The Fallen~Sparrow~Hawk,; Joseph and Mary

Joseph and Mary                                                    February 26, 2002

The rain subsided this morning giving way to sunshine. The wind speed is sufficient to keep the turbine whirring away like a light air craft overhead. Jenny and a guy originallycollecting long dry pine branches and staking them around the young alders to prevent deer from eating the shoots. It is, as Brett calls it “ labour intensive.

Maddy, a Scot with a dubious American accent and her boyfriend Tristian, with an equally dubious French accent, arrived from france. They arrived after dark and I took them up to meet Alison and Brett. Maddy is eight months pregnant and wants to give birth in a bender in the forest. Tristian builds boats, curraghs, on an ancient Celtic design and sails them around ancient routes making documentaries about the voyages. He is very good looking. Hands off,

It is land formerly owned by Forestry Commission; a plantation of spruce trees, ( nothing, but absolutely nothing lives in a spruce forest), originally grown for ship building but abandoned as a cash-crop when metal replaced wood as build material.  Jeff, a former computer analyst from Croydon, south-east London, is the visionary who instigated the replanting project and bought this one hundred an seventy-acre piece of land to re-plant ancient indigenous trees, oak, Alder, birch, yew, sycamore, He got a sixty thousand pound loan from the environmentally-conscious Triados Bank. The loan is only paid back after five years and then interest-free for twenty-five years.

Tonight we all go to Alsisons’ and Bretts’ for a meeting; Mainly to fill Maddy and Tristian as to what is happening at the Doon of May.

It is strange, I felt very strange and slightly jealous of the couple arriving. He, Tristian is used to living in an apartment yet she, Maddy, was able to encourage him to take up this life. He is already good with his hands having built boats and his grand-parents live in the woods in France. On reflection, it is a shame I haven’t found a partner willing to adopt this way of life with me. Their arrival compounds my sense of loneliness. In eight days, Debbie, marks girlfriend returns and he will be back with her. This leaves me on my own. It would be great if he were to turn up over the weekend.

Jen’s Oak Leaf Freshly Bloom

2001

I’ve moved on from the Bog Myrtle wine to oak leaf. Its’ bouquet is that of cider and it has a smoky taste. It is slightly bitter but something woody there too. This drink is in celebration of the three alder trees and three oak trees I planted. May they grow tall and majestic out-lasting me. I’ve never felt like that before; Having a hand in creating something which will stand for hundreds of years- progeny. The Oak Leaf is slightly fizzy.

Brett and Alison are going to lend me some money until my check arrives. I should ask for forty quid, this will enable me to stock up properly.

Fermentation of Natural

Autumn Oak

Collected Rosslyn woods

Autumn 1999

This one is very fruity and I swear there’s a fair amount of elder flower in it. Very drinkable. I’m due at Brett and Alison’s yurt at 6.30 so I’d better not be sloshed. A distinct elder flower bouquet.

The Fallen~Sparrow~Hawk; Bog Myrtle

Bog Myrtle                                      February 24, 2002

Doon of May

Mi Na Lwl 2001

Bog Myrtle picked

On the waxing tide

Of the Holly time.

The above legend is written on the label of one of the demi-johns bubbling occasionally in fermentation around the cabin. The bouquet is surprisingly fruity, like a rich Shiraz; its’ taste is reminiscent of port; It’s gorgeous and I’m surrounded by the stuff!

This is a celebratory drink. The wind turbine was erected today around 5.pm! We, Brett, Alison, Jenny and myself, assembled propellers to tail fin and the whole thing slotted onto the end of a scaffold pole Alison had painted blue with a green band on the top. Brett fixed a bracket a tenth of the way down. To this bracket, the guy cables were fixed and once the pole was slotted in the hole bored into a tree stump the whole thing was made secure by huge metal pegs hammered deep into the ground east, south, north and west. An electric cable runs down from the wind turbine appearing through a hole drilled near the base of the scaffold. It looks like only days after my arrival my dream of staying here and working on my laptop will become reality.

I will have to get a fax and printer, fax paper and printing paper for the whole thing to be complete. Then I need work. Here it is free electricity off the national grid! I have free heat and fuel to cook; the only bill is the phone bill.

I feel healthy here. I can feel my muscles beginning to ache from the exertion of water collecting and wood chopping. Feeding the stove in winter is a constant; it has to be every half hour or so and I get through at least 6 or 7 logs a day. Thankfully, there’s a whole pine forest on the doorstep...

Alison and Brett are going into Stranraer tomorrow; I think I’ll stay; I don’t want to face a modern environment at the mo. I need a complete wind-down. When my check comes I’ll make a foray into Dumfries.

I felt Mark today. There was a moment when I pictured him in his restaurant. Maybe we are still connected. I don’t mind going down to London occasionally but only if my home is here. Then London will be easier to handle, less chaotic, more somewhere I dip in and out of.

The reality of interpreting; Dumfries, not too far. Stranraer, half hour away. Glasgow, two hours; Edinburgh, 4-5 hours; maybe too far. The odd job would put some money in the coffers, though it is suited to this place; One foot in the green environmentally caring world and the other caring. I must phone and confirm change of address. I will inform Temple Translation that I am in Scotland I pray that I may be able to earn here without a hitch. Hail wind turbine.

The book, The Specialist by Charles Sales, in the compost loo about a carpenter whose expertise is the construction of privies is very apt for the place I was reading it in. It is about a man advising a potential customer on the various reasons why a privy is in a given position, painted a particular colour, and why it has outward or inward swinging door, flat or lean-to roof; it has wonderful woodcut prints too.