Tea With Me

In a happy coincidence I arrived in Ullapool at the start of their annual book festival and, me being me, had scoured and mostly planned the events I wanted to go to before I’d even taken my bags out of the car. I’d also bought two books. I think that might be a new personal best.

The first reading was from former Minister of St Magnus Cathedral in Kirkwall, Ron Ferguson. His new book was a biography George Mackay Brown – an Orcadian writer and poet with a notoriously troubled personal life. I know little of the man, or his work if truth be told, but his face had become familiar during my five day visit to Orkney, staying etched in my mind even after I got off the boat to the mainland and the beautiful but blustery Orkney islands were simply a haze in the rear view mirror.

From an early age George Mackay Brown, or Georgie Broon fae Stromness as he was apparently oft referred to, was afflicted with tuberculosis, and latterly alcoholism. But as the author carried on explaining about George’s troubled times, I found myself increasingly interested in another area of both George’s life and Ron’s.

Ron was a Presbyterian Minister, and he went on to talk about the strength of the Church in Orkney, in George’s upbringing and his own dilemmas within the faith. The Presbyterian Church, or Church of Scotland, is an alien religion to me, despite C of S being given as the default answer by my mother during the not infrequent trips to the A&E department as a child. I know more about the Church of England than I do the doctrine of the Scottish Protestants. Aside from the Lord’s Prayer I don’t remember it ever being taught as a set of principles the way Catholicism preaches to the young, I couldn’t tell you what the rules of the Church are or whether there is a hierarchy of Ministers, let alone what that hierarchy might be.

I realised, as I sat listening to Ron read from his book in the easy manner of a person who has delivered countless sermons, that my designated religion had completely passed me by. Was I the proverbial lost sheep? God, in the all-powerful monotheistic sense, was never really a feature in my life. To me, a church service was a marker of the end of a term in primary school. I knew as we trudged across the road and through the graveyard in which countless ghost stories were enshrined that the ringing bell signified holidays, that I would go in sullenly and come out smiling, but not because of the words, or the payers, or the hymns.

I had no connection with the Church during those younger years, despite a spitooning Headmistress who despised us saying ‘gads’ and called us blasphemers when we did. Aged nine, you’d be lucky if I could spell the word, let alone understand what it meant. So by the time I was in secondary school and no longer required to go to the Kirk those few times a year, my link to any kind of Presbyterian dogma was non-existent.

Yet it is a faith that divided the nation of Scotland. The Reformation is taught in history classes, so its importance is evident, but the details are vague.  I had to Google Presbyterian to find out more and was surprised to learn that it adhered to Calvinist theology. My own knowledge of Calvinist theory relates to a book that was the bane of my life for a year during my CSYS study; The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner. In brief, the main character had been told by his religious leader that upon his birth God had deemed him saved and he would therefore automatically enter the Kingdom of Heaven – regardless of his behaviour or actions whilst he was alive.

The more I read on (I fell into a wiki-hole) the more I pondered the words of Ron Ferguson and the eventual conversion of George Mackay Brown to Roman Catholicism. Baptism and Communion feature in both religions, as does confession. Although, confession appears to be more of a community event in the Presbyterian Church (can someone let me know if this is or isn’t the case?). There are striking similarities between both, as with the C of E, so I wonder what the nuances are that drives people towards converting from one to the other?

The spark to research Presbyterianism following on from the event has only served to make a distant connection even more detached. I’m looking at it clinically but not as a person who has any direct link to it, the way my early school years suggest. This ignorance, this lack of understanding of what goes on behind the many heavy wooden doors dotted around, not just my town but Scotland as a whole serves to remind me there is much I still don’t know about my home country, much that I am unfamiliar with despite my own declarations of being a proper Scottish lassie.

This new entry is a little different to my usual posts, the landscape has inspired my creativity. So, in addition to photos taken on a phone camera, here’s a more descriptive post of Ullapool. 

I am assaulted by boastful scenery, the changing landscape of each passing mile trying to outdo the previous vista. It is a derelict beauty one that, without the sun is brutal and unforgiving, and with the merest of golden rays is transformed into a romantic wilderness. It is the image of a thousand sunset postcards.

Hills rest in perfect composition with sky and loch, so picturesque, so idyllic it almost looks contrived. As clouds move casually overhead, filtered sunlight illuminates shape, form and colour, providing a depth of texture, of gradient and ancient grandeur. The loch rolls and roils, breaking against the pebbled shores that meekly face their majestic, towering neighbours across the water.

Loch Broom

The tourist inch past in their cars, the locals itching to be past them in theirs. This panorama is old to them, habitual, normal. They wait pleasantly to the side as memory cards are filled – 250 megabytes of the same picture from 20 slightly different angles. Mementos that will be relived as screensavers or play on loop in a digital photo frame – a rotisserie of memories to capture what visitors could not bring home in an gift shop plastic bag.

The town nestles serenely amongst the hills and mountains, comfortable in its diminutive position – it feels protected, cherished even. As I meander through the streets I see community everywhere and I wonder if this is a direct result of nature’s cocoon. There is a constant stillness, punctured insignificantly only by cars, children and dogs. The space surrounding the town is too vast, too cosmic for it to be disturbed with the trifling sounds of daily life.

As I drive away the cocoon grows, enveloping the town of Ullapool, belying its existence until there is nothing but the image of a thousand sunset postcards reversed in the rear view mirror.

Hidden Ullapool

My Grand Gallivant began with a bang. I am writing this with from the warmth and cosiness of the Orcades Hostel, but my wind burnt face tells of a wilder adventure. The bizarre weather at Loch Rannoch – we had snow and a hailstorm, which rudely interrupted our barbeque fun – appeared to have settled as I approached the tip of Scotland under blue and sunny skies. Even the crossing to Orkney was smooth enough for the tourists to get their money’s worth from their SLR cameras without falling prey to the northern waters.

All the way through putting my tent up the skies gave no warning of what was to come. Or the entire duration of my rather long trek along the coast of South Ronaldsy and back again. But the skies darkened and the wind rose, and rose, and rose. And with it came the rain. If you remember the stories of the three little pigs and the wolf who blew and blew until the house fell down, last night the coastal wind was the wolf and if blew my house right over like it was made of straw. The poles have been shredded from the force and the ten was soaking wet inside and out.

I peeked out the window of my car every hour or so to check whether I was going to have to go chasing it over the field. Thankfully it held, but it sacrificed much for the privilege. I have now had to rethink my plans and search for alternative means of accommodation. I asked for an adventure and Orkney delivered.

Although the weather didn’t get better, the banishment of the sorry, soggy tent to the boot of the car and a trek around some Neolithic sites, including Maes Howe, did improve my mood. One particular highlight was the Australians on the tour pointing out the brown sheep. Said brown sheep are below. They were amazed, the tourists, not the sheep, and told me they’d seen black and white ones too. If someone could confirm that there, in fact, sheep in Australia and what colour they are, I’d appreciate it.

The Ring of Brodgar

The Brown Sheep

Tomorrow I’m meant to be heading to Sanday, but apparently the boat is full and I’m on the reserve list. I’m not quite sure what that means on a boat, presumably the same as it does on a plane, I hope it doesn’t mean I don’t get a spot on the lifeboat if we sink. I’m now very intimate with my car and I’m pretty sure it doesn’t have a hidden ninja boat installed.

And finally, a sign which so far sums up my holiday:

I <3 Real Life, I do.

I, like the millions of television sets around the UK, have waved analogue goodbye and embraced the wonders of digital thanks to my new (NHS) hearing aid. I don’t think it’s going too far to say it feels like a new lease of life. The novelty of sound has not yet quite worn off, each flick of a newspaper is crisper, cleaner, each footstep more definite and music has reached an entirely new depth of pleasure.

My memories of the old, cumbersome, analogue hearing aids weighed heavily on my expectations of the impact my new one would make. But I’m amazed at my new world of sound. The world is not just louder – it’s clearer. My first few hours wearing it were accompanied by several urges to tell random strangers how I could hear them tapping their boot on the pavement, or how loud their telephone conversation was. I even smiled at a cooing pigeon.

My new, discreet yet powerful hearing aid

The hearing aid, apart from being remarkably smaller than its older incarnations, is plugged in to a computer and tuned to the wearer. A multitude of different settings can be fiddled with to create the perfect balance and then the user can also go up or down a few notches from the default setting depending on their environment. It also automatically tunes out background noise, so no more headache-inducing roars or teeth-shattering whistles caused by traffic or the mildest of breezes. This was perhaps my biggest complaint during my on-off teenage relationship with my previous hearing aids. In any situation other than a quiet room, it was frustratingly difficult to pick up voices, but this is no longer the case. It’s the equivalent of high-definition for audio – the downside is that now I know how awful my singing actually is.

From a personal perspective, I have left behind the stigma attached to hearing aids, I no longer feel awkward and self-conscious the way my 14 year-old self did. Perhaps my more mature years are a contributing factor, and perhaps it’s because of how shocked I was when I realised how subdued and muffled my non-hearing aid world actually is. Whilst one ear has always been ‘dead’ as the consultant tactfully put it, the other has gradually worsened and, over time, I have just adapted my habits to suit. But now I need new habits, ones that fit in with my new ability to engage and be part of this garrulous world.

For anyone who read my blog this time last year, I had a bit of an adventure down in Cornwall. It was a mixed bag of a holiday which, although not relaxing, was productive in several ways. This year I’m heading in the opposite direction and doing a Grand Gallivant around the homeland. Touring Scotland has been a dream for several years, one I’ve harboured both out of shame for not exploring my own country and a wild desire to try and catch a glimpse of the Northern Lights.

So, using the excuse of a friend’s 30th birthday celebrations in Rannoch, I have (mostly) planned a route which will take me to the Orkney Isles, Ullapool, Skye, Oban and the good old Glasvegas. In case you’re wondering what that looks like, it’s this:

It’s 1,744 miles of driving and ferries. I’m going to need a lot of driving music. And because petrol will be the main outlay, aside from the ferries to Orkney, I’m keeping costs down by camping and staying in hostels and I think one of the cutest places I’ve booked is this camping pod on the isle of Sanday

I’m also going to be speaking to the Sanday Ranger about his role on the island and hopefully getting a bit of a guided tour of this beautiful looking place. Orkney is also home to the European Marine Energy Centre – who research and monitor the potential of harnessing energy from the water. As someone with a growing interest in the energy sector, I’m really looking forward to finding out more about what they do.

Everyone I’ve been in touch with to plan this trip has been friendly and immensely helpful – even when I’ve had to change dates of where I’m going to be when. It’s just under two weeks until I leave and I will be taking the laptop (and a camera) with me, hopefully blogging as much as I can along the way.  No doubt I’ll also be Tweeting about the adventure, so plenty of ways to see the scenery with me.