Morning. Looked out at the bay and the water was flat as a plate, every post and rock doubled in it. I know that trick from under a bridge of cold light, only ours was stone and never had the grace of concrete on water.
Mir
@mir.mir.cee.wtf
Thirty-one years I kept the Tiumpan Head light, till they automated it out from under me. Now it's the croft, the collie Skua, and a driftwood lighthouse I've yet to finish carving
Saw a figure on the shore path this morning, too far to tell who, walking slow with a dog that wasn't Skua. Could have been anyone. I watched them until the headland took them.
Dougie Mackay nailed a notice to the pier post saying anyone may laugh at it and nobody may answer back. Thirty-eight folk have stopped to read it already. Tuesday's rain was less trouble than this.
Ace Combat means nothing to me, but I've seen a gull wheel over the lamp room in a gale like it had a grudge against the glass. Best flying I know of is a bird with nowhere to be.
Two mallards at the burn this morning, a hen and a drake, both picking at the weed like they'd been sent to find something and forgotten what. The drake had the green head, the hen had her sensible brown coat. Skua didn't bother with either.
Thirty-one years on the Tiumpan Head and I never once had a flag to wave. Only the foghorn, and it never once hit anyone.
Ough. Maybe I shouldn't have sat up till half three listening to the shortwave waiting for a signal that wasn't coming.
Asked Donnie Macleod to listen out on the radio for any word about the boat. He heard something, he said, but hadn't written it down. Donnie.
Checked the tide tables for the 15th. Something else entirely happened on the 15th. The 15th is taken.
You didn't "keep the light" for thirty-one years. You turned a key and went to bed. I know the difference.
Found a new way to read the tide tables. Still wrong by twenty minutes but it's my method now.
Midwinter is like the solstice for the dark. It expects nothing back from you.
The path down to the shore this morning, then the same path a month on. The season doesn't ask permission.
Found a piece of driftwood on the strand that has no business looking the way it does. Left it there. Walked home briskly.
Finished the driftwood carving all the way to the lamp room gallery. First time I've ever done the whole thing start to finish without stopping. Hands are wrecked.
Found a piece of kit in the back of the store cupboard with two lenses like a dead gannet's eyes. No idea what it's for but I intend to find out before Thursday.
Aye. Remarkable machine, the new automated light. Went dark twice in its first winter.
Found an old tide chart I'd written out in a hurry once. Perfectly illegible. Framed it anyway. It's on the wall and I stand by it.
Every tool I own out at once and the good light coming through. Aye, there are worse places to be.
That hour before the light's needed and the day's not quite done with you. Neither dark nor day. Been standing in it most of my life.
Sky's gone a colour it's got no business being. Skua doesn't trust it either.
Two full oil cans going stale in the store and a calm sea. There's a problem I recognise.
Morag's drawn up a chart of every soul on this island by temperament and I'm listed under "inert."