Whoops! Hello there. It certainly has been a while. Rumours
of my demise have been grossly exaggerated. I'll have no truck with the wishful
thinking of others.
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| "It's eating everything in it's path!" Grass is insidious stuff. |
I’ve been
busying myself in the garden recently. The untamed machair grass has embedded
itself everywhere and the lack of vegetable gardening for a number of years has
necessitated some pretty heavyweight digging. A big ask for a guy who, arguably,
has never done a hard day’s work in his life. I’ve made a slow start in the ‘new
house that was never built’ foundation area. It is enclosed to a depth of four
breeze-blocks, but the water table kicks in after just two and a half. Below
that is saturated sand. Of course, at the edge there are considerable amounts
of hardcore to deal with too. While Andy insists that his rotavator can chew
its way through just about anything, I don’t want to be responsible when it
meets with some of the huge chunks of breeze-block or pre-Cambrian basalt that
are lurking about. I can only foresee one victor in that confrontation and even
if I am mistaken I can honestly see it being an expensive and ultimately rather
Pyrrhic one. I am currently about half way across the house footprint. A trailer full of manure awaits.
I had a
scare with the bus one Sunday last month. Kelly had taken four days off and
went to Kirkwall for the weekend. This meant that I had to do the dreaded ‘school
runs’. On Friday evening, all the students come home and then on Sunday evening
they all go back again. That generally ensures that our passenger allowance is
stretched to its fullest. The bus always gets dirty pretty quickly, so I made
sure that I had a few hours set aside on Sunday afternoon to wash and valet it.
Alas! I wasn’t aware that it was booked in for some garage work on Saturday, so
soon after I got back on that morning, the mechanic arrived to take it
away. It didn’t arrive back until Sunday afternoon. I barely had enough time to
hurriedly trot up the garden with a bucket of soapy water, my trusty sponge and
non-leather chamois to wash all the crud off it. All it needed then was a rinse
but I had to drive it up the garden and closer to the house to where the garden
hose is. My mistake was not accounting for the complete lack of traction of tyres on
the wet grass. I had gotten myself stuck, just minutes before the ‘kids’ were
due to get picked up. Neither a snowy ascent of Mount Seymour nor a damp hill
road in St Lucia could defeat me, but a slight incline in my own garden had
bested me. I confess that I rather panicked, turning the air blue. As I considered telephoning our
neighbour to pull us out with his tractor, a superhero in the form of Gail
appeared and gave me the nudge that I needed and once I had a little bit of
momentum going I concentrated on just not losing it until I reached the blessed
tarmac. (I have since learned that there is a water hose at Loth Pier so no
repeat of this debacle need ever happen again.) They managed to catch their
ferry, but only just. It was chaos. There was not even time to print all their
tickets off, so their fares just piled up on the front passenger seats as they
alighted. I can only hope that the ticket machine tallied up at the end of the
day. I must confess that I was, by then, way past caring. It was with a euphoric sense of
relief that I handed Kelly back the keys. I swear I’ll never get the hang of this.
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| It's looking grim over Will's mother's. Or in this case, the neighbour's. |
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| Ooh! Another dramatic sunset. Avec mist. |
There
seem to be fewer and fewer opportunities to go exploring these days. I have
still not ventured out and about to photograph the island as I have intended
for many weeks now. Whenever there is a dry, calm and pleasant day, my
attention is constantly being demanded elsewhere. The most either of us have managed of late is
to wander outside to catch a particularly interesting sunset or sunrise. If there is a break in the clouds though, you
can pretty much guarantee there’ll be one every night.
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| Quite often you can't even see the houses, let alone know what the hell they're called. |
Thanks
to Orkney Library, I have been able to obtain a copy of Naggles o Piapittem by
Gregor Lamb. This is like the Holy Grail of Sanday and I have no excuse for not
finding my bus passengers these days. It’s a little out of date it must be
said. There have been a number of new houses built since publication but what
ages it most is that the most essential landmark on the island, Loth Pier,
wasn’t even a twinkle in a developer’s eye, let alone the two miles of blacktop
leading to it. But from it I’ve been able to scribble the place names onto my
Ordnance Survey map for future reference. The book also contains information on
derivations from Old Norse of many of the names. For example, the area around
us is called Sellibister, which translates as Hall Farm, which in Norse was something
like Salr Bol-staðir. I suggested to Gail that we change the house name again
and repaint the sign. She didn’t give me a happy look. My favourite property name
referenced in the book is Skitterha (Diarrhoea House). They don’t mince their
words up here.
To
bring this epistle bang up to date, it’s time to relate the tale to which the
title of the piece eludes. A phone call last week informed me that my work
clothes were ready, a brand spangly new polo-shirt and a fleece, both embroidered with
the Sanday Bus logo. They just needed picking up from Kirkwall. So despite a
noisy, Easterly wind keeping me awake most of the night and then continuing
into the morning, I got up early in order to catch the bus to Loth pier. When
we arrived, Kelly told me that the bus was getting on the boat too as it was
time for its MOT. She asked if I minded driving it on for her so that she could
get home. The pier crew organised vehicles onto the good ship Earl Thorfinn,
then turned their backs on me. I had to sound the horn to get their attention
and let me on. They must be used to the bus being parked on the pier before
driving off, but you’d have thought that the fact that it had been booked on
might have suggested that today was different, if me sitting at the wheel with
the engine running with the bus pointed at the ramp wasn’t enough of a clue.
They belatedly waved me on and the ramp was raised behind me. Phew! That was
close.
The
crossing to Kirkwall was a bit choppy. I simply stuck my head into a copy of
Terry Pratchett’s “Light Fantastic” and listened to my i-pod on shuffle. Every
now and then I’d chance a glance out of the starboard window. The view
alternated between sea and sky and was distinctly blurred between each. Gail
would have hated it. I loved it.
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| This post has about as many holes as my alibi! |
When the
ferries arrive in port, the vehicles are disembarked first, with foot
passengers not allowed out through the car deck until it is all clear. With that in
mind, although I hadn’t been asked, I thought that I ought to be prepared to
drive the bus off at Kirkwall, so that my fellow passengers could get to dry land, even
though someone from the garage was supposed to arrive to take it away. Nobody
did. I had been parked up on the pier for at least five minutes and the Thorfinn
moved from the jetty before someone turned up. If I’d left it on board, he’d
have had a swim before his problems even began. I handed over the keys and went
shopping. I picked up my new gear, got Gail some drugs (Olbas pastilles and double
strength Gaviscon – y’know, all the really hard stuff), found a joke shop where
I could get some plastic fangs for an islander who is making a monster glove
puppet and dropped some books off at the library before hitting Didldidi and
Tesco. When I made it back to the pier to catch the boat home, I dropped all my shopping in the waiting room and started
looking around for the bus. It never came back. I retrieved my bags and boarded before stepping out onto the
breezy, chilled deck to see if it had arrived at the last moment. It hadn’t. We set
sail sans bus. I spent the whole journey concerned that I’d no longer have a
job when I got back. I had no words of reassurance for those fellow islanders
who were relying on the bus to get home, particularly those who like me live at
the North end, about fifteen miles away from the pier. Fortunately plans were
afoot to get us all home in private vehicles. Nobody was left stranded, which
was very much appreciated. The bus, apparently, was now ready for collection. That
is little comfort, given that it was supposed to have been delivered to the
pier on time. My peers are assured that it'll be on the first boat tomorrow. And I still have a job.
I think.
Well, nobody has asked for the clothing back!
