990419.2317 tamarisk farm , st agnes

it is now ten weeks since i established myself in this house . in some sense i cannot credit the time has flown so fast . in another i feel i have been here forever , and ten weeks seems far too small a measure .

in any case , i must turn my thoughts to packing once more and prepare to move . although i have until the end of the month , i must venture to the capital ( by which i mean to say london , not hugh town . my perspective is not yet quite so local ) as i have school business next week . few days remain when that is accounted .

it seems my next move shall be to a still more remote situation , a prospect which thrills me . this island of st agnes , most remote of the scilly group , is partnered by an islet called gugh ( pronounced nowadays to rhyme with < few > , but in former centuries as < goo > ) to which it is connected at low tide by a bar of shifting sand . this land was uninhabited between the neolithic period and the 1920s , in which decade a mad scotch farmer leased it from the duchy and determined to bring it to productivity . he built a house and a barn , both with aerofoil-shaped roofs of reinforced concrete to deflect the prodigious winds . he kept cattle and pigs and fowl and planted shelter belts as a prelude to cropping . but the soil is poor and i think it was not a great success .

the barn is now converted as a house , inhabited by rhondda wraith and alan reekie . the old house itself is rarely habited . indeed alan is most of the time required at his boat yard in faversham , on the east coast of britain . so rhondda lives there for long stretches on here own and seems very happy , for twelve hours each day cut off from the rest of the world . she has invited me to stay there awhile , as she has engagements on the mainland and the cats and garden must be tended . the only possibility for greater remoteness than this lies five miles away , standing one hundred and eighty feet tall on the bishop rock , a light to mark the western extent of the archipelago . johann was telling me that a bbc reporter spent a month there in the late 1940s and had to be brought off in a straight-jacket having gone quite mad . in those days there was a crew of three to keep him company . now it is unmanned . but with a satellite phone , a laptop and several month’s supplies …

yesterday conditions were favourable to the year’s first expedition under sail . johann and i took out joffy’s customised silhouette for a sedate potter round smith sound in the light breeze . i loved every second of it but felt terribly rusty and clumsy . i cannot wait for the next chance .

from the water i spied a white undulating mass in the water against some rocks . by this morning it had been deposited by the high tides just outside tim and sue hicks’ campsite at troytown , the decomposing remains of a pilot whale . fifteen feet of greyish-white flesh with ribs sticking out and a few teeth still left in its mouth . tim stood over it looking rather wistful , steeling himself for the task of towing the stinking putrefying mass back out to sea and hoping it would wash up on someone else’s island .

today it is cold , wet and windy . the sea has got big again and i spent several delighted hours on the rocks with apocolyptic geysers and plumes of spray filling the air around me .

oh , and last night i put together an introductory site for the digital workshop . nothing much to it yet . http://www.scillonia.org.uk if you’d like to see a handful of photos from february and march .

: cH

990414.2237 old town , st mary’s

greetings from the the lock , stock and barrel , in whose restaurant i sit , writing by a candle , the only customer . eurotrash is projected on a big screen in the main bar . the handful of customers laughs dutifully at each saucy gag .

990415.1339 watermill , st mary’s

sitting outside gaz and button’s wooden cabin in the sun , surrounded by bluebells and snowdrops . i hear birdsong , the wind in the trees , the woody chatter of bamboo wind-chimes . this is the far northern end of st mary’s , an intimidating distance of two and a half miles from hugh town . this end of the island , in fact almost anywhere outside town , is referred to as < up country > , the term used to suggest somewhere vaguely but prohibitively distant .

.1533 hugh town , st mary’s

perched on a mooring weight on the quay , awaiting a boat back to agnes . the wind has dropped after several days of gales . my friends christian and james were down from london over the weekend and we had an entertaining trip over to st mary’s on monday . we squeezed onto the lyonesse lady , the sturdy steel vessel which conveys freight and supplies between the islands . the channel between agnes and st mary’s is deeper and more exposed than those between the other islands . so once we left the lee of the island we were exposed to the huge grey rollers sweeping in from the open ocean , each one high enough to obscure all sight of the surrounding land as we sank into its trough . the lady , surely handled , shook and leapt as she pushed onward , spray flying across the deck . the three of us spent most of the trip grinning like idiots as we braced ourselves against the bulkheads . james’ little waterproof camera finally came into its own .

everything seems rather quiet now after two successive weekends of visitors . first my parents and caroline over easter , then christian and james last weekend . these were all first time visitors to agnes , though my parents have been to the islands before . it’s been a delight to see everyone and show them round .

on sunday the first fully-fledged seaweed experiment was undertaken . we harvested a quantity of delicate green sheets of sea lettuce from cove vean , steamed it for several minutes and combined it with sea spinach , chopped flowers and stems of wild garlic , steamed alexander stems and walnuts . christian took over for the final stages and deftly produced a pasta sauce . the seaweed contributed a delicate tang which i find hard to relate to any other flavour . the whole ensemble was quite delicious , all the better for knowing that most of its components had been picked with our own hands just a few hours before .

this meal followed the previous day’s feast of two grey mullet caught by kitt legg , baked with lemon and olive oil , to my mind the finest fish taken from these waters .

990416.1524 tamarisk farm , st agnes

i’ve just help johann drag joffy’s heavily-customised silhouette from the life-boat shed ( where we dragged it with christian and james’ help at the weekend ) to the bottom of the quay , from which the rising tide will lift it over the next hour . the technology for accomplishing this is simple : a plank underneath the boat’s centre keel with a loop of rope at one end by which it can be dragged slowly by tractor , with hands supporting both sides to keep the bilge keels from scraping the ground .

today the water is totally still and flat . it’s almost as if the week’s storms never happened .

: cH

990401.1933 st mary’s

o golly , this is beautiful . i’m sitting on a crate down at the rechabite quay , looking across hugh town’s harbour with samson , bryher and tresco hazy on the horizon . the sun sets behind the garrison , sillhouetting the elizabethan star castle . the tide is high , the sea laps the granite quay . a couple of youths circle the grass to my left on their bikes . two people and a dog on the narrow crecent of sand . forty odd vessels slowly turn on their moorings .

these days have been rewarding . more threads woven into the fabric , some delightfully unexpected harmonies discovered .

several hours this afternoon were spent with julia mackenzie at her house on the strand , playing through various pieces on two pianos . my reading is not as sharp as it was , but i enjoyed it immensely . julia was for many years the islands’ music teacher . more recently she has been director of music at a series of prep schools around the country . now she is back to stay , and the islands are the beneficiaries of her energy and passion .

i first met julia through henry doughty , head of music at truro school when i was there , assistant organist at truro cathedral and my first organ teacher . it was henry who first introduced me to these islands . i discovered from julia that he and his wife francesca will be here next week . we plan a surprise for him . he has no idea i am here .

i should head for the main quay now , where the spirit is due at eight to collect johann from a council session . the sky is huge and striated in purple and orange . it must look magnificent from castella downs on agnes .

990402.2010 tamarisk farm

whew ! just back from an exhilarating cycle round wingletang downs , bumping and sliding over the granite , sand and bramble . this was the test run for johann’s newly souped-up machine . when i first arrived i was happy to discover an ancient mountain bike in the shed . but my first enthusiastic sortie down to the post office ended smartly with the ping of the rear deraileur falling to bits . johann and i took a few inches out of the chain , reducing the number of gears from eighteen to , er , one .

undaunted i ordered a new part from a cycle shop in penzance . it arrived just as i was leaving for st mary’s on tuesday . i spent several hours this afternoon with a socket set , some wd40 and the ingenious little omni-tool adam gave me last year . the gears are working , the tyres are taut ( though profoundly wrecked ) , the brakes just about work , the saddle sits three inches above the instantly-crippling position in which it was rusted solid . in short the thing works . there remains a lingering sense that the hopelessly corroded and worn-out beast is liable to collapse at any moment , but until then it’ll be a lot of fun .

whilst i was on st mary’s nick kindly trusted me with his gorgeous aluminium creature . i couldn’t find the lights , so i was blessed with the experience of speeding along the deserted lanes by moonlinght from gaz’s cabin at watermill . an experiene further heightened by the fact that i was just a little the worse for wear . quite a contrast to my late-night journeys across london , with their mournful street-lamps and poisoned air .

tomorrow my parents and caroline arrive for easter . i pray they see some of the divine weather of these last few days , but fog is forecast .

: cH

990330.1555 kingfisher of st mary’s

just leaving the jetty on agnes on the flood tide , out into the grey lumpy roadstead . i’m off to st mary’s for a couple of days .  tellingly , this is a tripper boat . laid up through the winter and only brought into service during the tourist season . the escalation of visitors over the last week has been quite noticable . mainly people staying on st mary’s and visiting agnes for the day . on such a small island the influx of just ten or twenty people makes a surprisingly large impact . no longer are one’s walks likely to be solitary . on this boat there are nine other passengers , none of them islanders . two bird-watchers with their mighty binoculars . a couple of elderly ladies traveling together , muffled up to the chin against the wind . a middle-aged couple cooing rather sweetly over one another . a dour-countenenced couple and their young , well-behaved , daughter . easter is one of the busiest times of the year , after which there’ll be a hiaitus until june .

a remarkable success last night on the web . as long-term readers will know i’m curious to perform culinary experiments with seaweed . last night i fed the cue < edible seaweed > into alta vista and top of its list of returns was a site devoted to cooking and eating seaweed . i’ll send out the details when i get back to agnes . so , those of you who are planning to visit me : be warned . there are liable to be some strange delicacies in store for you .

: cH

990326.2345 tamarisk farm

here i am again , lying in bed with my psion glowing up at me from the pillow . it seems a long time since i last wrote under these circumstances . my initial frenzy of writing has calmed down a bit , much as predicted . for the first month every step brought its rush of intense new experience . now i am becoming more deeply engaged with my environment and my work . there are still frequent moments of joy and absorption , but i no longer feel the same need to rush to my keyboard and detail each one .

i am conscious that my record has to date been exclusively positive , something i think worthy of comment . the basic truth is that i am loving what i am doing , but it is also true that i tend to look at my circumstances in a positive light . furthermore , when one takes such a leap as i have , departing from normal expectations , there is a pressure to prove oneself not to have done a foolish thing .

none of this would matter , but i have claimed this string of despatches as a part of my work . a record of what it was like for me to spend a year on an island . thus i should apply the same standards as i do to other elements of my documentation .

so i shall take this opportunity to record that i did feel a bit lonely earlier this evening . not for more than half an hour , and not with any great drama , but i had a wistful sense that i would like to be in a relaxed environment with some friends . the context of this is that i spent most of the period between four and eleven cataloguing and scanning slides . i took a short break to eat , but probably not more than twenty minutes . i am very content doing this work ( though the oft-crashing scanning software continues to irk me ) , but it would be even better if leavened with company .

there we are , i don’t wish to dwell on it . indeed it is worth mentioning that i sometimes experienced far more intense isolation in london , a city where one is ever conscious of things going on to which one is not party . and i would say i was a pretty social creature , latterly at least .  it’s been another sunny spring day here . i find it increasingly hard to make myself sit inside in front of a computer during daylight hours .

: cH

990325.2305 tamarisk farm

my new jaz drive arrived this evening . don’t know whether fedex has a special fleet of courier jet-skis or something for places like this ( i can imagine the kind of people who would drive the things ) , but one way or another it turned up . so now , as i write , the past five years are fairly literally flashing past as my accumulated files are copied over , the name of each displayed on the screen for a moment . every one with its memories and evocations .

for the first time my project has a tangible hook from which to suspend the vagueries . out of discussions with various people emerged the idea of the scillonia digital workshop , a distributed production / training / regeneration initiative . so now i’m trying to write proposals and get the concept hammered into shape . i’ve a feeling there could be something quite interesting in there .

the wedding was an amazing event . after a grey and miserable start to the day ( joffy and i were down at the hall by eight , trying to fasten down the canvas awning to prevent the whole thing being carried out to sea ) the sun insouciantly popped out and shooed away all the clouds an hour or so before the event kicked off . the little church , down by the water at periglis , was crammed full . a toddler was allowed to wreak havoc throughout the service , lolloping around and gurgling with delight at the eccentric goings-on . piers and rachel got through without fluffing their lines and escaped afterwards on wendy’s electric buggy , complete with big white bow .

the reception was outrageously fed by susan , ranging from hunks of lobster to parcels of cornish goat’s cheese wrapped in sea spinach . the day ended with an unreconstructed singsong in the turk’s head . i wound up with plenty of photos , some good sound recordings and a foul hangover . piers and rachel solved the problem of where to go for a honeymoon by fleeing to an even smaller island ( population twenty ) in the caribbean .

i’ve been feeling bad about how little exercise i’m getting compared to the daily cycle runs across london in my past life . yesterday evening i threw a frisbee around with aidan while ross was milking the cow in the next field . a heavy fog rolled in off the sea and put paid to that . but it’s a start . i must repair johann’s rusty old bike .

nato aircraft are bombing serbia , an independent sovereign state , for the second night running . these are strange times . even here there is a sense of foreboding .

: cH