Trying To Stay Positive

Sunset on West loch Fyne

Time may be relative to your position in space, but I happen to think it is also relative to your state of mind.

We have been in Scotland for three months now and it feels a lot longer.

It has been and still is a struggle. Although we knew it was going to hard going, I think we underestimated exactly how hard. The thing that I am finding most difficult to come to terms with is the lack of a regular income. To go from earning £25k to £0.0 is a major struggle. Again we knew it would be, and that's why I named the blog so, but that still does make it any easier to come to terms with.

All that aside, it is an amazing place to be broke!

A lot has happened in the last three months.
 We came with two teenagers and now only have one. No we didn't throw one off a mountain, as tempting as that may have been, she left to go back to Shitsville and her questionable boyfriend, and that is only after leaving a trail of destruction as only a mardy teenager can.
The other one seems to have settled into school well and we just get the usual teenage tantrums,which is too be expected being the alien species that teenagers are.

 The vegetable plot is all ready for the spring now and the jungle of a garden is mostly trimmed back. also the poly tunnel has stayed put through some pretty tough weather, so it was worth all the trouble of digging it in through the bedrock (or what felt like bedrock).
As for what fruit and veg to grow, well we are still trying to make our minds up on that issue. Still have a couple of months to decide before planting needs to start. Raspberries and tomatoes are a must though.

As for the photography , well , it has been pretty non existent the last few weeks because the weather has been totally rubbish. Constant wind and rain. My camera is weather proof but is impossible to get a good shot with rain on the lens no matter how hard I try to protect it.
Although I have managed to get a good few pictures up until now and you can view or buy these here ... http://www.55northphotography.co.uk/
I also have a face book page with the same name and you can find that here...https://www.facebook.com/55NorthPhotography
Please feel free to like and share any pictures but they are low res to stop and tealeaves.

1 Week In.

We have been in Kintyre a whole week now,though it does seem a lot longer.
 Time is screwing with me again.
 Two days of sun and the rest has been wind, rain, and either mist or low cloud cover, but I have still been out every day with the mutt regardless.The camera has stayed in the bag at home though, well till today that is.

 I guess the weather is something that we are just going to have to get used to and make the most of the nice days for landscape photos and the damp days for all the beautiful flora and fauna. Like this little gem that I discovered in the woods behind the house.
In the past I have spent a LOT of time outside walking on Dartmoor and the in Peak District and I do consider myself terrain savy, meaning that I can read the land. Spot a cliff before I fall of it,or recognise a bog by the vegetation. Up here in Scotland its all different!! What I would normally think is a sheep trail turns out to be a water rub off and leads to a bog, which means backtracking. Annoying.  Also some of the bogs are completely hidden as in the vegetation in no different to that of the surrounding area, backtracking again. The bogs seem to defy logic as well. You would expect it to be wet in a gully and its dry, but on the slope approaching the gully, yes you guessed it, a bog. The first few days out on the hills have mostly involved backtracking or up to the knee in a bog, thank you to Salomon for superb boots, but still great fun and I love it. A stout walking stick is definitely part of the essential kit.
There is no doubt that its a wet country, the whole area is abundant with burns and waterfalls of all sizes and everything and I mean everything is covered with thick moss and lichen. If you can imagine the scene from the film The War Of The Worlds where the Martians had sprayed the red goo everywhere, well its just like that but in different shades of green. Truly beautiful!!

The TM 450

A view from the track to Tarbert.

We live 4 miles from the nearest town, which is great as far as I am concerned, but it is a bit of a bugger for shopping, especially since my car blew up just before we moved up here leaving us without a car. There is a good bus service, and I have the TM which is great for all the little forestry tracks but pretty rubbish for fetching the shopping. There is a back track to Tarbert, our nearest town, and yesterday I went to try and find it armed with an OS map, the mutt, camera in rucksack, and the ever present walking stick. We was told the track was good and the only hitch was the crossing of the Bardaravine River... The track is good with fantastic views over the loch and managed to get a picture in between showers. Even though the Pentax I use is weather proof, grad filters are pretty crap covered in rain, hence the blown sky, but it gives you an idea of the scenery.

The ''bridge''.

After 30 mins of walking and about the same admiring the view I found the river and the ominous bridge. I did plan to ride the TM along the back track, (more fun than the road), to get to Tarbert on nice days for some photography, because it is a lovely town with loads of potential shots. No chance of that! The ''bridge'' is an old trailer chassis on two concrete blocks with about a ten foot drop to the river below. Not a problem for me on foot, but no way is the bike going over,and mutt, well he just took one look at it and turned around and started to head back up the track. We have been across some dodgy terrain him and I in our eleven years together and he will always have a go, but not on this occasion. If he could talk it would have been a very impolite ''go forth and multiply matey''.
 After searching up and down river for an alternate crossing and finding any that would not require climbing gear, I headed home to try again on another day without the mardy dog.
I will say though that it incredibly sturdy and just need some sort of deck putting in to make it suitable for the mutt and the bike, something that I will definitely look in to, maybe some logs in between the I beams or some planking on top.

The Adventure Starts Now

With so much to do we just did not know where to start.
There was the unpacking to get on with, shopping to get, a mattress to find, the garden and veggie patch to attack, firewood to chop, photographs to take, dogs to walk, and of course exploration, and it was raining, but that is why Scotland is so lush and green, plus it was keeping the dreaded midge away.
So to make things simple we just got on with a little bit of everything.

The huge ancient Oak

The wee burn

The wildlife in the garden is like nothing we have seen before. At least four different species of butterfly, two types of bee, a colony of sparrows,will have to watch them with the fruit next year and try to beat them to the harvest, one Robin that we have seen, but have heard a couple of others nearby, swifts, Buzzards on the hills behind the house, and the most amazing of all bats. We don't know what species they are yet, they are fairly large. As you step out the door in the evening they are flying around our heads. We have counted four so far and guess they live in the derelict part of the barn or in the ancient Oak that stands at the head of the garden. A lovely wee burn also runs to the side of the Oak which has been lulling us to sleep at night with its gentle trickle.

The garden itself (secret garden as we call it, because the entrance is hidden by honeysuckle) is full of well established shrubs,although very much over grown and untouched for what looks like many years. We found a compost bin buried at the back of the secret garden, that, after a good wipe down, now has pride of place at the entrance to the veggie patch. Numerous blackberries and a huge rhubarb patch mark the leading edge of this. On the far edge I have dug in and erected a poly tunnel. It took ten hours to get  from a patch on the ground to poly tunnel erection. The site I chose for it was where a Dutch barn used to stand and the ground was full of huge stones and hardcore, but it was the best location as far as good sun and shelter from the wind was concerned. So with more gallons of sweat and cups of tea we have warm shelter for the tomatoes, peppers, chillies, and whatever else for next year. I dug down to 18 inches in a 12 inch wide rectangular trench, placed the frame in and pulled the cover over, back filled the trench from the outside, over turned the cover on the inside under the frame legs and then filled that up with the hardcore from the trench. The wind coming off the hills is quite intense apparently so I was taking no chances.

The Landing

After all the moaning about time going slow,well these last few days just have flown by.

I finished working for ''The Man'' at 1pm last Friday and had to rush home and wait for the removal van to be delivered at 2pm. It turned up at 3pm and was way smaller than the one that I had ordered, bloody typical. Thank you to a certain hire company that rents ''cars in Europe'', no link for you!
 So panic stricken, I loaded the TM in, then headed off to our lasses to load her gear up. I will not repeat what she said when I pulled up in the undersized van, needless to say the air was a not so delicate shade of blue!
 Now a real life game of Tetris was to follow to try and utilise all off the space in the van. After 3 hours, 2 pints of sweat, and a few sacrificial items (the mattress being one of them) it was loaded. A few hours kip and then on the road for 3am. A smooth journey, all 11 hours of it, though the dogs were not overjoyed with being cramped in the tiny cab for that amount of time, but after copious amounts of drool, scratches , bites, and pee stops, we made it. Quick cup of tea and then to unloading.
 Here is a little tip for all you house movers; always pack the tea mashings last!!
As is typical of Scotland, it stared to rain an hour into the unload, luckily it was only sporadic and we laboured on in between showers.
I have no idea what time I hit the sack, well I say sack, actually the floor (no mattress), but next thing I knew I was waking to a beautiful dawn and birdsong.
 The only birdsong we got in Shitsville was the sweet song of the Herring Gull, definitely not sweet or a song.

Countdown

I think I have discovered time travel, or at least the manipulation of time.

Let me fill you in with a few details.
I currently live in Shitsville or Great Yarmouth as it is officially known. Complete with foul mouthed parents,screaming kids, and Chavs in their crap cars blasting out shit music. Why can't the play some proper tunes from proper bands of the likes of Slayer ,or Megadeth ,or Machinehead ,or even if push comes to shove a bit of commercial Metallica , but the older stuff would be better!!
Don't even get me started on the gobby parents that swear at their poor young children. All I can say without ranting is "no future".

Shitsville

 I work as welder building aluminium catamarans for the offshore windfarm enterprise. Seems like I have been welding for ever,or at least my lungs feel like it. Prior to welding I was submariner for a time ,an experience not to forget.
I cannot remember the first time I picked up a camera,but it was a long time ago. I can remember my parents moaning about the amount of film I went through though.

I have been wanting to get out of welding for a long time,but it always seemed like a case of better the devil you know.
 That was until I met a fantastic woman. Fated to meet I am sure. She has rewired my brain, as only a woman can do, and has given me the drive that I lacked to pursue a career as photographer.
The idea/dream was to leave Shitsville behind, find a beautiful place in the country and build a new life and career. All very cliché.
Well fast forward to now.
We have found a  place.
It is truly mindblowing.
The Scottish Highlands.

The Dream no more

 No Chavs, no foul mouthed parents and their screaming kids, no Shitsville.
Just fantastic scenery, amazing wildlife, and lots and lots of sheep. And of course midges, but we have a secret weapon for them. Avon Skin So Soft. If its good enough for the Army it's good enough for us.

Now back to the time manipulation thingy.
It was three weeks ago to the day when we drove up to look at our new house. We fell in love with it immediately.
From the moment we said yes we will have it and set a date to move in, Time has stopped!!
Saying that though, it is a week till the move, so time hasn't really stopped, it just bloody feels like it.