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Monday 13
I went for a wander today, as I had the day off. I still can't get used to the weather here, or rather, the lack of weather. No wind! Half a dozen people must have told me I needed a coat or boots or both on the west coast. I might agree with the boots, but not the coat. I must be getting old and boring because I packed before I went out. Woolly fluffy fleece and sandwiches went in my backpack and off I went. Then I had to go back to get the map; I only wanted to take three things and managed to forget one. I wish I had forgotten the coat; I lugged it all the way round and it completely filled the backpack and I never got close to wanting to put it on. I ate the sandwiches though, and used getting the map out as an excuse to keep putting the backpack down. There is no way a coat should be as heavy as it was. I also had to stop for some photo opportunities. Mostly trees, I can't believe how exotic I am finding them. There were some wonderful Arthur Rackham-like roots (probably rhododendrum) growing by a waterfall gushing down some mossy rocks. The camera decided it needed to flash so I'm not expecting a dark moody pic, but you never know. (I don't have the bit of wire that lets the camera talk to the laptop so I can't check them out yet. In fact, I don't seem to be able to get the computer to talk to the internet either, but by the time you read this it will have been sorted!) And a huge Gunnera. I walked round it several times and photoed it and then discovered lots more along the next 50 yards of path. My favourite was still the first one I saw though.
At the end of the road was the village. A lot of the houses looked fairly new, some still sported their red building paper; they contrasted with the caravans I had passed, most of them gently blending into the background. One new house had a fabulous treehouse-like structure. There was no tree but a little round house had been built on a post and it had a wonderful conical turf roof. The number of houses was completely dwarfed by the number of boats in the marina. There were lots tied to the pontoons, lots more on moorings (they always look so odd on moorings, because they all face the same way) and a lot on dry land, propped up on fence stobs and wedged firm. Question! Is the boat put on dry land and the frame built round it, or is it the other way round? I finished off the touristy stuff by buying a mug in the chandlery. I've been feeling guilty because I have been using everybody else's, and there don't seem to be many. I don't think I've ever been in a chandlery before, I wish now I had spent more time looking at ropes and pulleys and stuff.
I walked back through what should have been a forest, but they have been busy felling so there was more view and fewer trees. The old boys and their dogs I passed felt the re-planting was happening too soon. By the time I got back I was knackered. I am definitely falling apart from the bottom up; my feet, shins and knees were aching, but it is amazing what a few pints of Pipers Gold can do. The only black cloud being the stupid laptop not wanting to join the rest of the online world!

Shhh, don't tell Carol, but I'm not actually on Coll at the moment. Most people do pub crawls on the drinking side of the bar, but I'm doing one from the serving side. It is interesting; as a customer pubs give off a certain atmosphere, warm and friendly, as a new-start the atmosphere is quite different. At one end of the bar is the till. I'm terrified of the till. My log-in name is Tim. At the other end is a coffee machine (the cappucino frothy shiny stainless steel type). I am even more terrified of the coffee machine. At least the customers in the middle are nice. This is only my second pub as a member of staff, any one out there want to help me on my unique pub crawl?

We moved to Coll almost on a whim. We don't normally make decisions that way, but sometimes something is so right it doesn't need much discussion. I don't think, in nearly nine years, we have ever really regretted making the move. That isn't to say there aren't things I don't miss from England (trees spring to mind), but there is an awful lot of Coll that I would find hard to do without. However, during that first year there were a lot of new things to get used to, don't believe anybody who thinks Scotland and England are the same, because they are two different countries, not better or worse, but different. Different priorities and attitudes, certainly a different sense of humour and a difference in seasons too. Summer arrives earlier and finishes earlier.
None of this has anything much to do with my illegal blog except it gets very quiet on Coll in October, so when I was offered a tempory job as holiday cover away on the mainland I thought it might be a fun thing to do. So here I am blogging away 40 miles from Coll, and although I am still in Argyll it is sooo different to home. It has really made me aware of some more differences between island and mainland life. On Coll people work at what they can get, being on Coll is a lifestyle decision and jobs are a means of earning money, not a description of the kind of person you might be. I've only been here five days and already I feel that working in a bar has become a label around my neck. I look forward to them asking where I come from (the old English accent again) so I can say 'Coll' and re-assert my identity. Although this would be more successful if a few more people had heard of Coll!
There are lots of advantages living here. I can leave my bedroom window open (I have to, I am not used to central heating). Back home the only time I would want to open the window all the midges would come visiting, but I know if I managed to get the window open it probably wouldn't close again. There is a shop just five houses away. I can think 'I'd like an apple' and just go and get one. I haven't been that close to a shop since I was a student in Leeds and whenever I needed a break from revising I'd nip out for a samosa. The pub where I work gets today's papers every day so I can have up-to-date sports reports. Sports reports don't work on stale papers! And I can take the old papers home and read them the next morning (no animals to feed here so my mornings have a curious lack of structure). I would like to say I am an expert on the credit crunch, but although I've read articles and comments from a politically wide range of papers I am still slightly confused by the concept of lending stuff when you don't have it. If I lend someone a tenner (it happens, now and again), then I give them the money. I might not get it back but it had to be there in the first place to be lent, even if I borrowed it off someone else. Then there are the trees. The trees here are beautiful. The birch leaves are all turning, so even when it is raining (it is about as good at raining here as it is on Coll) there is a fantastic yellow glow. I have seen some enormous ash trees with horozontal branches crying out to be turned into treehouses, an oak tree grown from an acorn from South Africa which was grown from an acorn from King Alfred's oak at Blenheim (I must look this up somewhere), horse chestnuts, sycamores, lots of willow and hazel; in short, everything a frustrated tree-addict could want. And yet, I don't know, something is missing, the big skies and far views of Barra or Jura, and especially Ben Mor on Mull, visible from all over the West End of Coll. Until now I don't think I had completely realised how much Coll had got under my skin!

I am staying in staff accommodation just round the corner from the pub. As the new temporary staff member I get the smallest room, which is fine as I'm not spending much time in it, but even so, I felt an urge to make it mine. I thought I'd re-arrange the furniture. It is a trait I may have inherited from my mother, but as she ran a furniture shop, moving furniture frequently could be called good business sense and not a peculiar hobby. Anyhow, I surveyed my furniture; a bed and a wardrobe. The window and door are opposite each other and hard against the adjoining wall. The wardrobe was on this wall and partially blocked the window so if I moved it round onto the wall with the door I could put the bed on the wall with the window and use the window-cill to put my clock and glasses and the lamp I had liberated from the living room on (it would have helped if the ceiling light fitting had a bulb in, but it was a funny size fitting and remains bulbless). A quick check with my outstretched arms and I reckoned there was just enough room to squeeze the furniture round. The wardrobe was surprisingly heavy so I took the drawer out. It didn't make the wardrobe any lighter but it decreased the available floor area very unhelpfully. The bed turned out to have a pull-out bed hiding underneath, I don't think that could ever have been used unless the wardrobe was put outside in the hall, but it didn't make the bed very manoeuverable. So it was push the wardrobe a foot, pull the bed six inches, lie on the floor to drag the underneath bed back into line, climb over the bed and alter the angle, back to the wardrobe and push another eight inches, put the drawer on the bed to release some more floor area, and eventually I had the bed by the window and the wardrobe by the door. I put my case in the wardrobe and stood the drawer on end by the bed so I could use it as a bedside table. Sorted! It was now my room! There was a knock on the door and my next-door-neighbour asked if I wanted the bedside table she had borrowed while the room was empty. A third piece of furniture would have made the moving operation impossible so I was very glad she had borrowed it.

It's good to be home.
I got a lift to Oban in a normal rattly car and I didn't feel car sick at all. (While I was away and the laptop wasn't talking to the internet I had a weekend away from being away, which involved a two hour drive, with three stops so I could re-arrange the contents of my stomach. One downside of living on (in?) a very small island is I have lost my being driven tolerance and need to do a Snoopy act and hang my head out of the window or feel awful.)
In Oban, once I had raided the bookshop for reading matter and the deli for cheese (it is bookclub on Sunday and it is my turn to be host and supply food), I reluctantly headed for Tesco. I dislike supermarkets on principle (principal?) but it is the best place to meet people and I didn't want to eat alone that night. I sat in the cafe bit nursing my coffee until I felt far too sad and had to go shopping (for more cheese, and a pineapple (we have volunteers this week and give them fruit salad on the first night)). Three circuits of Tescos later, ruthlessly filling and changing the contents of my basket (because my b&b is a trek from the ferry and my case doesn't have wheels and I was watching the weight of my rucksack) I sadly concluded I was the only person I knew going to Coll tomorrow, and it was eat alone or don't eat. By now my basket was very heavy but at the top were 4 half-price croissants and some double choc chip muffins. The croissants were very light and if I ate the choc chip muffins they would be easier to carry so I decided to skip a proper meal.
Back at the b&b I packed and re-packed my bag, rucksack and laptop bag and tried not to drop chocolate crumbs on the bed. I wanted the heavy stuff on my back and the light bulky stuff in the bag, but the only way it was going to fit was if I ate four pounds of cheese or wore six layers. When I go back I am not (am NOT) taking that coat, it has been nothing but a nuisance!

I didn't eat the cheese, but I was very hot by the time I got on the boat the next morning.