Inefficiency

Warning, this isn't the most interesting topic I've ever rambled on about. Is shall try not to turn this in to a rant, for the musing that it has come from was not a rant, merely a collection of thoughts I wish to share. My thought is this: being alone is not sensible. My thought was a not about how it is not good for me (or anyone for that matter, maybe I should start to write about the things "one" does?) to be alone in terms of emotional or social matters, but about how it is just not practical.

As ever it is the need to feed one's self (off I go then) that brought me to this conclusion. Being semi isolated exaggerates patterns that exist in the Real World, and gives me the space to notice them. Quarter past nine at night and I'm hungry, I can tell by the exact location of the unhappiness in my tummy and the fact I'm feeling grumpy and hard done by with no logical focus. So I wander back to the caravan thinking about how I would set about fixing this. Toast, I think. No, using the grill on the gas stove inside sets off the fire alarm, and using the outside stove after dark just becomes a moth massacre. Anything left over from tea? No again. I settled for a traditional jam sandwich in the end, which might not quite fill the whole, but there's not room left for a whole other one. I live my life in units of 1 1/2, you see.

All the while I'm thinking. I'm hungry because tonight's tea has done a half-hearted job. Tonight's tea was some egg noodles, babycorn, my last two mushrooms and the first three leaves of a cabbage. Food would be much more exciting if there was someone else for me to feed as well as little old me. Tonight's choice was dictated by the need to eat the second half of packet of noodles - reduced to clear and not going to last any longer. Sold in a size that two people would eat for one meal, or one person would eat for two. Tomorrow I'll need to finish the babycorn before it grows legs and leads a mutiny - even if that makes it four days in a row. I'll now be eating cabbage all this week and next, for it takes a single person rather a while to get through a whole cabbage. Variety is not for the lonely, says Mr Tesco. Before I get a bunch of comments about starving children in Africa, this an observation, I shall point out, not a complaint. I quite like cabbage.

Then we have the effort involved in the cooking. A meal for one takes a number of cooking implements and a length off time. Cooking the same meal for two (provided you're going to sit down and eat it together) is unlikely to take more pans and utensils, and unlikely to take too much longer, certainly not twice as long. Same goes for the gas I'm cooking on. Ergo, compare me on my own to the couple sharing the other caravan. They do twice the work I do but don't use twice the resources. Single living is inefficient.

I've known this from the other side. Sharing everything doesn't leave you with half of what you had, you still have everything, but those things become twice as useful, but you hold them less tight.

80 Miles

Today I am in a particularly pensive mood. So I shall tell the story of my most recent mini-adventure.

I have been living in a caravan since the beginning of July with the exception of a few nights on a sofabed in an Alsatian village and a night in my old bunk bed in my Grandad's house. That was four weeks ago now and since then I've pretty much been alone in my dinky, chilly caravan. I've had three nights of company in that time, which have been lovely. It seems I like very much to have friendly faces around. It makes sense - since leaving home four years ago I've been living with at least 2 others, initially through first-year necessity, and since then through choice. The relative success of these arrangements aside (first year taught me rather a lot), I've rarely been without company for so long.

This past week I found myself missing Real Life more and more, and feeling down that it would be a while until my next chance to catch up with my Bridget Jones-style urban family. I reckon it's ok to own up to this.

Monday morning each week sees us sitting around the kitchen table in the house discussing which of the three of us gets which day off. This week it was yesterday. Right, thought I, I'm out of here. Public transport between here and Aberdeen conspires against me time and time again, but I thought I'd give it a shot. Being spontaneous, and all that. Tuesday night I buy a bunch of assorted train tickets and book a night in a cheap Invernessian hostel. Wednesday evening, I finish my reception stint, grab a bag and run for a bus. Took me 5 hours to get back to Aberdeen. Dear Universe, Seriously, 80 miles in 5 hours? 16 miles an hour? That's the best you can do and then you get grumpy when we run cars and use petrol and get fat. Kid, don't rant now.

This gives me a glorious 22 hours at home. I have flapjack and a late night natter with the girls about men and babies. I sleep in a real bed, in only one layer of pyjamas in the same building as a toilet. I cook breakfast where the fridge, cooker and sink are in the same room. I walk my new flatmate to work in trainers I haven't worn in months and my feet feel so much better. I catch a bus that comes every 20  minutes instead of once a day. I wander Aberdeen and notice that I no longer recognise the faces of the homeless people, 2 months away and they're off again. I buy some new reading material in the Oxfam bookshop and meet up with a friend for coffee and a giant slice of victoria sponge. It was lovely, we talked for hours about life and the future, and all the things we should do with our lives. Planned adventures and a grand tour of France. It might even happen one day. Plans are much more exciting if they might come true in the end. I met more folks for lunch and dropped in on another in the afternoon before joining the whole gang for an evening's SCD. More friendly faces, more talking, more hugs than I've had in weeks. Since the last time I saw them all, frankly.

In short, I love my friends. They are worth two long late night bus and train journeys, a very short night in a hostel and a painfully early morning train back here. Yes, it's soppy, but most of them won't read this so I'm safe for the time being. As I write the internet isn't working so I'm as safe as houses. I was back in time for kick off at 9:30 as normal, if I bit dazed and hungry.

Been out of sorts all day, mentally contrasting the two and trying to work out which is the best shape and colour for me. I've liked to think that I'd make a middling-good country kid if ever I had the chance. The chance sees me running back to the city and breathing a sigh of relief. Is that just because I'm happier with the familiar - would I breath a similar sigh of relief returning to my own rural corner if it was indeed my own corner that I had built around me? I don't think I'm so bothered about other cities. The answer I think, is that the Big Guy reckons Aberdeen will have to do me for the next little while. Here goes...

Fractions of car

I am a very lucky duck-watcher, for this week I am to become a car owner for the very first time. The excitement lead to me jumping up and down in a phone box for the best part of an hour much to the amusement of one particularly nosy village resident. I tell a lie, I am about to become a fraction of a car owner - not because I will need to sell one of every body part that I have two of and half of every that I have one of, but because this car will not only belong to yours truly. It is to be friendly caring sharing community type car. To this end it is unlikely to come into my possession whilst I am having my countryside adventures of which I occasionally tell.

This makes life every so slightly ironic, one feels. Since the moment of ok-do-it-my-Mum-approves I have covered many (enjoyable, calorie-burning) miles on foot and bicycle. I have also spent some quality internet time working out all possible public transport methods of travelling between here and home in Aberdeen. It seems it is possible to travel between the two without a great detour to Inverness or Perth. Nethy Bridge to Grantown to Advie to Toremore to Aberlour to Dufftown to Keith and the last leg on the train to Aberdeen. All well and good, a bit faffy but it does the trick. However. That first bus leg from Nethy Bridge to Grantown were I to get comfy, have a little daydream and not get off at Grantown, would continue on to Inverness, whereupon I would be in time to jump aboard the very train that would finish off my great local bus journey above. God is laughing at me.

In my current relative warmth and safety I'm tempted to get to the main road and stick out a thumb, but I've never hitched before and would probably be scared. I'm a bit of a wimp, you see. Ho hum, if I ever try it I'll report back.

I also have no real need or available time for a trip to Aberdeen. I might go to Toremore and buy some whisky though. Grandads have birthdays.

English Rant

We really do have a stupid language. I have a funny feeling that in a warehouse somewhere are all the leftover letters that got chopped out somewhere and a small bloke in mucky overalls frantically making the other letters that we overuse. 'L's for instance. Take the word 'full'. Thing one contains as much of substance two as thing one's capacity can hold. Full. Nice little word. Does what it says on the tin. 'Fullness', still perfectly fine. Take the idea of being full and turn it into a quality. But then as soon as we prit-stick it on to the end of a word a small goblin sneaks out and pinches one of the 'l's. We wind up will silly unbalanced words like 'careful' and 'fearful' which just look daft. Their only hope of rescue is to wait for transformation from adjective to adverb and wind up being 'carefully' and 'fearfully' made. I grew up in a place called Fulwell. How can a well be full when we don't let it keep all if the 'full'? Silly town. Other words do the same thing in different places. Why not make like the Germans and just clag words together by making them budge up till there's no space between them? Quit pinching letters, there are enough out there to go round! Once you become 'able' to 'use' a thing we chop out one of the 'e's. Now really, we've certainly got enough of them, the most common letter in the flippin' language. Can't cite shortages on that one. Poor things. No wonder our yoofs can't spell and the little bloke in the warehouse is going bonkers. Bonkers, now that's a decent word. No messing about with chopping it up and sliding it in elsewhere. Just a nice simple, usable word. I should use it more often.

And yes, I feel better now. Off to fry some eggs.  

Another day another Dawn.

As I sip my morning tea and crunch my morning cereal – Mr Tesco's equivalent of Special K eaten with a spork – I have some small musings to share. Or at least I think I do. Or I shall have once I've finished my cereal. This morning I am up, showered, dressed and back in to bed with a computer and cereal course (there will also be eggs and mushrooms, I have to catch up on 1003 calories I accidentally mislaid yesterday, more on that somewhere) before my alarm went off. Apart from the showering bit this is not an unusual occurrence out here. Back in the Real World this would be barely short of miraculous. This morning a shower was overdue and quite necessary if I want to be in an enclosed space with anyone who possesses eyes and a nose at any point today. Nothing like slightly-too-hot water dripping on you in a cold misty forest to kick the brain in to wakefulness.

Here I wake up, moan about the chillyness and potter around for a while getting narked about the discrepancies of the English language. At home I would throw on my cleanest hoody, brush my teeth and run to uni. When I grow up I would like to be a morning person.

Oh yes, I have been musing on the nature of pride and arrogance and the thin line between them. I reckon the Big Guy's got me sussed and whenever I'm in danger of being a cocky sod he likes to remind me that I'd as dim as the rest of them. Last night I though I would be a smartiepants and take the bus to Grantown, do some food shopping, and come home again. Check timetable – yes, there are buses in the evening which will perform this function. Off I go. £2.33 return – bargain. Poor driver got 33 pence in the coppers that won't go in the phone box. There's three buses 1905, 1931, 2045. I take my time, 1905 drifts past, I buy myself some chips and sit an wait for the 1931 concentrating on the chips because everywhere has neds and this lot were the noisy Ford Fiesta-driving variety. At 1945 I check again and discover the little F that should have told me that this bus only runs on Fridays. That's me told, numpty points given out. 6.99 miles, the last few of which were dark and raining, but I am still alive to tell the tale, and will own up to it because I'm told it is good to look stupid every once in a while.

Zoom Whizz Splash

Dear blog, I have been terribly lax, and having adventures that I have failed to share with you. Real Life has been doing its thing. I went to France where collectively we sent one guy to hospital, danced in the street and brought home the town's major. I went to Edinburgh, where I stroked a very stroke-able baby, learned a proper thigh-slapping Austrian dance, crewed a theatre show and went clubbing for the first time in what may now be years. I caught lifts from friends around two sides of a square and wound up back in my own little bubble - in caravan number two.

Caravan number two is not the same as caravan number one. For starters it is infinitely cuter but it has its down-sides: In order to sleep two you have to render the main door unusable and come and go through the shower. The door is falling off the hinges and never quite shuts. Coming and going in the rain involves a degree of getting wet. The smoke alarm won't let me use the grill, and I'm now too far away for my poor laptop to locate el internetio. Apart from that it's lovely. Being in the open means I get to listen to the rain on the roof, it's lighter in the mornings and evenings and I'm the one next to the outdoor kitchen now. I reckon it'll get a bit chilly before my time is out, but right now I wear my big woolly jumper and I just about get by.

Today I cycled halfway (at least) to Loch Morlich, on a forest track. Pretty bumpy, but just about cycle-able and not to uppittydownitty. Yes it was raining all the while but I loved it. The bike felt like it was only just standing up to it, and I have endeavoured to invest in a new pair of cycling gloves next time I find myself in the vicinity of civilisation. Reckon I did something like 14/15 miles as a round trip, an hour and a quarter. But now I have starting blocks, a route I now know and like. I can only get faster and go further. This is the sort of thing I saw myself doing more of out here, so I might as well start catching up.