We Are Where We Are, and All is Well

Today was a blue-green yellow day.  The north wind whipped itself back to Svalbard and had left us in deep hush. 

I have a favourite writing exercise; describe what the sea sounds like today. 

Fast asleep.  High tide, the sea snuffle-breathing like a sleeping dog.  Occasionally, remembering itself in small sounds escaping its dream of surf, skelping free along the shore.  It was a booming flat calm, steel blue, with silvery trails left by invisible boatmen.  The sun making the most of itself.  The gorse was so yellow you’d see indigo blue for several seconds after looking at it.  Jackdaws snickered for worms amongst the links daisies and scent of warm grass.  Their upstart blue eye staring you down as you pass.  Linnets singing in the coconut air.  And further along, the woodsmoke from the fishmonger smokery, smelling like a beach bonfire.  Overhead the sound of a helicopter coming home from the rigs, the scudded beat bouncing off the sea for ages before it was visible. 

When I worked in IT, before there was fibre, the comms links to the rigs was bounced off the troposphere.  I remembered a meeting, saying there was slow delivery in the emails to one of the platforms as it was so far away.  American men on the call snickered saying distance didn’t matter.  I said “It does when the comms link is over the tropo”.   Small victories. 

I had a fascinating career, but I am glad to be away from all that ‘only woman in the room’ stuff - and never having to go offshore ever again. 

There were several walkers, saying hello in the sunshine.  One old lady with two sticks said ‘I wish I could walk as smart as you’.  Which was a boost, until a twenty-something jogged past, leaving me toddling. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropospheric_scatter