NIGHT WALKING

 

It would seem strange at this time of year, already late November, to start walking in the dark. Surely it would be better to take a walk during daylight hours, and preferably during those precious all too brief moments when the sun is out. Well yes, that also. I had already taken a stroll over the hill to the village shop for parcel tape and more ibuprofen. Dorothy advised me behind her mask not to get them muddled.  Dusk shortly after four and dark by five, the moon two thirds full, the wind has dropped an intermittent showers hopefully passed. Wrapped up warm and weather proof I step outside, heading up to the road junction and the two brilliantly blinding orange street lamps. I turn right and head downhill, pausing just beyond Roddy’s bungalow and the orange glow I shut my eyes and count to thirty. The full night walking team would normally be Kate and her border terrier Rusty, and Donald with his young collie sheep dog Laddie. Tonight it’s just me, no torch, no chat, no barking. Opening my eyes I can now make out the horizon, the high ridge and buzzards eyrie, and all importantly the road. The cattle grid is another thirty yards on and I search the ground before me. It’s only half seven but my eyes are quickly becoming accustomed to the dark. The edge of the road is indicated by the puddled water and soon the damp bitumen shows lighter. The moon is behind me, my own massive head torch. The evening mild, only a slight breeze and I lower my hood so as to hear the water running in the ditches, which give way to the rowdy burn running under the road.  Winding and descending I make my way past the Traigh Mhor turning. The noise level increases as I pass over the crashing cascades of a larger burn then stride out along the straight stretch above the inlet. The moon has cleared no longer veiled by low wispy cloud and the below me the crashing of the luminous waves indicate the tide is well out. Rounding the corner there is a light up ahead. At first I think it might be Donald’s head torch but quickly realise it’s far too bright for that. Beyond the dazzle I see more lights and the form becomes clear. A parked up camper van, and once again I hold my hand up to the inquisitive glare of the light aimed at me. I plod on and offer a polite good evening in passing, wondering what they must things of the mysterious night walker. Reaching the high ground above Garry beach I would normally swing my legs over the fence and head down along the cliff tops, perhaps on a clear full moon evening but definitely not now as a large raven’s head of a cloud slips briskly across the face of the moon creating beyond a precipitous dark gulf. I lean against the fence and search the sky. Mars, tinged pink and un-twinkling is due south but the night sky is confusingly overcast the constellations buried in scud-clouds. Time to head back as more clouds approach. Silvered insulating privacy on the camper vans windscreen and time for bed. The road home is clear as the moon slips once more from the gathering clouds. My pace doesn’t alter on the uphill section, the night removing all sense of its steepness. The final stretch is more like entering the outskirts of a street lit town as my night vision is blinded by artificial light. Beneath the lamps all is a warm glow but beyond my house is invisible and once again I wonder what purpose there is in street lighting when people already have their own outside lights if they really feel it’s needed. So who decided it was necessary for a hand full of houses way out here in New Tolsta, and what was their reasoning? Do we need to think it through again and if it is indeed not needed how can we get it removed? Only having passed the glare can I once again see the familiar chimney outline of croft 17. As I open the door the last bus passes, lit up like a fairground stall, and empty.         

TODAY WILL BE A GOOD DAY

 

Today’s protracted autumn sunrise starts noticeably further south. Just as in the summer the sun’s journey begins and ends further north so now with the approach of winter it slips south, the original snow flake.

I sense the night releasing its grip and by six there is light squeezing it way past the bedroom curtains. This is the waking hour. It has taken me years to appreciate this part of the recovery process, wandering aimlessly through the tail end of dreams into consciousness. Gone are the days when in my thirties I would leap from bed the instant my eyes opened, impatient to get started, the early bird determined to catch the worm. Contentment has dowsed the eager flames of haste and I now have time to savor the moment and choose what I would like to achieve in the approaching daylight hours.

By seven and without switching on a light I can see my way down stairs. Outside no a breath of wind, silent apart from the rhythmical roar of waves drifting up across machair and crofts. The narrow band of dawn glows orange sandwiched between the silhouetted land and sober sky, Sunrise will be a brief affair.

Taking out warm riddled ashes, embers glowing, revived in the cool fresh air. Beneath the muscular underbelly of clouds the colour has drained from the horizon. Returning outside to refill the coal scuttle and heave in a sack of peat the sky has split ragged with hope that the sun will indeed make an early appearance. The friendly robin chirps its greeting, impatient that I start my day in the garden, disturbing ground and insect life.

Just before eight the school bus passes and shortly after the light begins to soften the cloud cover. Today will be a good day.

   

GETTING OUT

 

It’s important to get out, I told myself, even on days like this. Important for both physical and mental health. I’d missed the brief fifteen minutes of sun around two o’clock and the approaching storm was surely not far off, so it was now or never. Donning full wet weather gear and a woolly bonnet of my father’s I ventured forth. I’d adapted the hat specifically for this sort of blustery conditions by knitting extra ear flaps and securing straps and with the water proof hood strings tied tightly under my chin I was ready for whatever the remainder of the day had to throw at me.

Walks are not planned, they just happen and my trajectory today would be dictated by the south-south-westerly wind. So shutting and locking the door behind me I stepped out. I would not normally lock the door but with the wind face on to the front of the house I felt uneasy relying solely on the latch. There is a knack to closing it and if someone came calling in my absence I didn’t want to risk the door not being securely closed. Head down I made my way up to the T junction and turned right, downhill towards the beach. The ditches were full to brimming with peat stained water and at the culvert it gurgled and thrashed impatient to reach its destiny. Like a reluctant child I was being nudged forward by the wind’s parental guidance. Two cars passed as I stood to one side and decided it would be safer to cross burn and fence for the softer ground. I watched as both dog-less cars carried on along the dead end coast road to Garry and wondered if they would quit the comfort of their vehicles for the beach. I followed the mill stream transformed into an angry torrent, churning and cleaving the land, spilling voluptuous over the granite boulders, forming newly found falls. Staying to the sheep tracks high above the car park I discovered a moment’s calm and ewes grazing contentedly on whatever tasty growth the machair had to offer in late autumn. Down on the dunes it was a different matter as the coarse grass bent seaward and wet sand drifted low across Traigh Mhor beach. Three people and a leash straining dog made their way back to the car as I turned and headed into the wind. Here it had the uninterrupted mile and a half of beach to show its full force, whipping arches of celebratory spray from foaming white crests. Hungrily the towering waves devoured brown peaty moorland waters. The riot of noise from my flapping hood deafening. The painful sting of fine rain on my face, plodding on, head down seaweed at my feet interred beneath the shifting sands. Leaning into the wind I staggered forward at times halting as the wind held me in its grip. Barely quarter of the way along I gave up the struggle and made for the relative calm of the dunes. There along with the sheep, beneath the steep slopes of the machair I found a moment rest bite. But this is a walk and must be continued if the circuit is to be completed, and a cup of hot tea and cake the reward. It’s uphill and thankfully more sheltered but I zigzag none the less along sheep trod terracing. At the brow I take the final step up, headlong into the gale-force wind.  If I am to make the gate and track home there is no alternative. I totter drunkenly on, deafened by the din of the flapping waterproof hood. A brief look up for direction, I locate the gate and press on leaning forward, crazily determined. I find myself singing or more accurately shouting defiant nothingness, roaring in the face of this wonderful force of nature. I’m here, part of it, alive.

Making the gate I clamber through the gap at the hinged end and turn sideways now up the track. This is a different sort of stagger, a different sort of intoxication, an old persons teetering wobbly advancement but what am I at 67 if not advancing in years. Passing George’s house I raise a hand as I catch sight of him at the kitchen window. He at least won’t think I’m mad. He’d understand that need to be out in it, feeling everything, all cobwebs removed. On the road again the wind is at my back pushing and shoving me relentlessly homeward. Walking is not the usual left right rhythm as I lurch irregularly forward trying not to trip over my own feet or to end up sprawled on the tarmac. A brief interlude of calm as I pass the treed hollow before croft thirteen to fifteen and ahead my own front door awaits, within the centrally heated warmth of my new peat fired Rayburn. The old £60 faithful of the past twelve years, finally rusting and leaking, confined only two days ago to the back yard. The new bright and shiny but decidedly more efficient arrived, equally efficiently a day early from Gloucestershire and with help from neighbours was installed and running by mid-afternoon.