Home!

Thank you all for your supportive comments on my last post. It really did make a difference and I didn't feel so alone. I will respond to all the comments individually but I thought I'd update everyone just now. 

I managed to get onto the freight ferry. There was room for six cars. I had stood at the door of the office (which opens at 1am) since 0030 which was a good move because everyone else turned up not long after. 

However the day had been far from smooth. There had been a serious crash on the A9 (which closed it for 5 hours) requiring a detour on the old A9. Unfortunately in places 2 HGVs (very big lorries) cannot easily pass in many places and the 15 mile detour took 3 hours. So when I arrived in Ullapool I'd been driving for nearly 8 hours. 

I arrived in Ullapool and parked up at about 2200hrs. 

The relief when I got the booking was colossal and I went back to the car and fell asleep until we boarded. Seeing the ship with only 6 cars' passengers was really weird. Of course there was no catering or anything else. I then slept until we arrived in Stornoway. 

As we were about to leave the vessel one of the staff told us that Lewis had had a power failure during the night and they couldn't get the linkspan to work. So we were stuck on board for a further hour.

I always look for a positive in everything: at least by 0630 the supermarket was open for milk and bread. 

I arrived home and slept. Woke mid-morning and emptied the car. Slept all afternoon. Shopped in the quiet of the evening so that I'd not have to shop on a busy Saturday morning. 

Today has been catch-up day with folk and in the garden and polycarb which ran amok whilst I was away. 

Now it's 9pm and when I've published this I'm going to sit in the living room and perhaps answer yesterday's comments and perhaps chill out for an hour if there is anything on the television.

A Heartwarming Welcome

I arrived home last night after a good drive up the A9 and across to Ullapool and a good sail over The Minch. I arrived in Ullapool to find that I wasn't on the manifest for the evening sailing and that it was pretty full. Fortunately I had the emailed booking on my phone so all was well. However moments like that are always a bit heart-stopping. What if I had booked the wrong day? What if....? The chap marshalling all the vehicles seemed surprised that I wasn't annoyed at Calmac's failings. It hadn't actually occurred to me to be annoyed - relief being my principal emotion.

Today has been spent trying to sort out all the shopping I brought back (for me and for others) and unpack, attend to mail and all the other odds and ends that need doing after a fortnight away. 

I went into town and the shopping having been done (ablative absolute) I decided to visit The Woodlands for coffee and a cream donut and to write a few notecards. The place was packed. Jean Anne, one of the wonderful young staff there, remarked on my absence and asked if all was well. I explained that I'd been off the Island for a couple of weeks. To which she responded that they had missed me and that she was glad that I was back. Well that truly happified me. I've felt on Cloud Nine ever since.

After I arrived home from town I managed to get the recalcitrant lawnmower working. The grass hadn't been cut since last September because I was away and when I got back it was too wet and has remained that way until just before I went away when the mower, despite having been overhauled, displayed it's usual Spring obstinacy and refused to start. The sky was promising rain so I set forth and spoke sternly to it and it roared into life and I filled a large wheelie bin with grass clippings. 

I'm hoping to return to Blogland again this week. I've really missed you all.

Post script: I've been wondering how the saying "On cloud nine" originated. It would seem that a commonly heard explanation is that the expression originated as one of the classifications of cloud which were defined by the US Weather Bureau in the 1950s, in which 'Cloud Nine' denotes the fluffy cumulonimbus type that are considered so attractive. It sounds a good explanation to me. 

Easter Sunday, Materialism and Transience

I'm going out to friends for dinner. I'm being collected and brought home so that I can have a glass of wine. I've drunk almost no wine since the first of my current series of hospitalisations in September last year. It's been the longest period for many many years that I've gone for 7 months and been so abstemious. I used to do my best to keep to the 21 units a  week which was the recommended guideline for men. Since I was told at my last well-man MOT that the limit for men over 65 is now 14, I have hardly reached 14 units in a month never mind a week. The fact that it was just before my first hospitalisation in September is, I'm sure, a coincidence.

Anyway by 5pm I decided that all the chores that I am doing today were finished. I sat down in the lounge with the sun shining in and a book on my knee. When did I last do that? I can't remember.

The new, wonderfully fresh, recording of Brahms' Symphonies with Robin Ticciati conducting the Scottish Chamber Orchestra (which I go to see in Glasgow as often as possible) is playing on my Italian 'Opera' speakers and has stopped me concentrating on the book.

I have been looking around the room. In this room and through the open doors of two other rooms. I can see the paintings hanging on the walls and the various other works of art sitting on shelves. I can see an entire wall taken up with books (many of which are available on my Kindle if I wished to save space). There is a 'bookcase' filled with over a thousand CDs (now largely obsolete because of streamed music).

They are simply material possessions. Transient. But in a way they define a part of who I am.

All of a sudden I burst into tears.*  All this might not have been. All this will not always be. 

If I were YP I'd write a poem. Unfortunately I think the last poem I wrote was over 40 years ago.

So prose will have to suffice.


* That's one of the potential side effects of prostate cancer treatments.

Homesickness

If there is a way of making someone homesick it is sending them lots of food and goodies that are unique to 'home'.  I recall my Uncle who had emigrated to Canada in the '50s saying the same. 

'Home', though, is a very strange concept in my mind. I was born in Liverpool and have a certain nostalgia for that great city which once rivalled New York for the size of its international trade and had docks larger than those of London. However the day I moved away was the last day I felt that it was 'home'. 

I came to Lewis for two years in the '70s and never left. Wherever I am now, Lewis is 'home'. I think that it always will be.

However I'm a Hebridean Kiwi at heart having lived a half-life there for a decade. Every time I flew into Lewis or flew into New Zealand or every time I left either, my heart would give a jump and my eyes would well up with tears of emotion.

So when The Family in New Zealand sent me a goody-box for Christmas I was overwhelmed. I'm still opening packets and eating memories.

Where is Home?

Home is such an emotive word. It can conjure up so many ideas and so many emotions and, of course, it tends to vary with cultures and individuals. 

This morning I woke early and read a blog post by Katie Macleod.  Katie, who hails from Lewis and whose parents live in this township of Eagleton, is the journalist, traveller and expat Scot (living in the USA) behind the blog Stories My Suitcase Could Tell.

The post I read this morning was entitled What Happens When an Expat Goes Home and it was followed by another post with a short travel video biopic of her home: The Hebrides.

I've written about home before and I recalled ending a post in 2013 with the words "My birthplace was entirely beyond my control.  Where I choose to call my home isn't.  Whatever my nationality may be on my passport I am a Hebridean Kiwi in my heart."

To me Home is Lewis. It is where my heart returns from wherever I happen to have been. It is where, when the plane touches down, I know I belong. It's where, when the ferry arrives I drive onto the soil that will claim me when I'm gone. There is no logical rhyme or reason to that because, although I've lived here the majority of my life,  I was born and brought up elsewhere. But I have no family, friends or any emotional bond to the place of my birth. I have all of those things here on Lewis.

However, having spent, nearly 10 years living 6 months in New Zealand and 6 months at home here on Lewis the subject of my emotional home is one that has often been in my thoughts. Oddly when I left Napier for my first journey home after living there for 6 months I was very emotional just as I was when the plane landed on Lewis where I felt that I was Home and that was it. As the years went on the emotions for both places got stronger when I arrived and left each one. However because I always expected to return the emotions stabilised. I was always going to see the other again.

Until, that is, I had an enforced longer period back home on Lewis over the last two years. I’ve just returned from 6 weeks instead of 6 months in New Zealand. Whilst I was there it was as if I’d never been away. I felt that I could happily live there. But when I left I just got on the plane and left. It was hard leaving friends and The Family but all of a sudden it was somewhere I had visited and not my second home.

The plane set down on Lewis and it was as if I’d never been away. That’s how I think it will always be from now on. Time will tell.

What does home mean to you? 

An Emotional Homecoming

I arrived back in my Eagleton home last night.  The ferry was quite bumpy which was a bit of a surprise given that it was flat calm with no wind in Ullapool.  Once out of Loch Broom however the swell did make itself known just as the Captain had warned when we left port for the 2h 40m crossing.  Fortunately for me I'm a good sailor (provided I don't have to lie down).

This morning just before I started this post I replied to an email from a friend in New Zealand and ended by saying "This morning it's windy, cold and wet: weather I understand. I'm home in Scotland. Only 57 days 12 hours and 39 minutes before I leave for warmer climes. But who's counting?".  Life is never that simple though and by late afternoon the sun shone out of a cloudless sky although it was still very windy and chilly.  That's Lewis for you.  That's Scotland for you.

I've been away for nearly three weeks and enjoyed almost every minute.  I've enjoyed excellent companionship and hospitality and slept in lovely comfortable beds but there is nothing like being back in one's own space.

Most of you will know that I was born in Liverpool.  Many of you will know that I regard nationalism  as anathema being one of the great scourges of humanity which has caused so much misery and death throughout history.  Driving north out of the great conurbations of Lancashire and through the former counties of Westmorland and Cumberland into the lowlands of Scotland I felt a real sense of being on my way home.  Driving towards Ullapool from Inverness until I was safely on the ferry I felt more than ever the overwhelming sense of returning home and of belonging in the Hebrides.  It's also a feeling I get when the plane crawls out of the sky over  the foothills of the ranges and into Napier.

My birthplace was entirely beyond my control.  Where is choose to call my home isn't.  Whatever my nationality may be on my passport I am a Hebridean Kiwi in my heart.

Home and My Own Bed

By the time this is written it will be after midnight and I will be preparing for my second night back in my own bed.  I think everyone, however comfortable other people's beds are (and all the beds I've slept in whilst I've been away have been supremely comfortable I'm pleased to report), is happy when they climb back into their own bed after being away.  

I actually arrived back home at about 2220 last night (Tuesday).  Despite the storms MV Isle of Lewis sailed all day Monday and managed to carry all the freight traffic as well.  As a result and despite carrying all the freight traffic yesterday as well, I was able to squeeze the car onto the ferry 's evening sailing.  After I'd emptied the car and, as a consequence, filled the living room and kitchen with assorted cases and boxes and bags, I went to bed at midnight and, with a glass of wine and some cheese and biscuits, managed to watch some of the midnight news on the BBC News Channel.  Having switched off the television and put out the light I obviously put my head on the pillow.  I have no recollection of so doing but I must have then put my head on the pillow for that was where I found it when I woke up at 0806 (don't you just hate digital clocks) this morning after a solid and undisturbed sleep.

Today has, of course, been spent doing all sorts of odds and ends from writing emails and letters, washing and ironing (whilst watching the news), fitting bedside lights (from Ikea in Glasgow), emptying cases (almost), visiting Pat and Dave for a catch-up and afternoon coffee, and so many other things which, given that I have the attention span of a gnat for sticking to the task in hand, were many and varied.  So all in all it's been a Good Day.  I like Good Days.

I've had a wonderful time away.  France seems so long ago.  The week at Anna's before France and the visits to art galleries and museums and theatres seems even longer ago (it is even longer ago!) .  

I love my life and my friends who make my enjoyable life possible.

I'm a lucky bugger.  

I wish everyone could be as lucky as I am.

Night night.