Our first festive season in Scotland was met by sickness. The wife, who had an uncharacteristically under-the-weather 2017 rounded it off with a flu-like cold which I was always guaranteed to get and I duly did. None of this was covered by that year end review because I'd done it by the time Christmas arrived. By the time New Year's Eve 2017/8 rolled around, the wife was feeling better and I was tucked up on the sofa wrapped up in a quilt and feeling sorry for myself. It was quite pathetic really, especially when you consider that one of the primary reasons for moving here was for my health...
That said, the last twelve months have been a bloody excellent year in terms of my physical well-being - in fact, it's the first year I can remember where I barely got a sniffle let alone full blown bronchial problems. The only hint of a cold I got was probably exacerbated by my insistence at going in the sea and attempting to swim, back in June. For nearly a week I had a raging sore throat and was full of snot and I sat around thinking, how ironic; Scotland experiences a heatwave and I'm ill. But that was then; we need to go back further to begin...
[Ironically, I'm finishing writing this on January 10 and I've been suffering from a cold for the last few days]
It was around the back end of the winter that I fell out with my first person since moving here. I only mention this because in 18 months I've only actually fallen out with two people and that's probably down to me deciding not to suffer fools gladly since moving here. The two prize fools to no longer grace my stage have both been English and both southerners; their sense of entitlement and personal expectation make them the wrong kind of people to live here. Isolated parts of the country are not the best places for narcissists to move to and history will have a karmic outlook on these unwanted people and events. Nuff said.
In March, I started the Craft Quiz Night. It came about as a result of a Wigtown Festival fundraiser quiz, which we won, and the fact the pub only had two quizzes a year, one of which was so far up its own arse that only literary festival people attended it. I suggested to the then landlord of my local, Carl, about doing a monthly quiz; he agreed and the Craftiest quiz in Wigtownshire was born. To say it has been a consistent success would be accurate, and by September, our quiz to coincide with the Book Festival attracted more people than the actual festival's quiz. The only downside was the winning team dumping half the prize because they didn't like the books being GIVEN AWAY (I could write an entire article on how the book festival co-exists with Wigtown but you'd be hard-pressed to see any symbiotic relationship; the book people - whether they live her or visit - keep to themselves and there's little crossover between them and 'ordinary folk').
At the end of April, after what felt like many long months of cold, wet and windy; the sun came out and by the end of a cool but clear month, the temperature began to climb. As I like remind people, our summer might have ended at the beginning of August (with the Wigtown show*), but we had a month more than anyone else at the start of it. May, June and July were the kind of months you'd recognise if you were alive in 1976 and on numerous occasions I had my breakfast sitting on the patio, listening to the ambient silence, watching the birds fly across the perfect blue skies and loving my new life.
We had a lodger for most of the summer. Patrick and his elderly dog George moved in with us - which was the most sensible thing he did all year because I do believe he might have died had he not. Having a lodger for the first time in over 20 years was... interesting; but not as interesting as Pat's life was to become - in events that aren't really for me to discuss but he perhaps has also discovered the hidden 'joys' of narcissists.
Throughout 2018, I'd spent an increasing amount of time walking more. I avoided the woods for fear of midges, so stuck to beaches and coastal paths. I did a lot of walking with a friend and by the end of the summer all I needed to do was make some tweaks to my lifestyle (beer quantity mainly) and the health benefits of moving here would start to pay dividends.
We had a visit from Roger and Barbara at the end of August - not for long enough in my opinion (their only previous experience of this part of the world was in 1998 when it was grimmer than a grim thing in the dark) and a second visit from Luan - this time with leaves on the trees, even if she missed the bulk of the mushroom season... It would be remiss of me not to mention the mushroom season; never in my 30 odd years of foraging have I been so overwhelmed by the vast quantities of excellent edible fungi. I found species I'd only ever dreamt of finding; I discovered things I didn't know existed and I dried more than you could possibly imagine. The long hot summer, followed by a coolish and slightly damp August meant everything went into overdrive.
In October, the wife's ex-brother-in-law paid us a visit; he's considering buying a house in Scotland and wanted to see what our neck of the woods was like; he was impressed, even if I have some doubt about wanting him to live so close to us...And this appears to be the thing I went out of 2018 thinking. "Why try to convince people about how brilliant it is here; I should be lying and telling everyone how shit it is." I like living in a quiet isolated place; it's difficult to avoid people, but equally if you try hard enough it's easy. You're only two minutes from somewhere spectacular, but I don't want you to know this. I want you to know that living in Wigtown is like post-Brexit Britain; full of unavailability, racists and dangerous narcissists, full-on Brextremists and a lot of English people who want this part of Scotland to become more like the bit of England they left...
We finally went back to England in November, for my aunt & uncle's 70th wedding anniversary; it was fantastic seeing all my family (as it won't happen very often and not on such a joyous occasion), but I fucking hate England, with its people, thick air and massively high ratio of twats. In fact, you really don't understand how peaceful it is in isolation until you return to a place with people. Locals, up here, occasionally complain about the amount of traffic on the roads - my mate who runs a local hotel is a massive campaigner for improvements to the A75; but he needs to spend an hour in a major English city centre to realise that being stuck behind a few lorries for 25 miles going 50mph might seem like an inconvenience...
As we enter our 3rd calendar year here (only 18 months in reality), I am in need of mental stimulation. I've procrastinated far too much this year - for things I want to do not for things that needed doing. I wrote a list I wanted to achieve this year and half of them remain uncrossed out. It feels like I've retired at times and if this is what retirement is like then I'd rather be more productive. I should be, my health is better than it has been for 5 years and at my age that's not to be sniffed at. But, the first thing I'm doing - and it is a resolution of sorts - is going on a diet. In the last two months all of the weight has been put back on; comfort eating might feel like it helps on long dark evenings, but I really don't like the sensation of my thighs rubbing together...
We're planning on getting another dog this year, but if it doesn't happen that's because the right dog hasn't wandered into our life.
We did something we haven't done on Christmas day for about 30 years - we went round someone's house in the evening - which was nice. We also were out Christmas Eve, Boxing day and my big Christmas quiz was the Friday after the big day - it's been on the whole very socialtastic!
We did NYE somewhere other than our house (or Roger's) for the first time in at least 15 years, maybe longer. I used to love going out on this night; to the pub or a party, but as we grew older and our friends down south got as curmudgeonly as us, NYE became, after 2001, either an evening at the Indian followed by sitting round someone's house until midnight; or, like the last five years - just sitting in doing fuck all waiting for midnight. This New Year was seen in with Sharon & John and all the working staff; we shared our evening with Julie, Sonia, George, Paul (and his family from Bridgewater), and at least a dozen others plus a bunch of people we don't or hardly know. It was a splendidly weird evening that ended with me inventing cocktails for John and I and waking up NYD feeling proper Scottish (based on how bad I felt).
It's not often I can look back on a year that involved the death of a beloved dog and family member; no longer seeing an extremely good friend under very peculiar circumstances (some things aren't discussed in blogs) and a year that could have yielded so much more as a really good one, but it was. A lot of that is down to state of mind; I'm happy, so I put up with more shit.
What have I got planned for 2019?
Well, I'm going to finish The Imagination Station - I have procrastinated far too long with it and I'd like to finish it before I drop dead.
I took myself round Kirroughtree the other day, while the wife was at work, and despite having put on at least a stone in weight since the beginning of November, the mountain of fat has not been an impediment in the improvement in my lungs; so I need to keep on keeping on with exercise.
I'd like some kind of part time job; the problem is there aren't that many and less for men approaching 57 with underlying health concerns. I do have a few ideas, ones I've been chewing the fat over with one of my friends, but none of these can be realised until the spring; but like the idea itself, preparation might be important.
I want some of the home improvements to be achieved - it would be nice to have a proper bath and I'm sure the wife will start hankering for decorating and new carpets by the summer.
I also would like to do more for the local community. I do a pub quiz, but it would be good if I could contribute even more; maybe do something to raise funds for a local thing. The one thing both of us feel as we enter 2019 with more optimism than I remember for a long time, is that we've been accepted very much as part of Wigtown. We've made many more friends than I expected and I feel as though we're part of a social scene. I grew up in pubs. I love pubs. The Craft feels like home and because Sharon & John are friends and made us feel extremely welcome when we were newcomers, I like many others, want to see it flourish and I'll be happy to do anything to ensure that.
We're all going to suffer in the coming year; whether it's because of shit happening (or about to happen) in our lives or because of the shifting political times. At least we have forewarning with the latter, whether we want to take notice of it or not. It feels odd that I can honestly say that 2018 was a much better year than I probably deserved, because I'd spent so many years wondering when life would get better, so if 2019 is as interesting, surreal and fun as 2018 then I'll be very happy. I am more than aware that for many of my friends 2018 was the worst year ever; some of my dearest friends have suffered the most horrible of times; illness and death have visited people who only deserved to be visited by joy and we never have very far to look to see someone else's grief we might have missed.
All I can do is wish all of my friends, acquaintances and associates the happiest and least tragic of years. It's the least we can hope for.
Lang may yer lum reek.
* The Wigtown Show is on August 7th this year, so mark on your calendars that August 6th will be the last day of summer and you'll need waterproofs on the 7th.
