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Hello island bloggers... calling Civilisation!

Newbie here. Still currently in the big smoke - but heading permanently to the Winged Isle very soon - at long, long last.....can anyone tell me where the nearest carpet shop to Portree is??

Seriously - any carpet info appreciated!

New adventure; new beginning. Can't wait!

:o)

(Still not there yet. However - may have found a solution to carpet woes...)

Well I'm walking home tonight, and it's a mellow city sunset-y evening, and I'm looking at the city architecture and all the windows showing people piled on top of one another, and the old chimneys with nothing coming out; and can't hear myself think in the roar of the traffic.

And I come upon a poor brave old city sycamore tree that stood next to a particularly amazing building. It had fallen, in the recent wild gusts; a calamity of so long life. And today it was sliced up and is now lying shattered, waiting to be loaded up and taken away to who knows what fate, but I suspect it won't be anything useful.

"Ach. Someone up on the island could use that; what a waste of a poor old tree."

Thinking of the north, this evening. And the gloaming, and bare rocks, and high places, and the colours on the hills, and the very few trees; and the wind, and the sea, and the boats, and the lilts ... and peace and quiet.

Can't wait!

After this weekend still stuck here, and himself's arrival and all too quick departure when he should have stayed longer, I am surer than I have ever been that it is time to leave this place, where I have been for 20 years - most of my adult life.

So much here is not what I thought it was, and the connections here are not what they should have been; and the friends are not what they should have been or what I thought they were. It's been a hard lesson to learn, and to come to terms with, this last couple of years. I have been very wrong in my perceptions of many things. I need to escape and leave all the ghosts here. I'm sick and tired of them and their constant presence; chasing me in neverending circles.

I hope I can find some peace, and some quiet, in amongst the huge landscapes and the weather and the sea. And forget all about the vexatious soundtrack that life has become here: the roar of the traffic, the pestilence of the drunks, the banging of doors, the constant shrieking of sirens, the thudding of so-called 'music' everywhere, and the filth of the streets....the rudeness, and the vanity that is just below the surface, everywhere. The greedy, lazy, corrupt and inept people that run the place; who are merely standing on the shoulders of previous giants and who do no good themselves.

The faster and faster slide into decline of a place I was once proud - fiercely proud - to be part of.

I am weary, and feel I have been robbed of any and all ability to appreciate what little good there actually is in this city. I am surrounded by some of the best that any Scottish city can offer - magnificent architecture, trees, rivers, parks, views, best of restaurants, pubs, theatre.... but I feel nothing about any of it. Nothing here moves me any more. I don't feel anything any more.

I don't know why on earth things got how they are. I need himself to help me out with some answers - or at least by listening to some questions - for it seems I've been deluding myself for a long long time. But he won't help. He's a queer creature altogether; emotionless. Uncomprehending. What a shock it has been.

So I'm going to have to get through whatever happens next, myself.

It'll be a sore test. I hope I've got it in me. Right now I can only hope I've got it in me, because I really am not sure if I actually do.


Reading these islanders' blogs of late have been a delight. Balm for the soul. Especially the blog by Hermit Life! What stunning writing; and what a wonderful, tranquil life. What I wouldn't give for some of that calm and that sureness, and that seeming simplicity of thought and clarity of perception. If there were ever a book to be forthcoming, I would be buying it, and it would have pride of place next to George Mackay Brown on the shelf.


I am not running away. I am running to something I should have done half a lifetime ago. I wish I'd been surer of myself. I wish I hadn't stayed here and trusted him, invested myself in him, to see things brought to these rags and tatters, and watch him walk away.

"...and she gathered the scattered sheets of manuscript together and tied them with the red ribbon that was a gift from the tinker lass..."

Nothing鈥檚 ever easy.

I鈥檓 still not there yet. Paperwork going mysteriously missing, folk who are meant to be handling the paperwork heading off on hols for 2 weeks and not telling me!! And I lost my lucky wee Skye marble necklace鈥� ack.

I had never visited Skye prior to getting the chance to move there. And my first visit 鈥� just a few weeks ago - wasn鈥檛 a long one. But it was all I needed. I just knew. In the midst of it 鈥� when the rain stopped 鈥� I went into a wee gift shop that was just getting the stoor blown off the shelves after reopening following being shut over the winter. And I saw a wee thing that caught my eye and which said 鈥淚鈥檓 the thing you鈥檙e going to take away with you from your first trip.鈥� It was a wee smooth white marble stone from the Cuillins, strung onto a plain black cord. Smooth and offwhite, almost round, and with faint streaks of heathery purple and moss green through it. Not dear. And I blethered to the shopkeeper, and bought the necklace, and wore it all the time, until I lost it, two weeks ago. A brief meeting. Sick as a dog. Offered a reward, put up notices in the place I know I lost it鈥� nothing. My wee stone; all those millennia waiting to come to my attention, then wheeched off the island, there around my neck when I made the decision and when I shook the man鈥檚 hand, when I wrote my first blog and dreamed my first Portree dream鈥o be promptly lost in a laundry in the city by a careless eejit, i.e. me.

Somebody tried to cheer me up. 鈥淎ye well, it鈥檚 worked its wee bit of luck on you. So now it鈥檚 off away into the big wide world, waiting to spread more luck to the next person who finds it. See - you did A Good Thing 鈥� you set the Wee Skye Stone on its way!鈥�

But I鈥檓 too superstitious to be cheered by this. I saw that wee stone, and it spoke to me. It was my very thing from Skye. And I lost it. And somebody has got it, and I know they must have seen the ads asking for it back. But鈥ot a sausage. More reason to be scunnered with the city.

Meanwhile; I have been getting very little sleep. Looking at the full moon from my window as the pubs close, listening to the noisy and not very happy drunks passing by and wondering if I鈥檒l be seeing the next moon from the harbour at Portree. Worrying if I鈥檒l be able to hack it, on my own up there (well; not really on my own, but鈥�. acht. Too complicated).

For all the fact that I鈥檓 sick to death of the city and that I am absolutely cock a hoop at what is about to happen, the fact is, I鈥檝e been in the city for over 20 years. What if I find myself in a year up there thinking 鈥渉elpmaboab what the heck have I done?? I鈥檓 stuck in a wee fishing town on a soaking wet boggy isle where it never stops raining and I cannae see the Cuillins and the midges will strip ye to the bone in 2 minutes and there is not a thing to do most of the time and What About Cocktails?? and I鈥檓 too fat for hillwalking and I鈥檓 drinkin too much lager and I鈥檓 seriously thinking of taking up knitting???....鈥�

鈥nd then I smile. And I remember standing alone at the top of the wee tower on The Lump at 6am that first Sunday morning, with a brilliant sunrise in front of me coming up over Raasay, delighted; and then feeling鈥�. Something鈥oming up behind me鈥erie sensation. I turned around, and there was the filthiest mankiest smear of black coming racing over the sky, headlong towards the sunrise, and closing over everything, and the light disappearing like a coffin lid being screwed down. And a howling blore of a gale, and a stinging blast of pelting rain. The Old Man disappeared in a trice. I stood agape. I tried to put up my gamp 鈥� stupid! 鈥� which of course was immediately snatched away out of my hands and whizzed gaily away into the murk, to be fished out of the bushes later, a mangled mess.

And then just as quickly the drama was over; the blackness roared over my head and over the tower and boiled away, and the sun continued quietly rising, swallowing the blackness.

It was wonderful. I grinned like a loon. Elements. Space. Air. To see them and feel them; the basics, moving and interacting around me. That鈥檚 what I have been needing to be around, for a long long time. I don鈥檛 want anything from the city any more. I don鈥檛 need anything in the city. I need this. When was the last time I could actually even see the weather coming at me, never mind feel it coming at my back?

I love rain. I was born in exactly the right spot on the globe. As long as my feet are dry and the wind isn鈥檛 completely Baltic, I can take any sort of weather this grand wee country wants to throw at me. And I especially love watching rain. But you don鈥檛 get to watch much rain in the city. You鈥檙e always busy trying to get somewhere, or finding yourself in conversations about how awful the weather is.

And all the rest of that day, as I made my first promenadings of that wee town, the enchantment grew and grew. I stood among the dear silly sheep I chanced upon, who hardly even looked up at me; I watched the sunbeams shining through the fat raindrops (totally different sort of rain, later that day) over the garden of the nice house with the big conservatory on the shore; I sat by the roaring waterfall; I walked past the fronts of the wee guesthouses, with the fires just getting started and the breakfasts cooking, what an exquisite combination of smells; I went for a half in the pub by the harbour and had the local Portree man鈥檚 amazing story pointed out to me in the pages of that day鈥檚 Sunday Post; and (though I know it sounds awfy patronising and I really don鈥檛 want it to sound that way) but oh my, how soothing those lilting, melodious voices were. Not city voices. I could listen to those voices all day and all of the night.

And in the other gift shop, not the one I got the necklace from, I saw a picture in a frame that I can鈥檛 get out of my head and I didn鈥檛 have the money to buy it at the time, but I wish I had. It is stuck in my head. A picture of a lone house by a shore under a full moon, with one single window lit up. The picture was mainly lovely blues, moonlight blues, and the two splashes of yellow brightness, the moon and the window. Lonesome image, yet comforting. And dammit I can鈥檛 remember the name of the pic or the painter. Or the bloomin shop where I saw it. I鈥檒l know it again when I see it. Perhaps it鈥檒l still be there in the shop when I finally make the move.

As I say, I鈥檇 never been that far north before. Beautiful sights, beautiful smells, beautiful sounds, beautiful thoughts. Can鈥檛 wait!

I Will Be Fine.