The Toaster

It's been tucked away in a cupboard ever since, three years ago, we did what, at the time, we thought was the unthinkable - we bought a very smart, red, modern toaster which timed the cooking process. Prior to that, we'd always very happily used this relatively ancient piece of technology, a Swan Brand drop-side toaster.

The only features that are automatic are the two drop sides which flip back to the vertical to hold the bread against the heating element. Two springs provide this high-tech automation - hence the finger holding one side open. It's a vintage piece, as is the flex and the brown electric plug, and, like all such things in this household, it brings back memories.

In August 1973 we were staying in a small flat in Weston-Super-Mare which belonged to Mrs MW's Aunt Margaret and, while there, we bought the toaster. This couldn't have been to take to Jamaica - Jamaica's system ran on 110 volts - so we can only think we bought it because the flat lacked a toaster and because Margaret refused to take any money for our week's stay.

We weren't in Weston for a holiday - though it was that too - but because we needed somewhere to live while we waited to board ship in Amsterdam to travel to Jamaica on a two-year teaching contract. We can only think that, by the time we returned to England two years later, Margaret had sold the flat, so she gave us back the toaster.

As well as the toaster, the stay in Weston was memorable because we were visited by our good friends Hilary and Tony Hizzard who, later, were the only friends out of the many we invited who came out to visit us in Kingston.

So this isn't really a toaster any more, though it does still work. It's a souvenir of wonderfully happy times over fifty years ago.

Backies

We set off to walk up to the crofting community of Backies this morning in watery sunshine, following a route that took us along the deserted footpaths of Golspie Glen and then up into....

....the croft land itself, some of the fields now invaded by what looks like a small army of very active moles.

Although it's much milder today there was little else visible in the way of wildlife - the small birds being noticeably absent except near human habitation. The only avian excitement was hearing the call of a buzzard, a single, plaintive cry not repeated. Worryingly, we haven't seen a buzzard in weeks.

There were some fungi to be found, most hiding in the leaf litter - except, of course, witches' butter which likes a prominent position where it can be can be seen from yards away. It seems to grow exclusively on dead gorse wood, with some branches almost covered in it.

This is one of the other fungi we found, a rather fine birch polypore also growing on dead wood.

The purpose of our visit was to buy some croft eggs but we were, once again, disappointed. I can hardly blame the chickens - the recent weather hasn't been conducive to egg laying.

We found one sight to cheer us: an early sign of spring. Foxgloves are one of the first plants to start growing aiming, I suppose, to get a head start on everything else.

Diggers

It doesn't seem to matter how cold it is - and it has been pretty chilly here the last few days, with a low of -4.5C the night before last - the moles don't stop digging, while the human version....

....isn't doing so well. This digger is on the track below Dunrobin Castle where the recent storms have broken through the rock-boulder defences. Diggings such as this, however, offer a great opportunity for....

....the small birds, such as this pipit, to exploit the broken earth for worms and other food; and, as you would expect of a past master at availing itself of a little help from a friend, there was....

....a robin in attendance.

Scrap Books - 2

Much of the space in the four scrap books is given over to what was going on in school in the years between 1990 and 1997, though this is the only photo of me doing what I did day in and day out for almost 30 years. It was taken late in my time at The Plume School, when I had responsibility for the Sixth Form and we needed a picture for our prospectus of somebody actually teaching - and no-one else was prepared to have the photographer experience one of their lessons.

The only other places where I appear is in pictures of field trips, when students brought along cameras as they had to write up their fieldwork for assessment towards their 'A' level grade. This picture was taken when my first Geology 'A' level group went to Shropshire.

Other school photos are of events such as this, when we held an open day and invited staff to attend in fancy dress. Our headmaster, Alan Bilby, was a retiring man whom I came to like and respect, and he surprised us by entering fully into the spirit of the occasion.

These two letters bring back memories of another aspect of my teaching career. For some years I became very involved in my union, the NAS/UWT, becoming secretary of the federation of Essex branches and, through that, elected onto the local exam board's council and as teacher representative on the Essex education committee. 

By 1996 the final scrap book was beginning to show signs of the radical change of direction that was a consequence of a holiday on the Ardnamurchan peninsula, after which we decided to leave Maldon and teaching and build a new life up there - so the cards suddenly started reflecting the great change that would come.

The album has many of the cards given to me when I left but this is my favourite - a group of us had formed a syndicate to improve our chances of winning the National Lottery and I was the treasurer.

The last scrap book ends a couple of years after we moved to Kilchoan on the Ardnamurchan peninsula, I suppose partly because, while the Christmas, birthday and Father's Day cards continued, and our youngest, being in primary school, kept bringing work home which I kept, I was probably too busy running the shop to worry about maintaining this way of recording events, which is a pity.

A Winter Afternoon

We took ourselves for a brisk walk in the mid-afternoon today along the sands below the village promenade, the beach still littered with the kelp and other weed washed up in recent storms, now coated with frost, and came across a small flock of very cold-looking ringed plovers.

It may have been just after three but the daylight seemed to have given up, a cold, grey mist hanging over the village, supplemented by the smoke from many coal fires.

It was as if the place was sliding into a massive deep freeze, the rime hard and crunchy underfoot, the temperature just below zero and falling, but the coldness of the scene suddenly began to change as....

....the sun managed to peep through the clouds lying along the horizon, the warmth growing until....

....the sea glowed in the reflection of a fiery sunset. At which point we found....

....a dandelion by the side of the track, in full flower.

The Cold

Last night's frost was like a wave lapping over the edge of the field into the surrounding grasses and bushes; and, despite sunshine which lasted all day, the frost didn't burn off.

On bitter days like today I'm reminded of my mother who, like all her generation, was loath to complain, but who waxed voluble in her hatred of the cold. She was proud to be descended from the Clan Gunn Wilsons whose home in Caithness had bitter winters which they had to survive, so she blamed her intolerance of the cold on her descent from a Spaniard whose ship was wrecked on the coast of Caithness during the rout of the Armada. So she was at her happiest when living in tropical climes - in Burma when she was a girl, in East Africa between 1935 and 1961, and on her later, much shorter stays in Australia, Africa and the Caribbean.

I have inherited her dislike of the cold. These frosty days may be pretty but I would far rather bake in summer's warmth

First Hard Frost

The warm colours of this morning's sunrise over the Moray Firth, seen between our neighbours' roofs, were are odds with the temperature in the back garden - just below zero - and the ice on the bird baths. So our walk this morning....

.... along an ice-hardened coast path to the north of Golspie, was a careful one. The anvil cloud out over an almost glassy sea looked like a summer thundercloud but will probably shortly be dumping snow along the Aberdeenshire and Moray coasts.

The wildlife, with the exception of the rock doves, a few cormorants, a single curlew, and the usual crows and gulls, had taken cover but we did see, feeding on orange sea buckthorn berries, a flock of twenty or more fieldfares, probably recent immigrants from Scandinavia brought down by the northerly winds.

As we made our way gently home the high cloud pulled away allowing the sun to come out. It isn't just that the sun is always a welcome, cheering sight but also that, shining into our triple-glazed, southeast-facing sun room, it warms the room in no time.