Almost over
Posted: Tuesday, 04 November 2008 |
Well, we are nearly there for 2008, with only a few days remaining until we can finally put our big heavy ropes to the pier and catch up on a lot of sleep and telly. This has been an amazing season, with many ups and downs.
I totalled up what we use in a season. Of course they are all a bit rounded to make life simple, but they probably show the scale of what we do.
350,000 litres of water
16,000 litres diesel
800 litres of milk
400 loaves of bread
2100 bread rolls
5200 teabags
1000 sausages
180kg chicken
56kg bacon
55kg rolled beef brisket
750 burgers
340 slices haggis
340 slices black pudding
70kg lamb
60kg cheese
210kg mince
500 eggs
30kg margarine
30kg butter
150kg potatoes
150kg pasta
400 jacket potatoes
140kg fruit
330 tins baked beans
115 litres sauce
15kg coffee
60 jars of jam
55kg cereal
50 bulbs of garlic
170 litres of orange juice
1200 toilet rolls
30 air fresheners
30 litre cooking oil
15 litres washing up liquid
I totalled up what we use in a season. Of course they are all a bit rounded to make life simple, but they probably show the scale of what we do.
350,000 litres of water
16,000 litres diesel
800 litres of milk
400 loaves of bread
2100 bread rolls
5200 teabags
1000 sausages
180kg chicken
56kg bacon
55kg rolled beef brisket
750 burgers
340 slices haggis
340 slices black pudding
70kg lamb
60kg cheese
210kg mince
500 eggs
30kg margarine
30kg butter
150kg potatoes
150kg pasta
400 jacket potatoes
140kg fruit
330 tins baked beans
115 litres sauce
15kg coffee
60 jars of jam
55kg cereal
50 bulbs of garlic
170 litres of orange juice
1200 toilet rolls
30 air fresheners
30 litre cooking oil
15 litres washing up liquid
Addicted
Posted: Thursday, 06 November 2008 |
Armpit Cat
Posted: Sunday, 09 November 2008 |
When I very first came to Orkney, I was pleased to find that Hazel had a cat on the farm – Tuffy the Rodent Slayer, a rather short round farm moggy who took one look at me and decided her cuddle quota had just increased beyond her wildest dreams. She loves to follow you around the farm, you can be miles from anywhere and a small furry thing will be padding along behind you happy as anything. One afternoon I noticed that Tuffs was getting a little rounder, a little chunky around the midriff. On asking if she had been neutered I was told no, to which I replied I suspected we might be getting several more cats at some time in the future.
One early morning at around 5am the golden sun was making its lazy way up from the East a strange squeaking noise dragged me from the warm comfort of sleep. Tuffs was in the bathroom on a shelf, two small wet noisy kittens blindly blundering around. As I watched, two more emerged and I left her to it. Tuffy the Rodent Slayer gave birth to Willow, Giles, Sam and Simon.
By 10am I had them into a box with a blanket and mum was purring really rather proudly, four fat babies snoozing in the warmth. They grew quickly from blind and helpless into furry hooligans running riot.
Slowly growing too big for the lodge where I lived, they were evicted to the feed store, complete with furry blanket, box and food. Less than 24 hours later a mad scrabble and some muffled mewing told me that they really were less than impressed with this arrangement and preferred it in with me. However, perseverance paid off and they became rather ineffective farm cats, being really rather good at catching mice and feathers, and bits of straw and all sorts of things that really are no challenge to a normal farm cat.
I would miss my spells away from them, usually asking Hazel how they were each morning when she arrived at the boat. Sam disappeared first, he has been gone for over two months now and I hope he has landed paws down the way and has been adopted by someone who can cope with a cat who really would like a cuddle 24 hours a day. I miss him, he was my favourite one of the litter.
Giles was a handsome cat, beautiful tabby stripes of glossy fur, green eyes and so intensely friendly he liked nothing better than to stuff his head into your armpit while you stroked his back. He had the magic sense to find you as soon as you headed out of the house, suddenly a cat would appear and get in the way until a cuddle was supplied.
Giles died yesterday after suffering a fit. We have no idea what caused this, but it was totally unexpected. I don’t know where he is now, but I hope there are lots of armpits to stuff his head into.
One early morning at around 5am the golden sun was making its lazy way up from the East a strange squeaking noise dragged me from the warm comfort of sleep. Tuffs was in the bathroom on a shelf, two small wet noisy kittens blindly blundering around. As I watched, two more emerged and I left her to it. Tuffy the Rodent Slayer gave birth to Willow, Giles, Sam and Simon.
By 10am I had them into a box with a blanket and mum was purring really rather proudly, four fat babies snoozing in the warmth. They grew quickly from blind and helpless into furry hooligans running riot.
Slowly growing too big for the lodge where I lived, they were evicted to the feed store, complete with furry blanket, box and food. Less than 24 hours later a mad scrabble and some muffled mewing told me that they really were less than impressed with this arrangement and preferred it in with me. However, perseverance paid off and they became rather ineffective farm cats, being really rather good at catching mice and feathers, and bits of straw and all sorts of things that really are no challenge to a normal farm cat.
I would miss my spells away from them, usually asking Hazel how they were each morning when she arrived at the boat. Sam disappeared first, he has been gone for over two months now and I hope he has landed paws down the way and has been adopted by someone who can cope with a cat who really would like a cuddle 24 hours a day. I miss him, he was my favourite one of the litter.
Giles was a handsome cat, beautiful tabby stripes of glossy fur, green eyes and so intensely friendly he liked nothing better than to stuff his head into your armpit while you stroked his back. He had the magic sense to find you as soon as you headed out of the house, suddenly a cat would appear and get in the way until a cuddle was supplied.
Giles died yesterday after suffering a fit. We have no idea what caused this, but it was totally unexpected. I don’t know where he is now, but I hope there are lots of armpits to stuff his head into.
Chasing Fish
Posted: Tuesday, 18 November 2008 |
Jumping off a perfectly good boat. I guess it goes hand in hand with jumping out of a perfectly good plane,. Madness unless you are equipped for it.
Lugging my gear around, I have the usual divers curse of “why can’t they make this stuff lighter” – it’s a non-question. If your cylinders were lighter, you would need more lead on your belt. Still, the words muttered into the early morning air make me feel a little better as I heft my twinset onto my back and I swear I can feel my vertebra being ground to a powder.
I dive a twinset – two cylinders strapped together with stout steel bands and joined by a manifold. Most people when they learn to dive start in a single cylinder – half the size and weight of what I dive. I have two cylinders to give me more gas, to allow me to stay longer and dive deeper, but also as a safety precaution. The manifold between the cylinders can be closed if there is a problem with valves or regulators on that side and I can still breathe the gas in the other The other reason, and I guess the biggest one for me, is that most of my dives are by myself. I dive solo because if I did not, I would hardly get any dives at all. Solo diving is a taboo in the sport, so many people do it but it has its obvious dangers.
I remember my first solo dive. We were in Malta in early summer; the Mediterranean warmth had yet to reach the sea which was a cool 14 degrees (which is warm by UK standards). My friends had decided to go off and dive a wreck I had dived several times before, I chose to explore a cove alone. The calm blue waters and the ability to take my time, pause for how long I wanted to and eventually finding a sea hare – a type of sea slug – made it a highlight of my trip. I could do whatever I wanted to do and didn’t have to worry about someone else getting bored at me looking at something tiny. Being alone has its drawbacks too though. If something goes wrong, you are on your own. If you see something truly mindblowing, no-one else is there with you to witness it too.
So why on earth do we do it? Step into fresh air for that second before we are immersed in freezing cold rough and occasionally rather mucky water? I have no idea quite what it is, I could never nail down that one feeling, that one thing that makes me do this time after time. I love chasing fish, and that was what I spent my last few dives doing – chasing fish.
Lugging my gear around, I have the usual divers curse of “why can’t they make this stuff lighter” – it’s a non-question. If your cylinders were lighter, you would need more lead on your belt. Still, the words muttered into the early morning air make me feel a little better as I heft my twinset onto my back and I swear I can feel my vertebra being ground to a powder.
I dive a twinset – two cylinders strapped together with stout steel bands and joined by a manifold. Most people when they learn to dive start in a single cylinder – half the size and weight of what I dive. I have two cylinders to give me more gas, to allow me to stay longer and dive deeper, but also as a safety precaution. The manifold between the cylinders can be closed if there is a problem with valves or regulators on that side and I can still breathe the gas in the other The other reason, and I guess the biggest one for me, is that most of my dives are by myself. I dive solo because if I did not, I would hardly get any dives at all. Solo diving is a taboo in the sport, so many people do it but it has its obvious dangers.
I remember my first solo dive. We were in Malta in early summer; the Mediterranean warmth had yet to reach the sea which was a cool 14 degrees (which is warm by UK standards). My friends had decided to go off and dive a wreck I had dived several times before, I chose to explore a cove alone. The calm blue waters and the ability to take my time, pause for how long I wanted to and eventually finding a sea hare – a type of sea slug – made it a highlight of my trip. I could do whatever I wanted to do and didn’t have to worry about someone else getting bored at me looking at something tiny. Being alone has its drawbacks too though. If something goes wrong, you are on your own. If you see something truly mindblowing, no-one else is there with you to witness it too.
So why on earth do we do it? Step into fresh air for that second before we are immersed in freezing cold rough and occasionally rather mucky water? I have no idea quite what it is, I could never nail down that one feeling, that one thing that makes me do this time after time. I love chasing fish, and that was what I spent my last few dives doing – chasing fish.
More than frozen water
Posted: Monday, 24 November 2008 |
In the early morning monochrome, the smooth crystals of the nights snowfall sparkle on the windscreen. The street is edged in white, the bitter frost making stark edges glint in the steely grey light. Leaves rattle in the gutters, brittle and utterly frozen, the trees they came from poke their bare branches to the grey clouded skies.
Leaving the city to head back north we soon start to see thin patches of snow beside the road having been turned a dirty grey by the passing of a thousand vehicles and gritters.
The further north we travel, the slower the speed seems to get, snow encroaches the road until only one lane of the road is useable, funnelling the traffic so it slows to a crawl, unable to get past any slow vehicles ahead.
I love snow. The cold and disruption and occasionally destruction it brings are all almost part of the attraction. While it is snowing you are totally helpless. For me, it reminds me that we are a part of nature, not apart from it. We can shape this planet how we want, go to the moon, send space craft to other planets. However, small white fluffy flakes can all but cripple everything we do for as long as it falls and remains on the ground.
Snow turns the world into a black and white photograph. Black and white makes us see what we would normally miss – patterns, shapes, the form of the things we see every day. Snow obscures but in the same breath it adds so much. It takes away the detail so we can see the bigger picture.
People seem drawn to walk in snow, to feel the crunch of the flakes beneath our foot falls. To look back and see the temporary record of where we went. It almost opens our heads, to look back and see where we paused, others can somehow see inside our heads and witness our actions until either more snows come or the thaw.
Snow flakes are all individuals – unique from their neighbours. Just like people, we are all individuals in our own rights. But sometimes seen as a group, some of us are seen as a problem. The snow on your lawn and caught in the branches of your trees is just beautiful, but the snow on your driveway is a problem and needs to be dealt with. Only the last breaths of the wind influenced where those flakes came to rest, they had no say in if they were a lawn flake or a driveway flake.
Here are some photographs from our journey from Edinburgh to Aberdeen via Dundee and Fraserburgh.
Leaving the city to head back north we soon start to see thin patches of snow beside the road having been turned a dirty grey by the passing of a thousand vehicles and gritters.
The further north we travel, the slower the speed seems to get, snow encroaches the road until only one lane of the road is useable, funnelling the traffic so it slows to a crawl, unable to get past any slow vehicles ahead.
I love snow. The cold and disruption and occasionally destruction it brings are all almost part of the attraction. While it is snowing you are totally helpless. For me, it reminds me that we are a part of nature, not apart from it. We can shape this planet how we want, go to the moon, send space craft to other planets. However, small white fluffy flakes can all but cripple everything we do for as long as it falls and remains on the ground.
Snow turns the world into a black and white photograph. Black and white makes us see what we would normally miss – patterns, shapes, the form of the things we see every day. Snow obscures but in the same breath it adds so much. It takes away the detail so we can see the bigger picture.
People seem drawn to walk in snow, to feel the crunch of the flakes beneath our foot falls. To look back and see the temporary record of where we went. It almost opens our heads, to look back and see where we paused, others can somehow see inside our heads and witness our actions until either more snows come or the thaw.
Snow flakes are all individuals – unique from their neighbours. Just like people, we are all individuals in our own rights. But sometimes seen as a group, some of us are seen as a problem. The snow on your lawn and caught in the branches of your trees is just beautiful, but the snow on your driveway is a problem and needs to be dealt with. Only the last breaths of the wind influenced where those flakes came to rest, they had no say in if they were a lawn flake or a driveway flake.
Here are some photographs from our journey from Edinburgh to Aberdeen via Dundee and Fraserburgh.
After coming to Orkney in May 2006 for 8 months, somehow I am still here. Running the MV Valkyrie in the summer and helping on the farm in winter is now my life. 
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