Tales of Home

azriel wrote:https://www.facebook.com/171330336238674/videos/588866675384668/

This is scary !!!  "Unbelievable footage of a huge mudslide that occurred in Alta, Norway yesterday. You can actually see entire houses dragged into the sea!! No reported injuries."

yes I saw that on TV as well, I hope there were no people in that house in the middle of the slide, it is unbelievable.

and lovely photos of the flowers, Nature will always find a way to bloom when humans leave Her alone.

That's a case of "I'm glad we decided to rent instead of buy."

All the lovely long grasses & flowers, Simi loved rolling in it & burying himself,... now...….



ALL gone, thanks to the council wanting everything all neat & tidy. So many people realised how much they loved it & now its gone. You wont see any of this back again, it actually hurts me.

I know in Texas when trimming roadways, they usually leave flowers alone. Haven't seen that much in other places, but it's a nice touch.

They do that casual vandalism here too. In Spring time when all the little flowers are covering the fields the twats come with strimmers and destroy all the beauty, not only that but millions of insects and bees lose their food supply. I sometimes I really dislike humans.

{{ Sun, blue skies, sea and palm trees- obviously it must be summer in Scotland!









Most of these old stairs down to theshore from the Victorian era are slowly crumbling into the sea, sadly.







Our controversial Jim Crow rock, which has just had all the paint blasted off it, ready to be repainted as something less offensive (schoolkids are having a competion to redesign it)



Beach, with as usual for round here, a naval vesselgoing by in background.







Water was so clear even the seaweed was out for a swim looking for a new home.



And a floxglove, which are always nice, if poisonous }}

looks lovely Petty, the rock reminds me of a polar bear now.

The foxgloves reminded me of something. Monkshood or Wolfsbane looks quite similar to foxglove but it is highly poisonous and deadly, normally purple in colour. Never touch it, every part is deadly. It is a neurotoxin absorbed through the skin.

{{ yeah foxgloves are pretty deadly too Figg, probably similar species.

'Digitalis toxicity (also known as digitalis intoxication and digitalism) results from an overdose of digitalis and causes nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, as well as sometimes resulting in xanthopsia (jaundiced or yellow vision) and the appearance of blurred outlines (halos), drooling, abnormal heart rate, cardiac arrhythmias, weakness, collapse, dilated pupils, tremors, seizures, and even death.'

Its just as bad for wildlife too. Not that anything tries to eat the stuff- presumably any species that did in the past try to is now an extinct species.
We got stern warnings about the stuff growing up as it grows all over the place round here, and thanks to the bright colours is not an uncommon garden plant too.}}

New York City is known for family-owned businesses.  Since the 1970's a family-run grocery store called Fairway was famous for things like a walk-in cold room the size of a house with a full butcher and fish monger counter inside; tubs of olives; a cheese department covering a full wall; barrels of coffee beans.  It was one of the reasons I decided to move into the neighborhood.  Turns out the year I moved in the family sold out to the larger company, though at first you couldn't tell anything had changed.  Then they expanded to several sites around the city.  A few years ago they quietly went bankrupt but were bought out by an even larger company.

This morning I was in there for the first time in a few weeks, and saw going out of business signs posted all over.  I'm still reeling from it - it's like a nightmare to see a cornerstone of the community go like this.  It probably didn't have much to do with the virus since grocery stores are somewhat immune, but it no doubt was the last straw.   It's the end of an era.

That is sad Halfy, I absolutely hate to see places like that close forever, it feels like a bit of the soul of the place has died with it. All the colour and smells and people. I used to go to a Polish deli for lunch, it had a wonderful smell of all the exotic sausages hanging up on the deli counter, the food and bread was delicious, I remember the blonde Polish lady and her lovely accent vividly decades later. Now its all gone, for me it was such a long time ago its nostalgia, but when it happens right now today it is very painful.

{{ Any more star pictures Lance? Been wondering how your set up is coming along. }}

{{ Drone fly over of the Holy Loch, parts of the village of Sandbank, and what is now the Marina.
This is where I grew up, only the US Navy was still here.

https://www.facebook.com/holylochmarina/videos/1381632138587902/

In very first shot you can see Lazoretta Point in the lower left of shot. Pointy tower thing. Its a War Memorial with the names of all those from Sandbank who fell in WW1 and II.
As kids it was a popular swimming point, but also rather dangerous. Even as a kid you could walk out about 20 metres and it would only be chest deep, but then you get to the edge of what is in fact a massive cliff, that just drops down into the depths and has a super strong current that will just pull you right down and out towards the head of the loch. The loch just falls away and becomes super deep- thats why the Navy picked it, the subs could sneak in and out without needing to surface- the entire massive drydock part would slowly sink down under the water, and when it eventually emerged from the depths it would have a nuclear submarine in it.
But you could stand on the edge of that cliff in the water and look down and just see blackness. But stay in the shallows and it was great place to swim.
My gran's ashes on my mothers side were also scattered there.

The large house to the left was privately owned, and is a a restraunt and hotel now. But my mum worked in their as a housekeeper when I was a toddler, and when it was still just a big posh persons home. I used to go to work with her and have very fond memories of running about this massive house and playing in the huge gardens. The owner was a very kindly old lady and her son, who was very tall, well over six foot and used to carry me about on his shoulders. After working there my mum went to work as a cleaner on the bas eitself. That was another fun place to go to work with her, from the Officers Club where I'd get a free coke from the draught coke in the bar, and the games room full ofarcade machines where we used to hunt for lost change and use the quarters for games or on the vending machines to get hershey bars, to the jail cells the MSP's had at the pier. Place ven had its own cinema, ten pin bowling alley, full gym and basketball court and a cafe.

0:17-  where that darker patch of water is is roughly where the US Navy had their ship and submarine dock. In my life there were three ships served there, the Holland, the Hunley and the Simon Lake, the sub dock was I think the US Los Almos. Once a year they had a visitors day for locals, so I was on them all at one point or another.

0:40- the single wooden pier in the mid ground was the main pier from where small boats -which carried about 40 personnel- would constantly shuttle back and forth to the ship, day and night, and there would always be the oddly gently sound of muffled tannoy announcements that floated out 24 hours a day across the water. They were a constant background rythmn along with the hum of the boats from the pier, so much so that when as a teenager we moved to a town I found I couldnt get to sleep as the town was too quiet.

0.50- the marina, as it is now, was built by the US Navy, as were many other buildings in the area now used for other purposes (the US Commissory where US families bought a lot of their shopping, all brought in from the US is now our Co-op supermarket) their adminsitrive centre now a call centre. The marina originally was where all goods coming in from outside the UK for the Navy would be stored prior to being distributed to wherever it was going.
My Dad ran this place. He'd worked for the Americans for about 20 odd years by then, starting in a garage (they had their own one of them too with US 'gas' prices) moving through the commissory warehouse and then from running it to running this place.
It stored everything from household whitegoods to classified stuff.
I can remember on many occasions my Dad getting a call at two in the morning and having to go to meet some mystery shipment of goods. In winter especially it was a hazardous job to get the shipments into docks on high rough seas in gale force winds, they had to be tied to the pier often and it could take hours to unload everything, but my Dad was the sort of boss who still put himself on the rota for the worst jobs even when he longer was obliged or expected to. I always admired that about him, he never asked anyone to do something he wouldnt, and didn't do himself.

1:15- down the far end of the loch on the left hand side was Eagles Court 1 and 2- where all the Navy families lived. Its all private housing now. But spent a lot of my childhood there with american friends eating america snacks like reeces and drinking kool-aid, reading American comics, and even watching american tv as each court had a masssive sattelite dish in the centre and every house had cable, a full decade before BSB and Sky would launch sattelite in the UK.

Those hills were also my horizons. It was a small world I grew up in, from my front door hills on two sides meant the horizon was less than 2 miles away in those directions, and I could see all the way down the loch, to those big hills at their head and that was my horizon in that direction and Kilmun hill which is opposite Sandbank on the other side of the loch was the final horzon. That was how big my world was, an idylic size in many ways, big enough to explore, intriguing enough to make you wonder what was over the hills, but contained and small enough to feel quiet and safe enough to go out and explore.

1:29 If you pause here and notice towards top left there is a small scheme of houses near the top of the hill. That was the housing scheme I grew up in. You knew every family in every house. And it had one red public telephone box, which pretty much served as the phone for the entire scheme- it was not unusual as a kid to pass and hear it ringing, answer it and be asked to go fetch someone from such and such a house, and you'd run of and knock on their door to tell them they had a call. How fast technology moves.

1.38- The main T shape pier was the only one originally, all the rest have been added since it became a marina. The main pier with the crane and stuff is still in use however as well as being a marina cut logs from forestry work are also loaded and unloaded here.
The white L shaped building behind the marina is the other main council scheme, a large block of flats called Fin Bracken. When I was a kid it was full of pensioners or young families starting out, I had a lot friends lived there, sadly over the years it got full of junkies and drug dealers. Thankfully though its improving again. A bit.

2.00- those, at the head of the loch are the sandbanks, which give the place its name of Sandbank. Bit treachorous to walk on at wrong time of year, and in winter the sea will flood right into those fields in a rough year. Its sheep farms up at this end of the loch. When I was a kid it was also sheep farms at Sandbank, but its all foresrty now and al that survives of the farm is a stables and two fields for the horses. But when I was young there wa sony natural forest on the lower slopes and bewteen the fields, and the hills were otherwise bare of trees, it was moorland then, full of grasses and heathers and nesting curlews and small field mice, and in summer it was a sea of butterflies. Now its those bloddy dark lifeless rows of forestry trees.
I used to spend my summer sonthe farm with a bunch of other kids helping out the old shepherd McColl there- he was the epitome of shepherd, crook, flat cap, pipe, brown permently tanned and leather skin with baccy stained fingers. Would occasionally nab a chicken and put it on the blood stained block and lop its head of if it was time for it to become Sunday dinner. And had a ferociuos working black and white collie, Mitch, who woud happily try to attack you on sight if McColl was not about and he was not restrained( I once had him hanging off my arm, and it was only because I was wearing a huge thick jacket my Dad had got me designed for that end of pier work his teeth  never made more than impressions on me, McColl rescued me by punching the dog in the gut to make it open its mouth and release my arm it was otherwise determined to eat) but was a fantastic working sheep dog. We used to go the sheep dog trials with them, a big event back then, and Mitch won ever year. Still Im pretty sure Mitch is the reason I prefercats.

2.12- You are looking at Kilmun Hill if you pause here, and left of centre should be able to spot Kilmun church. One of the oldest Christain sites in the area, founded in the 6th Century when a monk built a chapel there. You can also see the quite extensive cemetery going up the hill immediatly behind it.

2.25- a better look at the scheme I grew up in. That field to the left was usually full of cows when we were kids, and occasionally a bull or two along with them. This could be a problem, as if you note the farm on the opposite side, well it was Victorian originally and along with the farm they built a fashionable tennis court. It was now abandoned by the farm and would have become overgrown were it not for the fact generations of kids growing up in the scheme used it as a football pitch. And the fastest way to it of an evening after school was stright across the field, full of cows and occasional bulls.
Oddly the farm itself was mainly a pig farm, and they could be even worse. We once needed rescued when a boar broke loose and chased half a dozen of us up trees, before three farm hands finally manged to get it under control.

2.38- there are two very nice Inns in this shot. Though you will need to pause to spot them. If you follow your eye left from the large white flats of fin Bracken you will see a row of shops with flats above. Then a single large house with a sort of tear drop shaped drive, directly across the road from it is a white building with a stone barn like building immediatly behind it towards the shore- thats the oldest inn in the village- the Oakbank Inn.
Now if you go the other way, to the right from the big block of white flats the very next building adjacent to them is the Holy Loch Inn. A litte fruther up the hill from there across from the junction is what is now a carpet shop, but when I was growing up was a US styel burger joint catering to the US market, and therefore all us kids too. It was called then Papa Sams, and among other things had a couple of arcade machines in it too.
And just up form it was the most fantastic sweet shop, like something out a book. One of those sorts with a kindly little old lady running it, all the sweets in huge glass jars, weighed out on a large shiny scale, and put into white paper bags. And on the counter, layed out on grease-proof paper liquirouice wheels, from small to big as your head, and sticky lollys, with polo mint eyes. I really loved that shop as a kid, going in there was one of the big treats.

There you go, far more than you ever wanted to know about where I grew up. }}

it tried to tear your arm off, but it was 'fantastic' I am not sure I would b calling it fantastic, more like a wee bastard.

{{ Figg I was wondering whee youd got to.
Well he was a working dog you see, lived in the barn on the end of a very long rope when not working. I got unlucky, it was one of the rare occasions he was loose as the shepherd McColl had just popped back into his cottage to grab something just as I came along. Mitch coudnt believe his luck, free chance to pounce and with a snarl of teeth he was on me like  a shot. I got my arms up in some defense and he got an arm, at one point I literally had him hanging from arm to ground just by his teeth sunk in my jacket. Which was when the shepherd came charging out and sucker punched him to wind him so he'd let go. He was sure my arm was going to be a ripped bloody mess, but the jacket saved me, he never got through it and the arran jumper below. I just had teeth impressions but no broken skin at all. If I'd been in a t-shirt he'd have been off eating my arm in the barn! But when you saw him at work out in the fields with McColl working the sheep to the pens, it was like magic. But yeah, outside of the fields he was just terrifying, always baring teeth and growling and straining at the end of his rope to get at you. Proper crabbit scottish sheep dog. }}

{{ Found this one too, think from same person.



0:15- the car park the drone takes off from is right next to the US Navy pier and across the road from what was the base, and is now houses.
As a kid this carpark was full to the brim all day long, and one whole side of it was motorbikes, Harleys and stuff. We used to play sort of a live version of top Trumps, where you'd pick a bike each at a distance then see whose speedo went to the highest number. There was a second much larger carpark behind the base as well, where as mischevious young teenagers we used to sneak in with a bucket and a hose to syphon petrol out the cars for making bonfires.

0.24- a good look at the US pier. That building at the end housed to sections. On the left as you went in was an ID check, and on the right was a small jail cell that could hold three to four at a push. The Shore Patrol were responsible for US personnel, and a huge novelty to us kids as they routinely had guns on them. Making them in our eyes much more exciting to get chased by than our own cops. Plus they never actyally shot at anyone, and if they caught you would just give you a ticking off and send you packing. The local cop was more likley to give you a smack round the head for making him chase you and then take you home to your parents for a second whack.

0:35 If you notice on the far side of the loch there is a red boat, thats one of the Western ferries, but its berthed at the other pier. The far pier was used mainly for loading, the ship and drydock was in fact much closer to that shore than the Sandbank shore, but the base, facilities and all the housing was on the Sandbank side.

2:08- That housing estate is on the grounds that was the base. It always amazes me all small a space of land it is given all that was crammed into it.
Ive done a quick rough guide from memory to what was there.



4:14- at the top of the image here is the farm I spent so much time around being terrified by Mitch. If you follow up from the farm just behind the large farm houses was the shepherds cottage where McColl and his wife lived. Beyond it was a river crossed by a large wooden bridge, wide enough to get heavy lorries across, as further up the hill was a reservoir, long since ceased use by my childhood. But there was a hut a little way up the hill from the river from when it was in use, and it had a fire place and a chimney. That was our den. We lugged a settee and armchair all the way from the housing scheme, acrosss the main road, and right up that big curving road, passed the farm, and Mitch, and up the hillside to put in it. It was our own house, we used to stay there summer nights and Mccoll would check in on us to make sure we weren't up to anything to bad.
We also used to occasionally bunk off school there, they had a person whose job it was to track down skivvers, a truant officer they called her, we all knew her for some reason as Puggy.
She used to roar about on a motorbike searching and we saw her coming up the farm road one day we should have been at school so we clambered up onto the roof and lay flat. She came up the hill, went in and rummaged about inside the hut for a bit and left, and when we came down we found she had tacked a note to the door reading "Puggy was here and WILL be back again!"
Sadly the council decided years later it was dangerous, and now its just a pile of rubble and fond memories. I had many a first in that little hut on a starry night before a roaring fire of scented wood.

4:22- good view of that field we had to cross, full of cows and occasional bulls, to get to play football at the flat tennis court area (now sadly it is overgorown as kids dont play football any more there). In sensible hobbitlike fashion we called it The Field, and that other field you can see beyond it seperated by a thin band of trees, the '2nd Field'- it was used by the Navy and had an assualt course in it, it was pretty easy we used to do it all the time for fun. And baseball courts, as they had junior and navy baseball leagues. All the usual American trimmings, bleachers and stuff, just oddly juxstaposed to a Scottish field. On various celebratory occasions theyd have huge open barbeques,  burgers and hot dogs galore, and oil barrels with the tops cut off, filled with cans of coke, sprite, mountain dew, dr pepper and other exotic delights in bags of ice, and if you were fly enough, budwieser, which was more like shandy so nothing really. And it was all free. We used to eat and drink till we were sick!

Sadly you can also now see beyond the 2nd field the caravan park, whcih when I was a kid that was unbroken natural woodland.

Immediatly to the right of the 2nd field are warehouses and stuff that make up the business park. It was built originally by the US navy too. Quite late on in their time here in fact. It became their main administrive area, and they had denitsts and doctors here too.
Now its storage space, small businesses, and a call centre.

Just down from it, behind the council estate is the primary school I went to. We had more American students that Scots, and played American football almost as often as real football.
We also used to have to occasionally do nuclear alert drills, covering all the windows in white paper (representing the paint we'd use in a real emergency but we werent allowed to paint all the windows every time). And tipping tables over to make areas to hide under and behind.
Laughable really as if a nuke hit the US base right next to us we'd be instantly vapourised anyway, white windows and tables and all.

4:40- you get a good view of that dangerous underwater cliff I was telling you about. You can walk right out without it getting much deeper when tides out like that, go from knee deep to maybe chin deep, and then just blackness as it falls suddenly away. }}

I love these drone thingies, its such a great way to see everything relatively quickly. I really want one now, and I looked on Amazon you can buy a kids version from £30, but I don't know what the camera quality would be like with a cheapo one, or whether it is worth it to use just a few times. I like the idea though, but I know me, I would go crazy with it for a bit and then lose interest and stuff it in a drawer, for years.

It must have been nice having something as exotic as an American base near your home, it would have endlessly fascinated me, listening to their accents and all their strange foods and objects. It would have been like a moth to a flame, living in a small town, like I did as well, there wasn't much diversity or glamour and anyone who came from abroad stood out. We had a few Asian people, Chinese and Indian but nobody black or European. There was one Polish lady and that was it. It was small enough that everyone knew each other more or less.

Posted on one of my local hang gliding forums. Ellenville and Hyner are both flying sites, Hyner being where I go for long weekends. Chris is my never quite girlfriend, long just my friend.

So I'd been hearing interesting noises coming from below my subaru on the recent trip back from Ellenville, but assumed it was the exhaust system, since not much else is under there except very sturdy hunks of metal in the drive chain. Driving up to Hyner on Thursday it got worse. Sort of fluttering sounds you associate with fluttery things like the heat shield, as I smugly mansplained to my passenger Chris. Nothing that could possible strand us. She looked dubious, but also something of a road captive so didn't say anything. I'd stick my head under there later to see what was going on.

On Friday it was looking good for flying, so I loaded up the glider and headed up top. A few hundred yards from the turnoff up the mountain the fluttering turned into an angry clanking and it felt like a medieval army was trying to rip its way up through the bottom. The stick shift was dancing the Watusi. I coasted to a rare open spot on the side of the road and finally had enough curiosity to stick my head underneath. The drive shaft had performed self amputation. I sighed, collected my phone charger and Hyner field nazi booklet, and started walking home. On the way I dug through my phone and found a roaming mechanic who said he'd come up with a friend later that day and haul it to Renovo to work on it.

His friend had a new truck and they soon discovered they didn't have sufficient rampage to get the car up it. JB stopped by during the process and collected the story and the keys. Doug swung by later and thought there was too much rust to work on it outside a shop with power tools. Saturday morning he and JB stopped by to take another good look at it (using a log cut into variable chunks at JB's instruction to support it). U-joint, yoke, drive shaft all gone. Unlikely to get parts in time to fix it in time for me to drive off on Monday, and a good excuse to finally get another car.

JB gallantly volunteered to take all the camping crap for two people, plus the aforementioned two people to his home where we could check out the local used car lot owned by one of his former students. I'm only partially employed at the moment, so a good deal was needed, and I wan't going to find that while stranded back in New York City without a car. It was a long shot worth taking. So I got treated to the luxury of mixing drinks in the back of a van with Meat Loaf blasting as we drove out of Hyner.

After a stop for ice cream we arrived at one of these small country used car lots with perhaps a dozen cars. There were a couple of 2010 subarus right out front, but even the drool-worthy price of $7K was outside my price range. A 2003 at $4K was more my speed - I didn't even look at the 2006 Saab next to it at the same price. Just can't see myself as a Saab driver.

Next day arrived early at the car lot. Nobody showed up for the scheduled 9 am opening. JB went off to search people out, but someone arrived a bit before 10 am: new covid hours. Test drove the 2010 subaru and loved it so much I started thinking about financing to buy it. The 2003 felt a bit sketchy and the driver's side window didn't roll down. JB arrived and informed me he'd been told the Saab was the real steal of the lot, but apparently country folk couldn't see themselves driving it any more than I could. And it looked small. But Chris measured it against the 2003 subaru and proved it was the same size, it was just the sloping rear windshield that made it look smaller. And no racks. But only 107K mileage.

I finally had to bow to logic: the Saab was the better car. I stilled winced at dropping $4K all at once on my credit card to avoid half a day of doing the finance dance, but JB punched my shoulder until I said "fuck it" and relented.

The saleswoman informed me my license was expired. Oh yeah! I traded it in for an enhanced version, here was the temporary. That was expired too - if the DMV had sent my new one it never made it to my wallet. She shook her head, but went ahead with the sale.

Then came the insurance. Suddenly I realized I had left it with the car booklet back in the old car. Blackness nearly overtook me, and I couldn't find documents on my phone or computer. Finally I called a random State Farm agent in New York, and reeled when I was told I wasn't in the system. As JB and Chris hooted and the saleswoman gave me a dazed look (she'd never dealt with me before) I searched my bank records to confirm that State Farm was indeed my insurance company. So I called another agent and tried again. Same response. I asked if she could check the national database, and she went to hunt out her manager for clearance. Fortunately I was in the national system, but it turns out the insurance offices are Balkanized so can't routinely pull up the national information. Within minutes I had an email copy and 10 minutes later I had the keys in my hand.

So I drive a Saab. I drive a f$%#@@ Saab. I was annoyed to discover it had a car alarm, but when I saw somebody immediately divert to check it out for a full minute after I unloaded it, I guess I'd better use it. I drive a Saab. Jeez.

{{ are Saabs bad? I know nothing about cars!


Took this picture today in the long grass at back of the gardens. Can you spot the deer? }}

No, Saabs aren't bad, but they come with cultural cache. Which is nothing to do with me.

Saabs are supposed to be the epitome of middle-class 'good taste' and all that jazz. Accountants and tweedy yummy-mummies drive Saabs.

{{ No one playing spot the deer then? }}

I tried and I failed and walked away sulking.

Thought I had spotted it within 5 seconds, but upon zooming in am not so sure.

I thought it was on the right hand side ( as you look at it ) of the black roof ? in the long grass ?