Slugging It Out.

Not so long ago I wanted to be woken up when September comes. Now I’m sticking to the song and loving being awake when September Ends. We didnt quite get that lovely Indian summer we long for every year. The weather stuck to the plan it had clearly agreed to all summer. Fairly damp, grey and if the sun shone, it wasn’t for long. Holidaymakers have stuck to their plans and kept coming too, because when they booked their holiday last year no one told them there might be no view and now it’s too late. It’s all bought and paid for. They often say ‘oh we don’t come for the weather.’ But…..

I’ve met a lot of Americans on the Caledonian Canal this year - more than usual. Wrapped up in warm jackets and hats, they have acknowledged that a constant 35 degrees with high humidity has been oppressive in Florida this year, but the Scottish contrast has been a little unexpected. It IS summer, after all.

It’s funny how they don’t know. They can’t know because it’s too hard to believe. And it’s just as well people don’t believe it or we might have a lot less visitors. I say this as someone who benefits financially from visitors. There will be plenty of people in Lochaber who would like folk to have more faith in our shockingly bad climate.

I asked a woman from Florida what magical moment would lift her spirits the way one shaft of sunlight can lift ours. She looked surprised. “I’ve no idea,” she said. “I’ve never thought about it.”

We do have to get excited very quickly because it can (and has been) fleeting. Don’t look away. You can’t afford to miss it.

And the excitement can be day or night.

Over the years I’ve been collecting the patterns made by ‘stuff’ that gathers at the Top Lock of the canal at Banavie.

Not all of it clean! I can often see evidence of spring, summer or autumn in much of the gathered material - as well as pollution. This morning I leant over and took a photo and my sister said it reminded me of a skirt I used to have.

I knew which one she meant. I got married in it. I still have it and I got it from Julie. It had been a gift from her mother.

Julie and I lived on a caravan site up at Inveroy and used to pick up our mail from the house. Julie would receive the most exquisite gifts from her mother. I don’t think this skirt came in the post but I do remember the silk knickers. Very lovely.

One day there was a package for me that was clearly from my mother. Julie got very excited. “Open it, open it!” She squealed, jumping up and down.

I opened it. Julie put her hand over her mouth as she leaned closer to look. “What on earth is it?” She said, no longer jumping up and down.

“It’s the nuts from the cereal packet that my mum doesn’t like.” Brazil nuts, walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts - all with a powdery coating from the rest of her cereal. The bits she actually ate.

She’d removed them from her breakfast bowl and once she had enough to justify the postage, packed them in a recycled poly bag and sent them to me.

This was not the only time Julie looked shocked at something belonging to me.

I’ve had a lifelong, skin crawling dislike of the slug. I grew up with the black ones as a child and remember counting them on the road to our farm before I was even 5. I’d come to some sort of level of acceptance of those ones by then. The leopard ones that live in our shed are a whole new level of yuckiness. I do try to understand the evolutionary need for them. Ducks eat them. I’m sure other animals enjoy snacking on them too. It’s hard to think they are only here to be eaten. There has to be another reason, surely. On the caravan site, I used to have to shower in a lean-to shed across the park and one night I couldn’t close the door as there was a black slug in the way. The door was half open, half shut. I didn’t want to shower al fresco on a caravan site where someone might peek round the door and I didn’t want to hurt the slug. Or touch it. So I had to get Spook to come up from his mum and dad’s house to move it. I’m not sure how I communicated this to him as it was quarter of a mile down the road, there was no mobile phones and I was wrapped in a towel. Maybe he heard the screams, or perhaps it was through the strength of his love that he sensed that I needed him.

Clearly this was not a sustainable situation. It’s hard enough to get me into a shower, never mind a breezy one with a slug guard. I decided I’d overcome my shuddering dislike of the slug and bought myself a very lifelike fridge magnet. Goodness knows where I got it from. This was 1991. No telephone internet shopping whilst in the shower. How on earth did we source stuff? Sales page in the Lochaber News?

Julie was by now very used to our different lifestyles. When we had dinner with her and Mark over at their caravan, there were napkin rings. When they had dinner at ours, I used my arm to slide all the stuff gathered on the table over to one side and plonked the plates down. It was a wonderful friendship and we laughed A LOT!

One day she called in to ask me something while I was at the sink washing dishes. She suddenly stopped talking and clutched her throat “oh god,” she shrieked, and with a shakey finger pointed at the fridge “LOOK!”

There was a shiny Leopard slug making its way up the fridge door.

I had to rush and hold her, laughing and reassuring her that things hadn’t sunk to a new low. It was the fridge magnet.

Spook took it to work and had a lot of fun with it. Turns out no one likes slugs. Least of all Michael who took a brush handle to it when he found it on his locker. He flipped it off from a safe distance and when it landed with a crack he thought it must be its shell. The swarfega trail Spook had created on the locker was very convincing. He and Michael still laugh when they remember it.

This year we had a leaking dishwasher which damaged the laminate flooring. The dampness has been an invitation to the slug population of Lochaber which come on nightly raids to slide over surfaces. We don’t see the slugs. Only the trails next morning. Sometimes Spook gets up in the middle of the night and goes slug hunting. I always admire his optimism when he thinks he’s got the last of them.

Meanwhile I still live with my old slug. He’s 35 years old and not as shiny as he used to be and has done absolutely nothing to make me like his species. I lose things ALL the time. How come I’ve never lost the slug???