My re-sus team look relieved to see me stagger to the summit of Sgearbh Beahg.

I apologise to you who sets time aside in your busy week to read my blogs as I post them – more than a fortnight has absent-mindedly slipped by; my last post has gone stale, turned up at the corners, and is beginning to grow fur.

Now I know you wouldn’t think anyone could get busy on a Hebridean Island – yet we’ve had such glorious weather this last fortnight (sorry to mention this when merry England’s bluebells have drowned) that I and everyone else have been rushing about to get our summer jobs underway before the midges start breeding: cutting the ‘peats’; painting our boats; ‘planting out’ our strawberries – why, last evening I had to water the vegetables with a hose! No hose pipe ban here, you see – we’ve got lashings of the stuff; and it’s exactly where it should be… brimful in the Lochans. With ducks on it.

Last weekend I celebrated my Birthday by walking to the top of Sgearbh something-or-other with my medical team. When you get to my age and are still recklessly attempting hills with a summit greater than 1500 feet above-sea-level (though I confess that I didn’t start at the sea), it’s reassuring to know that the people you’re holding back are trained in some serious first aid.

After quarter of an hour I noticed that I was beginning to lather-up like a race-horse – which was embarrassing since I was at the back and everyone ahead of me seemed as fresh as a daisy. Eventually I traced the source of my distress to the long-johns I’d put on last October but had forgotten to remove now summer’s come early. I removed them, then and there, blithely sitting down in a pit of adders to do it.

I’m beginning to forget a lot of things, recently. A couple of years ago I forgot my sister’s birthday… a senior moment you will say, kindly – ‘it happens to us all’. But your patience will evaporate in an instant when I tell you that she and I are twins.

I’m not very good at sharing. A week ahead of my (our, then) birthday I tend to drop down a gear or two; start to coast; and abuse the world… I try on the mantle of my new maturity by smoking a pipe; addressing people as ‘old boy’ or ‘my man’ – depending on whether they’re here as a table guest or they’ve come to do the pipes – knowing that they will make allowances for me on account of my age. Who knows – they may even be planning some delightful surprise for ‘my day’ which they wouldn’t wish to spoil with a harsh word spoken in haste now. All this concentration, fascination, I might almost say, with myself, makes me quite forget that I have a twin sister who has pre-eminence over me by having been born ten minutes ahead of me, and that she would like nothing better than a little card – perphaps even a phone call?

So last year we did better than that – we went to visit. Rushing to get the early ferry, bumping into things at five in the morning, the last conversation we have before leaving the house is always the same:

‘Are we going to lock the front door?’

‘I suppose we ought to… where’s the key?’

‘…can’t remember.’ So, off we go for a week, or a fortnight, leaving the house with doors that haven’t been locked since we last saw the key, five years ago, when it was handed to us by the agent.

Justin

Phoenix from the Ashes tells the story of seven years afloat, meeting the wonderful, if strange, folk you meet as strangers on the Celtic shore.

I’ll tell you what’s keeping me awake at night… and it’s all my own fault.  I’ve got a Billy Bragg complex whereby I feel that the world is skewed so that – oh la la! – the ripest fruit falls into the laps of those who already have too much, and impecunious folk like me have to scrabble on the ground looking for wind-fallen, wasp-bitten stuff that isn’t too badly damaged considering what it’s been through.

What happened was that I was at a party on Sunday where among the company were Mr Schroder and his wife – and let’s be perfectly candid… they’re not short of a bob or two. Lovely people – stinking rich. I was dizzy with the implied flattery of it all when Mrs Schroder mentioned that she’d heard about Phoenix from the Ashes, and asked where she could get hold of a copy.  ‘I’ve got one right here!’ I said, lifting the box of books I’d brought in the hope of being asked for one: ‘…and if you’ve got a tenner I’ve even got a pound in change.’

Now, Mrs Schroder only buys goods of the highest quality and authenticity, and naturally enough questioned me closely about what she was getting:

‘Did you write it?’ she said looking me up and down doubtfully.

‘Yes.’ …There was a pause.

‘All of it?’

‘Yes.’ …Another pause.

‘Without any help?’

Living on a remote island far from the bright lights of a bustling city is like living in a forgotten meadow far from the from the Nitrogen-dusted, sterile fields of an intensive farm – the expectation is that anything that does grow will be stunted.

I asked if they wanted it signed – Yes; and did they want a dedication – Yes; and how should I spell their names? …and in all the to-ing and fro-ing of information; passing back and forth of thanks; me giving them a pound and expressing my wishes that they enjoy the book; it wasn’t until they were leaving the room that I realized I hadn’t actually been given a tenner. So – to save embarrassment; to avoid having to stop them at the door with the words: ‘Excuse me… but have you paid for that?’ – I watched the multi-bulti’s walk out, inadvertently carrying a free copy of my book… and a pound of my money to go with it. Why does that feel like a metaphor for my life?

Now, of course, a few quid shouldn’t matter to me – but the reason it does matter is that my chosen line of work is notoriously badly paid, and consequently my finances are as tight as a gnats chuff. What I do, by the way, what I excel at – and I think I can say that without fear of contradiction – is buggering-about-at-nothing-in-particular. Each of us should do the work God fitted us out for – and do that work tirelessly; yet the trouble with my calling is that there are a lot of charlatans out there who try to muscle-in on my line of work, even though they’re not nearly so well-qualified as I am to do it, and I find that the competition is fierce.

Not only is buggering-about badly paid but some people – well-paid enough in their own careers – fancy tinkering about in mine for a ‘change’ and are even willing to do it on a voluntary basis – completely undermining my claims for remuneration.

So, facing the sober prospect of choosing an alternative career – doing some useful work, perhaps (which I know I’d be completely unsuited to – and anyway, what right have I to encroach upon the occupations of others, and take the food from their mouths?) I walked the dog around the loch. It’s just over the hill from the house; it’s quiet… you have a chance to think, and it only takes about twenty minutes to circumnavigate. I sat down at the far end where the silence was so in-yer-face you could carve it into chunks and sell it by mail-order if you could be bothered to lick all the stamps. It was the perfect evening for a bit of work and so I sat there and compiled a list of all the places in the world – hot-spots if you will – where people like me could move and find no work was actually available.  It’s not a complete list, but it does give hope. Give hope… perhaps that’s God’s purpose for me?

Justin

I remember when life was so simple… we used to get up in the morning surrounded by wildlife and wonder whether to spend the day beach-combing; varnish the woodwork of the boat on which we lived; or pootle-about in the bay, offering our sails to the breeze. We were forty – yet we lived like children; on a summer holiday.

After seven years of blissful uselessness we moved back ashore – back to what most people know as ‘the real world’  (though it seemed unreal to us). In towns and cities everywhere people were in a hurry: They were first off the lights; fast into the parking-space; ran into shops; jumped the queue; talked quickly; got annoyed; ran out; left the door open; made a call; filled their boot; selected the wrong gear; had a minor collision; pretended not to notice; roared off into the traffic; jumped the lights; and then disappeared from our lives forever. They seemed so familiar with that lifestyle, and went about it with such industry, that it made us ashamed of being simple.

Have you ever read Life on Walden Pond? In 1845, abnegating the comforts of industrialized America, Henry David Thoreau walked a couple of miles out of his town and into the woods in Connecticut, built himself a shed, and lived on the tranquil shores of a sixty acre lake for two years. ‘Men have become the tools of their tools’, he said, 160 years ago.

We all know people who long to live a simpler life… long for it ourselves; but fear it will spoil our chances of something… ‘we’ll downsize’, they say, ‘when the kids have left home’ – as though what’s killing them is great for their kids.

We found that living on a boat was similar to Thoreau’s experiment, and even had an advantage over it: he went to prison – willingly, and as an act of civil disobedience – for not paying his community charge (and was livid when his Aunt paid it for him, securing his release); yet on a boat you’re not expected to pay community charge because you’re not part of the community. All of which is as refreshing as it sounds – though, like Thoreau, we recognised (and avoided, I hope) the dangers of that – of becoming stigmatized… of allowing suspicion to grow about us newcomers when we dropped our anchor in someone’s shore-side paradise.

In all ways a simple life is easy, we found, if we worked hard at it; and so inexpensive that two or three months work a year – short enough to avoid becoming embroiled in the inevitable ‘work politics’ – kept us in luxuries which went far beyond a generous allowance for our needs. So attractive was our lifestyle aboard that as I sit here, in a house, ashore, even on this remote island, that I can’t think why we don’t go back to it.  Yet there is a reason… somewhere. Perhaps I don’t want to spoil my chances of something?

Justin

The story of seven years aboard – and of the quirky people who choose that life, is told in Justin’s book: Phoenix from the Ashes