Ghosts, Gardens, and Guests

Slept poorly last night thanks to a headache that moved from the left side of my forehead to across my skullcap. I think it’s from the exertion in the heat yesterday. This body has never taken well to the high temperature + exercise combo deal, and a headache and a day’s recovery time aren’t unusual. I need to get back to drinking a liter of water a day, instead of all these liters of tea.

I put a load of laundry into Margaret’s washer this morning, and have spent the past hour reading in bed. National Geographic, Aug ’05 edition. About alternative energy sources, cave paintings in Indonesia, Brazil’s wet time of year.

The hand soap here is from Avon and scented as Jasmine/Exotic Rose. It smells like Sandra and the comforts of home. I feel loved every time I use it.

I don’t quite tiptoe around rooms, but I don’t like to make a lot of noise in the B&Bs I stay in. Even ringing the bell for attention at the Jura Hotel pub took me several times to feel comfortable about. This is old stuff, outmoded ways of living in which I’m supposed to be quiet, not a bother, not intrusive on my host’s privacy. At all the B&Bs I’ve visited so far, I’ve been the sole guest or eating breakfast alone. I don’t like that form of solitude—I feel self-conscious being the only patron, although I do like having the bathroom to myself at any time of day. George and Margaret tell me that having only one guest for a few nights has been a relief after being solidly booked for the past week or so, which sets my mind at ease. I’m less worried about interrupting their routine as I tromp in and out all day long.

George and Margaret have invited me to join them to hear a singing group that comes once a year to Jura. They’re performing at noon at the Jura House gardens, a place I wanted to visit but hadn’t quite figured out how to get to miles down the road. I feel like one of the family, being included in their outing this way.


In the meantime, I spent a somewhat rainy morning visiting Keils cemetery, about half a mile from The Manse. It has an older and newer section, with a famous marker of the purportedly oldest person on the island buried there—a 180-year-old man who died in 1645! At the opposite end of this spectrum is the body of a fetus, buried here a few years ago by the child’s unwed young mother. George officiated that one; I could hear the grief in his voice as he talked of that ceremony.

In the older part of the cemetery, I came upon a large, fading tombstone that read, “In Memory of Jenny, daughter of John McPhail Tenant in Knockrom, who died the 8 August 1835 aged 3 years & 1 month.” A smaller stone in front of it said, “MARION, 11th Oct 1907.”

I stood at Jenny’s grave and suddenly felt weak-kneed and nauseated. I sat down and bile rose in my throat. A golden-haired girl, died of fever. A story comes. Her work, undone, to ride the sea lions and seals in the bay. She flings her arms around its neck, dives and collects fish and shells. They rise together, she comes up laughing and dry. They swim to the small islands in the bay, she astride the seal’s back. She collects pebbles, strings them together, tosses them into the air. They return to the ground as jeweled necklaces. She returns and gives them to her father so he can buy his own croft and no longer be a tenant.

I mentally calculated—3 years, 1 month old. Today could very well have been her birthday, July 6, 1832, 178 years ago. Happy Birthday, Jenny.

I stopped at Jura’s parish church to look over the island’s photo gallery, hoping to find some information on Jenny’s family. Alas, the oldest pictures date back only to the 1850s. One shows the cemetery as it looked around Jenny’s era. There’s another of the McPhails of Lealt—the wedding of Angus McPhail and Mary McColl, 1854; they had seven children, who all moved away from Jura as adults. I wonder at their relationship to John McPhail and his young daughter whose bones lie beneath that stone.





Went to the wee beach that’s across from The Manse and found some interesting shells and stones and the white husk of a crab that’s barely half an inch long. It kept blowing off my hand when I tried to photograph it.

The visit to the Jura House with George and Margaret (shown here in the garden) was like entering a little Eden under overcast skies. It has a wonderful walled garden that’s overgrown and lush—and, amazingly, tended by only two people. They sell many plants and seeds there. It was like the Lost Gardens of Heligan all stuffed into a few acres. We walked quite a ways through a shaded wood to reach the heart of the garden and the famed “tea tent” where they sell tea and homemade baked goods and gifts during summer.

We went to hear a “harmony” concert—a group of a capella singers who sing songs in Gaelic and African and other languages. The setting was exquisite. We were at a wooden table beside a seven-foot tall flowering plant whose sweet fragrance kept filling my nose as the voices filled my ears. Little birds—siskins, robins, and others—darted among the branches and took scone crumbs from my fingers in midflight. Bees buzzed the flowers. I felt like we were listening to the beginning of Will Vinton’s Mountain Music, when all the music that people make is in harmony with birdsong and forest growth.

I was getting tired of eating only at the Jura Hotel, so when we got back, I went into town to buy dinner at the Spar, but found little to select from for premade meals. They heated up a frozen cheese and ham toastie for me, and I added an apple and a yogurt and picnicked on a cement wall overlooking the tiny harbor outside the store.

Took the mile+ walk back to the B&B for the seventh time, at least, since coming here, and I am still seeing new things all the time. The swans were closer on the beaches, their little gray cygnets poking their beaks into sand beneath the algae and kelp shallows. I missed the otters again this evening at the river near The Manse; I think I came home too late.

A new guest arrived at The Manse tonight—George had said someone was coming on Thursday—and to my surprise I recognized the voice booming from the room next to mine. It was Geoff, the biologist I met at the Inveraray hostel.

When I heard him talking to George, I was pleased; then I caught myself circling my room, unsettled, wondering how to announce my presence, wishing my hair were clean and tidy. I laughed at myself. Calmed down. Forgot about the hair. Finished gathering my freshly brewed cup of tea and Perry’s computer parts, which I was already collecting to take downstairs, then headed out the door, deciding then and there to stop to say hello, instead of scampering by, trying not to get noticed and hoping I would be anyway.

He was surprised to see me. George left us to chat—me leaning against the banister with my tea, Geoff in his room, leaning back against the wall. We exchanged stories about getting here, and he asked if I wanted a lift into town for dinner at the hotel. I declined, having already eaten and being ready to work on organizing my journals for the first time in a week. I felt fine with this choice, knowing it was right for me, and was actually glad I had no energy about either staying or going in his company. He’s here on more hunts for red- and black-necked divers, leaving tomorrow after he checks out his 5k square plot of land near the ferry dock.

Right now it’s 8pm and the sky is still very bright. Even when I wake at 2:30am, the sky is so light that I can’t see stars. A dull orange glow in the east is Glasgow—sheesh, it’s miles and miles away. I’ve watched early morning sunrises glow pink on the water.

Both sky and water are gray right now. The midges have been OK today—the two sprays I’ve been using have kept them from biting. The product of choice from everyone I’ve asked is Avon’s Skin So Soft moisturizer. It really works.

The highland cows are moving around in the field tonight. They’re here for grazing only—the manse rents the field out. One of the cows is very pregnant, but Margaret says they’re not sure when she’ll pop. She was bred twice, and by her size should already be due. But if the calf isn’t born soon, it will be a September baby, which would coincide with the timing of the second breeding attempt.

I like everyone I’ve met on the island so far. This is a place where people wave from their cars as they pass me on the road, and almost everyone smiles and says hello when I approach. Even the grocer at the Spar has been amenable and gruffly humorous.

As Christine said over tea in her kitchen two days ago: “It all depends on what you put out to the world. You get it back.”

I like what I’ve been getting back here on Jura.