Carrots and other important things

Today, I checked my carrots. They are growing well. The radishes however are not. Learn from this and do not plant radishes in July, especially if there is a heatwave. Luckily though there is no hosepipe ban here so although I lack a hosepipe, I can use the watering can. When I say 'can use the can', I can't really as Hinba has bitten a huge hole in it, which means I have to stick my finger into the hole as I carry the can outside to water the carrots.

It's all got a bit much.

I definitely need to get a job.

Depressingly, the average hourly salary in Glasgow is between £5 and £7/hour. I have therefore signed up and am waiting eagerly to see if I am onto the next round, for the following:

1. Chef at 'Bella Pasta', Central Glasgow ("but I can't cook" I said. "That's ok, we train" they said...) I did however have to use a monumental amount of effort not to crumble into tears when they asked for references. (References for what? I've just told you I can't cook..)

2. 5 recruitment consultancies. All of which were filled with nervous spotty teens being asked if they had office skills and then hanging their heads when they were informed they'd have to spend the next ten years in call centres.

3. Waitress at funky bar. Them: "We pay five five" Me: "What, fifty five pounds a shift?" (thinking, FORGET IT) Them: "No, five pounds five pence per hour." Me, trying to mask crestfallen face: "Ah" Them: "Can you send me your CV?" Me outloud: "Ah, yes, sure" Me thinking "WHAT DO YOU WANT MY CV FOR? ALL I NEED TO DO IS PULL A PINT." Jesus

So, job hunting isn't fantastic I have to admit.

I have however, started volunteering. Thursday afternoons are now spent at Motiv8 - Raleigh International's Glasgow based organisation to get the young and disenchanted back onto the straight and narrow. So far, I've met: Kev, Chaz, Raymond, Gaz, Ellen and Stuart. All looked like they would quite like the contents of my handbag on initial meeting, but in actual fact, they are all fab. Despite feeling like a baby gazelle in a room full of hungry lions for most of the time, I was relieved that it wasn't too difficult. Not only do I look different, I sound like the sort of person they would have no guilt about beating up for a paper backbook. But, like I say, that was slightly my preconception too. We walked to the cinema ("The wind that shakes the barley" or something - don't bother with it unless you feel like watching 3 hours of religious hatred) and I saw one of them stuffing bags of sweets into the inside pocket of his coat. They were being taken to the cinema for goodness sakes, and were already allowed a bag of sweets - the middle class in me was horrified. I'm pleased to say I exerted power and control. Without making a fuss, I looked directly at him, and in a non-too matronly way, I wagged a finger. It worked. Chastised, shaken, head hanging, he put it back. Result. If all else fails, I could be a youth worker.

One that grows good carrots.

The calm before the storm

At the top of the mountain, chuffed to be at the top, but no idea what lay ahead...

Escaping the wrath of Thor

I'm just back from 5 days in Italy where I had a rather scary moment. Following three days by the sea, dinghy sailing, swimming in the pool, jumping off cliffs etc, Hugo and I decided to go into the mountains. After buying a cracking picnic in a nearby town, we set off for the mountains to the north of Genoa from where we'd be able to walk around a lake. At a great viewpoint, we pulled over and decided to leave the car and climb up the rest of the hill in front of us, taking the picnic with us. We could see the lake we'd been aiming for, but it was shrouded in a dark gloom, so we decided to give it a miss and just picnic ontop of this great big hill instead. From the top (1150m) we could see dark clouds hanging over a valley beneath us quite far away. Ignoring the clouds we sat down to eat our picnic, enjoying the view around us. However, the dark clouds were fast moving and within minutes, thunder started cracking around us. As we were higher up than the storm, I assumed the storm would go around us and we'd see the whole thing from above. Big mistake. Another peal of thunder and I leapt to my feet. It was right overhead. Within seconds we'd be in the thick of things, so we packed everything back up again and started tearing down the hill. The car was a good 15 mins away down an exposed valley - no trees, shrubs, nothing. We managed to get about five minutes down from the very top when the next crack of thunder came, and with it this time, lightening too. We were near the edge of a wood so we decided to stick close to it, as surely we'd be safer underneath lots of trees than either underneath a lone tree, or underneath nothing, exposed in the mountain meadow. I desperately tried to remember my old science lessons - was it a tick next to man under tree, or a big skull and crossbones? There wasn't much time for wondering what to do as within 5 minutes, all around us became shrouded in torrential rain and the lightening was getting closer and closer. In fact, timing the seconds between the crack of thunder and the flash of lightening, I'd say the storm was directly above us. The dark angry clouds looked like something out of 'War of the Worlds.' The car was too far to make a safe break for, but it was becoming too dangerous to stay where we were. We wrapped the sarongs we'd bought to sit on for our picnic around us, to keep ourselves warm. There was no benefit now to being in the wood as we were getting soaked and if we did stay, we could be trapped there. Equally, I know from experience that electric summer storms like this last for hours in Italy. I imagined that as soon as we left our sheltered spot, we'd hear a crack and turn around to see the very tree that we'd been standing under going up in flames. With a last look around us, Hugo said that we'd be ok as it was still sheet lightening - high in the sky, rather than fork lightening. We ran out into the clearing and literally 20 seconds later, once we had run a good way away from the trees, there was a hideous crack of thunder and the most enormous fork of thunder struck the ground ahead of us. I screamed. A lot. I had absolutely no idea what was the best thing to do, but was determined not to get a place in the 'Darwin Awards' either! My heart was going mad with adrenaline. We decided to run, but I soon lost a flip flop which Hugo went back for, and then we both threw ourselves onto the ground as another bolt of lightening came down to the left of us. In the ten minutes it took to race down the mountainside to the car, we were sheltered by nothing and I had to run bare foot (as Hugo had one of my flip flops) down a stony, thorny mountain path, the rain was so thick we could barely see each other five meters apart. I had never been so happy to see a aged Renault Twingo in my life before, and we dived in headfirst, stripping off our soaking clothes, steam coming off our naked bodies. Even once in the car I was scared - we were still so exposed. We had been parked on a ridge between two peaks, and looking back as we drive away, I thought how stupid we'd been. The peak of the hill was shrouded in white rain and hail, and if we'd stayed up there, we would be in a right old pickle by now. Thank god for 'fight of flight'. I can honestly say I've never been so scared or intimidated by nature in my life.

Settling in

I can’t believe it’s only been nine days since I got here. In some ways it feels like half a lifetime and memories of my London days are already turning to sepia. I can barely picture Oxford St...

Pre-empting the widespread assumption that I have spent the last nine days baking cakes and reading the paper by a roaring fire, here’s what I have been doing: I have re-decorated four rooms – 2 bedrooms, sitting room and ‘sun room’ (used to be a non-room), tamed the jungle outside into a relatively pretty garden, planted 40 bulbs, set up a propagator which is happily growing carrots, parsley and radishes (shoots already rising), hung most of my pictures and found homes for others, helped set up a dressage arena at a local horse trial, spent about 8 hours of the last 9 days walking the dog, 3 games of squash, two ten mile bike rides, catered for one house party and one dinner party, been to a meeting in Edinburgh & found some time to shop in the 50% Sales!, completed about 20 hours of freelancing and found a dry cleaners which is cleaning three suits as I type.

I now need to get a move on with fundraising for my expedition in January (Central America). I am going to do a lot of baking (lucky Hugo gets to be chief taster), I’m signing up to the Jedburgh half marathon at the end of October, and my new idea is to organise a wine tasting evening in Glasgow as well. I think perhaps I need to have some other ideas up my sleeve as well.

The freelancing is ongoing which is great, but I definitely need to get out more. I'm so used to being at the centre of things, interacting with lots of people, the hustle and bustle of the city - being here twenty minutes from the nearest town, is starting to drive me crazy. What I need now, is a couple of days per week work in an office. So, that's what I'll try to organise next week.

So, it’s Day 9 and the housemates are having a fantastic time. Nothing like cycling off to a gorgeous country pub by the river at the end of the day, dog racing about, pint in one hand and the paper in the other, enjoying the last of the evening sun together. So far, definitely so good.

Hot and muggy, but here!

Well, I'm here and settling in (and fairly amazed that I have been able to get onto the internet) and so far, so good. The 8 hour drive in sweltering heat from London yesterday ended just past a 'BIG WILLIE 14 TODAY!' sign, flapping in the wind just off the main road. After unloading all boxes, bike, suitcases etc we raced back to drop the van off, praying we wouldn't have a last minute prang, and then settled back in, both almost too exhausted to speak; certainly too tired to bother eating anything for supper. It's wet and muggy and the cows from the farm occasionally look up at the bustle going on in the house, before going back to mooing contentedly in the long grass. Hinba and I went for a quick walk through the wheat (or barley - never know the difference) fields ending up with me soaked to the skin and Hinba catching a rat which then squealed so much I ran the opposite direction before realising that I now have to be able to deal with things like this.

The freelancing worked out to begin with, despite my concerns but I struggle to get hold of people and I don't know how much I am needed. Before long I coujld need to start finding a proper 9-5 so I hope it all works out. So, that's marginally worrying, but given the amount of things I need to do to unpack and settle in, it's not something I'm worrying too much about yet. I'll worry when I get bored.