Eddie Does The Apprentice

Reading events - the good, the bad and the mildy embarrassing..

I’ve been doing talks and slide shows since The Blue Cabin was first published, over thirty of them now, and you never know what to expect. Last night was the Ards Area Women’s Institute, a delightful group of 120 women (obviously) who were very kind to me and I think enjoyed the evening. There were various announcements, awards etc first and then the Area President Christine Rankin gave me a thoughtful and well-researched introduction, which I have to say, doesn’t always happen (I did a reading once where the organiser said, ‘And now, someone who needs no introduction..’ to a group of people who hadn’t a clue who I was.)

There didn’t seem to be too much fidgeting or chatting, no-one fell asleep or slipped out the back door of the hall, and there were lots of questions afterwards, the most notable of which was, ‘Can I ask you about sewage at the cabin?’, my reply, ‘No, you can’t ask me about sewage on the island’ raising a laugh; but in fact I explained that there is a working septic tank of the old style: we never use bleach or non-biodegradable cleaners and have managed to maintain the bacteriological action in the tank so that the outflow is clear and clean. We managed the same in our farmhouse in Scotland in fact.

My worst experience at one of my own readings was at a bookshop which will remain nameless. It was in a shopping mall, and the reading was arranged for 8pm, two hours after the mall had closed. When I arrived, I dodged the tumbleweed blowing across the car park and left the car in one of the 3,500 spaces still available in a car park capable of holding 3,500 cars. Inside, the mall was not, can I say, humming. I found the bookshop, which was locked, and rattled on the steel security grille, which was three-quarters down. To cut a painfully long story mercifully short, I found myself reading to my mother, the bookshop manager, his assistant, my faithful editor at Blackstaff Press and her mother-in-law – and my two-strong legion of fans, a delightful couple who had read the book, seen the in-store poster, and actually taken the trouble to come along and meet me, bless them. It was no-one’s fault, and the manager couldn’t have been nicer of more helpful – I felt more embarrassed for him than for myself.

The moral of the story, funnily enough, is not to forego bookshop readings – I’ve done lots which were well attended and at which I sold a good many books – but to make sure there is at least a small posse of friends who have promised to be there: not to swell numbers for the sake of it, but to keep the all-important bookshop manager interested in your title. Marketing books is a two-way street. Shortly after this particular event, the manager moved on and the assistant manager, on promotion, promptly returned my books to the wholesaler, every author’s fear and something from which, in this store at least, sales never recovered. Good experience though.

Lucky Break

At 5am I was taking Eddie out for a pee, and had this sinking feeling when I noticed the rowing boat wasn’t there. It’s so annoying – even when you put out a stern anchor, which I had, the boat can swing with the wind and get trapped under the jetty. I’ve tried a heavier anchor, but the trade-off in terms of the effort required to throw it out beyond the boat every night isn’t really worth it.

Nothing I could do about it there and then since the tide was half in, so I went back to bed. By about 8.30 the tide was far enough gone for the boat to appear as a pale glimmer, per the first photograph. As you can see from the second, the oars and duckboards are missing, which involves a trek – something of a long shot – around the foreshore in the hope that they haven’t actually left the island.. If they have, we have to blow up the rubber canoe in order to get out to the With, and then start combing neighbouring islands.
Amazingly, not only were the oars and duckboards just a couple of hundred yards along the shore, they had been dumped in a tidy pile by the current. Lucky break!

Summer comes early to Strangford

A couple of months ago our raft separated from its mooring and disappeared, which is noteworthy a) because a raft gives swimming a purpose and b) because this one has been used for four consecutive seasons by a pair of breeding terns as a kind of daytime base from which to fish the sound. I took the boat into every inlet of every island around here, but without result – it must have been taken by the tides into the open lough, which means it could be anywhere.
Anyway, we decided to build a bigger and better raft, and to float it by the beginning of May, which is when the first terns always arrive in Strangford. This year, though, everything has been upside down, bird-wise. This morning, for example, I was surprised to see a flock of brent geese grazing the point to the northwest of the cabin, when by rights they should have been halfway to the Arctic; and last Wednesday, to confound the loss of the raft, the terns showed up – a good three weeks early. I couldn’t believe it, and set to yesterday morning to build them a raft. Eddie supervised operations, and with an early start I had the raft in the water by lunchtime.The new raft is twice the size of the original, and will make a better bathing platform; and in fact our hope is that George the grey seal might use it now and then to bask in the sun.

Eddie Goes Forth

Rabbie

Very sadly, faithful, funny, delightful Rabbie left us the weekend before last while we were in Scotland. I weep just writing it down. He went off his legs the day before we left the island, and was simply too weak to get it together again, so we decided to put him to sleep. He didn’t suffer, he was eating until the morning he departed and he was, after all, 17 years old - a fantastic score for a Westie.

We brought him home in the back of the car and buried him beside his partner in crime Jock, on the bank behind the cabin, with a clear view of Ringhaddy Sound.

Lynn always said, of both dogs, that she wanted to go first; and no doubt that sounds ridiculous to some, but all doggie people will know that they are as much family as family, and when we lose them we grieve for them like family. The cabin felt empty and so did we. Ah well.

Both dogs belonged to Lynn – Jock the Cairn was my wedding present to her in 1990, and Rab came along a year later. Lynn had always said she wouldn’t consider another dog until Rabbie had gone, because truthfully he always preferred the company of people to other dogs, and she didn’t think it would be fair in his old age.

But island life without a dog was rubbish. Of course we knew that we couldn’t ‘replace’ either Jock or Rab; but I hope they’ll forgive me for saying that it wasn’t an option to carry on without the clip clip clip of little claws on the wooden floor.

On the Sunday after our return from Scotland I did a radio interview for Kim Lenaghan’s This New Day show on BBC Radio Ulster. We talked about island life and The Blue Cabin, about the new book coming out in the autumn, and Lynn’s forthcoming exhibitions; but before going on air, Kim had asked how Rabbie was, having seen his pictures on the website (and indeed on the cover of the book), so she knew we had lost him. Kim has a much adored dog of her own, Ella, whom she rescued from a car park in Craigavon twelve years ago, so of course she understood completely, and said she wouldn’t mention Rabbie on air unless I wanted her to. I said no, I was happy to talk about him unless I went to pieces, so towards the end of the programme she said how sorry she was, and we talked about the feeling of bereavement. She was so nice about it, and so positive – ‘Six doggie years on Islandmore, doggie heaven!’ – and I was fine. I did mention that while I was sitting in the studio, I was thinking about Lynn on her own back at the cabin and that of course we would find something else in due course.

Anyway, This New Day must have a strong following, because immediately after the show, which goes out live, several things happened. My website, which normally receives half a dozen hits a day, had over five hundred visitors; the book sold out on Amazon; Waterstones called Blackstaff, the publishers, about the follow-up, and there was generally a boost on the sales and marketing front for both titles. But in addition, and most unexpectedly, I had a dozen emails from concerned dog lovers urging me to go and find a replacement, not to let too much time go by; several gave me leads to follow up for Westie breeders or dog rescue operations, and all were so vexed and sympathetic - it was lovely. One woman told the heartbreaking story of returning from Scotland herself, to be told that her dog had run away from kennels while she was away, and another correspondent, Rev Derek Boden, sent me this delightful Kipling poem:-

Four-Feet

I have done mostly what most men do,
And pushed it out of my mind;

But I can't forget, if I wanted to,

Four-Feet trotting behind.

Day after day, the whole day through --

Wherever my road inclined --

Four-feet said, "I am coming with you!"

And trotted along behind.

Now I must go by some other round, --

Which I shall never find --

Somewhere that does not carry the sound

Of Four-Feet trotting behind.

Rudyard Kipling

I replied to all these kind emails of course, but this gives me a chance to say a more public Thanks.

Well, I have to admit I had already started the ball rolling, and had made numerous calls to breeders, dog pounds, the USPCA etc. I was hot on the trail of a West Highland terrier pup and to cut a long story short, we have now been joined on the island by the Dog With No Name (as yet), a self-assured, affectionate little guy who hasn’t by any means replaced Rabbie in our hearts but has already found a new place there for himself, just as his previous owner said he would.

He is ten weeks old and owns Islandmore and possibly the rest of Strangford Lough; and Lynn is a new person. Every cloud!

As for Rabbie, as our good friend Leslie (who knows all about losing much-loved pets) said when she heard the news: 'Oh, the monumental sorrow of it all. Bless his fluffy ears!'

Jock

No-one's light ever shone further, or more effortlessly, than yours Jock. We have been drawn to it and guided by it; whatever the distance, we have seen the glow on the horizon, and felt the warmth..

If a course of stones has been added to the beacon, we need only lift our eyes a little higher.