They say travel broadens the mind. I find
it calms it. And I’ve been doing quite some travelling over the past few days.
I was ashamed to discover that I had spent more time in Japan than I had in the
Outer Hebrides of the British Isles. A long-standing invite from friends who
moved out there, plus the promise of some interesting research, was all I
needed. A five-hour ferry ride from Oban later, and I’m on Benbecula, looking
out over the Atlantic towards the Americas.
My trip started last Friday with a
spur-of-the-moment detour to west Cumbria, which also involved calling in on
fellow crime writer Matt Hilton
and his wife, Denise. Then up to just west of Edinburgh via twisty back roads
through stunning countryside.
From there it was up to the Aberdeen area
to call in on the ever-cheery Stuart
MacBride and Fiona — not to mention their fabulous-and-she-knows-it cat,
Grendel. Stuart and I spent two days on top of his garage roof doing manly
repairing stuff. I have now acquired my own pry-bar set and lump hammer. I
wanted to name the lump hammer Sir Stuart in his honour, (as in, “Pass me the mighty
Sir Stuart and I shall teach this recalcitrant nail a thing or two …”) but this
suggestion was greeted with a certain lack of enthusiasm. Ah well.
From Aberdeen was a long but beautiful
drive down to Oban on the west coast of Scotland to catch my ferry for the
western isles. Another stunning trip, and although I set off in heavy rain, it
wasn’t long before I could stop and put the top down on the car again.
The ferry trip itself was uneventful, apart
from getting my car doored by people who, it seems, are incapable of getting
back into their own vehicles without ramming their car doors into everything
else in sight. Argh! I don’t find that annoying At All. (mutter, mutter,
mutter)
Then it was another hour’s drive from the
ferry terminal at Lochboisdale up South Uist and across several causeways to
Benbecula. I hate to keep using the words ‘beautiful’, or ‘stunning’ but the
simple fact is that’s exactly what this place is. Any Brit who wants to travel
to exotic climes would do well to explore their own country before doing so.
The nicest thing about travelling by
convertible with the top down is the smell. Sounds weird, but unlike sitting
inside a pollen-filtered, air-conditioned box of steel and glass, having the
roof down means every time I pass a field
of newly mown hay, or a patch of wild garlic, or a house with a wood
fire burning, the smell of it hits me right away. OK, so you get less pleasant
smells instantly, too, but it all adds to the connection with the land through
which you’re passing.
Here on the islands, the overwhelming smell
is that of the ocean. Salt and kelp and the clean raw smell of a wind that has
failed to pick up anything malodourous for a thousand miles or more. If there’s
one overriding memory I shall take home with me from this, it’s the smell of
the place.
It reminds me, too, the importance of
including smell in my writing. I’m not talking scratch-and-sniff pages, but the
description of a scent, a sharp tang, a wisp of something almost intangible, is
as important in narrative as the sights and sounds. It is, after all, our
biggest memory trigger, good or bad.
For me, some are obvious. The reek of a
road-kill skunk in New England, even after a week of heavy snow, is not
something I will forget in a hurry. But I also hate the smell of solder and
lilies. My favourite smells? Fresh-cut grass, good coffee, new bread, creosote.
So, what are your own memory triggers? What
scents do you love, and what do you hate? And why?
This week’s Word of the Week is Karmageddon : It's like, when everybody
is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth
explodes and it's, like, a serious bummer…
