Liaisons

Lino floors, dark wooden furniture, fluorescent lighting; a typical Scottish bar. It was empty apart from the three of us. The man sitting opposite to me was spluttering with glee as he picked at his scampi and chips in a basket.

"Of course there's going to be some confusion..." he was saying.

Yesterday this man had been conducting job interviews. Today he was lunching with the two favoured candidates to assess if a proposed job share arrangement would be workable. He was conducting the assessment by talking non-stop leaving the only communication option for the two candidates to be nods and embarrassed glances. At least it allowed uninterrupted consumption of our basket meals.

Basket meals eh? Beige plastic 'baskets' stamped from moulds with fake weave. Always lined with paper napkins so that the last few chips pick up that extra chewy experience.

He was telling us some of the history of Loch Croispol bookshop and the Balnakeil Press (where is he going with this?).

Ah the punch line. Durness has a famous gay couple - Kevin and Simon - they run the book shop, they celebrated one of the first gay civil marriages in Scotland.

And where's the humour in that? Well, meet Kevin (no, not that Kevin), my job share partner for the post of Local Development Officer for the Durness Development Group.

"At least people will remember you."

All of which is to say that I have a job for 2.5 days a week, starting soon, with the overall aim of making Durness the centre of the universe. It is about consulting with the community, identifying opportunities, pursuing funding, creating jobs. My cup of Cocoa Mountain hot chocolate. Yee ha.