Going north: Scotland and the Holy Isle, Specsavers

Recipe of the week:

Pumpkin seed mole, adapted from Leite’s Culinaria.

Travel writing

I’ve managed to get a couple of long read commissions from The National which is run by a young female editor who is open to new ideas and fresh names. So unlike everywhere else, where writers benefit from: the Oxbridge bias, nepotism, being mates, and the nadir of getting tenured staff to nick your idea. I spend a lot of time pitching stories and 99% of the time I’m ghosted - no reply at all. My daughter edited Labour List and she told me she never responded to pitches unless she wanted them. It’s demoralising being a freelancer.

Maybe writing used to be easier than acting, but nowadays it’s not. It’s the same humiliating ritual of trying and trying and being ignored.

I’m trying to make a living. But rates for writing and photography are the same or lower than they were 30 years ago.

The trouble with Scottish stories is that actually getting there costs a fortune. All of the money for the commission in fact. I tried to get support from the Scottish tourist board, car hire, campervan hire, train companies, accommodation, but failed. They want lots of notice (c’mon this is newspapers) or in the case of hotels, a picture and full paragraph on the hotel you’ve stayed at for two nights, while paying the media rate (a one third discount). I’m writing about something else, so no newspaper is going to publish a picture of a boring business hotel. It’s not advertorial. But no one will financially support first-hand reported features.

So I ended up driving there, solo, in my Fiat 500. The first night I slept in the car. I’m short so it wasn’t impossible but it was in no way a refreshing night’s sleep. After that I stayed in hostels (£22 a bunk) or even, when I landed in Lairg, where the season doesn’t open till April, at a strangers house, fingers crossed he wasn’t a mad axeman. He wasn’t, his parents were there and it was lovely. He had Aspergers and was banned from a local Lidl supermarket because he organised their shelves ‘it was messy!’. I wouldn’t ban him, I’d give him a job.

This is a travel writers life- glamorous it isn’t. For food I lived on soup mostly, the cheapest dish on the menu.

This is Lairg below, the little house on the lake.

From Saint Cuthberts road, Kilburn to Lindisfarne

I needed a stopover on the way to Scotland and I’d never been to Lindisfarne, the holy isle.

My friend Neil Spencer recommended ‘Cuddy’ a prize winning novel so I downloaded it on Audible for the drive. It’s unlistenable. Turns out it’s an ‘experimental’ novel. It sounded like an academics dry research notes being read out. The actual story is interesting, shame the author had to muck about with it.

Saint Cuthbert, an early pioneer of British/Celtic christianity, was hired to manage a monastery on Lindisfarne during the 7th century. He wasn’t managerial, preferring to pray all day alone in a cell. Is being a hermit a mental illness? It could be schizoid personality disorder or simply, depression. Today hermits are called ‘solitaries’.

(I love all those Anglo-saxon names: Cuthbert, Wilfred, Osbert, Oswald, Alban, Ecgfrith, Aethelwine, Aethelstan)

On his death, pilgrims carried his coffins around the North East for seven long years. When they opened the coffin to have a peek, his remains were undecayed. This initiated the pathway to sainthood. Cuddy, a Geordie shortening of his name, was a popular cult amongst Northumbrians. A century later he was finally buried in Durham Cathedral.

Two hundred years later, Lindisfarne was where the Vikings landed and massacred the monks.

Today Lindisfarne is popular for a quick stopover for tourists. The island is cut off from the mainland twice a day, you have to consult the tide tables for access. It’s hard to get a one night stay on the island, it’s not worth changing over the bedlinen for less than £200. (Solo travelling means you can rarely afford a hotel). The people in Ship Inn pub were friendly, giving me a free cup of tea from the staff room because the machines were shut down. The staff did some country line dancing with locals. This is what they get up to when the tourists aren’t there.

It’s worth visiting Lindisfarne Castle, £10 or free if you are a member of the National Trust. What’s the difference between English Heritage and the National Trust? I asked. Generally, English Heritage are ruins and the National Trust properties are furnished, it was explained. I like interiors more than exteriors. This castle was a Tudor building which was turned into a country house by Country Life magazine founder Edward Hudson. It’s beautifully done, you really get a sense of how he and his illustrious friends such as Lytton Strachey lived. All mad surreal dinner parties, leather suitcases, typewriters and notebooks, watercolours and stained glass window looking over the sea. The walled garden, designed by Gertrude Jekyll, was a delight: espalier apple trees, a picturesque shed, daffodils and wooden frames awaiting sweet peas. It’s at its best in June/July.

You could just about see the seals - the North Atlantic Grey Seal- lying about on a sandy beach. A guide told me, it’s very weird, these seals come from the Faroe Islands and are used to rocks, but since about 2010 they prefer the sand, it’s comfier. They chill out on the beach, waiting for their food to go down.

Inverness

What a dump! Sorry. I was forcibly removed from a local cafe ironically named ‘The good craic’ for having a laptop. I’d ordered lunch and a coffee and spent 1 1/2 hours there. ‘This isn’t an internet cafe’ yelled the waitress, grabbing the coffee I hadn’t finished, putting her fingers inside the cup and removing it. ‘I’ll call security if you don’t GET OUT’. Call the police I said. She didn’t. Horrible experience.

Sutherland

The north west part of Scotland, above Ullapool, is called Sutherland, after the Viking ‘southlands’. For the Vikings, I guess this was the south.

It’s otherworldly, a Scandinavian wild land, that reminds me of the island of Chiloe, off Chile: as you drive you see sheep, scrub, little hut-like houses, crags, white sandy beaches, frost tinged grasses, distant snowy Munros, diamond streams and gullies. It’s famous for its unusual geology.

Someone I’ve been friends with for years on social media, but never met, Monica Shaw of Eatsleepwild has settled up there with her partner Mark. She has an airbnb with attached observatory. She’s also started a dark skies supper club. I’ll let you know when I’ve written it up.

Specsavers

Before Christmas I ordered new glasses from my local branch of Specsavers. Within 6 weeks the arms were bending alarmingly. Trying to straighten them out for my long drive to Bruton, one arm snapped off. I drove with them precariously perched on my nose.

The Specsavers website states that you can return glasses within ‘100 days, no quibble’. They quibbled. The assistant in the branch peered at the glasses and said ‘we’ll have to send them off to the lab to examine them’. I snorted, ‘What is this? CSI Specsavers? It’s obvious what’s happened, the frame isn’t strong enough and it broke’.

The manageress told me I’d have to pay for a repair, £30. On the website I spoke to ‘chat’. What about this promise on your website? Response: it’s up to the local branch if they abide by that.

I had great difficulty getting any kind of email, other than the branch, to complain to.I filed a complaint to my debit card, to the advertising standards authority, and something called the Optical Consumer Complaints Service . Plus several emails to Specsavers, none of which they replied to.

After three weeks of this obfuscation, I put it on Twitter/X and someone furnished me with the email of the CEO of Specsavers. Within hours I had a reply. By the next day they promised to send me glasses with a new frame.

I’ve learnt:

• Always go to the top

• Specsavers is a bunch of franchises

• Long time customers count for nothing

• Find another way to buy glasses - maybe online. Any recommendations? Obviously price is an issue.

Jessica Light passementerie

Here is my piece on trimmings, tassels and a woman artisan in the decorative arts

Ophelia pic of the week:

She’s obsessed with crocs now, must buy her a pair. She makes new noises - a train ‘Choo choo’ and ‘uh oh’ when she drops something. I haven’t seen her as I’m away but I stay in touch via WhatsApp.

My little Strumpf: