Audra Crusoe Lost at Sea

Day 1 through 5 on Eigg:

Monday, June 4 – Friday, June 8, 2012

Monday

  Ben and I made our scramble to the boat surprisingly early, but, of course, when you have a new mountain bike, an old chest of drawers bought from a charity (used) shop and ripe for restoring, three major suitcases, numerous bags stuffed with shopping and grocery treasures, and one wedding dress (crammed ever-so-tearfully into one of the aforementioned suitcases) to load onto a flat-bed truck, amidst grumbles of ferry workers, that must then be loaded onto a ferry, it does pay to be early.  Well, it doesn’t really pay – it just saves you from enduring lots of Scottish cursing from big, bad ferry men.  To amend yet again, they’re not really bad…or all big, for that matter.

  My lovely chocolate chai tea lingers half-way to my mouth, open, not just in reflex anticipation of the delicious liquid sure to fill it, but more so in sheer incredulity and horror at the fact that my first sentence of this “journal entry,” if it should be thusly named, is an entire paragraph long.  Upon realization that all of you will surely go blind or succumb to a fit of boredom spasms, I’ll go full-steam-ahead with this ship.  Not with the Calmac ferry, though, since my driving it would ensure a meeting with Davy Jones for all aboard.

  The rest of Monday involved being greeted off the boat by my wonderful father-in-law-to-be, by the local bagpiper of the island (which, of course, led to reminiscence about that very first trip so many (3) years ago, when I dolefully kissed Ben goodbye to her romantic tones), and by all of my friends who gave me hearty hugs of welcome to my new island home.   

  After making numerous stops along the single-track road across the island that leads to our wee bothy and beyond – beyond being only another half-mile or so of houses until you would be forced to trek across the cliffs and plummet into the sea – rushing in excitement to share another welcoming hug and chat, I put my feet back on our grass.  Beautiful, green, lush grass it is – except for the cow pies…and the stinging nettles…and the thistles, lovely to look at but curse-inducing when stepped upon.  I suppose that last description might go for the other two items, as well, especially if you like the abstract art a cow patty tends to make when splatted onto the ground. 

  I did finally make it to the house, after unloading our truckload beneath our gorgeous tree, which happens to be one of my favorite trees in the whole wide world.  I promised to move it along, but I must stop to tell you about our tree.  It’s a British sycamore (different than the American version), which is quite nice, since pine trees are quite prevalent in the Highlands but not as good for daydreaming under as a strong-branched deciduous.  Our tree is also situated by itself in the gentle bend of a lovely babbling brook (or “burn,” as I do believe I’ve mentioned before as the Scottish word for small creek).  I can’t tell you how picturesque it is.  If you stand on Eigg, anywhere near our house, even, you’ll be absolutely blown away by the immensity of the landscape.  Picture walking into Jurassic park and seeing a giant pterodactyl soaring down the cliffs, which are high enough to shield a small group of brachiosaurus standing on each other’s shoulders.  You’d probably feel no bigger than an ant – not a prehistoric ant, either, since those were probably the size of elephants, for all I know.  That’s kind of what it’s like to look on the cliffs and the sea and the foreboding island of Rum across the water.  Our tree, however, nestled in the little stream gurgling over its stones and giving life to delicate yellow flowers with bees buzzing around and birds chirp-chirping to each other, is idyllic in comparison – quaint, even.  I love it.  It’s my own little piece of paradise, and I give myself over to its welcoming branches anytime I need to think, write, or simply lie and look at its leaves waving all of my stresses away and cuddle up to its scratchy bark, comforting me in a shoulder-pat-and-“there-there” sort of way.  I insist you give it a cuddle if any of you dear readers ever make it Eigg-ward.

  Beyond the tree, though, is still our house…the one I meant to tell you about five million sentences ago.  Ben led me into our cosy room to show me all of the shelves and furniture he’d been secretly building for the last few weeks in anticipation of my arrival.  He’d had to carefully position the computer’s webcam so that I couldn’t see anything in the room but the white wall.  What a wonderful man I’m marrying.  So much shelf space with so many possibilities for books of all sorts who are calling my name from secondhand bookshops all over Britain!  Clothes can find another spot.  Anyway, after recovering from a blubber-fest over Ben’s thoughtfulness and a well-deserved kissing session, I unpacked my new life…or attempted to, since that chest of drawers waiting to be renovated will be the bearer of my clothing. 

  It was a good day and a good welcome back.  I slept peaceably, looking forward to tackling the new day.

Tuesday

  I woke exhausted, totally unprepared for that new day.  Rubbing at my eyes with weakly clenched fists and feeling very much like a five-year-old little girl, I loosened myself from the warm blanket and dropped off the bed.  I stumbled up the stairs, desperate for a cup of tea and a bowl of well-sugared porridge.  I’m a sugar addict.  I admit it.  I try to cut back to a scant teaspoon of the white stuff in my tea and a light dusting of the brown sweetness on my oats, but it tastes like…well, like nothing.  There, I said it.  Now you know. 

  My late breakfast over with, I decided to focus on a single project for the day.  You see, I’m that type that starts out in the morning with a zealous optimism for productivity who then fills her head with limitless lists of tasks to accomplish for the day, week, month, year, lifetime and then fails to get anything done but huddling in a dusty corner due to sheer terror at the “to-do” mountain that would be impossible for a NYC event planner to accomplish, let alone her little frazzled self.  Tuesday was the day for changing all that, I decided, so I zoomed in my eagle eyes to the porch.  Ben and I had been given a lovely bamboo shoe rack, and Ben had waited until my arrival to crack open the box.  Now was the time to organize the incredibly messy entrance to the house.  I love my man, but he does need my feminine touch and care for mostly clean order.  A few times I did start to stray from the self-assigned task when a pile of pellet-gun ammo and random building supplies on a corner shelf caught my eye or a sudden recollection that a bag of newly purchased shampoo and conditioner awaited my placement caused me to start to zip toward the bathroom.  My willpower was firm, however, and I managed to clear away the debris, sweep and mop the tiles, and leave that space yearning for its new shoe rack and organized collection of scrubbed shoes in one fell swoop.  I put the flat-packed shoe rack together like a pro, making a point to pore over those three-step, picture-only instructions just to be sure my shoe rack was the best it could be.  Ben and I managed to fit a yoga session in somewhere in the middle of my shoe rack-fanaticism and his paint-scraping on our dresser, which rounded the day off well.  This all seems very mundane to me now that I’m actually taking the time to put it into words, but, I can tell you, that porch is now a home…or part of one.  I’ll let you all admire it after you’ve hugged my tree.

  I can imagine it’s difficult moving across the street to get married and start a new life, so moving across the ocean and trying to settle into a new country is a challenge and a half.  Making a house into a warm nest that you can feel comfortable enough to sign when you walk through its door and smile when you flop onto its bed helps, though.  On Tuesday, I was able to do just that, if only because of the sparkling porch.

Wednesday

  I woke up wanting Weetabix, badly.  Weetabix, for all my non-British readers, is kind of like shredded wheat, except the little biscuits are made out of wheat flakes instead of wheat strings…or fibers…or shreds…or whatever you want to call them.  People have their Weetabix technique preferences.  If you pour milk in and let them be, you’ll end up with mushy Weetabix sponges.  If you pour your milk in and try to eat them too quickly, you’ll end up sending wicked shards of Weetabix flying toward your eyeballs as you jab your spoon at the dry, crumbly ovals.  If you stare at them perplexedly, and then spread butter and jam on them and munch them messily like toast as my dear sister and brother-in-law did on their Scottish honeymoon many years ago, you’ll end up with a horrified little British girl who’ll run to her mother to tell her what the strange foreigners are doing with their poor Weetabix.  If, however, you line them up gently on their sides, sprinkle (oh, go on, pour) your sugar on, add your milk slightly over the tops but mainly around the sides of your domino-like stack, and then wait just a few seconds for them to begin their massive absorption process, you’ll end up with a spoonful of perfectly soft-but-still-crunchy, sweet biscuit.  Mmm.  This ambrosial delight doesn’t last forever, though, since, about half-way through your scarfing, you’ll have to pour in more milk.  Weetabix devours milk like the Pillsbury doughboy devours…everything in sight.  It can never get enough.  Don’t be surprised if you go through an entire pint of milk for just one bowl of the stuff.  That leads me to my Wednesday morning crisis.  We were out of milk.

  What’s worse, we had half a pint of spoiled, cheesy-smelling milk laughing at me from the door of the fridge.  Actually, we were out of most things.  The pantry looked a bit like the Grinch had come early to steal away our cupboard crumbs, leaving only an entire shelf of pasta, several cans of kidney beans, a shriveled stalk of celery, and a few other bits and bobs.  It was going to be another porridge oatmeal day, and NO MILK FOR MY TEA!  Upon draining the last of my bitter sips from my favorite cup, I made the decision to go grocery shopping.  Thus began my adventure for the day.

  I had to rifle through my suitcases to find some bike attire, since that would be my transportation.  Ah, bikes, how I love them.  They’re a relatively new love of mine, too, since growing up as a child in Indiana, I only knew the pleasure of the occasional Sunday afternoon bike ride on our no-speed, brake-is-when-you-peddle-backward, tootle-around bicycles.  Mountain bikes are a newcomer on my life’s scene.  New from a sports store in Glasgow, my girly purple bike was waiting for me to break it in – or for it to break me in.  On Eigg, “going into town” consists of making the three mile journey back across the single-track road to the pier, where you have your options of getting groceries from the very small, but surprisingly well-stocked shop, buying folks back home some knitted souvenirs from the craft (gift) shop, refreshing yourself with a cup of tea or a cold pint from the tea room, using the toilet/shower facilities in the “waiting room” hallway, or catching up on work or official business in the office upstairs.  All of these things you can do within the confines of a single building, split into separate facilities by doors alone.  It’s about as far from urban life as you can get, but it’s efficient, quite social, and easy on a rural soul in need of goods.

  For this six-mile total journey, I would take no car, partly because it’s not long enough to warrant the fuel, partly because I wanted to see what my two wheels could do, and partly because our car-share’s other sharer was on the island and selfishly using his car.  Can you believe it?  The audacity of some people to actually use their own car when they need it…it’s outrageous.  Rolling along, (which I did, by the way), I strapped on my backpack and took off down and up the bumpy rock/dirt road to the main track, list and essentials tucked safely away and praise after praise running through my head for the invention of padded bike shorts.  I died going up the hills, demolishing my pride by awkwardly dismounting and pushing my bike up the first huge hill after only about three minutes of riding.  Speeding downhill, feeling the wind whip back my pigtails and smash bugs against my shiny glasses, made it all worthwhile.  Some of my coasting resulted in swallowing a few of those bugs, after forgetting to close my mouth from the huffing and puffing of the previous hill.  Just more protein for the ride, I suppose…gulp. 

  I had several near-death experiences, too – not for me but for the tourists who thought it would be a good idea to just split apart at the last second, leaving me just enough room for my handlebars and none for a pillow of space a newbie biker needs.  I made it, though, injury and secondary manslaughter charge-free.

  Grocery shopping is always quite a big thing for me.  It’s big in the sense that I get very excited about perusing shelves of ingredients with endless possibilities for new meals and in the sense that it takes me about a thousand years to do it.  Ben literally has to steer me, dragging my feet, toward the exit when we’re in big supermarkets.  Grocery shopping at the Eigg shop is definitely on a smaller scale, but it’s pleasant, nonetheless.  I finally decided on my purchases and meal for the night, attempting to keep in mind that I would have to carry my groceries home on my back but not doing very well.  Catching up with those islanders I had yet to see earlier in the week, I wasn’t surprised that it would be nearly dinnertime when I made it back to the bothy. 

  I started back, only to stop a few more times for visits, but, again, no injuries were incurred and only a few bugs were eaten.  One of the visits happened when I pulled my metal horse over for a quick browse at the Swap Shop, which is a little building near the school where people trade unwanted items for someone else’s previously unwanted item, hence the name.  I was looking for something specific, which is never a good start to a Swap Shop perusal, but I just happened to find it this time: a bizarrely floral, silky house robe that slunk right out of the ‘70s and would have settled well onto the shoulders of my grandmother.  No, no, I haven’t had a sudden yearning to return to an era I never even existed in.  And, no, Ben doesn’t fancy having his soon-to-be new bride swan around in a kaleidoscope of a robe on his honeymoon.  What I needed was material for a pretty bag for my brand-spanking-new, promises-it-will-last-forever, saffron-colored (or just plain yellowy orange, if you must) yoga mat.  And I found it.  Whoop!  The wacky thing even came with a multi-colored strap.  I was doing a happy dance that made the chipped tea cups blush in embarrassment for me, when my friends pulled into the lot.  You can imagine my mortification when I realized I had no choice but to come out and greet them holding my outrageous find.  I couldn’t risk stuffing it under the nearest pile – what if someone else swooped in and stole my treasure – someone with quirky panache and an obsession with disco music?  No, I did the only thing I could do – I hurried out the door and tried to distract them with enthusiastic hugs while I tossed my robe over my bike seat.  Silky material doesn’t like to stay put, however, and blaring ‘70s colors don’t like to be inconspicuous.  Therefore, I felt my stomach drop as the silly clothing slid to the pavement and my friends’ eyes darted to see what I would have to claim.  I thought about laughing it off as a wicked outfit for that retro party I was planning but just hadn’t gotten around to telling them about.  I also thought about lying through my teeth with some made-up story of a distant Aunt Bertie coming to visit soon and who had a habit of lying around the house naked, so a house robe was sure to do the trick for encouraging a small amount of modesty.  These were ill-constructed plans of escape, though, since social etiquette would demand that I follow through with the mentioned retro party idea, and there are a million and one things to do with the house and my summer besides a party filled with wigs and disco balls.  The Aunt Bertie thing would have been equally, if not more humiliating to mention, besides the fact that no such Aunt Bertie exists, and, when you’ve just moved to an island with 80 to 90 people inhabiting it, gossip spreads and eventual truths must come out. 

  I could see the grins spreading across my friends’ faces, so I stuttered out the truth of my search for the perfect yoga mat bag material, but it was too late.  The robe was too loud and glorious in its beam of tackiness for them to hear me.  Bellowing laughter ensued.  My blush matched that of the mismatched tea cups. 

  Eventually, laughter turned to conversation and further chummy searching for booty – in the pirate sense of the word, of course.  I managed to stuff a Shakespeare play and an old German children’s story translated to English into my engorged backpack, along with my conversation piece, of course.

  Once home, the remainder of the evening consisted of fixing a divine supper of chicken-fried steak, mashed potatoes, and gravy out of my favorite cookbook in the world: “The Pioneer Woman Cooks” by Ree Drummond.  I love that woman.  I want to kiss her Kansas cowboy boots every time I serve up one of her lick-the-plate-clean meals.  I suggest you all look up her website and buy her cookbooks right now.  Your tummies will thank me.  Be warned, however.  You might end up with jealous partners.  I’m fairly certain Ben thinks I’d leave him just to follow her around, fanning her with palm fronds in crazed fan style just for one golden word of recipe wisdom every once in a while.  It’s not true, of course, although her cinnamon rolls could push me to that edge…

  With a full belly and a Cheshire cat smile on my face, I rolled myself into bed and fell into sleep in about fifteen seconds flat.  That is where my adventurous middle of the week ended and space for the week’s end and weekend began.

Thursday

  No time like the present for realizing you’re a wordy blabbermouth.  I would have posted all of these separately if: A.) I wouldn’t have been lazy about getting my posts up, and B.) the internet would have chosen a different time to be off for hours on end.  You have my apologies on having the biggest blog post known to man to chisel away at.  With the exception of future internet failures, personal Audra failures, natural disasters, and possibly my upcoming honeymoon, I will be vigilant in posting daily entries, so that there will only be one day’s worth of a ridiculously long blog post, instead of four. 

  Here is where this last day’s entry should truly end, for my main chores of the day have been moving straggling shopping bags out of the hallway, which is boring enough to peel the rest of the paint off of our dresser, playing a game of golf on the beach with Ben, which involves wacking a golf ball down and back with the least number of strokes winning, (water hazards being the Atlantic and sand pits being the entire course), visiting with my very good friend, whose visit stripped away some wedding-planning stress and, thus, allowed me to have the peace of mind to type away in order to fill you all in on my first week on Eigg.

  Staring, bleary-eyed, at the computer screen and having just finished the last of my I-lost-count-several-cups-ago cup of tea, I declare that I must now go to bed.  The clouds are closing in on the peaks of Rum out my window, and sleep is closing in as my spinning head threatens to bring me clattering to the floor.  I’m sure I’ve left you dear readers in no less of a state if you’ve had the patience and fortitude (and perhaps a bit of insanity, you crazy, wonderful people, you!) to read this entire post all in one go.  And, so, I bid you goodnight, so long, farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, adieu, to you…oh no.  “The Sound of Music” beckons us all to sleep or at least away from our computer screens.  Go on, get off your computers and go into town, even if it’s a pier, and buy the Pioneer Woman’s cookbook…or maybe just bake some cinnamon rolls.  Mmmm… 

Friday

  Some mornings, you wake up knowing all is right in the world and that your day is going to be flawless.  Then, you get out of bed, and that confident smile slides right off your face and lands in a crumbly heap beside your big toe.  This, my friends, was one of those mornings for me.  It started with the wave of nausea rolling around in my stomach as soon as I hoisted myself to our slightly chilly wood floors.  With intent to brush that away to early morning acid buildup or something else on an equally unattractive level, I fired up my trusty laptop, just to get a big, glaring “No internet connection” message bubble up from the corner of my screen, bursting my motivated plans to start the day out with a four-day blog post ripe and ready for all of you.  The internet went off yesterday afternoon, but I just knew, without that first shadow of a doubt, that it would be on this morning.  Ah, the naiveté.  It turns out the entire Northwest of Scotland was out of the pulsating web connections we’ve come so heavily to rely upon. 

  Going through my hygiene routine, I panicked when I felt the texture of my face while applying lotion to it.  My sensitive skin didn’t like either the new atmosphere or the new lotion, and it had decided that sloughing itself off in flakes was the way to go.  I totally could have come up with a better solution for it.  Instead, I mourned as the mirror reflected the angry, red, irritated, peeling state of my complexion – just in time for the weekend.   Feeling the rumble of those dark clouds of foiled plans and frightening appearance gather above my head and still trying to ignore the similar rumble from my pained belly, I tromped upstairs to overcook some oatmeal, lose my appetite for it anyway, read a new wedding magazine that opened the floodgates for further stress, and stare at the broom and washing machine that were both mocking me in my current shirking of domestic duties.  I was already a wreck, and it wasn’t even ten o’clock. 

  I checked the internet again, a habit I would keep up approximately every fifteen minutes for the rest of the day, and shuffled off despairingly toward our laundry basket.  Tomorrow is the big Independence day celebration on Eigg, marked mostly by boatloads of visitors coming over to enjoy the ceilidh and accompanying merriment.  It’s very fun, and it gives all of the islanders a chance to dress up for the occasion.  It also marks the third anniversary of Ben and my meeting, although this year is a bit shy of the actual date.  All in all, it’s something I’m looking forward to.  Ben’s wonderful cousin and his lovely girlfriend from Paris are coming over tomorrow to stay with us, which is both a cause to celebrate but also a cause for my laundry shuffling. 

  Being a young bride-to-be, I have a vision of myself as the perfect domestic goddess (in a voluntary fashion that still upholds my feminist beliefs, of course).  In this dream, I am the host of the century, providing our guests with clean, crisp sheets that practically send bunches of lavender straight to their noses, fresh towels folded with impossible symmetry and placed in the same manner at the foot of their inviting bed, and mouthwatering meals for morning noon and night that I’ve already assembled and typed out menu cards for, leaving blanks for them to fill in anything I’ve possibly forgotten (which I haven’t).  Alright, perhaps that’s going a bit far, but a girl can dream, can’t she?

  Anyway, as I was unenthusiastically stuffing clothes strewn on the floor into my hamper and mindlessly sorting darks from lights, I watched my vision pour into the little laundry detergent black hole, never to be heard from again.  My laundry detergent smells like plain old soap – the kind that doesn’t keep its fresh smelliness for longer than it takes your clothes to dry.  The sheet I was washing for our guests would be stuffed around the thin mattress of our sofa bed before it would be folded up again to save space until they arrived the next day.  The towels would be folded and stacked on the arm of the sofa in a manner Martha Stewart would turn her nose up so wickedly at that she’d possibly get a whiff of that practically fragrance free laundry detergent.  As for that Mary Poppins menu, our guests would be lucky if I managed to keep from breaking any more bowls (which I did earlier in the week), so that they could actually scrounge some Weetabix in the mornings.  It definitely wasn’t looking good for me.

  My stomach ache was turning into a situation I soon would be unable to brush aside, and my mood was worsening.  Ben had gone to the pier to do some work, and his absence was only allowing me to dig myself a deeper pit of angst and frustration. 

  Ben’s dad soon brought the mail, which consisted of a new printer and blank wedding invitations, both ready for action in our ongoing wedding battle plan.  I was quite happy, until I remembered I’d sworn to myself that I would hole up and avoid seeing all people in my current, flaky state.  I blurted out something about my skin having some kind of weird reaction before averting my eyes so I wouldn’t see John inevitably take a peek at whatever I’d drawn attention.  He kindly said I looked just fine to him, but I know he was either lying or hadn’t had a chance to remove the giant horse blinders from his glasses lenses.

  By the time Ben returned, my stomach, skin, and emotional states were on the fritz.  Ben had bought me a chocolate orange from the shop – the kind you break against the table and perfect segments of delicious orange flavored-chocolate open out like a scrumptious flower – so we opted for a break from both of our stresses to sit on the couch with the chocolate and The Hobbit, which we’re reading together.  Before Ben had uttered any words, half a segment of chocolate orange I’d been nibbling began quivering on my lip.  It’s so annoying – starting to cry when you’re eating something.  It always makes me feel like a toddler, but it can’t be helped – the downpour can’t be held back when it’s rainy season. 

  Tears rolled down my cheeks and splashed onto Ben’s shirt, his chest becoming a salty pool.  He held me tightly and stroked my head while I let it all out.  After I’d thoroughly soaked his shirt, he gently asked me what was the matter – he has a good way of knowing when I just need a good cry before inquiring why it’s happening in the first place.  I choked out that I didn’t know and followed my lousy answer with another round of drizzles. 

  Eventually, I managed to stem the flow thanks to some huge Kleenex that can only be found in the Eigg shop, I’m convinced, and Ben gave me several more cuddles.  Wedding planning, attempted housekeeping, and moving thousands of miles from home to a remote Scottish island all in one go give me a right to have a tear or two, I suppose.  They also give me a right to have a hellacious stomach ache and mild bout of leprosy…unwanted, but the right to them.

  One leisurely walk along some of my favorite stretch of beach while smooching each other and enjoying the warmth of the sun brought my mood back around.  Several runs to the bathroom after remembering that Ben had said I might just need to adjust to the water did not really do anything for my mood, except for maybe making me hopeful that it might just be possible to get this out of my system before the ceilidh…with tons of friends, family, hundreds of strangers, and an overcrowded bathroom in the hall that usually runs out of toilet paper long before the ceilidh runs out of steam.

 

 

  I hate to leave you all with that lasting, foul image in your heads, but after getting out of a warm, cleansing shower, I have found that the internet has finally returned!  Therefore, I’m going to post this monstrosity up for you to read at your leisure or to skim through for anything that catches your eyes.  I hope it’s not just my skin or stomach ailments…or my pitiful sinking into Gretel’s goodnight song at the end of yesterday’s entry.  Whatever it is you all get out of this, I hope you are able to follow along with my craziness, getting a little laughter out of my adventures as I delve into island life.  Until tomorrow, I wish you sweet dreams and a morning where your smile stays on your face – your smooth, flake-free face.