From whence I came

Many months have gone by and little done to record the happenings of a stagnant pond of wallowing people. Tides creep in and out of an unwatched harbour while some boatman stand obviously superior to those that shall remain behind waiting to close the door and make sure the lights are well and truly switched off.

Boats and Lobsters. Our life blood seeps away beneath the pebbled ground mingling with the mud stained and sea washed sand. People, once loud about the harbour, leave for term time commitments or hurried, booked and far flighted, sunnier apartments. We stand waiting; waiting for another season to rise, damp like about us.

Money is our direction and our obsession, we follow it, and we accommodate it, giving it unwarranted preference over the reality of our lives. I found myself escaping from the tortuous grip of Clovelly and delivered into the cold, hard North of Orkney. in the pursuit of a fair wage for a fair days work. A friend of mine is contracted to a group known as, 'Tidal Generation Limited,' a company sponsored by, 'Rolls Royce,' who are busy developing a turbine for the generation of electricity, using the strength of the tide. I was employed as Mate aboard his vessel and spent the time doing seaman like tasks such as splicing and whipping and general ropey jobs. During our time we were successful in deploying the turbine off the island called 'Eday'. just one of the many Orkney isles. Orkney was a remarkably beautiful place, sweeping islands and rough hewn shores. The people edging more towards Norwegian than Scottish, were famously kind and friendly. The weather was as you'd expect, trying and tempestuous one minute, still and brilliant the next. I flew in and flew out, I loved every minute and hope to get back.

There is so much to do. I have to set up and establish a smoke house in Clovelly, so I may smoke some of my Clovelly herring. Boats have to be worked on, cleaned, prepared, readied for whatever may happen next. Things, events catch up, usually when you're not watching. How does it happen that one minute you are getting things in order, and the next.... well the next minute you're sat beside a hospital bed where your mother lies with a collapsed lung, following a procedure to drain some fluid from that lung that went badly wrong. Days of worry, of stress and strain follow, family arrives from all quarters, too many visitors the nurses complain, but more arrive to see her, the room fills. Now all we can do is wait. Now all we do is wait. Funny how life seems to bring me back from whence I came and never seems to let me go. Now I wait.