think the root cause of the Halloween fear, sadly, comes from friendship.

When people are on committees - as they often are here, there is a committee for something nearly every night of the week - people know their roles and purpose and everyone feels generally comfortable with this.

But when we have to go to a 'party', have 'fun' and be ourselves..?  I don't always know where to put myself, so after years of Halloween parties now, I have learnt to just follow the lead... of the kids!

Our children are taught in school how to behave with their classmates to always get along.  They know it is not right to have petty squabbles or take offense at someone else's behaviour just because they are different to us.  They are learning to be tolerant, patient and understanding.  Adults aren't always as well behaved - and ironically in our villages, it is often the adults who are teachers that are the most naughty...

But when you see the kids all running around together, jeering and joking, egging each other on and telling each other off like equals do, it makes you realise us adults are just crap at being friends sometimes.

Never mind - with Halloween night closing for another year, we can now all look forward to the next community occassion - Christmas...! 

 

People trees

Lewis and many of the Hebridean islands are known for being low on trees.  It has come from a history where the people were evicted to make way for sheep farming. Though now fenced in the sheep are still abundant and graze down any new shoots that may self seed.  Add to this that the soil is quite shallow so any larger trees that reach maturity are often blown down in our winter gales, their roots not able to reach down very far to anchor themselves.  It is what gives Lewis, particularly, the unfair label of 'bleak' - visitors used to the lush green fields, hedgerows and woodland of southern England, do not see past the expanse of the moor.

The benefit however is that the landscape stretches out before you, with nothing in the way to interrupt the view. It allows you to see for miles and gives you that feeling of being a giant, or as free as a bird - a far away view is good for the soul.

On our croft we have tried to plant some trees to provide some shelter and some interest, with varying degrees of success.
After trying for years to have a line of Ash along a track, one ash has finally survived rabbit attack, sheep attack, wind and frost and this year is about 5ft high.  But I'm not used to something interrupting the curve of the hill, so every time I am working in the area, I catch sight of it out of the corner of my eye and for a moment I think it is someone standing there.  I wonder if this is how some of the old myths and stories of the trees being alive came about.  Perhaps Tolkein was working in his garden and a new oak tree kept grabbing his attention.

Treebeard

The green man is an old pagan image of fertility, symbolising the circle of the seasons and rebirth in springtime.  He is usually portayed as a face intertwined with leaves and vines.  He is not unique it its occurrence in Britain and is found all over the world with similar meanings.

Trees have been with us for millenia, they are important not only for shelter, fuel and food but offer us some anthropomorphic comfort too.  Pre-civilisation, you can see how they would have been given deity status. 


We have one area on the croft we call the magical forest. After years of trying to cultivate the native Scots pine in pots, with not much luck, we noticed that the patch of wind damaged, fallen over pine trees was actually self seeding.  The trees are know to grow in a crack on the side of a rocky crag, they don't need much vegetation to get on.  So in all my efforts to feed and tend to the saplings, it seems they are just better when left alone in the environment they know and call home!

Newcomers, self seeding pines

Everyday People

I took the boys to a funeral today.

Our next-door neighbour James died, unexpectedly while on holiday from a heart attack.
We weren't close in the category of 'friends' but actually by being physically close to them in space, his death has affected us all just as much.
He wasn't 'an old friend' , 'a pal from college', 'an army mate', but just by living next door for 5 years, he was an un-noticed part of our lives.  We took this relationship forgranted, so that now when it has suddenly been removed, it is a shock that I just can't quite get my head around.

His daughter would come to our house before school in the morning, while her Mum & Dad left early for work.  As she is only 1 year older than Austin, they have been at school together for most of their lives, up until the break to senior school happened last year.  I lost my own Dad when I was 18.  She is just turning 13.  I know she will handle it ok, she has lots of family and caring folk around.

The funeral was great - he was typical Scot - you can't go round the house without sharing a drink, so after a chapel service and visit to the resting plot, everyone went to the local pub. 
Everyone was stunned, but also knew he would want there to be drinking and friendship. 
Wouldn't we all.

Community

Sometimes we get a holiday from our Scottish island community.  We have been welcomed into our new life so thoroughly by our neighbours and new friends, that now going back to England, my old life and the places I grew up in, is more like being a tourist.

This year we also visited my Aunty on the south coast and were treated to a beautifully hot couple of days in Worthing.  After a day on the beach, we walked along the sea front and into town for something to eat and it was just like being on holiday in the med.  People were out sauntering along, roller blading and cycling on the walkway and hanging out on the beach. Very continental.

We ate in a traditional Italian restaurant, opposite a gellato shop where a large Italian family were having a get together.  Sitting on the pavement, listening to the sounds of foreign voices in an English seaside town I was struck by how important it is to have a mix of communities in an area.
The gelato shop had cordoned off its pavement tables, so that all the Italian guests were packed into a tight group which only seems to liven the party up even more!  Small children had broken free of the barriers and were chasing balloon animals around the pedestrianised streets.  You couldn't help but be caught up in their happiness and togetherness.

British culture doesn't seem to nurture community that well.  It's connecting branches seem more based on class and wealth than on extended family bonds reaching out further to lifelong friendships.  Its a shame that the British feel connected by talking about people in their community, but not by sharing events with them on a regular basis. We see our families to share life events, and enjoy spending time with our loved ones, but we feel awkward about inviting friends outside of that circle, even if those friends have been there for as long as our family members and we love them too.

I feel sad that the British are leaving the variety of the European Union,  I think it has sent an awful message to our neighbours that we think we are better than them, better off without them.  It makes our culture appear arrogant and selfish and we aren't.  I want to make sure that in my family and in my community at least, that we don't become polarised by the Brexit vote and that we continue to learn from other communities around us, whether they are across the water, across the border or across the planet.

Belonging

 

The old Kershader village boundary

In traditional gaelic culture it is common to ask 'where do you belong?'.  It is not just a question about where someone lives, it is something that the individual will say of themselves as part of their identity 'I belong to Kershader'.  It suggests to me a deep connection with the land, similar to the way sheep heft to a particular area.  Or perhaps it is not just Kershader as a collection of fields, but a greater whole, including the people who also live there that the individual belongs to.
 
In mind of this importance placed on community and land connection, there was a historic celebration last weekend, when the people of Pairc formally celebrated buying the estate from it's landlord.

No longer will the land in the area of Pairc be owned by a someone who does not live here.  The Pairc Trust - a committee of elected members - will now have control over what happens to the area, be it sheep farming, wind farming or anything else that will affect the residents.

It has been a long and emotional battle to get to this point.  It has divided the community, cost hundreds of thousands of pounds in legal fees and a final sale price and the repercussions are still being felt.  It is not simple to explain all the detail, it is hard to know what is fact, what is legal jargon, what are lies and what is just gossip.

On paper it seems positive for a community to jointly own its own land, but I do not know if it has done anything to strengthen peoples feeling of belonging.  Like a bitter war, I think many people still feel sad about those that have fallen and were injured by the battle, to join in the celebrations at this time.

It has come at the same time that the UK has decided to leave the European Union, a decision that I feel was the wrong one - and so did the majority of people in Scotland.  The 'Leave'-voting majority were from England and Wales and included members of my family.  It highlighted to me the stark contrast between where I am now, who I am now, and where I came from.  One of the reasons I left where I grew up was because I didn't feel I belonged there, the dominant mindset just didn't appeal to me.  Nowadays however, whether it is a feeling of belonging to Kershader, or more that I belong to my new family (as they in turn belong to me), I realise that this is such an important factor in our wellbeing.   We must all feel that we are in the right place, that we fit with our environment, to become happy. 

Another piece of old gaelic culture which has it right.

The road ahead...

Time to Remember

'When God made time, he made a lot of it'.
I first heard this idea when we had just moved onto this quiet, Christian island and I immediately knew that this was a place where it could be true.

The main reason we moved from the rush-rush-rush of city living was to have time to spend with our children.  Faced with a short, year long maternity leave (at best) and the expectation to immediately return to who I was before the life changing event, the decision to opt out was simple to make.

We have been so lucky to have been present at almost every event in our boys' growing up. From babies, to toddlers, to primary and now into secondary and teen age, we have always been there alongside them for every milestone.  We have those memories stored and no one can take them away from us...

Many women enjoy the luxury of spending time watching their children develop, but by moving away from mainland society's expectations, Mark too was able to build up a vast repository of positive memories and bond with his sons.  I think he felt the social pressure and guilt more than I did, but thankfully we were committed to our ideals and we were happy to make the sacrifices necessary to go on with the way of living we believed to be correct.

As the boys have got older, we have been able to build up a working momentum again, rather than just being thrown back into the mix.  I am only now, when the boys are 10 and 11, starting to feel the challenges of balancing work and childcare.  The idea that I would have had to do this during the precious times of them being toddlers fills me with depression.  What a waste of time, to work for a bit of money or career advancement, rather than to grasp the one chance I would ever have to see my boys grow up.

Modern living makes us so disconnected and distracted from our memories and aren't they what make us who we are.   Our own lives and past's are what gives us meaning in the present and what is a life without meaning?

I hope to always be able to remember precious times and have those feelings again.  I think I will, so long as I have time and space to remember in the future.  Call it praying, or meditation, it takes a bit of practice but then its a bit like traveling back in time, but in your own mind.  A pretty good life-skill to develop I'd say.

 

Lapwings

A beautiful sunny Saturday, filled with potential.

The 2 smallest lambs, 6&7 (another new one arrived on Monday!) have moved back into the polytunnel area so I can continue to bottle feed them away from the other monsters. These little girls are lounging on a grassy hump in the sunshine, awaiting their breakfast. The 4 older boys are grazing, but No 5 is calling out already - he is a moany male, I wonder if this is because he still has his testicles, or just that he is the youngest...!

These might make a lovely, furry pair of earings...

Over at the back of the croft there are some rugged cliffs - not too high up, but high enough to give a good view of the surrounding fields. Today 2 pairs of Lapwings are dive bombing the crag - it is a good place for eagles to sit and survey, so I suspect they are trying to scare off a predator who has been bothering them on their nests.

I love Lapwings - they are such a glamorous bird for the Outer Hebrides, with their black fascinator head dress, and shiny green and rainbow cloaks.  When they are flying their wings make an unusual pattern, it reminds of the Thai fighters in Star Wars!  And their call is un-mistakeable when you have heard it once.

Our gazings clerk has made himself a new field at the edge of the village and this is where the Lapwings have moved in. They like a marshy ground but with a mix of cover. There are certain spots around South Lochs where you can see them wheeling in the sky in the springtime, I'm so glad we have become one of their chosen areas, they are fascinating to watch.

No. 5 is alive - and No 6

Lamb status report - 2 months on.

All 6 doing well and living in a grassy field rather than the polytunnel.
Too sunny to report anything further, got to make the most of the limited sunshine here!

blue skies thinking

heads down eating, no6 not yet on the green stuff

no 2 galloping

No 4 and his funny little face

no6, the littlest miss

No 5, his floppy ears always make him seem a bit sad

A more bijous shelter

In Rememberance

Oh dear....
Poor little girl lamb died this morning.

This time we gave her all the care and human attention that the other one didn't get, and yet when Mark when down to her this morning she wasn't breathing and was stiff when he picked her up.  He came and told me she was dead, then 5 minutes later was back 'False alarm - she's alive!'  She had started breathing again, perhaps brought back from the brink by being lifted and hearing him. He put her on the floor to cool her down and recover, but she slipped away again and we buried her on the croft.

As we were digging the hole, I could smell the sea air, the sun was shining and I thought what a nice spot it is to be buried.  It is on the same bank of the Loch as the cemetary for the villages in our area and has a lovely far away view - you can see for miles which makes you feel big, as though you are actually breathing in the landscape.

When we first moved into Kershader, our neighbour proudly told us the extent of his family's croft, 50 odd acres in Kershader, another in Habost and one in Lemreway.
'I've also got a plot in Garyvard' he said.
'Oh, are you building a house?' I asked,
'No, it's 6ft by 3ft' he said with a twinkle in his eye.

Co-incidentally while it feels like we have the blanket of death around us here this week, it is my Aunty's memorial service today.  My Dad's younger sister, she moved to America with her husband Bob when they were young and had 2 strapping boys.  As they lived in Colorado Springs the boys grew up very outdoorsy and we would often hear in Aunty Midge's letters to Mum of their adventures.

By the magic of the World Wide Web, we have been able to be instantly in touch with our far away cousins to send our wishes. They are having a memorial service later today and asked if we had any old family photos they could share of their Mum. Happily we did and between us and our other cousins from my Dad's older sister's side, we found these and passed them around amongst us.

Aunty Midge and Uncle Bob are centre front, with my Dad at the back left.  They were all watching a golf match, the course at the time being next door to the farm my Grandparents and later My dad had a tenancy on.  They must be about 20 - still in the post war era of heavy woolen clothing and flat caps!

This is an earlier one outside the farmhouse we all loved so much, grandly called Hepworth Hall.  My Dad had to give up the tenancy of the farm when I was 8, but how similar to here on the islands, that he grew up and was married in the same house.  My Grandad, or Boppa as we called him, has a fag on the go and Granny is in the white dress.

I love these old photos - what a perfect way to think of people who have gone now.  My Dad, Bill, died when I was 18, and his older sister, Shelagh, passed away a few years ago too.  But when you see a new photograph suddenly they are alive again - in the present with you.  Their smiles are contagious and they are looking right down the lens at you again, not gone, not forgotten.  Still around us, still here, just for a moment more.

You can't stop trying

Ok, after yesterdays upset, another girl lamb has arrived and this time I'm keeping her isolated for a few days to give her some individual human attention before I integrate her with the rest of the polytunnel flock.  She has all the luxuries this time, light feeds but often, lots of talking to and neck rubbing (they seem to like this) blankets, and a bedroom next to the radiator. Hopefully I wont lose this one.

Grief...

2 weeks ago I watched a life come into the world, but yesterday I watched 1 leave.  It wasn't one of the 4 orphans in the polytunnel, it was a little girl lamb that I had only just been to pick up that morning. She seemed hollow and underfed like the others, but Murdo Garyvard (who gave us lambs 2 years ago) had fed her before we left so i thought she would be fine to go straight into the polytunnel with the others.
They didn't bother her, she had a little toddle around and then found a quiet corner to go to sleep in.  I kept an eye on her over the next few hours and she was sleeping comfortably, but when I went to try her with some milk, I picked her up and she was definitely not alright. Her head was curling around and she generally felt a little stiff.
I have seen this before with our 1st orphan Dolly, and with her I just sat her on my lap and rubbed her and she came back to life.  So I tried this with the new lamb.  Her breathing was really laboured and with hindsight I think I should have just left her to die while she was sleeping.
I tried to coax her back to the land of the living for about half an hour and then Mark came home and tried all that he could think of too.  When we laid her down she stretched her legs out and pushed her chin up - at one point her eyes were making Rapid Eye Movements and she was kicking her little legs as if she was dreaming.  In the end we thought it might be too hot for her so we moved her into a straw filled tub in the kitchen.  Once there she started bleeting out and rolling around, but her eyes were tightly shut now. Then she stopped moving and breathing and died.

I know nobody can tell if its the case, but with all the sudden calling out at the end, I really think she was saw a bright light at the end of a tunnel...

At least I know what death looks like now, so I maybe I can make it more comfortable for the next one....

Poor little lamb....

Sharing is Important

There has been an amazing turnaround in O3's demeanor! He has suddenly taken to the bottle with gusto, sucking perfectly to drain his own and often most of the others' milk bottles! He is ALIVE!

No longer the lazy boy, skulking in the corner he is the first to the door when humans arrive, he mountaineers accross bodies lying on the floor and is sniffing everything that arrives to drink in his experiences of the world!

Meanwhile O4 had an adventure last night - he was borrowed - abducted by aliens it must have felt like - who took him away in a car to a sheep somewhere far off who wanted to be his mother.  Unfortunately for the sheep he was too well bonded to his mates in the polytunnel, so he came home in the morning and is now wondering whether it was all just a dream.

Sharing livestock is quite common here - there is a bull share scheme for the islands to cut down on the cost of having your own bull. Unfortunately the fella who arrived last year, has not produced the goods now spring has arrived. He was apparently young and inexperienced and now at calving time the crofters have been left with not a lot of bang for their buck. :/

Back in the polytunnel , while sniffing is still popular, licking is now also the done thing.  The lambs will toddle around, investigating their surroundings, often with a little pink tongue poking out to catch any scents in the air, or perhaps at the ready for closer inspection of things.

A Murmuration of Starlings

There is a startling amount of starlings around the croft at the moment, hundreds and hundreds of them chattering and calling, preening themselves and calling out to the greater group.

The noise from the trees by the house is eerily similar to Hitchcock's 'The Birds'. 

Having a huge amount of feathered friends round also means having to provide a huge amount of food while they are staying with us. It seems that every part of grass on the croft has been pock-marked by a sharp beak, which in turn is doing a fabulous job of aerating the soil, but is unusual to find afterwards.

But for being hosts to this concert audience, we are rewarded with a hypnotic display, especially magical on a sunset evening, when they are spooked from their roosts and they curl into the sky to make enchanting patterns. Truly one of nature's simple pleasures.

Spring lambs

The weather has turned nasty again. Shouty and her twins are managing very well though and Pretty's lamb is so huge now nothing will bring him down.

The polytunnel is nicely wind and water tight, but the orphan lambs are obviously feeling the cold a bit. O2 was shivering after the 5pm feed, so I picked him up and put him on my lap under my coat for a while. He nodded off quite peacefully with some added body warmth, and I love a cuddle!

Little girl lamb O1

O1, the girl, is super super springy today! She does not walk anywhere, she bounces, sometimes sideways, mostly at high speed.
As for slow coach O3, he has woken up more today and is sniffing everything that comes into the tunnel with great gusto. At one point as I lay down in the corner he climbed all over me with his big calf-like limbs, methodically smelling everything, then finally lay down accross my neck like a scarf and had a snooze.

I have found my calling as a sensory lamb armchair.

Say Hello with a Sniff