Time after time

I woke up feeling refreshed this morning. A quiet night in and a good sleep was much needed, and I had plenty of time to ready myself before heading to the station to get a train. I was due to meet a friend and Sunday was looking good. Then I noticed the time. My alarm clock hadn't registered, nor had my watch, but my phone was telling me it was an hour later than I thought. Panic set in, and a quick check revealed that British summer time had snuck up on me unexpectedly. A quick shower and shave and a dash to the station followed. I arrived just in time, only to find that my train was delayed by half an hour. Apparently due to signalling faults, which I assume means the driver also forgot to change his clocks.

Scilly Season

It's been a while since I posted anything on here. Largely due to me being away from all forms of telecommunication on the stunning Isles of Scilly. If you haven't been, I strongly recommend it. For the last eight years I have been lucky enough to travel out there on 'business' each autumn for a week. The RSPB does a series of guided walks on Tresco each September, and I'm part of the squad that is hand-picked to provide members of the public with a unique and unforgettable insight to wildlife around the archipelago. Or so I hope!

Bryher and Tresco

A couple of years ago, the Isles of Scilly Seabird Project began. The aim of this work was to remove rats from St Agnes and Gugh. These islands (actually one island at low tide!) contain large numbers of breeding seabirds, including manx shearwater. Although manxies have been recorded on the islands each year, no chicks have fledged in living memory, because of the impact of the rats on eggs and chicks. So the removal of rats is critical to the survival of the species on these islands.

The 'Bar' connecting St Agnes and Gugh

Last winter, experts from New Zealand were flown in to begin the eradication, assisted by a merry band of volunteers. They began baiting rats and monitoring the population, and by Christmas there were no more signs of rats. This summer, more volunteers have been monitoring the shearwater burrows, and finally ten chicks have been recorded at about fledging age. Instant success!

Manx Shearwater

This is the story I get to tell visitors to the islands. Working in conservation can be quite depressing, with stories of declines, and recoveries taking a very long time. Here we have a fantastic example of what can be achieved when people work together. I get to natter with members of the public about this and other conservation issues, pointing out a few birds and other wildlife along the way, based at the beautiful Abbey Gardens on Tresco. And after eight years on the team, we've got the trip planning sussed.

Tresco Abbey Gardens

The best way to reach the islands, for me, is the Scillonion ferry. It can be a little choppy, and some people are not good on boats, as evidenced on both trips this year (both flat!) when one ill passenger managed to be sick overboard on the top deck, coating many of their fellow passengers on the deck below! But it's a great chance to spot wildlife, with seabirds, seals, sunfish, dolphins and whales all on the potential menu.

Common Dolphin

The boat docks at St Mary's, the largest of the islands, from where you can access the other 'off islands' by inter-island boat. Four other islands are inhabited: St Agnes, St Martins, Tresco and Bryher. Each has a different feel and atmosphere. St Agnes is isolated, St Martin's has picturesque wide sandy beaches, Tresco is manicured, and Bryher is wild and rugged. It is to Bryher that we head first, armed with camping gear. Bryher is our base for the week, despite working on Tresco. This means we have the best commute in the world, setting off from our home on the camp site, down to the quay to get the school boat across to Tresco, then walking up past the shop to pick up large quantities of bread and cheese for lunch, along the great pool and into the hides spotting rare birds, before passing the Abbey and on to our working base at the Abbey Gardens.

Rugged Bryher

Before we get to work we may have seen Lapland bunting, ortolan bunting, spotted crake, little stint, green sandpiper, curlew sandpiper, spotted redshank, spotted flycatcher, whinchat, redstart, and wryneck. Look them up! The wryneck is something that I see every year on the islands, and don't see anywhere else. It's a migrant woodpecker, and has a bizarre habit of twisting it's neck around and flicking it's tongue out. It does this when it feels threatened, to mimic a snake and ward off predators. The Latin name for this species is Jynx torquilla. The 'torquilla' part means 'little twister' in respect to this behaviour. The Jynx part originates in Greek mythology. Iynx was a Greek goddess who used a wyneck love-charm to make Zeus fall in love with Io. When Hera, Zeus' official consort, found out, she transformed Iynx into a wryneck as punishment. This is where we get the word 'Jinx' from - a curse or spell cast.

Lapland Bunting

Even from our base we can now see red squirrels, stick insects, and golden pheasants - all introduced to the island by man, just as the rats made it there by ship and shipwreck. We spend the day doing guided walks, turning round one every hour, and I can hear myself saying the same thing over and over again. Then it's back across the island for the last boat back to Bryher, a spot more birding and then a camp meal together. Having spent all day on our feet and smiling like a synchronised swimmer it's time to cook up a feast from fresh veg and whatever goodies we brought in the food hamper. Huge piles of pasta, curry and chilli adorn our plates each evening, all cooked al fresco over a small stove while watching the sun set over the Atlantic. And then to the pub.

Golden Pheasant

The Fraggle Rock Bar on Bryher is where we spend our evenings, indulging in a pint or two of local ale and running through the day's sightings, chatting with residents and tourists alike, and partaking of the odd game of bananagrams or a geeky bird-related quiz. It also does a killer fish and chips. Many a fine evening has been had here: a perfect end to a busy and tiring day, before staggering back to the camp site under the immense beauty of the milky way, and crawling back into the tent and passing out.

2014 Team!

In Groundhog Day style, we do this all over again, on repeat, for the full week, before final packing up our bags and returning to the mainland. It's quite a shock going back into the 'real' world from somewhere where the time of the tide is the most important time, where emails, internet and news are inaccessible, and where you can forget about all your cares, worries and responsibilities. If you ever need a true break from the busy world, this is the place.

Scilly Sunset

Eurotrip Day 5

Day 5: The Return

With the weekend over there was nothing left to do but return to Blighty. Breakfast involved another croissant attempt and tea fail, and then we made our way to the airport. Check in and security seemed pretty straightforward, largely because there were only six gates in the whole terminal. We found ours and awaited the call. When it came, Fran and Graham again had priority boarding, leaving Mum, Dad and I to wait another half hour in our seats. When we finally passed through the gate, we were squashed into a bus the was already at capacity. On the adjacent bus, which was totally full, stood Fran and Graham. Having used up their priority pass they had been made to wait, standing, in the bus while everyone else piled in. When the plane was finally ready, the buses made their way across 50 yards of tarmac before stopping to let us out. Even in the heat of the day, I suspect I would have made it on foot

Now it was a mad dash as the doors opened to grab the best seats. Uncertain which seats were best, I let Mum plough on and Dad and I followed behind, swept up by the mass exodus from the buses. We managed to secure a row of three seats, and made ourselves comfortable. Dad attempted to secure his seat belt, only to find half of it missing. In the ensuing search, the people in the seats behind became involved. When explaining that he didn't have a seat belt, a bloke behind called out 'This is WizzAir mate! You're lucky to have a seat!'

The same rush through safety arrangements in what probably amounted to two languages followed, and we set off. The flight itself was uneventful, but as we came in to land the plane bounced and broke very forcefully, then everyone broke into applause. I think I will try that tactic next time I take a taxi, and see if it gives the taxi driver any additional feeling of satisfaction to know that I appreciated him doing his job. The final kick in the WizzAir teeth was when they announced the UK time wrong, as they had done on the way out. I don't think British summer time has been noted by the ruthlessly efficient people at WizzAir.

Then a bus, a train, a tube and two more trains conspired to get me home again. Congratulations Dot and Gray, and thanks to you both, and to the GlenTomalins an friends for a truly memorable weekend. Click here to see the video.

Eurotrip Day 1

Like many of you, I have cousins. Unlike many of you, one of mine, Dot, resides in Bulgaria - Sofia to be precise. This came about when her boyfriend, Graham (for ease of separation between the two Graham's in this story I will be referring to this Graham as Gray), decided to follow a path in diplomacy and so, armed with a modest sprinkling of Bulgarian words and a few Lev, they eloped to Eastern Europe. Much to my delight, they then decided it was time to get married. Obviously I was thrilled for them, but mostly pleased that this meant heaving the might of the Tomalin empire, along with the Glen clan and myriad UK-based chums, out to Bulgaria for a long weekend of festivities to celebrate their nuptials. It is from this fine weekend that I am recently returned, and upon which I base the next few posts.

Day 1: Travel to Bulgaria

Having received the invite some months ago, I had managed to navigate the treacherous waters of booking a hotel room and forking out for low-cost airline tickets on the same flight as my sister Fran and her fiancé Graham. This meant placing ourselves and our luggage in the hands of the good folk from WizzAir. My hopes that 'Wizz' described a sort of simple, uncomplicated and easy-going travel experience were dashed almost immediately. Following a high-speed taxi chase to the airport (for no apparent reason other than that the taxi driver obviously felt that two hours leeway was not long enough to check in for the flight) I was ready to offload my luggage at the check-in desk. With my old and trusty rucksack in tow I was told it would have to be checked-in at the oversize luggage desk, only for it to be whisked onto the conveyer of standard dimensionality. A short, sharp exclamation from the check in attendant did nothing to ease my nerves, nor did her supervisor's nervous questions about what was in the bag. He assured me that it would be fine, and that the baggage handlers would remove it if they thought it was a problem, which wasn't quite the solution I was hoping for.

Airport security always makes me chuckle (see here!), but I failed to get frisked and was disappointed to see that my sister's hand luggage, that can have been no bigger than a piece of toast, was randomly selected to be searched. Unfortunately, it was randomly selected behind a German family who had clearly paid little attention to which particular items were verboten. Several bags were packed inside larger bags, all of which had to be unpacked. Having surrendered half a department store's worth of cosmetics, they checked the x-ray image to reveal that they were harbouring wine glasses in the bag, and something that looked suspiciously like a gherkin. This cost us another twenty minutes of waiting, and when they finally checked Fran's bag I wondered what they possibly expected to find. Images of Mary Poppins floated briefly into my mind, but there were no hat stands or lethal weapons and we were allowed to continue.

At this point Fran and Graham confessed that they had purchased priority boarding to ensure that Graham could get a seat with extra leg room. This meant I got to wait with the common folk whilst they swanned forward and sat in comfort. When it was finally time for me to board, I went straight to the plane's back entrance assuming, naively, that the plane would fill from the front backwards. Apparently low budget airlines operate a free for all policy, where the weak and infirm are systematically rooted out. Finding an inoffensive seat right at the back, which I assumed was immediately above the black box and therefore the safest place to be, I was delighted to see Graham advancing down the isle to inform me that they had managed to save me a seat, right at the front. This necessitated a long crawl back up the isle, but was worth it for the extra half inch of knee space.

The highlight on-board was listening to the safety announcement, given in English and Bulgarian, that moved monotonously between the two languages so that it was impossible to tell where the English ended and the Bulgarian began. Clearly the strain of having to give the same talk repeatedly, presumably within a certain time limit, was too much for the steward. At one point during the announcement he actually held his head in his hands and, I like to imagine, wept inwardly. I contemplated whether he was actually a flight attendant, or perhaps was really an undercover Bulgarian Secret Service agent who had been given an embarrassing assignment. The flight itself was uneventful, taking off and landing in the dark.

Having arrived, the Sofia airport experience was considerably better than the Luton one. As it was 2am in Sofia, the staff had clearly decided that the best thing to do was throw everyone out as soon as possible and go to bed. The sleepy customs man barely glanced at our passports, and our luggage was the first to arrive at baggage reclaim. In fact, mine was the very first bag, presumably because worried baggage handlers had carefully placed it atop the pile in order to keep it safe from ordinary-sized cases. We barely had time to ask what sort of idiot would be present at the airport at this time of night before we bumped into Gray, who had arrived, as we thought, to greet us. But he sheepishly confessed that there were other more important people on the same flight and we would need to get into a taxi. He did at least have the grace to organise one for us, and we wound our way through the empty streets of Sofia to the hotel.

Once arrived, the desk clerk said she had a room for Fran and a room for me, looked awkwardly at Graham, and asked diplomatically which room he would be using. We were directed to the lifts, which were made by a company called Shindler, and were proudly shown how the room key cards would automatically direct the lift to the correct floor. This seemed too good to be true - no need to waste precious energy pushing a button! Then I collapsed into bed and passed out.

Travel Snacks

Today I saw a very large child on a very small bike. He was both large in the sense of being too tall for the bike, but also a little bit too wide. As he was riding along he was trying to eat M&Ms by pouring them one-handed into his mouth while steering with the other hand. This worked well until he came to the curb, but instead of stopping he just ploughed on over it, spilling M&Ms in every direction as he went. This reminded me of two instances that I recall fondly from my childhood.

The first was a cinema experience I had when I was about 12. Having stopped at the shops to purchase sweets, including M&Ms, on the way to the cinema, we arrived late to the showing and had to enter the auditorium in the dark. One of our number had nipped to the loo and said he would find us, so obviously we all ducked down so that he could not see us. In this awkward contorted position my sister elected to open a large bag of M&Ms, but lacked the necessary strength and leverage to do so easily. Applying more might than sense to the process resulted in the bag flying open and an explosion of M&Ms into the air. As they hit the floor, they sounded like a thousand raindrops on a corrugated iron roof, and the noise grew into a crescendo as they hit the slope and started rolling towards the front in unison. This went on for a surprisingly long time, during which several people sitting nearby began to pick stray M&Ms from their hair and clothing, and mutter with disgust at the rowdy teenagers causing mischief. Our friend had arrived in the dark just in time to witness the chocolate fountain and had known instantly where we were.   

The second recollection was from a younger age. I used to cycle over to a street where a few mates lived, and we would play games in the street or in someone’s house. On this particular day we wanted to play monopoly at someone’s house, but the game was at someone else’s house at the other end of the road. Being lazy teenagers, we cycled up the road to get it, but having procured the game we faced the difficult decision of how to get it back down the street with all of us on bikes. I offered to lay it across my arms as I cycled, which solved the problem for about 30 seconds. As I picked up speed, the current of air passing over me lifted the lid of the game up into my face. Temporarily blinded by the cardboard box, but still travelling forward, I swayed merrily from side to side, during which time I was faintly aware of a stream of monopoly money flying out to either side of me. Finally I crashed into a wall, spilling the remaining contents into the road. Obviously we all found this hilarious, but we spent longer picking cash out of people’s front gardens than we did playing the game.

Rarely has a rotund teenager caused me such nostalgia.