Foxing Around Over the Pond

I just microwaved a scotch egg, how’s your day going?

For those not familiar, a Scotch egg is a hardboiled egg wrapped in sausage meat, breaded and fried. I would not normally buy a wrapped one from a grocery store to reheat later, but a cyberattack on the local co-ops has the shelves at shops in the Western Highlands somewhat bare. In my defense, the egg packaging didn‘t include heating instructions for dumb Yanks, and I somehow forgot what eggs can do in a microwave: that is, explode.

But that’s all cleaned up, I ate my egg fragments with horrid instant coffee, and I decided to sit down and tap out a short missive for Sunday, during my travels. We’ve gone a thousand miles from London to Bath to the Lake District to Ben Nevis to Skye in the past week, enjoying the beauty of the country and the unseasonably warm weather. There’s a bit of a heat wave and drought going on, which has sent everyone to the sea.

This is my second time to the Isle of Skye; the first time was short and not well planned, so I booked three full nights this time around. One day was spent on a boat trip to the Isle of Canna to see Atlantic Puffins. We saw Short Beaked Porpoises, Gray Seals, Eider ducks, and many other sea birds like Razorbills, Kittiwakes, and European Shags, as well. Hopefully, I’ll have some good photos to share once we get back and I have time to sort through them.

The hills have been good exercise, but I miss my gym and mountain bike. There aren’t many hills in the Pinelands, so I’m enjoying the climbs. We also visited Camusfearna in Sandaig, where Gavin Maxwell wrote Ring of Bright Water, about raising a wild otter. I will write about that visit, and a trip to his cottage on the island of Eilean Ban. Naturalist writers were a different breed in the early 20th century; Maxwell tried his fortune as a hunter of Basking Sharks, peaceful giants that we slaughtered for their oil well into the ‘70s, like we did with whales. He considered his ill luck in life as punishment for that early endeavor.

I’ve been spotting the local wildlife as best I can. Many birds, including a White-Tailed Eagle—which I saw while driving, so no photo—and a dead badger on the side of the road. Sarah saw an otter from the wildlife hide on Eilean Ban, but I was off photographing a Redstart that was singing his heart out, so I missed it!

I’ve been reading when we’re back at the hotel resting our tired legs. Weyward by Emilia Hart was an enjoyable and witchy modern gothic set in Cumbria, with three timelines of related women in 1618, 1939, and 2018. I read Monkey Wrench by Liza Cody while in London, the second of her Eva Wylie novels, about a neurodivergent young professional wrestler on the London streets in the early ‘90s. Eva is a fucking delight, a foul-mouthed and self-serving survivor and “heel” or villain wrestler, who loves enraging the crowds at her wrestling matches, and finds herself making friends against her will. The first book is Bucket Nut; they are all long out of print, but are great fun if you can find them.

I’m halfway through Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy, about murders galore when a Inti Flynn, who has “mirror synthesthesia,” which makes her feel the pain of others she witnesses, leads a group of scientists who are rewilding the Cairngorms Forest in Scotland with wolves. It’s enjoyable, but Inti’s empathy reminds me too much of Lauren Olamina’s empathy in The Parable of the Sower, and there’s a lot more going on. Inti’s mother is a jaded Australian homicide detective, her father is a former logger turned subsistence hunter and farmer, her twin sister Aggie is traumatized and speaks only in sign language, her lover beat his father to death after witnessing his mother’s murder…

I’ve seen trauma, and there’s enough trauma here for three novels. Everyone seems to be defined by past trauma, but I have hopes that this will change, as one question the book asks is are humans creatures of instinct, like wolves, or creatures of nurture and domestication, like dogs? I’m sure this will make a great Netflix series, but I am getting weary of books that want to be television, instead of immersing you in a world that you can’t get from the boob tube. I really just wanted to read about rewilding wolves in Scotland! When I get back, I’ll read something by Louise Erdrich, who can make a compelling story without having to stick a murder in it. Death is part of life, but sometimes I wonder if there is enough land on Earth for all the fictional bodies, even if we bury them three deep.

As I sip my second cup of instant coffee, I can hear Jackdaws, crows, and songbirds. Housemartins, Chaffinches, sparrows, blackbirds. My new favorite is the White Wagtail, who lives up to his name. We saw Eurasian Skylarks and heard their song atop Solsbury Hill, which is a beautiful place. I’ll leave you with the song that made me climb it.