Writing otherwise by Jackie Stacey Janet Wolff

Author:Jackie Stacey, Janet Wolff [Jackie Stacey, Janet Wolff]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781526106988
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Published: 2016-08-26T00:00:00+00:00

13 July 2012

This is a journey [Inverness to Taynuilt] undertaken in great relief and mild euphoria. At the same time, I feel much safer and steadier being back in my old car again.

Exiting the city is straightforward now that I’ve sussed the route: four roundabouts, and the dog-leg turn right back onto the A82 along Loch Ness. I am soon on my way and able to enjoy the fact that this is a bright, sunshiny day. I am also dreaming of the future again: this time, my long-term part-time and/or retirement plans which, along with where I shall end up living, have become a constant preoccupation recently […].

My more immediate crisis resolved [there was actually nothing wrong with the car apart from some corroded wires], I am alert to things of interest in the world again. I notice an old AA box opposite the Clansman Hotel and, later, a derelict, corrugated-iron garage just beyond Invermoriston. I also wonder, again, about the rock-fall risks on all the new roads created by blasting in the 1970s and 1980s […]. [Hereafter, I stop at Fort Augustus for lunch, and then Loch Oich to give my dog a walk].

I am back in the car by 5pm, feeling tired, and anxious now to get home … Probably because I am tired, I let go of thinking about work, my life, and the future and focus mainly on the increasingly familiar sights outside my window. Especially striking are: the hulk of the Ben [Nevis] with its snow-filled, northern gullies; the small, and slightly run-down SEPA [Scottish Environment Protection Agency] offices on the northern outskirts of Fortwilliam […]; and, most spectacularly, the (huge) profile of Bidean nam Bian spotlighted in the evening sun … I stop and take a photograph just before Nether Lochaber Village Hall (which K and I photographed at Easter). The bulk of the mountain, which I first mistake for the Aonach Eagach, and then Beinn a’ Bheithir, is awesome and, from here, gives the impression of being comparable with Ben Nevis. I am momentarily transfixed, especially since this is the hill that K and I have next on our list to climb and keep failing to do so.

After this, I am mostly focused on home – too tired either to think or to ‘see’. Instead, I begin to fret about the time – now approaching 7pm – and the need to phone [my elderly neighbour] W. As was the case on Wednesday, anxiety creeps over me, an inner censor telling me I should be home by now. My conscious brain registers this irrationality, and triggers its own warning light: I mind my speed, am alert to hazards, keep my eyes on the road. I finally arrive home at 7.15pm.

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