Roland Ladley's Blog, page 14

Join the Jodie Comer fan club

I think I’m in love with Jodie Comer. You know, the Killing Eve actress. We have, not necessarily by design, been binge-watching her stuff, noting that she is still only 28, younger than both of our girls. We both loved Killing Eve – the first series is the best of the three. Then we watched Help!, the Ch4 series about the meltdown in care homes due to covid over last Spring (C is an ex-nurse/ex-care assistant, so she had a view). The thing about Comer is she switches accents so easily. In Help! she’s a scouser, which is actually where she comes from. In Killing Eve she’s Russian, or Ukranian. And then we watched Thirteen, a BBC series about a kidnap (of her) followed by 13 years of imprisonment in a Bristol cellar – lot’s of, ‘Oooh, we’ve been there!’. And then last night we watched the film Free Guy – it’s brand new and on Disney. She plays an American alongside Ryan Reynolds in a computer game romp – lots of special effects, which don’t spoil the romance and the comedy. It is a perfect Saturday night film. In all of these she is, in my view, quite brilliant. She does horror, intensity, comedy and romance, in any accent you want. And does them perfectly. Just brilliant.

Greggs treat

Of course that seems to point at the fact that all we do is watch telly. Well that is true, certainly after supper. Between 8 and 10 we’re sat in front of the box. More accurately, it’s what I do. I love it. C knits, which means she’s got one eye on the screen and one eye on knitting one, pearling one, which, in itself, is a bit of a neat trick. I have always loved the escapism of a good film, and with Netflix, Prime and Disney, there is an endless supply of really good stuff. Unfortunately, no Sam Green series yet, but I live in hope.

Book 8 in a scrawl

Books, then. Well I’m just about to start chapter 7/20, which is really good going for me. I sit Doris with her gas heater on, and type away. As you know the target is 1,000 words a day, a number I have consistently managed since I started at the beginning of October. More often I’m breaking 1,500, and I have smashed through 2,000 or more than one occasion. To add some perspective for would-be authors, a standard novel is 80,000 words. If you can be disciplined and put out 1,500 words a day, you’ll have a book in under two months. It really is that simple. You just have to write.

It takes me about an hour to write 700 words, but that depends upon how much research I have to do. If I’m writing dialogue, that can be quite quick. If I’m describing something or some place technical, then it can take a lot longer. This time round I start writing at 2 pm and I’ve finished by 4.30. At which point I am shattered. And then, before I go to bed, I carry out a ‘trash edit’, which takes all the nonsense and tries to form it into a first draft. I then note what’s happened in a timeline … and I’m done. Phew.

and we’re still running

It’s slightly complicated at the moment because we’re also listening to the completed Unsuspecting Hero audiobook. A sort of final edit. So far we’re 4 chapters in and I am loving it. Whereas I did think we’d need a good deal more editing, that seems less and less likely. Hopefully, and notwithstanding any vagaries of an upload onto Audible, we should have a product out there in time for Christmas. (I say we because it’s three of us: Alice Porter, my narrator, me and James, my son-in-law.) Hurrah! We do need a new front cover, CD-sized, and Jen and I are working on that at the moment. I’ll keep you up to speed as this evolves.

Stay safe everyone. The numbers down here are v poor after the fiasco of the thousands of false-negatives from a PCR test firm which hadn’t been thoroughly regulated. We are keeping our door shut …

In the mire …

The good news is that I had a night away on Monday with my ex-Army mate Kenn. Kenn is the same political persuasion as me, which is a surprise as he’s a hard-edged Aussie. (You may also be surprised how many of my ex-Army pals are as disconcerted with this govt as me.) Which means I’m not going to bore you with the current thoughts of Chairman Roland. Hurrah, I hear you say. But I must mention one thing … I think pressing Ladley-only issue at the moment, other than all of the wider issues affecting everyone here, is whether the Korean government puts the UK on a ban-list due to covid rates any time soon. That would mean Bex, Steven and Henry won’t be able to come home for Christmas. Steven’s not been home for two years and his grandfather is v poorly. It would be v sad that, and I have to say it, this government’s mismanagement of the crisis creates that additional sadness.

my mate Kenn

Personally I’m in a bit of emotional mire at the moment. Leaving aside the heavy weight of the more wider mess, which does play on my mind, I think that semi-retirement is beginning to confuse me, especially heading into deep autumn. I have felt this way before, so I’m not surprised, but the fact that I have dropped most of the Compassionate Leadership stuff (I’ve taken three calls so far this school term, and I don’t think I’m going to have many more) has removed a focus which, I guess, used to make me feel fulfilled – in a way. But with that responsibility came stress which, whilst I am more than capable of managing, was something I no longer wanted. It was a double-edged sword. There were benefits and disbenefits. I can see that. And, having had this period of reflection, and now pretty pressed with writing book 8, I’m absolutely convinced I don’t want to go back to that sort of work. So I have to live with feeling slightly underfulfiled.

Of course, it would all be better if the books were selling. Which they’re not, in any numbers. My bad, of course. I had another fab review the other day, from someone I don’t know, so the market is there … I just need to do something about it. I know, I know. Use the spare time thrown up by not doing the CL thing and spend that on marketing your books, Roland.

Got it. Thanks.

That’s not going to happen. Not yet.

Kenn and his partner do a lot of house-sitting … and a dog comes too

Book 8 is going well. I’m at 33k words and sprinting a little. I have some plot issues to sort over the next couple of days and that will fill in the time. As Kenn said to me on Monday, ‘Don’t you consider the writing as a full time job?’ He may be right.

And, for the record, I’m not complaining. I’m just talking. We have the v best of lives, we know that. We’ve sort of booked skiing in January, we’re away on Monday seeing C’s middle sister, then a weekend with Mary and then mum, and we’re helping out with Jen and James’s house after that, as his father (ex-builder) comes down to knock a couple of walls down. I’m going, not necessarily because they need another pair of hands, but more because it will be fascinating to see how it’s done (J&J are making downstairs open-plan).

So all is good. Apart from Brexit, Covid, the divisive and hateful political discourse, and having a clown in charge of all of our destinies. Apart from that. Oh, and we’ve just come back from having our flu jabs. So that’s an hurrah!

Stay safe … I don’t need to say anymore.

Still a bit gloomy

Nothing’s going to change, is it? COP 26 is in 10 day’s time and already the US are stepping back on their commitment, looking instead for technological solutions rather than reducing fossil fuel usage by edict. His Borisness has said that capitalism will find a way. The thing is, and there’s a named rule for this and I’ve forgotten what it’s called, when you make something more efficient it gets used more. Air travel is a case in point. Our planes are massively more efficient than they were 50 years ago … as a result we use them massively more. As a trained civil engineer, it was always know that if you stick in a new road, rather than reduce traffic you increase it. The M25 is a case in point.

I love this lad so much. You can’t stop me from trying to protect his future.

And I am no climate scientist. And I/we are still part of the problem. You know we’re talking about flying away somewhere for a week in November (although due to various other constraints, that’s unlikely to happen). And Doris kicks out about 25 mpg – on diesel. That’s all a bit messy. And, yes, we will go skiing this January come what may. And, hopefully, fly somewhere to a beach for a month in the Spring. We are part of the problem. Although, in fairness, we do try very hard to offset our carbon footprint by using bikes, driving carefully, turning off lights (living in a tiny home) etc.

So what’s my point? If we, who I think are in the better half of people who consider the climate, still cannot curb their ambitions to travel (etc), then how can anyone expect your average company to deliver carbon neutral workspaces and products if they have to make a profit? Even with the best will in the world, we can’t expect firms to unilaterally make a loss – or go bust – in order to protect the planet. They have to be either told to by legislation … and some will fail … or they have to be incentivised to do so. That falls to governments. Absolutely. And the same’s for us. We need to be ordered to run our lives differently. In Germany you’re fined if you don’t recycle household waste correctly. That’s been around for decades and it should happen here. Maybe there should be stricter rules on people like us using big diesel vehicles for pleasure? If we are made to pay a hefty green tax for Doris, which could be used directly to fund solar farms (etc), then we would either pay the money or sell her to someone who wanted to afford it. Or perhaps we might have to pay for a government tracker which restricts/taxes miles driven? Who knows, in that case maybe we’d buy a smaller and more efficient van? And I’m sure you could think of scores more individual and collective incentives/rules to drag down carbon usage, which can only be set by government? But my point is, government has to lead here. It has to direct. Goodwill isn’t going to work. C and I are proof of that.

connect to later …

Or maybe you think it’s a hoax? Or that the asteroid may miss the planet? Or that technology will solve the problem, especially when it gets really bad and people from Sudan, who can no longer live in the increased heat and are without water, emigrate en masse into Egypt where a humanitarian crisis sparks a war with Israel which, in turn, leads to conflict with Iran. I’m a thriller writer. I make these things up for not much of a living.

So we’ll see what COP 26 delivers, shall we? The problem for me – and you know I’ll say this – is that I see this as an opportunity for Johnson to bluster and buffoon, making promises he has no intention of keeping, and jokes which are not funny and undermine his message. For him it’s about a world stage on which he might perform. It’s odd, but we’re catching up with the BBC2 Blair/Brown documentary (it’s very good). Tony Blair had faults, for sure, but he delivered the NI peace process where no-one else could. And he delivered it without lying or joking or writing a book on Churchill or having an affair or promising many things and delivering very little. We have had some very determined and hard working leaders in our time (Thatcher was surely one). Now, not so much.

I worry for COP 26.

Anyhow. We had C’s sister for a couple of nights, which was nice. She has two shouty Jack Russells which, in the end, were lovely. And I’m 27,000 words into book 8 and really loving it. Oh … and watch Click Bait on Netflix. It’s really good.

Stay safe. We’re still losing over 100 people a day which, if you think about it, is not really an acceptable situation. I said to C yesterday that we are going to get this disease. There is an inevitability about it now – especially here, when our daily case load is 5 times higher than any other European country. I just hope we get through it without any long term effects.

LIfe goes on …

Grrrr. That’s all I’ll say. You can complete the next 600 words. Whether Johnson thinks he looks like Churchill as he poses at an easel in the Spanish villa of the man he elevated to the House of Lords, as the country smoulders – we will never know. Stop me now, before my fingers run away with themselves.

knitter in chief

Hasn’t the weather been fab? A proper Indian summer. C and I have been busy, in a semi-retired way. I’ve sold some stuff on eBay (Doris’s old satellite dish and accompaniments), a process which seems to be much more senior than it was when we first started doing this all those years ago. But, it worked, and we’re now £130 better off – although eBay hold the money for a month and take a hefty cut (10%?), which is nice for them. I done some stuff in Doris and C, as is her want, has been out gathering pressies for Henry’s first birthday – has it really been that long? We both want to go over now, but are being sensible. It seems v likely they’ll be back for Christmas and we are having a discussion about going out in the Spring. We’ll see.

A couple of months ago I reported on my running which, having had 4 weeks sat on my backside in the Focus, I assumed had taken a hit … but, no. My ‘5 km’ (actually 4.6km), where the target is 20 minutes, is still within my grasp – I have broken 20 minutes (19.50 my best, the day before yesterday) twice since Scotland, and I’ve beaten my best around my extended run (5.8km?) clocking under 28 minutes twice in a week. So that’s all good.

EBay bonanza

And the book’s going well. It started slowly – that is my enthusiasm for it started slowly. But it has picked up with the introduction of two new characters, and with a really exciting terrorist plot to stick in the middle. As a result I wrote 3,000 words yesterday (target is 1,000) and I am almost on chapter 3. And I know I moaned a bit last time about the of Black Bulls and White Horses blog tour, but I was bounced back by a interaction I had on Sunday night. On the back of posting the four signed copies of The Belmonte Paradox to my four beta readers, I put a call out for next year’s betas. And I got five responses – three new ones. Other than their enthusiasm to be involved in the process, which was nice, one of them was from an old soldier pal who I’ve not spoken to for 20 years. He messaged me to say his daughter, who loves the series (I had no idea – why would I?) would be delighted to help. She and I then exchanged messages – she’s on book 7 and captivated by the series. All I can say is ‘Aw’!”

And we had Peter and Karen round for supper last night, once again allaying fears that none of our friends want to come to our v small and pokey house. We had a lovely time.

it’s that time of year again

That’s it. Stay safe. 181 people died of covid 19 yesterday. Read that again. 181. Sure, nearly all are unvaccinated. But not all …

It’s all about the book …

our evening TV pose …

It’s all about the book(s) this week. The news from the spotlight tour for of Black Bulls and White Horses has come and gone. Ten spotlights – a combination of interviews (me writing answers to questions), the blurb, an excerpt and a bit about me. And one, lacklustre, review. The result? Not a single sale (of that book – the Sam Green series continues to plod along). So what’s the point? I’m not sure. The cost to me was about £100 and, if you were the COO of my company you’d be expecting 100 sales (the book’s on for 99p) to make the marketing cost effective. Alas, that hasn’t happened.

Why? The first and obvious answer is the book isn’t good enough, or the market was poorly placed. I think me being ex-military, white and a man doesn’t help. But it’s got to be about the book and its genre. The spotlights were fine, but the title, the cover, the blurb … they didn’t fire any canons. Oh well. It’s a lesson.

At the same time I’ve been cracking on with book 8. You already know that, after Shetland, I’m a month late. Has the lack of sale dented my ambition? Well, no. Luckily military training makes you get on with things. And I am very good at that. The target is always 1,000 words a day and, on average, I’ve been putting out 1,500. And they’re OK words. I have a plot, I’ve started to introduce two new characters (which is always a bit tricky, but fun) and, as always, there’s a lot of research needed. And I’m getting there with all of that. And I can’t see that slipping away from me, not this time. However, is this sustainable? Can I really keep writing what some people really, really like (check out the reviews), when ‘some’ just about covers my costs?

That will depend on the audiobook, and whether or not that takes off. And, even if it doesn’t, I might give Sam a year off and try something different next year. With the success of Richard Osman’s comic thriller (I’ve started it and love it – C couldn’t cope with the writing) there is clearly a market for a certain type of thriller. I have a sense of humour, after all. Who knows though … I am not Richard Osman.

filling up the escape pod

Other than that the car passed its MoT – which is fab. (Bless it.) In the vein of preparing for the apocalypse, we filled Doris with diesel and gas. She is our escape pod. And it seems very likely that Bex, Steven and Henry will come home for Christmas, which is great news. And I think we’re more likely to catch a flight to somewhere hot between now and then, rather than take Doris away. We could do with being luxuriated.

In the meantime … stay safe. Our numbers are three times higher than anywhere else in Europe and whilst we’re unlikely to succumb to the disease, long covid remains an issue. Till mid-week …

I’m preparing for the apocalypse

I feel as though I’m preparing for the apocalypse. I’m currently fashioning an extra 100W solar panel for Doris, which I keep in her garage and put out when we need more than the 200W on the roof. It’s been a job I’ve been meaning to do for a while … I have now found the time.

it’s all downbeat, so have a photo of a panda

But why the apocalypse? Well, come on, keep up. (And I appreciate I’m about to lose my three conservative readers.) I am worried. Really worried. I was worried at the beginning of the Brexit process, which was subsequently heightened by the pandemic and has now been launched into orbit by the current political rhetoric. 

There were no downsides to Brexit, apparently. It was all sunlit uplands. £350 million a week for the NHS. Our existing trade deal with the EU would be replaced with better ones … and a special one with the US. The Germans needed us more than we needed them. On the other hand, Project Fear spoke of labour shortages, leading to product shortages and the failure to pick crops and man/woman our abattoirs. Leaving the single market would lead to a reduced GDP. No one would want our services anymore … and they would turn to Amsterdam and Frankfurt instead. There was even mention of gas shortages and an increase in utility costs.

And the pandemic hit. We had the opportunity to extend our place in the EU for two years, but ignored the offer. We would do better on our own.

Now we find that Project Fear is pretty much project reality. Sure the gas price hike has nothing to do with Brexit and many of the EU nations are short of lorry drivers. But this government got rid of our gas storage facilities ten years ago, in the same way it ignored the pandemic risk assessment and we made up (slowly) our approach to covid as we went along. But the EU doesn’t have a problem with stocking its shelves because the drivers move about the place at will. And its energy prices are offset by better storage facilities and the ability to buy collectively. Johnson may claim we have the best GDP growth, but that is because our GDP dropped more than any other 1st world nation in the pandemic. Apparently our growth now is well below Germany, for example.

But that’s not why I’m preparing for the apocalypse. I’m getting ready not because a hard Brexit has made our ability to function as a country more difficult. I’m getting ready because, in the last two weeks, the government has told us ‘this was the plan all along’. We were always going to be heading for a high-skill, high-wage society. That was, apparently, the point of Brexit. It’s up to industry to pay people more, to attract more HGV drivers, to upskill the more mandronic jobs, like cleaning and caring, and turn them into skilled butchers and lorry drivers. Better wages was the planned outcome. And it’s going to take a bit of time, but we can do it. Apparently.

Good. Except … that wasn’t the point of Brexit, was it? Brexit was about not being controlled by Europe – regaining our sovereignty (whatever that means) – by stopping freedom of movement, and spending that £350 million a week on the NHS. At no point was Brexit about a shortage of workers which would mean industry would have to pay more to people already in the country (supply and demand). It was never about wage growth. The new mantra of ‘high-skill, high-pay’ is, quite clearly, a political expedience to where we find ourselves. It is a consequence of Brexit. It was never its aim.

But wage growth is good, surely? Well, yes. Possibly. Under certain circumstances. I’m no economist but I know this much. Wage growth is good provided it comes from increased productivity. Industry cannot just afford to pay people more. They have to find the income to do that. And the easiest way to find that money is to increase the prices of their goods and services. Which means inflation, which is already set to top 4% by the end of the year, a figure unheard of unless you are my age. And higher wages are only a good thing if inflation keeps below that growth. Which seems unlikely. With this comes the perennial problem for government workers, like the NHS and teachers. They don’t actually sell anything. Unless you privatise the NHS (I shivered as I wrote that statement; Boots, apparently is set to offer GP-like services for £15-a-time), you can’t increase the cost of care … or education. Does that mean that we’re going to increase wages for everyone, but government employees – who will still have to pay higher prices in the shops. And, wait for it, more expensive mortgages. That’s the way the Bank of England will try to curb inflation. They will put up interest rates. 

And, if we’re now upskilling everyone, who’s going to care for your gran? There’s already an issue in some cities where ambulance and bin-lorry drivers are being enticed into driving for industry where their wages are now much better (to attract the shortfall in drivers). Who’s going to replace them? Who’s going to fill the care slot. Or clean the hospitals? And it’s not as easy as temporary visas. There have been 127 applicants for the 5,000 temporary HGV drivers from the EU, to fill our shelves between now and Christmas. 127. Why? Because, among others, the febrile atmosphere created in this country against EU migrants by the rhetoric of people like Priti Patel. Why would anyone bother?

I haven’t even mentioned the NI protocol. 

So … I’m preparing for the apocalypse. At the same time I’ve started book 8 in the Sam Green series, I have a new phone (Motorola G9 Play= £99 from Argos), we are close to sorting out the house, and have finished Midnight Mass (grown up vampire stuff  – absolutely first class) and Squid Game (Korean thriller – what on earth was that about?). Both are on Netflix.

and so it begins …

Must go, though. I’ve got to fashion a spear from some wood.

Stay safe. 

Phew … we’re home

We made it home. We had a lovely time at Mary’s but, goodness, it’s great to be home. We found enough petrol and still have half a tank, although my neighbour tells me that only one on five local stations are open. No worries, the army are on the case tomorrow. I must admit, I don’t remember that being on the side of the bus. And I don’t remember (not) voting for – what the Conservatives are telling us Brexit is now all about – better skilled, higher waged workforce. Fine. That’s good. But let’s be honest, it’s a consequence of Brexit, where shortage of labour is driving up wage inflation – it’s not by design. And without increased productivity that will mean higher inflation across the board … one leads to the other and they do cancel each other out. Personally I think they’re clutching at straws. And the outcome for us is not going to be good.

Rant over.

99k miles … MoT next week

We have spent the last two days sorting our lives out. I’ve reshaped the garage (with all our new camping gear) and we’ve also had a go at putting Doris back together. There is still stuff to do, but that will all come in time. I’ve put some stuff on Facebook marketplace (the old satellite dish, etc) and we’ve got gear to take down the charity shop and then we should be back on the level. It’s fair to say that C’s not been feeling her best (3 weeks in a tent?), but is gradually feeling better, so we’re taking it easy.

I found out today that the Focus’s MoT is due next week. I knew this, but had forgotten, if you get my drift. Assuming I can find a garage to take her to, the same rules as last year apply. If there’s going to be a huge bill, then it may well be time for a new car. We’ve saved for this eventuality. But I think both of us hope it doesn’t come to that. I’ll let you know.

And there’s a lot of book stuff going on this week. First, as you know, we’re getting there with the audiobook. My narrator has finished her work (until the edit) so now we wait for the technical bit to be done before we listen again. The plan is still for it to be out by 1 December. Second, I start book 8 tomorrow. That’s always a huge thing; this year is no different. And, very nervously, I have a blog tour running next week for of Black Bulls and White Horses. What does that mean? I’m not sure, although self-published authors swear by them. What seems to happen is: I pay $120 to a person in the US; they get their bloggers to read my book; the bloggers then review the book. There are 16 separate events planned over four days. That’s 16 separate people, who read books for a living, writing a review on my book. Yikes, is all I can say. Again, I’ll let you know how it goes …

I’m petrified …

Oh … and we’re watching Midnight Mass on Netflix. It is fab.

Stay safe.

Mmm, there’s a thought

I suppose the question now, other than which local fuel station has petrol, is, what crazy thing should we do next? It’s a tricky one. There are some blocks of stuff in the programme. Certainly we would hope to ski for most of January. And I think we’d look to do the Baku trip next autumn. But that leaves some gaps.

C’s nickname is Doris, so I couldn’t resist snapping her Czech cousin’s truck

We’re with Mary at the mo. She has a lovely guy called Jim who does her garden on a Wednesday morning. Jim, by his own admission, works to go on holiday … ‘you only live once’, all that sort of stuff. Leaving aside covid, which blunted his holiday ambitions, this year he’s been on a round-UK cruise and pulled out of another recently due to sickness. Him and ‘his missus’ then quickly booked an all inclusive to Kos. He flies tomorrow. It’s £450 each … for everything.

We did Tunisia all inclusive a couple of years ago and loved it. And, just now, C and I had a quick discussion about whether we should just book somewhere. Tui, for example, would fly us to Greece for £350 all inclusive this weekend. It’s really tempting. But, as C pointed out, doesn’t that rather run against our so-called green credentials? She’s probably right. But, if I don’t get warm soon, I’ll be booking that flight.

That does leave us with a bit of a hole between now and Christmas, and a larger one next Spring. I think we have a block of ‘Doris’ away, possible later this month, or more likely in the run up to Christmas. We both fancy the Norfolk coast. Lots of wild, deserted, long sandy beaches … framed by the grey North Sea. And then there’s the Spring. Now that’s interesting.

We have a number of things on our bucket list – one of which is to winter in Spain on campsite in Benidorm (or similar). It’s a motorhome cliche, but I’d like to give it a try. There are many more, but one which particularly takes my fancy now is flying (I know, Greta wouldn’t be pleased) to Central America, landing with only a hotel booked for two nights. And then finding a shack by the beach for 5 weeks. Just us, endless cocktails, a jungle backdrop and a hired scooter. I can see us there in March next year. In fact, I can’t wait.

But, in the meantime, I have a book to write. And I have an audiobook to publish. My narrator has wrapped the first draft. Now I’m waiting for the technical editing to be complete … followed by a long edit and hey presto. I really hope to have something out before 1 December. We’ll see.

audiobook is on its way …

We’re here at Mary’s until Friday and then home. I have a full tank of gas and neither of us can wait to unload and get back into our Bradley Stoke routine. We do have a lot of niff-naff and trivia to sort. And then Norfolk, then skiing … and then the beach. What’s not to like?

Stay safe everyone. And I’m looking forward to His Borisness saving Christmas for us like he did last year (created by the delay in preventing the delta variant from crossing our shores, followed by more unnecessary death and hardship). Brexit, of course, is central to where we find ourselves. So he is, to all intents and purposes, saving us from himself. Come on, let’s give Keir Starmer a chance … please.

Was it worth it?

Well, for a start, no one died.

We made it to mum’s. It’s longer down the east of the country, for sure. We had a lovely two nights with Ruth and Gary, with white sheets and great company, and pillows and super food, and a picture window looking over Loch nan Ceall. We then drove to C’s friend, Cat, in Dundee for a cup of tea before collapsing into a hotel somewhere north of Edinburgh. Another day’s drive took us to Repton, via some of C’s relatives, and now we’ve completed the journey.

a picture window …

Was it all worth it? How did the cub scouting go?

We loved Shetland and Orkney, the former more than the latter. It is another world, caught all on its own between the Atlantic and the North Sea. We caught the north coast of Scotland wearing its best dress and, finally, we eventually fell in love with Mull again. We met and re-met some lovely people (hurrah for the Baxters) and … lived under canvas for 23 days.

driving home

What about that part? The tenting. It’s an interesting question. The car (bless her, she’s been fab) is a good option when you’re comparing the choice against Doris. You go to more places and, as a result, you see more things. You get into tight spots which Doris would have got her bum stuck in. But, we didn’t walk as much, nor (clearly) did we cycle. And, I think it’s fair to say, we would have stayed longer in Doris and maybe we would have caught up with all the places eventually. And, to be fair to the Northern Isles, they wouldn’t have batted an eyelid at a 4.5 tonne bus bumbling about the place. We wouldn’t have been alone.

There is the costs, though. Three weeks in a tent cost: fuel – £340; ferries – £510; camping fees – £250; I’ve ignored the two hotels on the way home). Total – £1100. If we’d come in Doris we would have spent twice as much on fuel and probably double on ferries – she is, after all, twice as big. But we would have spent one-fifth on campsites, because we would have wild camped – that gives a guess total of about £1700. We only wild camped four times in the tent, much less than we had hoped for but, on reflection and noting the weather and our equipment, probably the right number of nights.

Of course we could have stayed in B&Bs. But there is an issue here: it was blooming busy and we might have struggled to find somewhere without plenty of preplanning – which is not our forte – and, s a result, we would have had little choice about prices, probably because any of the cheaper rooms would have gone. And … B&B’s mean you have to find supper in the evening, rather than cook in the lea of your car on two burners and a gust of wind (always a pleasant experience). I reckon, even without the additional feeding cost, you’d have to budget for £70 for a double room, about £50 more per night than we paid for a tent. That would add close to £1500 to the bill.

But the money is not that important. What is important is the experience. Sure, we couldn’t consider what we have done as a holiday. It was more of an experience. There is something organic about living in a tent, with the midges and the dampness, and the wind, and the desperate mornings rushing for a pee, and the condensation dripping on you from the roof of the inner tent … and the locations, and the views, and the camaraderie, and the freedom, and the cosiness, and the sense of achievement …

a sense of achievement …

Would we do it again? No, not in a hair-shirt way of ‘for the sake of it’. We used a tent this time because we assumed that Doris would be too big for the islands, and we wanted to save the money. That may not arise again. But, we may do it again next year, doing the delayed car-and-tent trip to Baku. There the weather would likely be better, and so we wouldn’t be battling the elements. We’ll see.

That’s my view, in any case. You’ll need to ask C what she thinks when you next see her.

Keep safe everywhere. 

Mull … falling in love again

Tobermory

Like Orkney, it took us a day or so to warm up to Mull. We’d visited eight years previously and both remember loving it. But the campsite we’d booked into was damp, the weather was just passable and it all looked busy again. 

look closely … a wallet on the shore!

Staying on the east of the island we drove to Loch Spelve where Sam had found the wallet in Unsuspecting Hero, and then on to Loch Buie where she’d contemplated her life. We walked for three miles to Moy castle and beyond and, in a couple of hours of silence lost in my own thoughts, the plot for the whole of book 8 came to me in a way which has never happened before. It was almost a biblical event … and I remember the detail now, a few days later. Spooky, hey?

Chuffed that I’d done the Sam Green excursion, we made our way back to the campsite where, with no data signal and poor WiFi, we had an early night.

Like our camping experience, it was all getting a bit murky

The next morning C checked her Instagram and let me know that old blogging pals, the Baxters, who’d we’d met on our original 8-month pan Europe trip in 2014, were on the next campsite down. We got in touch and semi-arranged to meet up. We then drove the northeast of the island, stopping for a 5-miler along Loch Ba – in the shadows of Ben More – avoiding the showers. Still non-plussed with the island we drove the long way home around the Ardemeanagh peninsula … and, wow.

but, wow. There’s a road the bottom of them cliffs

For a couple of miles the road is carved from the base of a huge cliff, with little to stop you driving off and joining the dolphins. The route over the peninsular to the other shore is equally as spectacular as are the dark colours of the massive rock faces when you curve your way between back to the north of the island. It is all pretty spectacular. Back late(ish), and full of adrenaline after the drive, I cooked more simple food and we had another early night. 

On Monday, on advice from Mary, we took a boat trip to Staffa and Fingal’s cave. C always takes the lead here as I’m genetically modified not to spend money … and yet, post these trips, I always think it’s worth it (even the $300 it cost us in The Bahamas for a day trip to the islands to have our toes chewed on by a set of rays). The boat didn’t leave until the afternoon, so we drove first to Fidden campsite where Sam’s van was torched (gain in Unsuspecting Hero). It is, alas, now closed, but I still breathed in the same air and stared across at Iona as Sam had done at the beginning of her now 7-book series. 

wow

By the time we got to the boat both of us were at the end of our ‘everything’s a bit damp, the weather looks like it’s going to stay poor, and three weeks is a long time in a tent’ episode. But, do you know what? The boat trip was fab. We sat on a slab of raised carpet at the back of the boat (it was full = about 40 people at £30  time is a nice littel earner) driven by two lovely blokes who took us to see some seals, where C got her seal recognition badge: one grey and two harbour. Tick. They all look like aqua-Labradors to me). Then we drove through a pool of dolphins, before we made it to Staffa. Which was fab. You get into Fingal’s cave via a pretty dodgy walkway which only has a few more years before Climate Change hands it back to the fish. It is something special, for sure. And the top of the island was equally as interesting, even in amongst the odd light shower.

Battling 2 metre swells in a boat which looked designed for Windermere, we made it back safely, drove home … only to find an older woman in an Audi A6 estate had pitched her tent clearly onto our land. Typically British, we apologised for parking our car too close to her tent … and she said, ‘it’s not a problem … tonight’. And then she spent the next hour staring at us. Hurrumph. But, the site’s WiFi had improved and we watched the end of the latest Cinderella, which I loved – whilst Rebecca, who knows these things, told me it was rubbish and I must have been mistaken. She’s a musical snob that daughter of ours …

Fab catch up with the Baxters!

On Tuesday we popped along to the adjacent campsite and had a fry-up breakfast with Sandra and Iain Baxter, pals we met when we originally went travelling. Theirs is a long and fascinating story, the short version of which is that, even though Sandra still works, over the past 8 years they’ve travelled for much longer and much further than us. It was a real fillup – and an inspiration – to meet up with them again, and a couple of hours passed in an instant. We bade farewells and then, after another cross-island hike (it takes forever to get anywhere on Mull, even in a car) made our way down a little used valley with the aim of walking 8 miles on a coastal path to a natural arch. We got just over a mile when the terrain (and advice from a local) beat us. It was more of a scramble than a walk … and too much for us.

Disappointed, we walked in the other direction, which was much easier. And (on Instagram advice from Sandra B) spotted the Queen Elizabeth cruise ship which was passing between Mull and Jura. What a monster! Fab.

By the end of the day, we were close to sorting out the next seven days or so. The wind and rain, the darker and colder nights, have reinforced the view that we’re coming to the end of our tent odyssey. More by way of a summary from me in a while but, for now, we’ve booked in to C’s Army friends, Gary and Ruth tomorrow night for a couple of nights, and then we’re off for a cuppa with another friend of hers in Dundee … after which we have booked into a hotel for an evening! It’s a celebration of all things tenting. We think we deserve it. And then home via mum’s and Mary’s. After all, I have  book to write.

cooking in the lea of the car …

Stay safe.