At sea

It became even greyer and more dreich today, if that was possible. Not that it has put us off. We’ve stayed in the cottage apart from a walk down to Port Haunn this morning, when we got a bit damp, but nothing we couldn’t handle when we got back to the cottage. And we’ve both made the odd foray out of the cottage. This evening it is quite dry outside (and relatively warm) (although obviously pitch black outside, but it seemed that someone was also outside one of the other cottages which are next to this one), and I’m hopeful for better weather tomorrow. Not that we have great plans or anything like that. It will be more of the same. Reading, studying (in Mr A’s case), wood burner, food and treats. Today, I have written a short introduction to a book symposium based on the book I’ve read over the last couple of days, and carried on reading Waves across the South. I’ve just embarked upon a fascinating chapter about the Persian Gulf.

2021 has been a strange year, although possibly not as discombobulating as 2020 (I was just reading my reflections on 2020). Or at least in the sense that we expected everything to be pretty shit, and it actually was… Whereas at the beginning of 2020, we had many more hopes….  And we opened the new decade in a different country.

My work conditions have changed completely. I’ve given up the Finland project, and now taken on a rather big new role at work which is likely to keep me very busy for most of the next five years. Whether I will manage much research or teaching must be a moot point. I jolly hope I manage a modicum of academic travel in the future, although I suspect that patterns of such travel have now changed for good (and for the better in many respects). At the end of the year, I managed to catch the dreaded plague, but on the other hand we demonstrated the virtues of vaccines and boosters. Although I was perhaps caught by the waning of my Astra Zeneca immunities (and before my booster), I was protected against serious illness. Given my propensity for chest infections, who knows what would have otherwise happened. I’ve only just thrown off the cough in the last couple of days. Mr A meanwhile escaped completely, having had two Pfizers and a Moderna. I am subject to substantial NHS nagging to go and get my booster, but literally I cannot. Not just because I’m at the far end of Mull, but also because you have to wait until 28 days after my positive PCR test. But at least I quickly reverted to LTF negative, which was a relief. And for me, all of that played out against the backdrop of some truly surreal happenings at work, on which the less said the better.

So happy we decided to choose Mull for Hogmanay. It’s been truly marvellous and I’m really looking forward to our last few days, and holding out for some slightly better weather in the next couple of days.