Typing away after a early evening kip for an hour or so. Been gale like today; yet what a Wonderland I wake up to. And as a random half asleep action, I re-post a relatively recent video with an OFFER!
Turning on the Tobermory Christmas Lights
Last night on Main Street, Tobermory, saw the turning on of the Christmas lights.
What a wonderful experience last night being part of the Isle of Mull community as we all saw the Christmas Tractor parade, children choir singing carols, the Tobermory Choir singing carols, Ukulele playing and singing of carols, a raffle, Banjo Beale judging shop fronts, then the countdown to the turning on of the lights.
Full photos and videos can be found at: https://www.flickr.com/gp/petercobley/0t5Cy5zpU1
Tobermory photos. found us. End of the week.
Vivid sunset one morning this week from the house about Tobermory
Sunday 1st December, end of the week, start of a new month and the run up to Christmas. I have had a productive week and one for the most part run on serenity.
I’ve mused over found us, my consultancy business, and am happy with work I have put into the website when consolidating what found us stands for, and for that matter me. It is a business that ultimately helps people, and is an exposition of my world view; give back what was freely given to you. And it is a shame a lot of people in advertising, marketing, and media don’t give back and possess a myopic world view that revolves around ego and self.
I think I demonstrate with found us that there is another way, that one is rich when one gives in business, in life. Monetary and material things naturally follow, but if one is not solely tied to the material world then they do not matter, and less attention is spent trying to screw people over.
Anyway, I think I’ll post some spectacular photos of Tob (how the locals refer to Tobermory), and why? Because the photos may make people think about making change. Claire and I make a major geographical change, that has helped drive change in self; whilst also dumping what I now realise were tenuous relationships with some not so nice people at the Saddleworth Runners.
A vivid sunrise and two photos of a frosty Tobermory, taken from Main Street
This week saw mixed weather to say the least. As fortune would have it the end of the week, Saturday evening, saw nice mild weather for the Tobermory turning on of the Christmas lights, which was wonderful. Read about it in the next post!
My God, its full of stars. I could not resist that with these two photos of Mull at night.
Swimming Thursday night at Aros Park, looking toward Tobermory
There is swimming and then there is swimming.
Looking back to Craignuire on the Oban ferry from Mull, and snow capped hills
Day and night in Tobermory
A post on Tobermory, a place of day and night in terms of living here. In a few mere hours we can see two very different Tobermory’s.
For me this is the delight of the island that is Mull. No one moment is the same visually, but then again is that not life?
Sunday morning of the 17th November 2024
The same view on the evening of Sunday 17th November 2024
It is Monday the 18th just after 5pm as I type. It is fresh but mild outside if that makes sense, and with no rain. We await potential snow as does the rest of the country, especially those in high places. So I may soon see my first snow on the Isle of Mull.
Was down on Main Street earlier, about a couple of hours ago, to do some shopping at the Coop, and it is cheese cake for pudding tonight!
Looking down Main Street this evening
Journeys of an Englishman travelling foreign climes (well Scotland.)
Today I type from a delayed Scotrail train to Oban. A three hour trip through beautiful scenery. With me are Josie and Ronnie, my parents in law as I chaperone them to Oban and then onto Craignure on the Isle of Mull via Calmac ferry the Isle of Mull. At platform 4 Queen Street, Glasgow the Scotrail people could not connect the two trains together that form the service and we are now over 20 minutes late, with a potential arrival time of 3.54pm into Oban and the ferry 3.55pm. Sat at the very front of the train I can hear it labour as it chases time itself.
I travelled up yesterday from Dukinfield using the very excellent National Express service for Glasgow that calls into Hamilton. Long gone are the lyrical days of the using a service where you could both hide from, and see life.
Take the National Express when your life's in a mess
It'll make you smile
All human life is here
From the feeble old dear to the screaming child
From the student who knows that to have one of those
Would be suicide
To the family man
Manhandling the pram with paternal pride
And everybody sings, "Ba-ba-ba-da"
We're going where the air is free
National Express by the Divine Comedy - Verse 1 - Released 25th January 1999
My life was a mess but is no longer a mess, and I was happy to see both Josie and Ronnie, catch up on sleep in their comfortable house, with today being our journey from Queen Street via train to Oban, Josie deciding and preferring a taxi with a cheerfully pleasant driver. making the station with time to drink lovely coffee (Danish pastry and tart for me) in kaffateria opposite the station. And highly recommended for its coffee.
All fine and we mosied over to the estimated platform 4, which was where I departed from last time I was off to Mull. Now last time there was a problem, and as fate would have it the same problem occurred again. The difference being I was armed with two Scottish pensioners. Very simply the train is made of two parts. And at Crianlarich it splits into a Oban train and a Mallaig train, with the Oban section being the front of the train, normally four carriages, out of Queen Street. Last time they could not connect the train and everyone piled onto the Mallaig train after watching the Oban section sneak out of Queen Street having failed to couple to its mate. Same again, and we watched as our train, our seat reservations, fuck off into the dark tunnel. Sharp walk to other train, looking through windows for those unreserved table seats.
Now I must admit it was better than last time, which was Saturday, hot weather, and a platform knee deep in people, tourists, cyclists. Back then I’d managed to bag a seat opposite a dog named Snoop.
This time though a new train shot in to Queens Street and connected up with the Mallaig section to give a big train, midweek when less busy, and despite no original reservations we did bag a table and seats at the very front of the train. Mind you I did position myself right at the front of the train by the passenger door. Seat table sorted, bags stowed I wandered down the carriages checking on some unfortunate elderly ladies who were on a three week painting holiday taking in the Inner and Outer Hebrides, and like us armed with bags had been caught short on the platform; where we had spoken earlier. All three were good and I returned to the seat to type this post, eat some M&S crisps from a meal deal, and relax at the view, as were Ronnie and Josie.
Shame there is no Trolly Dolly as I could murder a coffee, but laugh inside at some more Divine Comedy lyrics that I remember from the old days of the National Express.
On the National Express there's a jolly hostess
Selling crisps and tea
She'll provide you with drinks and theatrical winks
For a sky-high fee
Mini-skirts were in style when she danced down the aisle
Back in '63 (yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah)
But it's hard to get by when your arse is the size
Of a small country
And everybody sings, "Ba-ba-ba-da"
We're going where the air is free
Tomorrow belongs to me
Verse 2.
Addendum:
As I proof read this I see the Trolly Dolly heading our way. Life is good.
Jealous, but not really....
I am jealous, but not really. In fact excited. So what’s this all about a cow (coo in Scotland.)
A coo.
The Wifey, She who must be Obeyed, The Boss, Teach, Run for the Hills, Mrs Cobley, Mrs C, Yeah Baby, and a variety of other names went out for a walk last night after school. Above Tobermory is a track into the countryside where there is a radio mast. She drove up there, parked, and walked, and what photos she sent, what photos.
I was jealous because I was not there with Claire, who I miss a lot, whilst bathed in miserable weather in Dukinfield, and suffering from this infernal cold and cough. But after a great sleep having taken a Lemsip I feel more sprightly this morning and have not hacked a cough out and fingers crossed. So jealously pivoted to excitement at knowing that my new home is not that far away.
This last photo really sums up living on Mull and Claire must have been very near Ardmore Bay to the north of Tobermory looking across the sea to Ardnamurchan Peninsular on the mainland. Just stunning, with plenty of hills (Munros) to explore.
Today is a mixed one with two hours volunteering over lunchtime with OCD Action as I help facilitate a general OCD support group. Then after that I’m working on myself with some CBT for my own OCD via Silvercloud, and will soon also receive some one to one sessions via Oldham Talking Therapies, for which I am grateful. And I am certainly grateful for the NHS and always have been for what it does and continues to do. So it is with sadness that I see it creak and groan to the extent that it does with such damage riven through it by the failed private policies of the Conservatives. I am not saying Labour will have the solutions, but we can only hope.
And I will be one of the lucky ones who has been able to pay for private health needs, has received work medical insurance, and benefited from NHS services. And will receive just as much and more in a more sparsely populated area and probably better funded service in Argyll and Bute.
Lego at 52 years of age, and I am not ashamed.
So it is with delight I write this post about Lego whilst watching Rio Lobo on the TV in a nice warm house whilst the cold and the wind swirls outside in Dukinfield. (And I think I may have caught a cold.)
I’ve been busy with making the lounge of my temporary accommodation Cobley friendly, and I think I have succeeded to a great extent, with room for improvement. Ho hum. I find Lego building has delighted and soothed me, and my housemates I honestly believe have felt the same.
I am enjoying my time in Dukinfield with ANEW and focusing on my recovery with over 7 months under my belt presently. But I keep it a day at a time and such a simple approach and listening to what I am told has and does make a difference; only took me over 12 years to the despair of myself and others.
Monday sees me work and study to a Level 2 qualification for counselling, and something I wish to follow, whilst running my beloved business found us. I finish the study first week of April and want to get myself onto Level 3 for the September intake, and suspect it will be with learndirect.
The challenge being for Level 3, hence learndirect, being that I will be in Mull by July/August. Claire and I had always wanted to live in Scotland, in the Highlands, not too remote mind you. So she decided to go for and get a role as Biology Teacher at Tobermory High School. Sheesh. There is remote Scotland, and there is a Hebridean island… She started teaching January and is living in rented accommodation with our ultimately buying a property.
I’ve been to Mull and must admit I am looking forward to it despite trepidation as it is a wonderful place and lifestyle in which to live and embrace.
Oh and the Lego is coming with me.
