Paula Evans
Policy Manager, COSLA

Stolen Orange

The Stolen Orange

Downward facing mouths

So I have been back a few days and before we left we had a chat with Dave about ‘reintegration’. This was about how, having been away from the world for a week, we would leave Knoydart and nature behind and enter the world of technology again. I have to say that I was rather cynically chuckling to myself about this idea – How could that possibly be a problem – it had after all only, only been a week. I found myself singing ‘I’m gonna wash that place  (sic man) right outta my hair’ to myself as I made my way back to the lodge for our final night.

And indeed, largely I was unaffected upon my return. I was relieved that as the mobile signal returned I had missed text messages beeping through and the odd voicemail – I was less happy at the 100 odd work e-mails that took forever to upload. I went out for dinner, switched on the TV and settled into the cosy urban heaven that is my home.

However, on the Sunday, I got on the number 16 bus to go to my favourite coffee shop in Edinburgh and as I got on I looked at the faces of all of those around me. They looked absolutely miserable. Like there had been some mass depression and the whole bus was party to the same sad information. Then I remembered a story I once heard (now forgive me because I can’t remember who by and the details of this story might be ‘hazy’ i.e. wrong) where a man had spent over a year living in the jungle in relative impoverishment. He decided to return to his country but when on the plane started to get very worried by the faces of the people around him. It seemed as though some mass tragedy had struck and he became panicked only to realise that in fact no such thing had happened. That this was every day urban life – people were just miserable and it was him that had changed.

Now I was away a week – and in Knoydart and not a jungle (although it felt like it to me on occasion). I didn’t feel particularly different or fundamentally changed by camping out in the Highlands and Islands but sat on that bus I was aware of the greyness of an otherwise beautiful city and the drain that the grind had on the people sitting on the bus. While I am sure they must all be nice people with nice lives, they looked just miserable.

That led me to the happy thought that I must therefore not be as miserable and that shock horror – maybe there was an upside to this nature malarkey. I certainly enjoyed my full cooked breakfast, flat white and fresh orange juice that little bit more.

But on the way home I found myself wondering how long it would take for me to be assimilated and to become a ‘downward facing mouth’ again…..

Silence please

Silence is a big part of this experience. I have never been a very silent person indeed – one of the main parts of the job I do entail having an opinion and voicing that as clearly and persuasively as possible. 

We had a task around speaking, listening and observing earlier in the week. The subject was important, but the actual ‘doing’ of those things was the task. It was interesting to be more conscious of speaking with purpose, listening with purpose. While I do those things regularly I have to say that I am not conscious of it – particularly observing people and yet doing that told me as much – if not more – than the listening. I wonder how much more I would learn, and how much better I could contribute, by slowing down and doing these daily skills with more ‘purpose’.

Horns and Hunters

We have seen and heard several stag being killed. The first occasion was walking past a German hunting party, all of whom seemed to be in very high spirits. As I walked past their second car I looked into the trailer to see a dead stag and then past a lodge where several men stood chatting around the body of another stag which they had begun to cut open. While I had no problem with the dead animal or with the hunting as such, I found the joviality of the men who had found sport in the hunt distasteful.

Now anyone who knows me would say that I am far from an animal rights ‘activist’ – but I found it unnecessary. Later, when I heard the hunting horn’s being blown and heard them echo around the hills of Knoydart and I heard the echo of laughter and German voices shouting I remembered the stag and I was surprised at how jarring it was against the beauty of the surrounding and I was surprised that I was angry.

honesty is the best policy

I posted my last blog late Sunday night… I wasn’t therefore expecting the rest of the group to have read it. But I was met by a number of comments about the size of the blog etc. The comment that stayed with me though was ‘very honest’. Nothing more. I was left wondering – honest brave or honest foolish? It feels wrong that we live in an environment where honesty could be ‘foolish’ but I was reminded again of the very public nature of blogging.

I then decided that I could think of many worse ways of being described than honest – regardless of what that meant. I have to say, I was also distracted by the winding roads around Loch Lomond which turned me green around the gills. I haven’t been on a bus trip like that since school -  it wasn’t fun and I was very glad of my ability to fall asleep in any type of moving vehicle.

The removal of choice

We have a cook called Rob. I think we are each having our own love affair with Rob. He makes porridge in the morning, some kind of delicious soup and homemade bread for lunch and some magical smelling delight for supper – always with desert.

The strange bit about having a cook isn’t the luxury of actually having a cook, it is the luxury of not having to chose what to eat. I find I don’t have breakfast because I can’t face deciding what to have in the morning beyond a coffee. I spend far too long deciding what to have for lunch (Panini or a jacket potatoe), and spend too much time and money in supermarkets because I fancy lots of different things yet I get home and still feel like I don’t have anything to eat. If I go out to a restaurant I get plate envy and I always feel like I have made the wrong choice – which is OK if you are out with someone who lets you ‘share’.

Choice is always promoted as a good thing, but I am loving coming through the door of the lodge to a random smell and a plate of food where the only choice is to eat or not to eat.

Fears realised – the monster tick

My overriding fear of Knoydart had been bugs and bodily crevices i.e. ticks and midges. I was constantly reassured that it was too cold for both and I would be fine so long as I stayed away from the long grass. So when I saw the sunshine I was both happy – it was beautiful and relaxing, and worried – did this mean ticks and midges?

We assembled for our first foray into nature and where did we go? Into the long grass! I have to say I was having a silent and begrudging sense of humour failure as we silently made our way up a rather steep, boggy, long grass/bracken filled hill (I would call it a mountain but I don’t want to be accused of over exaggeration). I did persist, and got to the top of the hill only to be marched back down again.

I was unclear on the purpose of this little expedition and I certainly didn’t enjoy it but as I stood in the shower trying to stretch out my shaking legs and check for ticks, I realised I had learnt one thing…. there was no way I was going back in the long grass to sit with the monster deer ticks for my solo.

And tomorrow it begins

And tomorrow it begins

I don’t hate the outdoors but I hate the idea of the outdoors. I rail against any suggestion that I might venture to places with greenery which hasn’t been cut to an inch above floor level. I hate cold, I hate exercise and I am petrified of any type of bug that is small enough to get into bodily crevices.

All friends and family, being fully aware of these facts have been finding my imminent foray to Knoydart highly amusing.  One friend who had to loan me sunglasses because I only have fashion sunglasses for the annual holiday in the sun and the 12 days of sunshine a year we get in Edinburgh, has a mental image of me which is akin to Patsy from ‘Ab Fab’ turning up at a retreat teetering on heels, pulling a wheelie suitcase. The worrying thing is it probably isn’t that far from the truth – I am indeed taking a wheelie suitcase!

My biggest fear is actually that I will learn to love the great outdoors being forced to spend a whole week in it, and there will be no more excuses not to avoid it in future. I am also worried that valuing the outdoors / nature more – loving it more, will bring with it an added awareness of my responsibility to live more sustainably. At present it is easy just to do the minimum – to recycle the Sunday papers, do the weekly trip to the bottle bank etc.

I feel lazy at the very thought of becoming more environmentally conscientious – although I know in an academic way that this is absolutely the right way to live and that in actual fact it would be a ‘good’ thing. But there is a very big difference between knowing something as a fact and absorbing that fact in a way that changes your behaviour.

Having said all that, I have very diligently gone about assembling my kit list. I have ticked everything off and stored some chocolate and coffee – just in case. And now I am ticking the final job off my list before I head into the ‘wilds’ and dipping my toe into the land of dot com and blogging.

Who will read my drivel? Who will be dedicated enough to wade through my rambling? Do I want people to know what I think as this process gets under way? It feels strange knowing that I am writing something which isn’t a professional document based on facts and – I like to think- reasoned arguments, and that people I have never met may read it both now and in the future.  I think it will take some getting used to but in case someone is actually reading this and I have never met you, let me take this opportunity to say hello, welcome to my blog and thank you for taking the time!

In the end this is going to be a learning experience. Ultimately the aim is to benefit from this programme in a professional capacity but you can’t improve professionally unless you change personally and that is a difficult thing. I don’t know what to expect. But – despite the cold, the bugs, the potential shortage of good coffee and against all odds, I am excited and looking forward to getting on my way.