The Imperceptible Immigrant

Ullapool

May 11, 2024 in Life as we know it | Permalink

On our way from the Orkneys to Skye we spent a single night somewhere that I have not visited before – the north-western fishing port of Ullapool.

Though only there for the briefest of sojourns we liked Ullapool. It had a busy, unexpectedly youthful feel about it – in some ways not unlike Tofino on the west coast of Vancouver Island.

We stayed in The Arch hotel, the which is right on the harbour front. This is the sort of place where there is no check-in desk… you simply go into the bar and the barman leaves his post to show you to your room.

This barman also advised us that there was to be live music that night in the bar, featuring an extraordinary young accordionist called Ruairidh Maclean, who himself hails from Ullapool. As we were staying within yards of the venue I thought I would pop in for a number or two… and ended up staying for the majority of his set.

Maclean plays an accordion that is not only equipped with pickups (for amplification) but also not one but two MIDI interfaces. By means of these devices Maclean can add instrumentation to the accordion – for example, guitar and banjo to the keyboard and bass guitar and kick drum to the buttons. He explains fiercely that he does not use backing tracks but that all of his extensive palette of sound is delivered live. That his repertoire includes AC/DC, Fleetwood Mac and Tom Jones says a lot and he delivers with a fierce joy (and not a little anger).

He also plays this original number, written by a friend of his who has moved to Canada – the which I found particularly moving:

https://rumac.bandcamp.com/track/poaching-days

I am very glad that I attended the gig.

Tags: Holiday, Music, Scotland, Travel

Telling stories

May 8, 2024 in Life as we know it, Photos | Permalink

“In Scotland, when people congregate, they tend to argue and discuss and reason; in Orkney, they tell stories.”

George Mackay Brown

There are many stories in and about Orkney – covering a great span of history. From the distant Neolithic past we moved forward to the last century.

During both the first and second world wars the natural deep water harbour that is encompassed by the Orkney islands – Scapa Flow – was a haven to the British Home Fleet. At the end of the Great War it also hosted 74 ships of the surrendered German fleet as the armistice negotiations dragged on. Believing that its ships would be handed over to other European nations the German commander – Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter – gave the command to scuttle the entire fleet in the Flow. A total of 52 ships went to the seafloor and this remains the greatest loss of shipping ever recorded in a single day.

Many of these ships were subsequently raised, not least because of the value of the steel therein. All steel produced since the Trinity atomic bomb tests in 1946 has exhibited a higher than previous level of background radiation as a result of the raised levels in the oxygen used in the smelting process. For some applications – such as the manufacture of medical scanners – this is not optimal, though since surface testing was stopped the levels have, apparently, been slowly falling again.

In the second world war the British battleship, Royal Oak, was sunk by German U boat, U-47, which had contrived to avoid the defences and to penetrate the Flow. Churchill immediately ordered the construction of further barriers to prevent any future such ingress, the which were constructed by Italian prisoners of war. Being a long way from home (and from their familiar Mediterranean climate) these captives asked – and were granted – permission to convert a Nissen hut into a chapel. This has subsequently been restored and is the subject of these photos:

Whilst on this religious theme I should mention Orkney’s lovely cathedral – St. Magnus – which can be found in Kirkwall.

The story of St. Magnus is an interesting example of the intersection between a narrative – in the form of one or more written sagas – and what is recognised by the church to be historical and ‘religious’ truth. It seems inevitable that versimilitude lies somewhere between, but different folk clearly take from the different elements that which they need the most.

Tags: Holiday, Orkney, Photo, Scotland, Travel

Haunted by time

May 6, 2024 in Life as we know it, Photos | Permalink

“The Orkney imagination is haunted by time.”

George Mackay Brown

Right from the start of of our Scotland trip planning The Girl made a strong case for including a visit to Orkney. Neither of us had been there and her long-standing interest in ancient history marked the island group as a ‘must see’. Orkney is a long way north and getting there and back in a timely fashion – as well, of course, as seeing the sights – is quite a challenge.

What eventually made this part of the trip possible was finding ‘Shorelands’ – a B & B that is also a tour organiser. The excellent Nicky – the proprietor – picked us up from (and dropped us back to) the ferry at Stromness, entertained us splendidly at their place in Kirkwall and took us on a full day’s guided tour of all of the essential sights on the Orkney mainland.

Those from BC will be feel right at home with the most common method of reaching Orkney:

These photos are of Skara Brae – an incredibly well preserved Neolithic village that was revealed during a storm in 1850. It is older than Stonehenge and the Great Pyramids of Giza.

I recall – all of fifty years ago now – my father returning from a trip to Scotland with a guidebook to Skara Brae, the which I devoured eagerly. So taken was I with the idea of this Neolithic village rediscovered that I wrote an instrumental piece inspired thereby for the first band that I was in. Sometime later we were playing a local gig at which my father was present. As I announced the piece, explaining its origins, a familiar voice called out from the back of the hall:

”You haven’t been there!”

Well – I have now…!

There are many Neolithic remains on Orkney. This henge and stone circle is the Ring of Brodgar:

To our great surprise this group had come to the ring for a somewhat blustery wedding ceremony!

Breathe out…

May 4, 2024 in Life as we know it, Photos | Permalink

This is the morning view from our converted byre in the north west corner of Skye. The couple who converted it live in the wee But and Ben in the photo (actually not so wee!) the which they also converted.

As trailed in yesterday’s post, we are taking a few days to breathe out – to review where we have been and what we have done and to place it all into some larger context.

When we started planning our trip to Caledonia we each had our own agendas. The Girl was keen to revisit places and sights that she had experienced once before on her only previous trip to Scotland. I was eager to see if I could expand the sense of a link to my ancestors that I had originally been gifted by my father – who was always most proud of his Scottish heritage.

So – here we are, about half way through our expedition and this is probably a good opportunity to give some thought to how successful (or otherwise) we have been in achieving our objectives thus far.

When we picked up our hire car in Edinburgh and headed for the highlands we took a brief detour to visit Roslynn Chapel, the which had particularly struck The Girl on her previous trip. Visitors are not allowed to take photos of the wonderful and surprising interior carvings for which the chapel is renowned, so I am instead offering the reader a link to the chapel’s website:

Home

Needless to say, the chapel worked its magic as anticipated.

Our initial sojourn in the highlands found us in a beautifully and thoughtfully converted Air B & B in Pitlochry. This little hideaway – over the garage of a guest house – was wonderfully peaceful and ideally placed for excursions to a variety of sites nearby that I had visited many times back in the day on family holidays.

The Girl and I visited Blair Atholl (and its castle), Bruar (where yet can be found our clan museum) and Old Struan (home to the clan church). The weather was overcast and still quite chilly at this point so photographic opportunities were somewhat limited. These are of Blair Castle – home to the Dukes of Atholl and to Europe’s only private army!

We also visited the pass of Killiecrankie and replicated much of a walk that was a regular and much loved feature of our family holidays in Perthshire.

Herewith a few photos:

This promontory is Soldier’s Leap, so named because – in the rout that followed the Battle of Killiecrankie in 1689 – one of the fleeing redcoat soldiers is reputed to have leapt 18 feet across the Garry river to escape the pursuing Jacobites.

Tags: Holiday, Photo, Scotland, Travel

Breathe in…

May 3, 2024 in Life as we know it | Permalink

The Girl and I are touring in Scotland.

Now, The Girl is something of a genius when it comes to planning a trip. Not only is she unbelievably thorough – leaving no stone unturned when it comes to the small detail – but she is also quite brilliant at orchestrating the greater movements on which such an expedition is based. As we arrive at each place on our itinerary – taking each new step on the journey – we discover that she has (in only marginally obsolete parlance) once again ‘absolutely nailed it’ when it comes to choices of where to stay and what to do!

My role in all of this brilliance is far more straightforward. It is my job to experience whatever comes our way – to live the moments and to absorb the impacts thereof, complete with thei underlying narrative and subtexts. It is my small (yet important) task to take photographs and to formulate pithy jottings that can then be imposed on the casual and unsuspecting reader of this journal – in the name of some arcane form of art (see this recent post for further information).

There is also the added bonus that I may – if I am truly fortunate – be able to draw out the germ of some nascent composition… to uncover the basis for yet another song.

Here’s hoping…

i hear mutterings at this point that I have clearly been falling down on the job – that I have not posted an update since we were in Edinburgh more than a week ago. This is, sadly, true… What happens is this: I get so wrapped up with the breathing in… absorbing what is happening and what we are experiencing… that I don’t have the time or capacity to exhale – to share with gentle readers that which we are living through…

…until now, of course.

Today we arrived on the island of Skye – and not just any part of the island, but one of the more remote corners thereof. We have three days here to rest and recuperate.

I will take advantage of this welcome downtime to bring these scribblings up to date.

That’s a promise…

Tags: Holiday, Music, Travel, Writing

Auld reekie

April 28, 2024 in Flotsam and Jetsam, Photos | Permalink

Well – we made it to Scotland in one piece – although the journey was not entirely trouble free. A three hour delay to our flight from Vancouver to London meant we had to catch a later flight to Edinburgh, which meant that we reached our apartment there at about 11:00pm, after 24 hours of travel.

The Girl had found us a splendid National Trust apartment right on the Royal Mile in the old town:

The only downside was that the apartment is on the fifth floor and we had to get our heavy suitcases up this staircase:

It is a good thing that I work out!

We spent a splendid couple of days in Edinburgh before heading for the Highlands. Here are some images:

Tags: Edinburgh, Holiday, Photo, Scotland, Travel

Getting better

April 23, 2024 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

“I’ve got to admit, it’s getting better,
A little better all the time”

John Lennon/Paul McCartney

Some years seem to bestow upon us an abundance of joy and positivity (in the personal realm if not on the national/international stage) whereas others seem fated to to serve up a seemingly endless procession of set-backs and knock-downs. 2024 has seen a bumpy start for The Girl and I, beset with such unexpected events as the exploding shower screen – the dying Mobiliser – and a variety of other unexpected expenses.

These things are, however, transitory and my optimistic nature leads me to look for signs that our fortune is once again improving. Take the glass shower screen – for example…

It had been a while since I posted to this forum the tale of its unexpected demise. The manufacturer of the screen sent us a replacement under warranty in a gratifyingly rapid time (suggesting thereby that this was not exactly an unheard of problem for them). We had by that point also received recommendations from various sources for contractors who could repair the bath tub (damaged by the falling glass) and install the replacement screen. That nothing beyond the delivery of the new screen had yet happened was because the bath-tub-fixing guys had not got back to us; presumably because business was booming and they were being kept busy. Clearly we could not do anything else until the tub was repaired.

I finally received a call from them and we fixed a date for their technical chap to have a look at the tub.

At least – that’s what I expected was going to happen. As it turned out he took a quick look and then retired to his vehicle, returning in short order loaded with equipment. He was clearly expecting to do the job there and then! I pointed out that we had not even discussed the cost of so doing. “No problem” – he explained – “It’s all under warranty“. He further informed me that they were handling all of the paperwork and that I need do not a thing. When I made reference to being able to get the replacement screen installed he told me that they would be taking care of that also! Now, that’s what I call service!

So – we now get to go on our holiday! On our return we will be carrying from the UK a replacement Mobiliser. Yes – we bit the bullet and bought a new one. Well – we are getting old and that thing is a daily godsend for The Girl…

We firmly expect to have a splendid expedition, about which I will doubtless have much to write and many photos to upload.

Tags: blessings, Holiday, Luck, Mobiliser, Shower screen, Travel

Leaving us speechless

April 21, 2024 in Life as we know it | Permalink

“Traveling – it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.”

Ibn Battuta

Almost exactly eleven months ago The Girl and I set out on the journey that is not to be mentioned. Since then my only contact with airlines and airports has been to drop off or to pick up those who have themselves been traveling.

The Girl took a much needed break in Mexico at the end of last year, but I was teaching and could not abandon my students. Since then all of the excursions that have taken place have featured her alone. The new job (concerning which I will shortly be able to divulge more) has taken her – since the New Year – to New Westminster, Vancouver, Kamloops (twice), to Seattle, to Prince George and – most recently – to Fort St. John (practically up in the Arctic circle!). That’s a lot of running around…

Now, though, it is finally time for us both to set forth together again on an expedition that has already been trailed in these postings. We leave in a few days time for Scotland – land of my forefathers – for three weeks of touring.

I liked the Ibn Battuta quote that heads this piece not only for its astute reflection on the manner in which foreign lands can initially overtake one’s power of speech, but also for the notion that we return from such expeditions laden with incidents, encounters and experiences which we are just bursting to share with the world. We are able to do this through the medium of storytelling – in any of its various forms. The subject has been in my mind a fair bit of late because Anam Danu’s recent musical creations have included meditations on the importance and relevance of storytelling. That may well indeed prove to be the key topic of our nascent album (regarding which much more later)…

I feel moved to include here a second quotation – this time from Rainer Maria Rilke (a poet whom I have long admired most highly) from the ninth of his Duino Elegies.

“For when the traveler returns from the mountain-slopes into the valley, he brings, not a handful of earth, unsayable to others, but instead some word he has gained, some pure word, the yellow and blue gentian. Perhaps we are here in order to say: house, bridge, fountain, gate, pitcher, fruit-tree, window – at most: column, tower. . . . But to say them, you must understand, oh to say them more intensely than the Things themselves ever dreamed of existing“.

More scribblings – and images – to follow…

Tags: Holiday, Poetry, Scotland, Travel, Writing

Closure

February 19, 2024 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

“The beautiful journey of today can only begin when we learn to let go of yesterday”

Steve Maraboli

My last post to this journal ended with this sentence:

“Anyway – I feel that it will not be long until the news here, at least, takes a turn for the better“.

The very next day…

Quite enough has been written in these postings over the last ten months concerning our abortive attempt at a trip of a lifetime, featuring an all bells and whistles safari to Botswana. If you somehow missed the saga of how British Airways wrote off our epic adventure (along with a considerable chunk of our savings) then simply use the search feature on the home page. A search for “British Airways” or any one of a number of expletives should return the information that you seek.

Back in December – shortly before Christmas – this post brought regular readers up to date with the current status of our long (out)standing insurance claims – by means of which we hoped to recover at least some of our outlay. At that point (back in November) the girl had received a partial payment from our main insurers but I had heard nothing. The post ended thus:

“We must, of course, needs be patient yet and wait and see what happens…”

So – back to where we started:

The very next day…

…I received in the post a cheque from our insurers. It was for the full amount of the claim (actually by a small but discernible margin rather more than I was expecting).

Hoo-bloomin’-rah!

Delighted as she was for me, The Girl was understandably put out that she had been left out of this little bonanza.

However – the very next day (again!)…

…another missive arrived from the insurers, this time including a cheque for the residue of her claim.

Hoo-bloomin’-rah-some-more!

Where does this leave us? Well – all the claims that could be met and all the payments that the various parties could not avoid making – are in. We have, between the two of us, recovered something in excess of $24,000 (CAD). That might seem impressive had we not laid out just slightly less than $40,000 (CAD) on the trip and the recovery operation as a whole.

Well – we did get a (hugely expensive) week in the UK, though much of that time was spent either on the phone to British Airways or being unable to sleep because of a growing sense of panic.

No matter. ‘Tis over and done and we have all the closure we are going to get.

I promise that I will do my damnedest not to mention it again.

Tags: Africa, British Airways, Holiday, incompetence, Money, safari, Travel

Adjusting the sails

December 23, 2023 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

“The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.”

William Arthur Ward

I promised a catch-up… Here is part one!

When The Girl and I booked our ‘once in a lifetime’ trip to Africa (‘never in a lifetime’ as it turned out) we spread the financial load by each using our own individual credit cards. This seemed a perfectly logical thing to do – at the time – but as things turned out it created more difficulties both before the trip and in the aftermath.

During the build up to the trip the ‘delightful’ British Airways took it upon themselves to change various features of our itinerary (flights, planes, routes etc) on a number of occasions – each time seating us in different parts of the plane regardless of our protestations that they knew perfectly well that we were traveling together. Each incident took considerable phone-based efforts on our part to correct.

In the aftermath of the fiasco, our attempts to recover as much of the costs as we could – through refunds from the airlines and payments from the insurance policies that we had (thank goodness!) taken out beforehand – has also proved tricky beyond belief. British Airways gave us the bare minimum that they could get away with legally and refused to compensate us for the additional $1,500 that they had changed us each to get back to Canada.

As a result of the bookings having been made separately we were obliged to submit separate but virtually identical insurance claims (two apiece) at virtually the same time. In the case of the lesser claim I received a cheque first but The Girl had to wait nearly another month for hers. For the larger claim – the which covered the safari package itself – she received a cheque (though not for the full amount!) back in October. I have yet to hear from them!

The explanation for The Girl’s partial payment – according to our insurers – is that some items for which we had claimed were ineligible for a coverage. The Girl pointed out to them that the safari packages had been sold and billed as a single items and must therefore either be eligible in their entirety or not at all. As we did not get to go on any part of the adventure (or even to share a continent with it) we are firmly of the view that we should be reimbursed the full whack.

We must, of course, needs be patient yet and wait and see what happens…

Tags: Africa, British Airways, Holiday, incompetence, safari, Travel

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Ullapool

Telling stories

Haunted by time

Breathe out…

Breathe in…

Auld reekie

Getting better

Leaving us speechless

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