12-06-2015
The flight has been the smoothest I have ever been on. As the wheels of the plane lifted of the ground and there was that momentary amazement at how different groundedness and flight felt, I couldn't help but remember what Jim Darling wrote 'Everyone is fascinated by flight, and for now airplanes are how we get to experience it. At some point on each flight I've been on, I think about sitting in a chair in the sky, and it seems crazy every time.'
I watched the Imitation Game on the flight, and it made me think about how we judge and yearn to be judged and yet do not accept judgement. Poor Alan Turing. I don't think he ever knew himself or his self worth, for all his proclaimed shows of arrogance and autonomy. He wanted so much to know "Am I a machine,am I a human, am I a war hero,or am I a criminal?" "I'm not the person to answer that." "Then you're of no use to me whatsoever."
We got into Ixworth and drove up the high street just as Tim, Renny and Grandma were walking down it. They stopped and turned around and our car stopped just as they got to it, and we tumbled out into the cold air and their warm hugs. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, they say, but I would rather no absence at all - my arms around my family, my grandma's warm soap and powder smell, the crunchy gravel that heralds arrival - this is what I love rather than the beauty of the sadness of absence.
We went to Bury for a visit to the bank and the grocer's - trying some of the sweetest British Kent Strawberries on the way. As we drove home, we passed by wooden signs saying things like 'Asparagus for sale', 'Potatoes' and 'Beautiful Flowers'. I'm definitely in England.
Because the sun was absolutely gorgeous that day, we managed to get down to the Pakenham watermill. I peeled off my slip ons and stepped into the cold water. The pond has lots of little water beetles scuttling around on the bed and lovely lush carpets of water grass that feel silky smooth to step on. Cold water on my feet, hot sun above my head, and the slowness of not needing to worry about anything except where to gingerly place my foot next.
Connie and I spotted some tiddlers near the bank and they were so small that Tim could scoop 2 into his palm.
When our feet got too cold, we crept out and lay on the grassy bank. Dad fell asleep and snored a little. I put my arms behind my head and lay back - the sky in England always seems higher and yet more reachable at the same time.
It's still sinking in - here I am.
Strawberry porridge before Dad and I drove to Cambridge on a drizzly day.
At the park and ride center, I watched a family with mixed children who spoke in Singaporean accents. I wonder how communities first reacted to mixed children in their midst - I remember watching 'Australia' where a half white half aboriginal child was shunned - thank goodness things have changed. People don't welcome things they don't understand, but things that are new aren't bad, just different.
We walked up a hill to Murray Edwards, the college I will be studying in come Autumn this year. It's far away from the hustle and bustle of the city centre, and has beautiful beautiful flowers. We didn't explore too much, because I want October to be a discovery.
On the way back downhill, we stopped into a bicycle shop with an old man, glowed hand black with bicycle oil and a flat cap over wispy white hair and clear blue eyes. He told us about his son who owns the bicycle shop, and how he moved from Bury St Edmunds to Cambridge and has worked with bicycles for 30 years before retiring, although he still helps out now and then in the shop. We were about to leave when he stretched open his T-shirt and showed us a pink scar over his sternum. "Quadruple bypass surgery" he said, and showed us where they had cut the veins from his calved and thighs to replace his heart vessels. His legs are deathly painful and the lines around his mouth looked bitter as he told us 'I don't understand why it happened to me', because he has never smoked, drunk alcohol or eaten junk food, and takes brisk walks every morning.
At dinner time Connie tried to convince us all that Shakespeare was Italian.
14-06-2015
We drove into Bury for church. The Anglican Church we went to was very traditional - hymns from a hymn books, wooden pews under the arches of wooden ceilings and call and response catechisms. I love the phrase they say at the end of most catechisms 'Father son and holy spirit...world without end, Amen.' Eternity and trinity in a sentence, both inseparable, both reasons for existence.
After church we met a couple who had lived in Penang, and recalled it in its old days when bicycles were the main form of transport and wearing a shirt or vest when cycling was mandated, although 'most were more hole than vest!' according to the man.
We looked into the St. Edmundsbury Cathedral after that, and were waylaid at the entrance by a lady who very enthusiastically told us all about her cats and how she had advertised for her second husband in the newspaper (!!!)
We stopped by Rougham to give some flowers to Grandad, and then headed home to pack for Scotland.
15-06-2015
We flew from Luton to Inverness - hurtling through the departure hall because it was the FINAL CALL and there was no way we were going to miss Auntie Sheila's cooking.
16-06-2015
The weather is gloomy - 52% chance of rain, and so fishing for the boys and the Culloden Museum and shopping was our final plan after quite a lot of discussing. As we got ready, Tim and Renny played some sort of fame that required them to drape duvets over themselves and lie at inconvenient places in the hallways of the small Victorian cottage. Auntie Sarah stepped on them at one point, and, to their protestations of life threatening injury and agonising pain, shouted over the banisters "Now you know what the Jacobites on Culloden moor felt like!" And then stretched our in front of the window and greeted the sun.
The battle came to a head in the simulation room, where you stood surrounded by 4 wall length screens playing the Culloden moor battle - literally in the middle of the battle, as the Jacobites, tired and spiritually defeated by hunger and an exhausting night march, are massacred by the well-strategised government troops.
Later, when Hannah and I were shopping in Inverness town's charity shops, we came across a busker strumming a guitar and singing in a voice that swelled over the streets like a wave. He was singing an Oasis song, and was joined by a very enthusiastic group of middle-aged women who sang and swayed and cheered and waved their arms and he just smiled and kept on singing.
On the way home, we stopped at ALDI for groceries and had a very VERY quick cashier, who zinged everything through the till so quickly that Hannah and I had trouble putting everything in bags fast enough. When he had finished everything, he looked at us struggling to catch up, gave a wicked grin and chuckled 'I've won!'
It was incredibly windy as Grandma and Auntie Sheila headed home, I saw a little potted plant that looked like a miniature pine tree being battered by the storm, and I thought of God's birds eye view during a hurricane or tycoon, and how He not only sees but feels all - how terrible and yet how majestic...I would have a sensory overload.
Tim and Renny wrapped in their duvets against the blue purple grey sky and ferocious wind. A big group hug, and then we skittered back into the warm.
17-06-2015
We all woke up quite late - the sun was already creeping around the corners of the blinds as I slipped my socked feet on to the floor and padded to the kitchen to make my every day bowl of porridge oats (except in Scotland it's spelt porage oats) We left the house to walk on Culloden Moor, but I stayed in the cafe with Auntie Sheila since she has difficulty walking and the lumpy, pot-holed moor would be a battle by itself for her feet.
Over a warm bowl of lentil soup and a bottle of lavender lemonade we talked about everything from honey, to Psalm 27 (we share our favourite Psalm), to the colour lavender, and C.S Lewis.
After that, we drove to Tomatin, listening to 'Ain't got no' by Nina Simone.
'I ain't got no home, ain't got no shoes
Ain't got no money, ain't got no class
Ain't got no skirts, ain't got no sweater
Ain't got no perfume, ain't got no bed
Ain't got no mind
And what have I got?
Why am I alive anyway?
Yeah, what have I got
Nobody can take away?
Got my hair, got my head
Got my brains, got my ears
Got my eyes, got my nose
Got my mouth, I got my smile
I've got the life
And I'm gonna keep it
I've got the life
And nobody's gonna take it away
I've got the life'
I loved it - such a simple message but it seemed so necessary. We have ourselves and our great and loving God who MADE our selves, and honestly, what more do we need? A life of simplicity, a small happy love-filled life is really completely fulfilled. I look at Auntie Sheila - she hasn't got much: no husband or children, just a small house, but her heart is so so big, and her love for God is so full that it leaks out of her as love and gentleness and kindness that cultivates warmth and beauty and blossoms souls where ever she goes.
I have myself, and what I have I offer to God, and he multiplies my heart so that it overflows, transforming from the shriveled human heart turned in on itself and it's selfish desires into a divine heart, capable of loving and caring beyond myself to the world and its people and creation. This is life.
When we got to Tomatin, we played football and I watched Tim dance a ballet with the ball. After we stopped, I joined grandma, who had found a little patch of sunshine and was leaning against a wall and lapping it up. We inhaled some sun - a precious treasure in the midst of 14 degree weather, when we got into a conversation with a couple of boys who had cycled down to play in the park.
The oldest boy, 14, did most of the talking while a younger boy of about 5 hid behind him and another boy stayed shyly in the background.
He told us that the school that John Macdougall (an ancient ancestor of mine) taught in has been knocked down and changed into an activity centre. He also explained that the best fishing spots (for my brother's benefit) were down the hill, at which point the 5 year old piped up 'I've been down the hill!'
'DO you like fishing?' Dad asked
The little boy looked up and said intensely, 'I HATE fishing.'
They also taught us a little Gaelic (which they learn in school from 9 or 10 years old)
Ciamar a tha thu (c-heem-a-ra-ha-oo) = Hello how are you? (to one person)
Tha gu math (hagu-ma) = I'm well
Mar sin leibh (martian - leave) = Goodbye (to many people)
We headed into the park with them, and curled up on the big swinging basket, and swung ourselves high up despite the gale that was beginning. I put my legs up high and felt almost like I was floating.
Subsequently it got too cold, the boy left us saying 'It's freezing!' and we all headed home.
Auntie Sarah decided to drive over the mountain pass, and so we took a long route, and saw white bob tail rabbits with the tails flashing against the purple heather as they rain, black and white sheep grazing the highlands, some with shaggy half shorn coats, a couple of pheasant and a herd of majestic deer, startled and wary, cantering away as our car stopped - their brown coats dappled in perfect synchrony with the dark greens browns and red-mustards of the hills.
Breath taking.
18-06-2015
Dad Mum and I drove into Avimore today, ready to climb in the cairngorm area. The trek began on a gentle slope - through pine trees and yellow gorse, heavily wooded area. As we got higher up, it got more sparse - the trees thinned and got more gnarly (granny pines, the visitor centre called them), and it got more windy and so we pulled our hoods around our ears.
As I walked I had a strange vision of myself as seen from an altitude - we were just three little dots crawling up the purple brown mountain side, even though it felt like a struggle and effort to us, from the eye of the heavens we were just three humans in a universal struggle, our physical breathlessness nothing in a world gasping to survive past its sin.
Some rocks were covered in the most beautiful lichen: red, purple, green grey, black, blue and yellow. My breath was making the inside of my hood damp.
As we neared the summit, the mist descended on as, as well as a biting wing, a mist so thick we could no longer see the green flames of the pines from the bay of the mountain, or loch morlich either. We sat in a little rock enclave, a hollow cairn built by hands before us. A few other climbers shared the space with us - they were much better prepared, wrapped in fleeces and multiple layers, with visors and climbing sticks and small gas burners to warm up mugs of coffee and tea. One man told us he had been waiting 63 years to take off his jacket on a mountain summit but it has always been far too cold!
The climb down was very steep and slippery, with loose rocks in places. We made it down and the weather began to seem more summer like as the wind abated.
The meadows surrounding us were covered with purpley heather and the little white tufts of cloud grass that Mum and I called ploofs.
We went past the green loch as well with emerald water, grey granite walls and scots pines rearing up and down the granite cliff and around the loch.
Another guys in the shop told us about how he used to travel from London to Singapore in the 1970s, and bribe the customs officials who were not supposed to let him in because at that time Singapore discouraged long hair, which he has.
19-06-2015
As we walked on another country hike in Tomintoul (not so intense today because it was a flat land hike!) Auntie Sarah showed us lichen and air fern and told us to walk on the grass and feel nature beneath our feet. I really do believe Auntie Sarah is in love with the world because she is such a habitually joyful person, who sees the beauty in everything bold and small in nature and in people.
Further into the walk, we found a little sandy beach by a river with the cleanest water - you could see the bottom all across the river. Hannah and I sat on the bank and dipped our feet in - ice cold. We paddled for a while until our feel couldn't stand it and then we dusted the sand off our feet and put our socks back on and kept walking.
Back at home, we played 'I went on holiday and bought a ...' Grandma chose 'a Google' for 'G', saying 'I don't know how to use it but I'll bring it!' and for 'O', Tim chose 'Osama Bin Laden' and Auntie and Grandma had the GREATEST difficulty remembering that, Grandma called him 'Osmund Bin Laden' and Auntie said 'Ogawa Balunga'!!!
Auntie blessed us with two warm apple pies and a prayer for the flight to Paris tomorrow, and we had warmer hugs goodbye.
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