Stress is fun!

Strange, the things that can motivate one to blog. But TownMouses comment here got me thinking about suicide rates. I've long believed that suicide rates in rural areas are much higher than in urban areas, and that isolated rural areas are the worst.

The Office of National Statistics is a wonderful source of data on such matters, as is The General Registers Office for Scotland, and this is what I gleaned:

• Firstly, Scotland (and for all I know England, Wales and Northern Ireland but I didn't bother looking this closely) and the UK seem to use different criteria and formats to report their data, which is deeply irritating. I'll stick to UK figures.
• Men commit suicide far more often than women, although I guess on average this is never more often than once.
• Overall, if you consider Scotland to be a country (hi Isobel!), Scotland has the highest suicide rates in the UK eg, 2002/4 Suicides amongst women in Scotland was 10.0 per 100,000, vs UK average of 5.9, and amongst men 30.0 per 100,000 (Scotland) vs 18.3 (UK).
• RECOMMENDATION ONE: Don't eat haggis.
• RECOMMENDATION TWO: Shave yer legs.
• I searched and searched the tables to find some good news for Scotland. Here it is, but there is a cost. As many of you will know to either your amusement, indifference or chagrin, sometimes Scotland only musters the status of a region. If you look at over 75 yr old women in the period 1998-2004, suicides in Scottish region were 6.9/100,000 - which is fourth in the league table topped by London at 8.4/100,000. There endeth the good news for Scotland.
• RECOMMENDATION THREE: Move yer granny out of London - Northern Ireland seems to be a good bet for that age group at 2.4/100,000
• Looking at women of all age groups, by county, the picture is mixed. The top three highest suicide rates are found in Glasgow (15.8/100,000), Camden (15.2/100,000), Conwy (13.6). Northern Ireland doesn't appear in this table until Belfast West which is ranked 33rd with a rate of 9.2/100,000.
• RECOMMENDATION FOUR: If you are female living in urban England or Scotland, move to the country, but not Wales, or if you are in rural Wales move to the city, but for heavens sake avoid Glasgow and Camden
• For men, the story is very different. And Scotland looks particularly grim with the top 10 all being Scottish eg Rank 1 Shetland (47.5/100,000), rank 2 Eilean Siar (44.1), rank 3 Highland (43.4). We don't leave Scotland until ranking 11 Belfast North (35.4/100,000), 15 Belfast West (34.2), 16 Blackpool (32.6), 23 Denbighshire (30.2).
• RECOMMENDATION FIVE: And I really can't over-emphasise the urgency of this - Men! Leave the house now! Locate the sun and run towards it. As fast as you can! Stop for nothing! You must get south as soon as possible. Fancy a haggis supper? Don't even think about it. Run. Faster. If you live on an island you are in particular danger. Do not let the water get in your way.
• RECOMMENDATION SIX. If you are male, and not gay, you should leave Northern Ireland. I appreciate this recommendation may be contentious, but Northern Ireland consistently appears quite high in the table for men, and quite low in the tables for women from which I rashly conclude that Northern Irish women have a tendency to drive their men to suicide.

Unsavoury

I can't tell if I'm pant-wettingly excited about a night in the pub in Edinburgh, or pant-wettingly worried about the return of the snow.

I have to go to Stirling on Wednesday which means an early morning (ie pre-gritter time) drive to Lairg to catch the train. And although where we are the snow doesn't look horrendous, the route to Lairg, through Crask and Altnaharra, often closes. And we're not just talking about nights in the pub here - there's money involved. I've got two days work in Stirling. I have to get there.

I could go to Thurso and catch the train there - but it exceedingly adds to the length of the journey...

fret fret

And all that fretting is distracting me from the urgent need to arrange to meet all the people I'd like to meet and decide what to make in my woodwork nightclass which also starts next week.

fret fret

Pin in the butt*

Unless you have ever been cast asunder from life, perhaps via a shipwreck, prison sentence, or a wildly romantic and yet strangely impractical dream, for about two years, you cannot begin to imagine the thrill of planning a night in the cask and barrel, next friday 5th, from about 7:30. Deuchars IPA!!!! And I might even get chips and mushrooms from rapidos. Oh God I can't wait.

* A pin holds 4.5 gallons, a butt 108 gallons, whereas yer common or garden barrel is 36 gallons, whereas as a cask is generic. According to this anyoo.

Quiz

The Girl got a belated Xmas present at the weekend. It includes instructions with the following warning:

"Please switch off LED before accessing sunscreen or Northern/Southern hemisphere"

Ok - that's clear - but can you guess what the present was?

Meanwhile I woke up this morning and lay in bed.

Just how fantastic is that!?!? I used to be woken up and then hurl myself into the bathroom etc to get myself out in time to buy a coffee and a flapjack to imbibe on the 07:39. Life is good.

News snippet

Emails can clump together to form a quagmire into which your brain, friendships and plans can get sucked.

When I was working I always had a limit on the number of unread emails I allowed myself to have - it wasn't a fixed number, that would have been unpractical, but it was around twenty. And so (often several times a day) I'd blitz the inbox, discarding, delegating or dealing with things as they arose The system worked fairly well most of the time.

I'm now more-or-less unemployed so I don't have anything like as many emails to deal with, and those emails I do get I feel I want to commit more time to. But I don't seem to have the inclination, so they build up, and clump together and before I know it I'm stuck.

I subscribe to the newsletters of many interesting organisations including new economics foundation. This morning as I decided to clear through the email logjam I found this astonishing snippet from them:-

Political fixation on growing the economy is becoming a 'false god' according to Lord Turner, chair of both the Financial Services Authority and UK government's Committee on Climate Change. Speaking to nef Policy Director Andrew Simms on the BBC's World Tonight programme, Lord Turner said that not only was pursuing economic growth at all costs damaging the climate, it wasn't doing us much good either. 'All the evidence shows that beyond the sort of standard of living which Britain has now achieved, extra growth does not automatically translate into human welfare and happiness,' Lord Turner said.

Did you catch that - the Chair of the Financial Services Authority is suggesting that economic growth is a false god? -

Sounds

Ah the gulls of Kristiansund eh?

Crofters delight

One of the great joys of having a pre-teen daughter is that she tends to laugh at your jokes. So - seeing her off the premises and on her way to school this morning and remarking upon this sunrise gave rise to this absolute gem of gut wrenching hilarity. Good build-up Simon.

Red sky in the morning - shepherds warning

Red sky at night - shepherds delight

Red sky in the kitchen - shepherds pie.

I've got work to do you know.

Attention deficit x 6

Time was, in a professional capacity, I was a player in a UK-wide network. This network was run from London and from time to time they'd deign to fly up to Scotland and patronise us with their big city wisdom. This was always slightly irritating for all of us, because, frankly, things are very different in Scotland than they are in England, and London especially. But we would listen, more or less respectfully, albeit through a veil of disinterest. Sometimes the veil grew very heavy - and never so heavy as when the representative from the Highlands started lecturing us all on how things are different in the Highlands - and on and on he would harp. Because, as it turns out, being lectured by people who don't know what they are talking about but whose pockets are full of money, is considerably less irritating than being lectured to by people who no-one else understands because by golly it's grim up north and giveusyermoney you poncy southern twat.

Ahemm.

Flushed with the success of having our bins emptied after a wait of five weeks ( they were last emptied December 14th), I went for a parents meeting at the Secondary school The Girl will be attending in a couple of years. Amongst many other amusing little agenda items including such gems as Why it probably wasn't such a good idea to dig up the playing field afterall, and The New School Car Park - we wuz robbed, and How to get roads maintained in Sutherland* we were there to discuss The Curriculum for Excellence, and a proposal by the school to bring forward choosing Standard Grade subjects from the end of S2 to the end of S1.

The Curriculum for Excellence sounds excellent, and maybe it is, and it is supposed to be coming into our schools in August, but no one has told the teachers how it will work, no one has figured out how it will be examined and it all seems to be so up in the air - it looks like a disaster waiting to happen. Interesting - such a good handle - The Curriculum for Excellence - and we fall asleep cos it must be good. Well maybe it could be - but it sure as hell aint just yet.

Well the school, which, incidentally has a catchment area the size of Lanarkshire (865 sq miles, cf Greater London 659 sq miles, Edinburgh & Lothian 664 sq miles, East Yorkshire 957 sq miles, Hamburg 292 sq miles (so you see things really are different, and grim, up north), (breath!), has decided, what? Can't remember. Anyway - apparently it will help to solve the infamous S2 drop, and improve Higher results.

Which brings me back to the bins. I mean even the recycling was collected yesterday. An event worthy of remark. And photographs - but only three, because the camera batteries gave up.

*The answer, according to someone who really should know, is to destroy the old road, with, it was implied, a pickaxe if necessary.

[Altogether now] The green-brown ...

...grass of home.

There I was on Saturday, looking out of the bathroom windae, and it struck me - just how beautiful is browny-green? Omygod it's gorgeous! That bright white abominable stuff is going and browngreen rules again. And there's nothing to moan about anymore - oh except that now the snow has (almost) gone things have got a lot darker, which means doing the goats is harder.

Oh and the roads are still lethal. Even the main route through the village still has extensive patches of black ice (or it did yesterday when I went for me Sunday stroll).

But the tenter hooks are out again..... will the bin men get to us today? We have three lovely bins full - all sitting out on the lane waiting for the great yellow lorry to relieve them of their load. C'mon guys - it's been over a month now. You can do it.

Blog footprint

According to Wordle

Best summarised as 'get hay' I think.

Now that the road's clear...

we get post...

and gritter lorries...

Gritter lorries? But the road is clear!

Yep.

The Fixer

I'm back here again, although strangely it doesn't feel as cold as I remember it being when I took that photograph. Maybe I'm getting more used to it. Like a whale perhaps.

Anyway - the work arrived, by courier, last night. The courier phoned about 7 pm:

"Where am I?"

"What?"

"I can see a church and a telephone box. I'm terrified."

"What?!?!"

"My Sat Nav says I've still got eleven miles to go but I can't keep going on this it's awful - it's like glass."

"Oh right. Ermm. Where are you?"

"I don't know, I can see a church and a telephone box. The Sat Nav says I'm on the B871."

"No you can't be on the B871 - that road is pure glass."

"I've never been so scared in my life. I think I'll turn round."

"I don't think that's a good idea, if Sat Nav reckons you're only eleven miles away the best bet is to keep coming - but for Gods sake be careful!"

"Careful aye. What's your local hotel like?"

"It's fine, in fact it's where I'll meet you - there's no point in trying to get to my house."

"If I get there I'll stay the night."

"Aye OK - phone me when you get there and I'll come and buy you a pint."

About an hour later - that'll be an average speed of about 11 mph (18 km/h).

"I'm here."

I set off for the pub to go collect my package - (expecting it to be a CD).

You know how, if you are in a certain situation, you sort of tend to imagine other people are in the same situation? No? Well I do. We've been cut off for weeks, and the lane going to the village is sheet ice, and so all our neighbours are cut off right?

Well no. I slipped my way the 200m or so up to the track to the neighbours and suddenly the lane was cleared - it had been very heavily gritted, sometime between me collecting the paper Sunday morning and about 8pm yesterday. At this point one could easily plunge into paranoia - I mean why leave us out? IT'S NOT FAIR!

Anyway - by the time I got to the pub, the courier driver had decided to drive on to Thurso. He told me again about how terrifying the drive had been getting here - the worst he'd ever encountered in 20 years of courier driving - but he'd seen lots of deer and that was lovely and he was from the country himself* but he'd never seen roads like it. I told him he was bloody lucky and a bloody fool to trust his sat nav like that.

Then he went and opened up the van and gave me my package - which turned out to be a huge box full of paper. Not all that heavy, but very large and awkward. We said our goodbyes and I lumbered into the bar wondering how the uck I was supposed to carry it home. When I told the story of the courier in the bar they were aghast:

"But that roads glass - no-one is driving on that."

Later I was staggering home when a not quite neighbour happened to stop and offer me a lift. Thank you! And the glory of 4x4 with winter tyres! She drove slowly and carefully, but really our lane was no problem for her. I mentioned the strange phenomena of the grit that exhausted itself at neighbours rather than continuing on to ours and she said we needed to phone Xena The Warrior Princess.**

This morning Jussi phoned Xena. After a few questions she said she'd see what she could do. Ten minutes later she phoned to say the lane would be clear in an hour. A Fixer indeed.

Having said that - the promise was made over two hours ago and nothing has happened yet - a call to Xena has confirmed that her merry band has a problem with their trailer. I've dug out the van and we're ready to go. Jussi has phoned the hay suppliers and got them to risk life limb and tractor to get hay ready for us (their yard is wet ice as well) - but now she's chomping madly awaiting the green light.

Meanwhile, I've got work to do. And quite a lot of it. I forecast thin bloggings for a while.

* Longniddry as it turned out - Is that country?

** The name has been changed to maintain anonymity

Seriously now

I've been sitting listening to radio Scotland this morning - thoroughly enjoying all the people calling in to say how lilly livered and health and safety mad we all are. Has no-one heard the Yorkshiremen Monty Python sketch?

And then there's the blogosphere with people complaining about having to go to work or not gritting their roads - here is a typical example, I particularly recommend the comments.

Meanwhile - we are still trapped here and things is getting serious. The lane up to the village is just sheet ice, so the gritters have had to give up on us, everyone is running out of hay - and it's becoming difficult to find people willing to lend. On top of that the only person we know of with a vehicle capable of getting the hay to us is up to his neck with calving* and doesn't have time to run an errand for us (remembering that apart from being a crofter, he also has a full time job). We are eeking out what hay we have the best we can with whins and branches of pine (which the goats devour with great gusto) - but we must get hold of hay soon - and there's no way we can get out. If we could get out we'd buy snow chains, and then never ever have a need to use them again.

On Saturday me and the girl went to the loch. The knee deep snow had a frozen crust on top that collapsed about half a second after I stood on it. It was a completely exhausting walk.

And then yesterday the 'walk' to the village to get the paper was terrifying. From the croft to the cattle grid on Paddy's Brae is one long smooth sheet of thick ice.

It is threatening to rise above freezing today, which to be honest is bad news - cos a wee thaw followed by another hard freeze just makes all the surfaces all the more dangerous. What we need is a long term thaw - but it don't seem to be coming yet.

* probably a more literal description than we'd care to imagine

??

Prime time viewing on STV last night was a documentary about the Scottish football team that beat England in 1967.

What the.....?!!

Walkies

Just unbelievably beautiful. I went for a walk yesterday - exhausted myself slogging through knee deep snow but really very pretty (when is it going to end?). We still have water in the house but the longer it stays as cold as this the nearer we get to the time when the house water feezes and we have to lug the goat water up from the cottage. But at least we had a JCB down our lane yesterday to clear to way for the snow plough when it eventually gets here - which I imagine wont be until Monday now.

Love interest - something to capture your interest before scrolling down

The local - so near and yet so far

For sale - it's a gorgeous croft - stunning location ... a 'project'.

Ice on the estuary

Bridge over the frozen river

Services

Living at the end of the world you kinda don't expect services to work so well for you. So it's no surprise that we've not had a bin collection since 14th December, or a recycling collection since the end of November, and the post has only made it through once since Xmas. That's fine. The important things - like electricity are getting through (TOUCH WOOD).

Oh and wood.

We had a wood delivery this morning. Hats off to Hunters Coal merchants in Thurso. They promised wood on Boxing Day but couldn't get through. They tried again last week. Today they brought two vehicles - their lorry - which they left on the main road, and a 4x4 pick-up truck which they used to get up and down the more difficult access routes. That is service, and it is heroic - they had already gone for a 180 degree spin in Strathy (in the lorry).

But is it not all glory for the private sector. Parcel Force and Home Delivery Services seem to be incapable of getting anything beyond Inverness - much to the chagrin of The Girl.

But let's celebrate the wood. Here are some piccies with a very poor colour balance. Why so blue? And iphoto couldn't drop the blueness without losing even more of the detail. So here they are in all their natural blueyness. The wood shelter is a construction of 4 pallets and a good few fence posts all tied together with baler twine and the remains of a broken wind break. No nails or screws were used. I'm awaiting confirmation from the patent office of my pending millionairehood.... where is that postie?

Sunrise 9:03 Sunset 15:43

But the snow makes everything glow in even in the half moon light. Really it is lovely - and not in the least bit slushy which is the only reason I hate snow.

Yesterday I managed to free the car and the van from the croft. I charged the van battery using jump leads from the car - something that only worked when I ignored the instructions to earth the black cable to the van body, and connected it directly to the van battery instead. Someone will no doubt tell me that I was oooooh that close to cataclysmic explosion but as far as I'm concerned it worked.

And there is something very joyful about driving through virgin snow, trying to remember where the track is. I thought about taking the vehicles for a spin up the lane, but when I checked the road a bit more carefully I decided the likelihood of spinning was way too great. I parked the car in the usual place, on the grass in front of the cottage and then parked the van on the edge of the turning area, facing south to capture those battery charging rays.

But the van was instantly stuck - and it took me an hour of scraping and hacking to free it. It will be stuck next time I try to move it - but hopefully, relatively easy to free.

Extreme weather chaos mayhem disruption chaos

Dang! We're being out-weathered - by the south of England!!

So although it is snowing here - and freezing of course - there's really nothing to say about the weather that can compete. So maybe I'll stop mentioning the weather for a bit and think of something else to blog about...

Apart from mentioning that the wind has dropped - phew!

Salty tracts

What aspect of the weather have I taken for granted? What haven't I been full of praise for all the while whingeing and bemoaning the frost and the thaw and the freeze and the snow?

...

Of course Jussi getting out yesterday was less than half the battle - the real miracle was to be if she returned. And she did. With tales of farmyard ice rinks and blizzards she returned laden with provisions for all. Reports of our impending scurvy were grossly exaggerated.

Having unloaded the car of our food we had a couple of hundred weight of oats to get up to the croft - and with track freshly salted I jumped into the car and whizzed up no problem. In fact it was fun. Once unloaded, and with the car parked perfectly in front of the van, we thought we'd jump start the van while the car was up there and then drive the car and the van down the drive so we'd be in a better position to get out again when the time came.

The wind of course! By the time we'd found the jump leads, opening the bonnets of the vehicles was getting very tricky and just a bit dangerous as the wind flapped and tugged, and underfoot was still pure ice - so the effort of hanging on to the open bonnet sent yer feet splaying in all directions..... So we abandoned the attempt until the wind died down.

The wind picked up as the night wore on, though this morning it is calming down again. I've just been out with the anemometer and the maximum gust, down here around the sheltered cottage, was 23.7 m/s - about 53mph and 85kph. The wind is carrying with it little pellets of snow. Brings tears to yer eyes so it does.

Musical notes

It's sort of thawing today - with lots and lots of snow forecast - but sort of thawing. The snow plough trundled very cautiously down our lane and gritted liberally*. With the forecast for lots more snow and hard frosts later this week, Jussi decided she had to grab the chance to get out to the big wide world and get some oats for the goats. But only oats - our drive is pure ice - impassable - we can't get the van out - so the trip is for oats and not hay.

But the gritter man was very kind - he turned at the turning circle by the cottage and stopped. And he got out and fiddled at the back of the lorry and then slowly ambled back and climbed into his cab and drove away. A more productive fiddle is hard to imagine for he managed to leave a good pile of grit. Quick as a flash - maybe - I was out there with a shovel and wheel barrow - and managed to fill it with salty grit which I spread on our drive. Once more I confess to theft.

It was snowing heavily by now so I though it would be a good idea to get the van started and drive it up and down the drive a bit to grind the grit in and thus open the great passage. So I returned to the cottage and put the kettle on.

A few minutes later I battled through the snow clutching a hot water bottle wrapped in a carrier bag and I wedged this next to the van battery while I did the mid morning hay and water duties with the goats.

About an hour later I hopped into the van and turned the ignition.

Niet. De nada. Zilch. Bollocks.

So the van battery - despite Chris's magnificent efforts - is flat. Having got used to Chris's magnificent effort we've stopped parking the van at the top of a hill. So now we'll have to wait until we can get the car up the drive to jump start the van before we can contemplate getting our own hay. So a-cap in hand to neighbours we'll a-gander again shortly.

Now then... speaking of fiddling - cellist, harpist, guitarist, fiddlist?

* Even though it's an SNP council - haha -geddit?

Happy new year!

Indeed.

Where was I? Oh yes - complaining about the weather. Ah now - well - the cycle of a bit of rain, a bit of snow, a lot of freeze continues. It does seem to be getting gradually warmer - so the rain is now more frequent than snow - and although this pleases us on account of it heralding the possibility of the merest chance of an end... An End.

But only a hint of course. And as it warms it gets more slippery.

I tried to take the car up to the house and got considerably less than half way up the drive, and made two superb ice tracks in the process. But it was good fun!

Thrawst is not photogenic. So the piccy is from a few days ago.

Hogmanay got us out and into the pub - just for a couple like. It was getting going nicely when we left, and the most notable event is unblogworthy.

But we need the ice and snow to clear.** Not only is the dwindling level of animal feed becoming an issue, but so is the dwindling level of human food. I mean there's no need to call the helicopter just yet, and we are still a fair way from curried goat, but the list of ingredients for meals is diminishing and monotony beckons. And anyway there's always the village shops - always good if you prefer to wring onions rather than chop them.

But here's wishing you a heartfelt happy new year - and thanks for continuing to read this blog, and commenting occasionally. I predict that things will happen in 2010. No really. Oh yes.

**And as I type this "set the controls for the heart of the sun" begins on the ipod. Oh yes please!

Which reminds me to mention that the first toon randomly selected by the ipod in 2010 was Tommy Smith - Seal. Somehow strangely appropriate and certainly a delicious start to the year.