Kimberley Clark's American website claims that people use more than three and a half metres of toilet paper per 'event' (an average of 143 inches of toilet paper). It follows this staggering claim with the gleeful cry, 'That's equal to nearly 35 squares!' Get a grip, people. That's almost enough to wall-paper the cubicle.
What better proof that we need the guerrila stickers from These Come From Trees to post on napkin dispensers, toilet roll holders, printers, whatever you see causing paper gluttony. I just wish there was a metric version.
Thursday, 30 August 2007
Wednesday, 29 August 2007
Tides
It was full moon last night and one of those skies packed with clouds, so the moon had to jostle and elbow her way out between them. Whenever she did, she left the clouds around her the colour of bruises. Each time, they soon ganged up on her again and shut out the light. Today, they have taken their revenge and it has rained all day.
Big moon means big tides and with low pressure they are even bigger. Yesterday evening I watched the tide come in, up, up, up over the top of the seaweed, up over the rock where we light bonfires, up almost onto the grass.
The water level began to fall again as night fell, as if the tide was taking the light away as well as the sea. Night ebbed in. Why do we say night falls? Darkness rises. Shadows deepen at low levels first, under trees. The earth breathes blackness out and up into the sky, which is the last place to go dark.
As the water dropped, the bows and skerries re-emerged and the seals wriggled onto them to snooze. Low tide was sometime in the middle of the night. I slept long and woke to it right back in, almost lapping at the feet of the caravan. Tonight it will be even higher. I've never understood why the highest tide should be two days after the full and new moons, rather than on the same night. Why the time-lag?
Big moon means big tides and with low pressure they are even bigger. Yesterday evening I watched the tide come in, up, up, up over the top of the seaweed, up over the rock where we light bonfires, up almost onto the grass.
The water level began to fall again as night fell, as if the tide was taking the light away as well as the sea. Night ebbed in. Why do we say night falls? Darkness rises. Shadows deepen at low levels first, under trees. The earth breathes blackness out and up into the sky, which is the last place to go dark.
As the water dropped, the bows and skerries re-emerged and the seals wriggled onto them to snooze. Low tide was sometime in the middle of the night. I slept long and woke to it right back in, almost lapping at the feet of the caravan. Tonight it will be even higher. I've never understood why the highest tide should be two days after the full and new moons, rather than on the same night. Why the time-lag?
Tuesday, 28 August 2007
Autumn smells
This year I've dried enough mint to keep the whole parish in hot drinks for the forseeable future. The clothes pulley above the bath is hung with big bunches of lemon balm, for more tea, and tansy, which I hope will, once dry, help to deter the moths, mice and other vermin that seem intent on devouring our clothes. Cleaning the lounge involved shifting the onion, garlic and chanterelle harvest to the studio, so I am writing this accompanied by a somewhat pungent odour of future stews drying out under the window ready for the winter. On my desk there's a bowl of dried rose petals and a jam jar of sweet peas and honeysuckle. The place smells of romantic seventeenth century poetry.
Open the studio door and the fragrance takes a sharp lift. The heather and ling are at their peak. Pure purple perfume. And in the woods the autumn collapse has begun: bracken is bronzing, grass slumps, leaves drop and the great end of year rot is underway. The earth breathes out summer and smells magnificent. Autumn, the olfactory climax of the season. I love it.
Time for a walk, to follow my nose, aromatherapy for free.
Open the studio door and the fragrance takes a sharp lift. The heather and ling are at their peak. Pure purple perfume. And in the woods the autumn collapse has begun: bracken is bronzing, grass slumps, leaves drop and the great end of year rot is underway. The earth breathes out summer and smells magnificent. Autumn, the olfactory climax of the season. I love it.
Time for a walk, to follow my nose, aromatherapy for free.
Monday, 27 August 2007
Brambles/Caravan Crumble
It's bramble time. Yee-hah. The best bit is this early season because the first blackberries to ripen are the ones at the tip of the spikes and they're the biggest, juiciest and most delicious. I made the mistake of going picking without a jacket and got well and truly tangled - long hair, woolly jumpers and bramble thorns are a dangerous combination. But it was worth it for those black glossy clusters of sunshine. Now for the best bit of the day - Caravan Crumble. You think you can't make crumble without an oven? Wrong. It's the best pudding I know. The recipe's a secret.
Oh all right then. Remove spiders and other wildlife from brambles. Tip them into a saucepan with a peeled, chopped cooking apple and a spoonful of sugar. Put a lid on and stew gently until it looks juicy and the apple has collapsed into squidge. Get one shallow pudding bowl each and share out the brambles. Crumble two digestive biscuits onto each bowl (it's an art worth learning). Grill until the biscuit starts to toast. Top with crumbled chocolate and yoghurt or cream. Yummy.
Oh all right then. Remove spiders and other wildlife from brambles. Tip them into a saucepan with a peeled, chopped cooking apple and a spoonful of sugar. Put a lid on and stew gently until it looks juicy and the apple has collapsed into squidge. Get one shallow pudding bowl each and share out the brambles. Crumble two digestive biscuits onto each bowl (it's an art worth learning). Grill until the biscuit starts to toast. Top with crumbled chocolate and yoghurt or cream. Yummy.
Sunday, 26 August 2007
The bath
I washed the bath this morning. Perhaps not worthy of a blog post, but it looked like it had been smoking 60 a day for the past few years. Now it at least looks like it's thinking about giving up. It will never be spotless, largely due to the fact that it spent an indeterminate number of years in a field as a cattle trough before being rescued, painted green and installed in a shed with a hot water supply. Quite what its earlier history was is lost in the distant mists.
In a fit of domestication I also swept the shed where the bath lives, known as 'the lounge', because as well as the bath it contains a sofa bed, so you can lounge wet or dry, and a sound system. OK, it's an old car radio. The spider population in the lounge gets a bit out of hand at this time of year. I think I managed to get about half the cobwebs. Another few bursts of sweeping, dusting, mopping etc will be needed before it counts as clean. Fortunately my mother's not due to visit for another couple of months.
In a fit of domestication I also swept the shed where the bath lives, known as 'the lounge', because as well as the bath it contains a sofa bed, so you can lounge wet or dry, and a sound system. OK, it's an old car radio. The spider population in the lounge gets a bit out of hand at this time of year. I think I managed to get about half the cobwebs. Another few bursts of sweeping, dusting, mopping etc will be needed before it counts as clean. Fortunately my mother's not due to visit for another couple of months.
Thursday, 16 August 2007
Decrofting
Today 'the man from the department', as he is known, came to the croft for a site visit. The owner of the original crofthouse was invited too, but he lives in London and I wouldn't recognise him if I passed him on the street. Not surprisingly, he didn't turn up. His father-in-law came, and that is all I will say on the matter, at least for today.
The topic of the site visit was our application to 'decroft' a wee patch of land, on which I want, one day, to build a house. Just a little house. Caravans and sheds are wonderful, but sometimes, when I've onned and offed waterproofs and wellies enough for one day, I think it might be nice to have a single roof under which bath, bed and biscuits can all be housed. As with most crofts, we don't own the land, but have a tenancy that is protected by a bulwark of law worthy of a Dickensian novel: a croft, so the saying goes, is a little patch of land surrounded by a large amount of legislation. Unfortunately such legal foundations do not impress capitalist institutions like banks, and so in order to even apply for a mortgage to pay to build a house, the land on which the house will sit must be taken out of crofting and bought from the landowner. (Fortunately one of those bits of law establishes the absolute right to buy the croft, at 15 times the annual rent, which in our case is less than £20 - it's an absolute bargain at least until the lawyers add their fee.)
So, about two and half months ago, we applied to decroft a house site. Since then we have exchanged formal, nit-picking letters with the Crofters Commission five times and at last, today, ' the man from the department' came to see the site. He was a cheerful character, and he had sensibly brought his wellies and waterproofs. Given the weather forecast, all four of us were dressed in full body armour, but we were lucky and the rain held off until the very end, which eased the detailed scrutiny of feu papers and maps needed to establish quite what exactly would cease to be croftland, should our application succeed. The department in question is what used to be called SEERAD, the Scottish Executive Environment and Rural Affairs Department, but what it is these days since we got the new government I am not sure. Anyway, the task for today was to assess whether there will be a loss to agriculture as a result of the land ceasing to be part of the croft. Since the land in question consists of bare rock, peatbog and a few scrubby birch trees, our man saw no problem, and promised to say so in his report to the Commission. Quite how long it will take them to make their decision is anyone's guess. I'm not holding my breath.
The topic of the site visit was our application to 'decroft' a wee patch of land, on which I want, one day, to build a house. Just a little house. Caravans and sheds are wonderful, but sometimes, when I've onned and offed waterproofs and wellies enough for one day, I think it might be nice to have a single roof under which bath, bed and biscuits can all be housed. As with most crofts, we don't own the land, but have a tenancy that is protected by a bulwark of law worthy of a Dickensian novel: a croft, so the saying goes, is a little patch of land surrounded by a large amount of legislation. Unfortunately such legal foundations do not impress capitalist institutions like banks, and so in order to even apply for a mortgage to pay to build a house, the land on which the house will sit must be taken out of crofting and bought from the landowner. (Fortunately one of those bits of law establishes the absolute right to buy the croft, at 15 times the annual rent, which in our case is less than £20 - it's an absolute bargain at least until the lawyers add their fee.)
So, about two and half months ago, we applied to decroft a house site. Since then we have exchanged formal, nit-picking letters with the Crofters Commission five times and at last, today, ' the man from the department' came to see the site. He was a cheerful character, and he had sensibly brought his wellies and waterproofs. Given the weather forecast, all four of us were dressed in full body armour, but we were lucky and the rain held off until the very end, which eased the detailed scrutiny of feu papers and maps needed to establish quite what exactly would cease to be croftland, should our application succeed. The department in question is what used to be called SEERAD, the Scottish Executive Environment and Rural Affairs Department, but what it is these days since we got the new government I am not sure. Anyway, the task for today was to assess whether there will be a loss to agriculture as a result of the land ceasing to be part of the croft. Since the land in question consists of bare rock, peatbog and a few scrubby birch trees, our man saw no problem, and promised to say so in his report to the Commission. Quite how long it will take them to make their decision is anyone's guess. I'm not holding my breath.
Tuesday, 14 August 2007
Otter
An early rise is rewarded by an otter sighting. He is big, probably male, coursing his smooth gliding trail along the shore of the loch, heading out to sea, off to fish for breakfast. Whatever paddling must be going on is invisible beneath the water. There's just this brown cat's head intent on a certain direction. Today he is close enough to see his whiskers, but even at a distance you know it isn't a seal because of the pace and that dead straight certainty. If any doubt remains, it vanishes at the same time the otter does - first the face submerges, the head follows and there's a curve of fluid spine in perfect smooth rotation, and then the giveaway - the sleek rope-tail hooping after the body, one stroke behind the game.
The water smooths its brow. You have just seen an otter and now it's gone, hidden. The guileless surface parrots sky. Then, a little further along the shore, up comes that head again, zipping along, pulling the loch's jacket open behind it, laying everything bare.
The water smooths its brow. You have just seen an otter and now it's gone, hidden. The guileless surface parrots sky. Then, a little further along the shore, up comes that head again, zipping along, pulling the loch's jacket open behind it, laying everything bare.
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