Ela Kasper (left) with Rachel Creighton

Note: Ela Kasper volunteered with Touchwood for 8 days at the beginning of August to help run our final pilot projects, Kids Bushcraft and the Reinvention Sewing Lounge. This is her take on how it all went and her experience as a volunteer – Rachel.

We did it! It was a busy week but we succeeded – we ran three fantastic events.

From the moment I and two other volunteers, Rachel and Minhaj, arrived in Kirkwall, we started planning and discussing the details of the projects. After four days of collaboration we were ready for the first challenge: Kids Bushcraft.

And it went smoothly – we filled our tipi with happy kids, a few parents, a lot of fire and two journalists.

Kids Bushcraft

Malcolm firstly introduced our audience to certain plants and their properties. Stinging nettles are used to make ropes and you would use dock leaf to soothe nettle burn; meadowsweet smells of honey and is a painkiller; soft rush was used to make oil lamp wicks; plantain was used as a wound dressing; and thistle seed is soft and fluffy (oh, and it makes fire, too.)

After some ground rules were explained, Malcolm then used a  bow, piece of wood and a shell to create a fire. Boy, wasn’t that impressive! I heard “wow’s”, “oooh’s” and “aah’s” from all corners of the tipi.

Kids (and the parents) were eager to try making it themselves, and they did, and they succeeded. The four teams we divided people into all made fire! (Minhaj, Rachel and I failed miserably at the attempt.)

There was some time left so we let participants have another go, this time individually, and believe me that parents were as keen as the kids to try again. A photo reporter from The Orcadian took a few pictures, Malcolm and the kids were interviewed by Victoria from Orkney Today, we then tidied up and went to a pub to celebrate a job well done.…

The Reinvention Sewing Lounge

The next day was the premiere of the Reinvention Sewing Lounge. Our tipi was transformed from a simple shelter from wind and rain into a cozy living room with carpets, a stove, huge trunks, beautiful suitcases and a kitchenette for hot beverages and chocolates.

Kirsteen Stewart inspired and guided small sewing projects: scarves, little handbags, leg warmers; her advice was simply precious.

The atmosphere was unbelievable – the eight of us were concentrating on our own projects so much that we had nearly absolute silence with the only noise coming from scissors, threaded needles and Kirsteen’s encouraging praises. There was a huge selection of fabrics to choose from so I imagined it would take a long time to decide on a colour scheme and a project but no, 10 minutes after everyone arrived the work began.

My favourite project was a small evening bag, silky and shiny purple fabric on the outside and matching matt purple inside, with a gorgeous button for both decorative and practical purposes. Simply divine!

I had so much fun working on these three events and the people I met were unique. Malcolm, Rachel, another Rachel and Minhaj added so much to the experience.

We laughed, we learned, we discussed, we cooked, we went swimming, but most of all we all worked hard and we succeeded. Well done guys!

This year’s Tweed Run event in London saw 400 immaculately dressed cyclists gallivanting about the city, soaking up the sunshine and stopping for tea at regular intervals.

I’d love to do something like this, though I think argyll sweaters and multiple tweed layers will be more the order of the day than this:

Which projects to try next?

Already we’re brainstorming which projects to tackle after we’ve finished the Kids Bushcraft, Reinvention Sewing Lounge and Bit Better pilot projects, and we’re thinking bicycles.

Malcolm’s keen on doing a bicycle repair workshop while I’d like to combine it with refurbishing and adding personal style so you absolutely love to get on your bike.

I’m particularly interested in sewing my own panniers and testing out alternatives to toxic waterproof chemicals in all those plastic-coated panniers.

It’s gorgeous outside today, so I’m off for a leisurely cycle down the road to take in the blue sky, cows grazing alongside their calves and the sweet scent of wildflowers on the breeze…

As I mentioned in my previous post, I wanted to create a yarn that captured both the colours and feel of this photo:

The lone house waits for the storm to come

I decided to divide the colours into two: grass and sky. My idea is knit it up as a tapestry that will hang from the homemade knitting needles I’ve started doing. This is what the grass looks like so far:

The Coming Storm yarn knitted up, on the bobbin and in fleece form

I’m going for a deliberately very textured look because it shows the colours best and the texture is way more fun than your usual simple yarns. When I first spun it, I had real trouble and it looked messy and like exactly what it was: my first attempt at spinning this kind of yarn. I thought it was a dead loss.

But I’ve started knitting it up and I’m really enjoying it. Since this week I’m doing an exercise from Go Put Your Strengths to Work (more on this once I’ve finished the week and can report on it) where I record every time I’m doing something that makes me “feel strong” — i.e., happy, relaxed, like I could do this forever — I’ve noticed that seeing the final result put together is something I find enormously enjoyable.

I didn’t particularly enjoy almost every other step of the process though, which means I don’t think I’ll be doing a lot of this, at least not everything all myself. But I do know I love the finding the photo and story and mood, selecting the colours, and carding just the right combinations together.

I’ve switched to the sky now and here’s what that looks like in progress:

Adding the sky

What a blast!

When I’m done, I’ll be sure to post a photo so you can see what I mean by a tapestry.

How does anyone make a living from this? Even remotely?

One thing I will say is all the work and the expense brought home to me how enormously difficult it must be to make a living from doing crafts in general, yarn making in particular. I estimate it took me 80 hours to make this yarn and knit it up for a single tapestry so far, so let’s say it’d take me 90 hours all told to make maybe 6 of these things.

Let’s imagine there was a market for it, that people coming to Orkney or who are fond of it and want to be reminded of it and this tapestry strikes a chord for them. What would they realistically pay? £30? £40? And that’s retail. With all the packaging.

If I were lucky enough to sell all 6, I’d make at most £240. For 90 hours of work. Minus the £20 for supplies. So about £2.50 an hour. That just depresses me.

But it’s only a hobby

I know creative types complain about this all the time. Maybe you have to be a genius to get paid well, or be an excellent marketer.

Seems to me most people say “Well, it’s just a hobby.” But let’s face it, money is one of the ways we measure success. Okay, it seems to be one of the ways I measure success, now that I’m thinking about it.

If someone isn’t willing to pay for it, they don’t want it enough and therefore it’s not as good as you’d like it to be.

Money = success

It’s not that I want to be paid for something I do as such, though that’d be nice, I think it’s that I’d like the recognition that someone else thought it was worth something, that it was worth more than the tatty Made in China stuffed puffin toy or plastic Viking cap they otherwise would buy.

I make these yarns and this tapestry because I want to share how these scenes, this mood of calm, of transformation, steals over me by living here in the way we do. And I hope it invokes a similar feeling in the person who has it. That it reminds them every time they look at it of the magic they experienced in Orkney (or imagine when they dream of it).

I used to hear from Malcolm when he would do his driving tours of Orkney that his guests were always looking for souvenirs to buy but not always finding something that really captured how the place really felt to them.

So I wanted to try to make something that does say Orkney to me and that, at least for people who like wool kind of stuff, appeals. And somehow just making it for myself, while fun, isn’t quite enough. But as soon as I imagine going down to the local shops and seeing if I can sell it, I just envision a lot of work, not being paid very much, and the possibility that no one will like it anyway.

Oh no, is this something as cliched as a fear of failure?

Huh. I can see I’m going to have to ponder these things this week and see what solutions I can work out. Well that’s something to look forward to.

My wedding dress looked like this. All I need now is the hat.

Getting started with spinning

When we moved to this house, our landlandy generously left behind her spinning wheel to use and it’s been beckoning to me since then. Problem was, it didn’t seem to be entirely in working order and I didn’t know enough about wheels to know how to fix it.

Then I heard from my friend Victoria about this spinning class and the instructor, Jan, generously came over with her husband Andy to chat with us about spinning and take a look at the wheel. She then took it home with her and gave it a complete overhaul so it could be used. When I offered to pay her, she brushed it aside and it was clear it made her happy just to have the wheel in working order and ready to be loved.

We finally agreed that perhaps I could barter something in return, and I had one of those moments where I reflected on how much I enjoy life when you don’t just pay for everything. You end up having the most amazing interactions with people and doing things you wouldn’t otherwise.

A few weeks on, and I’ve fallen in love with spinning.

So much so, I’ve become obsessed with a new project for Touchwood involving creating my own tweed yarns based on photos of Orkney.

An example of tweed yarn

And not just any tweed yarns, but ones that tell a story. A good yarn, as it were. I’m calling the line “A Tweed’s Tale”.

A Tweed’s Tale: the magic of a good yarn

I love stories, especially imaginative, magical ones, so it only makes sense to combine that with my love of all things wool, of colours and how they work together to create a mood, our vast collection of Orkney photographs, and Malcolm’s knowledge of folklore and history (for those of you who read the Ideation post a few days ago, this is another example of Ideation in action — linking up different ideas to create something new).

The inspirational photo

So I’m taking this photograph as my first inspiration:

The lone house waits for the storm to come

I took it this summer and it’s our view to the southeast (the sea is to the right, out of picture). That house in the distance is abandoned — it’s the grand old house of a great Arctic explorer, John Rae. I can never quite capture the full vivid richness of colour, but at the time I was struck by the powerful mood.

The ominous, forceful rainclouds form a canopy over the cheery, unflagging wildflowers in the meadow. I’m going to call the tweed “The Coming Storm”.

Getting from photo to wool colours

To get from photo to yarn, I first used software called Color Schemer Studio to select the colours I wanted (slightly different photo but same colours):

Sampling colours

Then I take primary colour dyes by Landscape dyes and mix them together to match as closely as possible the photo’s colour. I used a great tutorial to teach me how to do this. So far, I’ve been working on the paler, more subtle colours and have produced these:

Some of the colours for "The Coming Storm" ready to be blended

(That’s snow on the wool, by the way. I got hit by a freak snow shower just as I started to take the shot.)

Uh oh

I’m a bit disturbed because I felt dizzy and nauseated my first night after several hours of dyeing and I think it must be coming from the fumes. I did it in our kitchen with the doors and windows closed because there’s snow outside and (I thought) a girl has to stay warm.

But I was determined to press on, so for the last two days I’ve turned the heat off in the house completely and had the windows wide open. I think I’m getting the hang of this no central heating thing. Copious cups of hot tea, two hot water bottles, and staying as active as possible seems to do the trick.

Coincidentally, I heard from Malcolm this morning as he’s down in Aviemore teaching firemaking, and he spent last night sleeping out in the snow. So we both get to feel we’ve had a memorable experience with managing the cold these past few days.

Chemical vs natural dyes

It makes me worry to use anything that might be making me feel ill. I’d already researched long and hard about the pros and cons of different dyes, natural vs synthetic, and had concluded that it wasn’t necessarily far more eco-friendly to use natural dyes because you have to use such vast quantities for one, you can need chemical mordants (chemicals that fix the colour to the wool and doesn’t let it bleed out) and some dyes (like that which produces red) come from South America and so you’ve got a big carbon footprint.

Of course, my dyes come from Australia, so who am I kidding? At the end of the day, chemical dyes were easier and I could create far more shades more quickly. But now I’m thinking it’s not worth saving some effort at the expense of health, so I think I’ll try natural dyes next.

Going local with Shetland wool

Some friends of ours, Chris and Howie, have a farm and even produce their own yarn. When we were doing the Power Off Weekend in December, they kindly brought over a whole bag of Shetland fleece for me to play with. Isn’t that great?

Since Shetland is just the next island up from us, it’s a pretty authentically local kind of wool to be using. I washed that (which took ages), then carded it, and then put it in the dye pot.

More yarns to come

I already have two other yarns I want to do: “Midwinter’s Tale”, which is based on Malcolm’s photo of the Ring of Brodgar in the snow and the story of the Dancing Giants of Brodgar, and “The Seafarers”, which is based on his photo of the brightly coloured fishing/diving boats in Stromness Harbour.

Since I’m using so many colours, and also still learning how to spin, it might take me a bit longer to get the finished version done, but I’ll get there.

Knitters and spinners, your thoughts please

I’m thinking of doing a super bulky, thick thin yarn because I had in my mind to do scarf kits, and I certainly found that learning on Colinette’s Point 5 yarn was a delightful and easy way to learn how to knit.

If I did ever decide to do more of these yarns, for sale or gifts, what weight would you think would work best? My concern with doing lighter weights like aran or DK — say, 4mm to 6mm needles — is that you won’t see the colours as much.

Perhaps it’d be better just to do the batts/roving?

Any advice and thoughts most welcome.

I’ll post again as soon as I have a more finished product…

Sure, we can give you a lift!

Why’s the bus service so bad?

Over a cup of tea, Malcolm heard the story from James Stockan, our councillor for Stromness and Hoy areas, while chatting about Touchwood’s mission of doing green living in a fun way. When Malcolm mentioned the latest one on hitchhiking, James said (I’m paraphrasing here):

“Know why the bus service is so poor? It’s because years ago, people used to stand waiting for the bus and invariably a fellow islander would stop to offer a lift, so no one was left for the bus to take.”

How about that. Giving a lift to someone used to be commonplace.

I like to imagine little old ladies standing at the bus stop waiting when another one comes along and offers her a lift. They chat on the side of the road, maybe one offers a helping hand into the car and away they go.

Giving a lift to someone is a chance to catch up on news, perhaps even to make a new acquaintance. You never know who you might run into.

Just think who you might meet, giving a lift

We could do with more getting to know each other too

Even here, we could do with getting to know each other better. There are 16,000 of us or so on the Mainland (Orkney’s main island) and while I’m sure there are many who know quite a few people, we don’t actually all know each other. What’s more, I also know a lot of people who moved away because they didn’t feel connected to the community, like they were part of things.

Something like half the population isn’t from Orkney originally, so that’s a lot of people moving in and trying to get to know their neighbours and where things are.

How much nicer would it be if you just moved in, walked down the road, stuck your thumb out and struck up a conversation with someone you’d never met; you got the insider tip on the best butcher, where to get a kitchen table cheaply, and where to find the tastiest espresso?

Think that might make you feel more welcome? More a part of the community?

It could work in big communities, too

Now I imagine doing this in larger communities, cities even. Think of the opportunities for increasing community spirit, a sense of connectedness to one’s neighbours.

One thing stopping people is fear. Maybe another is just not thinking about it.

It’s important to show it can be done, safely and enjoyably, and that’s why I’d like to see it work here on Orkney. We’re ridiculously safe here and we’ve already got a bit of a tradition of it — now it’s time to reintroduce it!

What needs to happen to make it work

As for fear, the perception of risk is disproportionate to the reality. Nevertheless, Malcolm is working on fail-safe measure to ensure modern carsharing is safe (more on that in future posts).

James says he used to always stop for someone, but the reason he doesn’t stop anymore is because there are a lot more cars on the road now and with few laybys, he’d be holding people up if he stopped.

We could largely deal with that problem by doing a bit of awareness-raising on the radio and in the paper to remind people of this tradition and encourage them to at least be patient when someone in front of you stops for 30 seconds to offer a lift.

Or we could even invest in a couple of laybys in the busiest areas, like heading out of Kirkwall and Stromness.

The point is, I guess I’d been thinking of this hitchhiking thing as a kind of new-fangled thing, and here it turns out (like just about every other green idea) people were doing this long before my generation popped up. Nice to know, really.

Bring on the circus bikes!

Going car-free in a rural location

Unlike when I lived in Washington DC you didn’t really need a car, not having one on Orkney is highly unusual. Pretty much everyone drives.

There are practical reasons for this: we have sporadic public transport, much of our housing is spread far and wide, and our weather can put even the hardiest person to the test.

But this isn’t the whole story.

Car = freedom

Having a car is also an emotional thing, a sign of independence. It’s even a little bit wrapped up in who we think we are.

For me, our car represents our dream of moving to Orkney and starting our own business. We bought our trusty Fiat Doblo 4 years ago in Perth when we decided to relocate to this island and start a new life.

Malcolm and our new car, moving to Orkney in 2004

Malcolm’s used it since then to run his tours with Five Senses, connecting visitors to Orkney in a new way. We’ve met so many good people through this and we’ve relied on the money it’s provided.

Car = home

I think it’s also been a security blanket, this idea that even if we didn’t have a house, we could always throw our stuff in the car and have a place to call home.

So giving up the car is saying goodbye to a lot of things, a lifestyle and identity that we’ve had for four years. It’s changing Five Senses as a business, dropping the car tours and either doing more of the bushcraft and outdoor skills, or well, who knows?

Finally, ditching the car is also a practical challenge, because what we’ve decided to replace our car with, at least for now, are bicycles.

Bicycles, really?

I’m not a big fan of bicycling culture. That whole spandex, toe clips and space age helmets thing puts me off.

Then there’s the wind. In the summer, we average around 15mph wind most of the time. In the winter, it can easily go up to 40-50mph, with a nice lashing of rain.

Since we’re briskly heading into winter, I can look forward to a 9am sunrise and 3:30pm sunset in January.

Huffing and puffing

Lastly, I’m totally out of shape. It’s a good day when I take a gentle walk on the beach for 15 minutes, so cycling for a few hours into Kirkwall…hm.

I need to exercise more, but I know myself. If I have the lazy alternative, I’ll take it. So while it’s nice to think I’d go on more walks and bike rides with proper motivation, the reality is I’m not doing that if I can drive instead.

I’m just going to have to give it a go and hope for the best.

Why this? Why now?

After all this moaning about how hard it’s going to be, you may be wondering why we’re bothering. Two big reasons: Age of Stupid and Office Space.

Age of Stupid basically asks us the question from 50 years in the future when the planet is ruined: Why didn’t we do enough about climate change?

The Age of Stupid USA Trailer from Age of Stupid on Vimeo.

Malcolm and I watched the film a few weeks ago and even though we’d seen films like An Inconvenient Truth, it was this one that tipped the balance and we both said “Enough already! Let’s do this.”

So we’re going on an experiment to reduce our carbon footprint to one tonne between the both of us, from 22 tonnes the average British couple consumes now.

We’ll be writing much more on this subject as part of our work with 10:10 — a movement that asks us to commit to reducing our carbon footprint by 10% in 2010. I hope to see you there.

Humans weren’t meant to be in cubicles

The other reason is best summed up by Office Space, which I often quote, where our hero works a meaningless, soul-destroying job in an office writing code for a big, meaningless corporation. Here’s one of my favourite scenes where Peter, the hero, explains to his work colleague what he’s realised about their crappy jobs:
[kaltura-widget wid="vy84pda9ip" width="410" height="364" addpermission="3" editpermission="3" /]
I remember those days all too clearly, and I never, never want to have to go back to that again.

With our still doing Touchwood Project as volunteers, we have to either reduce our spending or make more money. Until we can get sufficient funding, the only viable income options for us here are jobs like working for the Council or one of the grocery stores.

Selling the car is far preferable to either of those options for me, and it will give us living expenses for another few months, by which time we’ll hopefully have gotten our funding.

Other car-free options

Hitchhiking and car sharing are two alternatives we’d like to develop further. We’ve written a bit about this already, and will be doing much more in the coming months.

A third option I’m pretty excited about are electric scooters.

Xero's eScooter Classic

Ooo, prrrretty.

There are several models newly on the market, but I’m all about fun design, so I prefer a retro-styled model. Xero’s eScooter Classic gets from 50 miles in a single charge, goes up to 30 mph, and is reasonably priced at £1500 ($2500).

This option is well worth a fuller post on its own, so I’ll write that one soon. However, since one of the main reasons we’re selling the car is to save money, forking over £1700 or so for the scooter and gear isn’t what we want to do just yet.

As I wrote in an earlier post, I love the idea of quadricycles but at a whopping €3450/£3000, they’re even more expensive than a scooter, so it’s just going to have to wait.

It’s gotta be stylish and fun

Nope, if I’m going to do bicycling, it’s going to be fun and it’s going to be stylish. Happily, there’s a whole movement here, best seen in the Tweed Runs, cycling events where everyone dresses in my favourite fabric, tweed!

There’s just so much to talk about but I think I’ve run on long enough for now.

Malcolm’s just left the house to hitchhike and walk the 5 miles into Stromness to do our shopping. It’s cold, raining, but he left in high spirits — just about bounced out the door — because he sees it as an adventure, a chance to meet people and do a little, humble planet-saving. Me too.

Meet the quadricycle

Our quest to have fun, be playful and enjoy living green has started to move in another direction lately: getting rid of the car. Given that it’s 11 miles from our house to Kirkwall and the nearest bus stop is 2 miles away, walking or conventional cycling leaves me feeling apprehensive (the wind! the cold! I’m so not that fit!).

So if I’m going to give up something as freedom-giving and effort-saving as a car, it had better be for something good. Now one possibility we wrote about the other day is hitchhiking. I think this has enormous potential for our island in particular, but what if you don’t want to hitch?

Enter the wildly impractical quadricycle — a bike for 2 on 4 wheels.

I’ll tell you why I’m drawn to this kooky idea: I can’t stop laughing about it. The image of the two of us pedaling our way round the island, with some ridiculous flag on the back or triangle sign like the Amish put on their horse and buggy carriages, makes me smile.

I like to imagine the idea catching on, a whole island full of families do their weekly shopping in the four-passenger:

Quadricycle for 4 people, 2 children

Or couples out for a romantic drive to the Standing Stones, or friends carpooling to see a film in town. Imagine pulling up to your friend’s house to pick her up in one of these. Hilarious.

Perhaps you’d prefer the striped version?

Surrey with the fringe on top

Enter the practical challenges

Alas, there are a few problems with the concept. For one, there are no UK-distributors or manufacturers of quadracycles that I can find. Malcolm and I spent hours last night Googling to no avail. The models above are American, as are the other versions we found like Mobilette and Rhoades Car.

Mobilette's "Tornado", which also appeals

Hm, not very comfortable

More worryingly, these models are all meant to be used at leisure resorts, going maybe a few miles at a slow pace. My favourite design, Quadricycle International’s one at the beginning that looks like the a VW Beetle, has a speed limit of five miles an hour. I might as well walk.

And none of them are adjustable seating, so Malcolm’s 6′ 2″ and my 5′ 8″ would be using the same frame. That’s not going to work if we’re going to cycle 22 miles in one day.

OK, comfortable but so…boring

So if we want a quad that’s going to be remotely practical, we’d have to spring for this:

ZEM's quadricycle seems a bit industrial

Zero Emission Machine is the only European quadricycle manufacturer we could find. They’re Swiss, and their quads are comfortable, adjustable, reasonably fast — and horribly pricey at €3450 (£3000 or $5150). They also look too much like bicycles to me.

The red is kinda cool, but where’s the canopy? Where’s the playfulness?

The other practical alternative is Montana-based Lightfoot Cycles, whose helpful comparison of their quad with all the other major manufacturers first brought the practical problems to my attention:

Lightfoot's Microcar

Again, it just looks like 2 mountain bikes strung together. Where’s the laugh factor?

So, I’m not sure where this leads. Malcolm thinks perhaps we could get someone over here in the UK to make one or modify it. The Lightfoot has the added advantage of being able to carry an electric motor, something that appeals as it’d help me get up our admittedly pretty tiny hills.

A new way to tour Orkney?

The other application I love for the idea of quadricycles is touring Orkney. Malcolm’s been taking people around Orkney in our 7-seater Doblo, and most people drive cars to see Skara Brae and the other big tourist sites.

While there’s some bus services, they don’t go everywhere and so many people prefer the control you have with your own vehicle. Wouldn’t it be great to see some of the more adventurous ones tooling around in a quad instead? They could stop and visit with each other when they pass on the road.

Surrey Company's "Limousine" just right for families

An island full of quadricycles would certainly be a talking point and perhaps even a tourist attraction in its own right. Add electric-powered batteries assisted by wind or wave power, and you’ve got something truly exciting.

Hitchhiking is something I associate with grubby guys, desperate backpackers, and the occasional kidnapping or worse. I have some notion that it’s even illegal in some countries.

So suffice it to say that when Malcolm approached me with the idea of hitchhiking I was skeptical — I believe my response was “No way in hell.”

Malcolm's thumb, ready for a lift

However, I’m rethinking my staunch opposition and am coming around to believing that in fact, done right, hitchhiking could be a wonderfully effective way to meet local people, improve ties in a community, save money and help the planet too.

Not a bad haul for sticking your thumb out.

Our effervescent lorry driver who gave us a lift

No longer a hitchhiking virgin

So I finally tried hitchhiking with Malcolm when we were in Ireland a few weeks ago and it was great. I had fun!

A lorry (rig/18-wheeler) driver picked us up, rucksacks and all, and spent the next 15 minutes to the town we were heading to regaling us with tales. Here’s our benefactor on the right.

Let me tell you, I felt more connected to Ireland in that moment, more of an experiencer (I’ll just make up that word) of the place than an observer or tourist, than I did at any other time. I was meeting and talking with someone who lives and works there, who sees the country all the time and has plenty of observations to share.

Malcolm calls his approach to hitchhiking 5 star hitchhiking because it’s about choosing it for the benefits it brings you and others. I’ll let him enumerate on those in later posts, but for now, let me share the true story Malcolm wrote about one experience he had hitching and you can judge for yourself.

Edinburgh to London fast and free

Years ago I was in Edinburgh with a girlfriend. She was leaving the city on a coach for London and I was devastated when I couldn’t book a seat on the coach too. I waved her off with a tear in my eye. With no desire to do anything on my own I was lost and restless. Nor did I have money to overcome the loneliness. I felt crap.

I opted to get “out of there” and decided to hitch “anywhere”. So I walked to the local bus stop and got on a bus going west, out of town, towards the ring road, past Corstorphine and the Zoo. Then I sulkily put out my thumb and trusted to whatever showed up.

I got a lift, towards Glasgow. Then another lift onto the A74 southbound, still unsure of what I was doing or where I was going. I dunno, maybe home to North Wales or maybe the mountains of the Lake District?

Well, my next lift took me into England quickly and it started to dawn on me that this was the same route my girlfriend’s coach would be taking, down the M6, to London. I started to look out for a National Express coach. My driver was in a hurry, doing well over 100 mph, at times I worried we would not survive.

Anyhow, to keep the story short, I got it into my head to chase the coach, and I started to calculate relative speeds, and the head start the coach had on me. It seemed worth trying and my lifts were taking me that way. But no sign of any express coach.

It was going great until I reached the Luton area, north of London on the M1. I was dropped off at a service station, just as light was fading. After the toilets I got a quick coffee and a pen, then wrote a sign saying LONDON, then I walked out past the petrol station to the exit road onto the motorway.

My heart sank. There was a long line of hitchers, at least a dozen, scattered out along the grass verge. And not your smart looking hitchers either. It looked like the photo line up for the police station, and they were all ahead of me. So close but it seemed my hopes were dashed, the chase was lost. I stood and watched. Hardly any cars were passing, maybe one a minute max. None were stopping. Everyone looked miserable and territorial. I was just one more nuisance. I kept out of the way.

A truck stopped, one guy jumped up and went. The queue shuffled a bit. 10 minutes and nothing. It was starting to drizzle and was getting dark, making us all look like shifty shadows. Criminals one and all. A car stopped mid way along the queue and took a very thankful hitcher away. No one moved. So I filled the gap and sat down, depressed.

I paid no attention to the cars as I had to wait for all these others to go first, so I just inked in my sign a bit better, preparing for the dark of night. It was going to be a long night and I had nowhere to go. I had nothing better to do, so I just kept writing LONDON over and over, darker and darker, straightening the lines of the letters, doodling. Then I wrote “please” beneath it, reflecting my sense of desperation.

The sign that made all the difference

I was cold, nothing was happening. Some hitchers drifted off, and the 10 or so of us remaining strung out as if to get as far from each other as possible. I noticed all were trying to get lifts, the queue didn’t exist, it was a fashion contest or a parade of rough and grimy folks. One guy was on crutches, poor bloke. Another scared me, so I looked away. We all hitched, like fish trying to get hooked.

A car drove past me – a nice car, a Jaguar – and stopped further down the line. A guy jumped to the door and spoke to the driver then looked up and shouted at me. I didn’t understand. He shouted again, loud! He beckoned me with his arm. I picked up my bag (I was not letting that out of my sight) and walked up. “He wants you” said the hitcher.

I was in the Jaguar, purring down the motorway, next stop London. 12 cylinders hummed. The seats squeaked and smelt of real leather. The clock ticked silently. It was dark outside and the road was empty, as we accelerated well beyond legal limits again. We felt above the law, wrapped in such wealth. The driver, dressed in a smart suit, didn’t say much, other than this:

“I have never given a lift to anyone before – and I never expect to do so again – but you had the courtesy to say ‘please’, so I wanted to help you”.

Well, I told him why I was heading into London, chasing my girlfriend, the journey from Edinburgh, the coach fully booked. He drove me to Paddington station, gave me the money for the Tube (underground) and cruised off. I caught a train to Victoria coach station, arriving 20 minutes after the coaches arrival time. Can you believe it? After all that. All alone at a coach station again.

I was walking out of the station when in came a coach, the delayed Edinburgh coach! I hid behind a pillar, almost too weak to stand. The passengers all got off – and there she was!

I had beaten her to London, faster than the Express (non-stop) coach. You should have seen her face! We hugged.

This story is true. I print it here to be inspirational and informative.

This is a photo of one of several of the houses. You can see the (thought to be) box bed on the left, and stone dresser on the right, with the fire in the centre:

We want to take several of the elements you find here and apply them to a new, upmarket eco resort. As part of the business plan, we’re looking at similar enterprises and I’ve found a few I thought I’d share to give you a better idea with where we’re going.

First, the Ice Hotel, a hotel in Sweden literally made of ice. It references the Ice Age, but does so in a design-conscious way. I love the furs.

A suite in the Ice Hotel

Another example is Shompole Lodge, an eco-resort in Kenya. Here they’ve used local materials and a strong bush feel to a very high standard:

Shompole Eco Lodge

And one more: Playa Nicuesa in Costa Rica. The jungle feel of this cottage is perfect, and I’d like to have the landscape around our cottages similarly integrated into the design:

Playa Nicuesa

Sadly, neither Malcolm nor I are artists, so I’m now looking for someone who can sketch our ideas and convey the feel that we’re going for with our developing eco-resort. We’ll be working with an architect eventually, and we’ve made some simple sketches ourselves, but we need to find someone with the skills to turn it into a full-blown artist impression before we approach an architect or funders. To give you a very rough idea:

Skara Brae layout reinterpreted for a modern cottage

The box bed on the left is a long-standing tradition in Scotland. The wood stove in the centre radiates warmth and cosiness, just as the fire hearth did 5,000 years ago. The circular windows in front and back are a hobbit hole reference, giving it some whimsy and playfulness.

Some of the cottages would have a loft with a ladder opening up on the roof for stargazing.

The overall layout of the cottages would look something like this:

Layout of several cottages, connected by partially underground passage

We’re still sketching the details, but if you or anyone you know has drawing talent and would like to get involved with our project, please do get in touch at rachel [at] touchwood [dot] com. We need your help!

Harvesting seaweed at low tide

Since we live on the beach, we’ve long eyed up the swaying fronds of bladderwrack, kelp and dulse seaweed — both as free wild food, and as a cheap home spa treatment.

Today we and our cats braved the miserable weather to harvest some seaweed because it’s the spring low tide, meaning that the tide is out further than at almost any other time of the year — perfect for gathering fresh seaweed.

It’s an experiment, since my main exposure to edible seaweed is confined to nori wraps on sushi, but we’ve gotten a hold of two great books: Seaweed: A User’s Guide and Seaweed: Nature’s Secret to Balancing Your Metabolism, Fighting Disease, and Revitalizing Body and Soul that gave us enough information to take the plunge and gather it for ourselves.

How to gather and harvest seaweed

Here’s quick little movie of Malcolm gathering kelp and red seaweed:

[kaltura-widget wid="8fzprr9ajs" width="410" height="364" addpermission="2" editpermission="2" /]

Benefits of seaweed

According to Seaweed: Nature’s Secret, seaweed contains “thirteen vitamins, twenty amino acids, and sixty trace elements, including iodine and sodium”. The health benefits are too long to list, so I’ll pick my favourite ones:

• regulates blood sugar and cholesterol levels
• prevents and kills cancer cells
• protects and improves function of liver and kidneys
• promotes resistance to allergies
• prevents migraines
• combats anxiety and chronic fatigue

I’m hoping it will help me with candida, and provide us with a free, healthy nutritional supplement. I’m all about free food for lazy people — if it takes too much effort, I’ll pass. But even I can manage to wander down a few hundred feet, cut off a few strands and sling them up above the Aga to slowly dry out.

Drying out the seaweed over the Aga

Drying out seaweed on the stove

Seaweed deteriorates quickly, so we dry ours out over our Aga stove. Other suggestions were to put it in your oven at 150 degrees F or let it dry in the sun, if you’ve got that kind of climate.

Just having a cup of tea with a 1/2 teaspoon of kelp, and well, it tastes like seaweed. Will have to try some more recipes…