A Bit Of A Different Entry Today.

 Today I have added a new back entry to this journal. For those interested the link follows. The Arrival

As this diary is record of  my own experiences and memories I tend not to elaborate on subjects that for me are side issues that I already know the answer to. Feeling that if other people who enjoy reading my diary want to know more they will ask me and I will then do my best to explain. Today being a bit of a slow day with regard to anything happening I thought I would take the time to answer something that I have been asked about several times, just to save me having to answer basically the same question over and over.

Roughly speaking the question is, who are the other people who live here and what is their purpose? I will start at the top and work my way down in the general order of things.

The Invisible Man: That's my nickname for him. He is the owner which none of us are allowed to even mention let alone see or discuss. He is a very private recluse and so out of respect for that and the fact that he is providing me with a roof over my head, I won't say anymore about him. Also I don't really know any more about him.

Ms Oliver: She is the personal assistant to the above mentioned. She is around sixty, quite tall and slim build with short hair which changes colour from time to time. Always dresses smart and addresses us all with authority. She is the only one who can see the Invisible Man and one of three people who has permission to enter the private part of the house. Her roll is to basically do all the things the Invisible Man would do if he wasn't a recluse. I find her strict but fair.

Grandfather Tom: Otherwise referred to as Bongo. Sixty six years old. He is a pompous little fat man with a bald head, wears glasses and has a moustache. He is a sergeant major type, has lots of rules and standards that have to be followed to the letter, more especially so when it comes to me it seems. I'm the only one he has any real authority over so the others just tend to humour him. His role is mainly to look after the cabins but he also does a few chores such as seeing to the dogs and checking over the vehicles which I don't think he's very good at seen as how bits always seem to be dropping off them. I doubt he has ever had a good laugh in his life. A very serious man.

Cindy: Wife to Ivan and a superb cook. Very friendly and helpful. Cindy is in her forties, not thin but not fat either, with short blonde hair. She cooks all the meals that we eat so she never has time to do any other sort of work around the place. Cindy is my favourite.

Ivan: He is a tall slim man with a full head of hair and something on his face that he likes to call a beard. He has a Baltic surname yet Scottish accent. I think he is in his forties and does odd jobs/repair work in the house and looks after the gardens. Because of his roll as repair man to the house he is the second of three people that are allowed in to the forbidden part of the house. However he is not allowed any contact with the owner whilst performing his duties. Ms Oliver is key to organising this. He always looks like he is suffering from pain but apparently he isn't, he's just blessed with a pained look. 

Sheena: She is in maybe her late fifties, very slim with short dark hair. She is the housekeeper and for that reason she is the third of three people who has permission to enter the forbidden part of the house, BUT only after being authorized to do so by Ms Oliver. She also does all the laundry. Sheena is married to Dougie and they live in a cottage down by the loch.

Dougie: To look at Dougie I would say the he is younger than Sheena. He has a full head of black hair, beard and is a very thick set and stocky man. I only really see Dougie on a Sunday when he comes to the house for lunch. I've never worked with him or anything. From what I can gather he looks after things out on the estate. He also takes people stalking and fishing. He's always cheerful enough  and pulls my leg quite a bit. He makes me laugh, which annoys grandfather immensely.

Me: I have long brown hair, 158cm tall of slim to average build. I'm the rebellious youth of the estate - apparently. My roll here is to learn both intellectual theory and practical improvement, Grandfathers words, not mine. Basically he means I have to improve my general standards, intelligence, morals and manners. All of which it seems I am deficient in, if you listen to him. When I'm not doing lessons I have to do work which usually involves helping one of the others. So that means I've done cabin work, garden work, laundry work and a bit of work in the kitchen. It's all part of my improvement plan and I do enjoy it for the most part.

I hope that answers the questions for some of you who wanted to know. As I said at the beginning, I don't want to make a habit of explaining side issues as part of my entries as that's not what this is about, but I don't mind making the odd exception if enough people ask the same question and it helps you understand something better.

A Reply To My Mails.

 Today I finished the book that I've been reading and for the most part I've enjoyed it although I found the end part of it a little disappointing in that the walk seemed to be rushed so it was harder to feel a part of it. The one I've found to read next is a Victorian farmers diary. I've only read a few pages so far but I'm interested in carrying on with it.

I got a reply to one of my emails today, They have made a note of my address and will get back to me if and when they need someone.

A Peek Out Of The Back Door

 So, what have I done today? Well, not a lot other than the usual. When I did the food run I did take a peek out of the back door, mainly to see what the weather was like and how much snow is left. It was hard to tell in the back yard though because it's either been run down or moved around but there still looks to be quite a bit.

I don't usually venture far away from the task in hand which is gathering food for the day. I try to be as quick but careful as I can so that I spend as little time out in the open as possible. I can't think why anyone would be coming downstairs at two in the morning but there is nothing to stop them if they wanted to. It's not really a fear of being caught as I think I would stand a good chance of hearing someone coming and so be able to hide. I worry about being cut of from returning to my room. 

Instead of porridge I had a bowl of cornflakes with milk, honey and raisins. I also found some Christmas cake in a tin so I had a bit of that also some cheese and crackers. The Thermos flasks are working out great. It all goes in the bag except for the cereals of course which I carry in my hand. I only need to make a single trip though instead of the three that I was having to make in the beginning.

Servants Quarters

Today seems to have been a bit miserable with regard to the weather, from what I could see of which isn't very much. The windows in the East Wing are set quite high in the wall. I once saw a TV program that said that working areas and servants quarters in country houses such as this had windows set high in the wall so that the servants couldn't look out on the gentry. So I'm thinking that the East Wing was the servants quarters once up on a time. The same also applies downstairs in the kitchen and the pantries etc. It actually suits my purpose as it means I can freely move around without fear of anyone peeking in on me. The fact that this room has a fireplace and a bathroom makes me think that it's a room that would have been occupied by one of the top members of staff such as a butler, housekeeper or perhaps even a cook.

Today I was able to find some places to email with regard to work. I have thought of a bit of a problem in that if they want to interview me and I then have to wait to see if I have the job, where do I wait for their reply?

The rest of my day has been the same as past days, I have a steady routine going, no interruptions from anyone so long may it continue.

The Journey - The Arrival.

 22nd January 2024

Grandfather jumped out, went around the back and got my bag out and then came around to my side and stood there looking at me. Okay, I admit that I'd made no attempt to get out, but for some reason over the last couple of hours or so, I'd developed a complex of sorts with regard to opening doors. By the look on his face I came to the conclusion that this time I was being allowed to open the door by myself. 

Once I was out I was greeted with, "What were you waiting for?"

He has this annoying habit of winding me up every time he speaks, but I tried to stay calm and polite.

"I'm sorry, I didn't realise you wanted me to get out," I replied.

Once out I stood there holding on to the door, I was having a bit of trouble making my legs work on account of them being like lumps of frozen meat. 

"Now what's the matter?" he asked.

"It's okay, my legs are a bit stiff from the cold."

"Well I'm not surprised dressed like that, did you think you were coming to live in the Caribbean?" He retorted. 

"Just show me the way please." I said, shutting the door of the Land Rover.

Inside the back door was a long dark corridor at the end of which was a bright light and the sound of a radio playing. From floor to ceiling the corridor was lined with what looked to be white tiles. In actual fact they weren't tiles but glazed bricks. After five meters there was a small alcove type place on the right. Within the alcove were two doors at right angles to each other. The first led to the coal house and the second gave access to a toilet and wash basin. Just after this on the left the corridor opened out in to a room that was also made from white glazed bricks. This room had a roof made of glass. Off this room were two doors. This area I was to discover with time was the laundry. The rest of the corridor had doors to the left and right at roughly ten meter intervals, these were pantries and food storage rooms. At the end of the corridor there was a staircase on the right and just beyond this the corridor turned sharp right and continued along the side of the staircase before disappearing in to darkness. In front was the door from which the light and the music was coming from, this was the kitchen. On the left before entering the kitchen was the door to the staff dinning room where all the staff, except for two came to eat. I'm not staff but I still get to eat there too.

Grandfather led me in to the kitchen, it was like any other kitchen except the units were obviously very old, made from wood. Behind the door was a table at which sat a wiry looking man. He stared at me intently, and in a serious manner but said nothing. He was introduced to me as Ivan. Also in the kitchen was Cindy. She was of an average size with short blonde hair and a friendly smile. Cindy and Ivan are married to each other.

"Oh my goodness look at you," Cindy said on laying eyes on me.

I was a bit surprise by her comment. I wasn't sure what it was about me that caused such a concern. She then went on to have a go at grandfather for neglecting me. Well that pleased me no end. "What did you expect, she's a townie," Grandfather replied.

I wasn't quite sure what he meant by this but I knew better than to bother getting enlightened.

Cindy then took me out of the kitchen and into the dinning room where she told me to get out of my wet clothes and then left closing the door behind her as she went. She was back in a couple of minutes with a nice warm dressing gown which she told me to put on. She instructed me to pick up my clothes and put them in the laundry basket when I get to our apartment.

After some chit chat Grandfather took me up the stairs that are by the kitchen door. The stairs climbed to a small halfway landing before doubling back on itself to another landing. On this landing there were three doors, one in each of the three sides.

"On NO account pass through that door for any reason," Grandfather said pointing to the door on the left as we started to climb to the next half landing. 

On the next upper landing there were four doors, three set out the same as the lower landing but there was also another door at the top of three steps. It was through this door that we passed. 

In this room were boxes and just general stuff like you might have in a garage in any home. It was for the use of grandfather and also Cindy and Ivan. In the left hand wall of this storage area were two doors, the first being to Cindy and Ivan's apartment and the other door was to our apartment. In the far wall was another two further doors, these were our bathrooms, the one on the left ours, the other for Cindy and Ivan. In the wall to my right as we crossed to our apartment was a window. The whole place plus our apartments were lined out with wooden boards. These are the attic rooms and so are right at the top of the house. 

The Journey - Final Part

 22nd January 2024

We continued on our way crawling along, bouncing from one pothole to the next when we hit something with a right bang, I'm sure I must have left my seat. I looked across at grandfather but he didn't even acknowledge anything, just stared into the darkness hunched over the steering wheel.

I settled back in to my scrunched up position trying to preserve the remaining little bit of heat I had left within me. I was soon back to being hypnotised by the windscreen wiper in front of me. Painfully creeping to the vertical, hanging around for a few seconds before crashing back down to the start and repeating it all over again, again and again never deviating from the routine it had made for itself. Until, this one time, the last time actually. I did the usual climb to vertical, had the usual rest and crash to the beginning. This time though it didn't stop. Much to my amazement it leapt on to the bonnet of the Land Rover and slithered off over the side into the blackness, not doubt shouting for joy that it had escaped the constant struggle. I looked across at grandfather who was looking back at me before he asked, "What was that?"

I replied, "The windscreen wiped," and nodded towards my windscreen.

I felt quite buoyed that I actually knew more than he for once. It was short lived though because next think I'm heading for the windscreen myself as the darn brakes were applied - AGAIN! What's the matter with them, they're either on or off. I wished everything else on the vehicle worked as good as the brakes.

Grandfather instructed in no uncertain terms, "STAY THERE!"

Before abandoning ship and heading out in to the teeth of the gale. I'm not sure why he thought I would want to go out there anyway. I wasn't even sure why he would want to go out there considering how the wiped wasn't actually doing anything useful anyway.

He returned after a short while with the wiper and threw it on to the pile of detritus piled up on the middle seat. It seemed to me that as bits fell off they were rounded up to be deposited on the seat in the middle. I reckon given time the whole Land Rover will end up piled up on the middle seat.

Before setting off he flicked a switch on the console and the lights came on. If like me you have been wondering why he didn't switch them on until now let me tell you, they didn't work very well. This seems to be a reoccurring theme to this journey. Apart from a faint yellowish glow just in front of the bonnet you wouldn't even know they were even on. In fact I'm sure the lights that lit up the dials on the dash were brighter than the head lights.

We now finally started what turned out to be the last part of the journey down Glen Grim. As with the braking system the accelerator was on top form and propelled us from zero to sixty in one second up to a speed not exceeding three miles per hour. It's no wonder I was getting a headache, it was all the Gs I'd been subjected too in the past couple of hours.

Suddenly, everything appeared suddenly in those head lights, we came upon a high stone wall in which there was an archway. We didn't pass through the archway but turned left and followed the wall for a short way until reaching another entrance, this one not so grand. Here we turned right and went up a drive before pulling up in a small yard in front of some doors of a building. One of the doors, the one to the left of me, turned out to be the back door to the property which I was now to call home.

The Journey - Hypnotic.

 22nd January 2024.

I headed off across the road, propelled by the wind and battered by the rain, towards the old land Rover parked up in the road junction. I couldn't see who was in the vehicle as all the windows were steamed up so I tapped on the side window, half of which quickly slide forward and then slid back again equally as quickly but I had enough time to see that it was my grandfather seated behind the wheel so as promised I gave the bus driver a wave and a thumbs up. I watched as he set off down the road meanwhile grandfather climbed from the cab of the Land Rover. He didn't speak but grabbed at my backpack which he then took around the back and threw in without a thought for anything that might have been breakable stored within it. I continued past him and just as I reached for the door handle I was pulled back by the hood of my jacket. This really annoyed me and was about to give him a mouthful when he reached past me and opened the door for me. I immediately calmed down thinking he was being a gentleman and just wanted to open the door for me - I'm such an idiot sometimes. I settled myself into the seat and watched him get in beside me. I was expecting some kind of greeting at this point but all I got was a lecture. He said that I needed to pay attention to what I was doing if I intended staying in these parts. If this wind had got behind that door you could have had your face caved in, or worse still the door could have been ripped from its hinges. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. For one thing I wasn't choosing to go and stay in those parts and secondly how was having the door blown from its hinges worse than me getting my face caved in, and thirdly, what made him think that I wasn't paying attention to what I was doing. I didn't get to ask him any of these things because he had now moved on to vigorously rattling the gear lever from side to side. He then turned on the key situated on the dash board before reaching down and pushing a button on the forward bulkhead. The result for all that work was a pathetic sounding click, click, click! My instinct was to burst out laughing as there was something about it that amused me. Thankfully I managed to contain my humour as I'm sure it wouldn't gone down very well with grandfather. I can't imagine he ever laughed at a joke let alone told one or seen the funny side of anything. Grandfather is a short, fat barrel shaped man with a bald head, moustache and spectacles. He has a pompous and argumentative attitude about him that I find loathsome most of the time. I'm not saying this in any sort of disrespectful way or anything, it's just the way I would honestly describe him so as to give an idea of the sort of person I'm talking about.

Having failed to start the vehicle once he then went through all the same actions again which I thought was strange considering he'd already confirmed the thing was out of gear and turned on. Anyway the result was just the same as the first attempt. He then went through the first two motions again but this time instead of pushing the starter button he let off the hand brake. The result at first seemed little different to the clicking business and the Land Rover just sat there for a second or two. I don't know if it was the wind or something but after a few seconds it did start to slowly creep forward and eventually reached quite a speed as we headed down the side road. Suddenly grandfather pulled back on the gear lever, which let out a truly awful crunching sound, it didn't sound good at all. Next thing I know I'm heading for the windscreen until suddenly the engine burst into life and I was flung back in my seat once again. This was short lived however because no sooner had we got going and we were stopping again in the same violent manner. Grandfather had another fit of gear rattling before yanking on the hand brake and leaping from the vehicle leaving me sitting there wondering what was happening. I turned round in my seat to see if I could see what he was doing and saw a gate being closed across the lane. As I waited I looked up to my left and could see there was a house, I couldn't help but wonder who lived in a place like that. Grandfather was back now and we set off down the hillside into the valley grim. The road had now become a deeply rutted track, steep and running with water. The rain was driving into the windscreen so grandfather reached forward and turned his windscreen wiper before reaching across and turning on mine. For some reason they operated independently of each other. When I say operated I don't mean they actually worked at clearing the screen. The best that I can say about them is that the one on grandfathers side smeared water across the whole of his windscreen whereas the one on my side just spread it across half the screen. It started at the bottom right corner and slowly crept it's way to a vertical position before stopping there for several seconds and then literally dropping down back to the starting position before repeating the process time and time again. I couldn't take my eyes off it, mainly because there was little else I could see with any clarity, it became hypnotic for sure.

I was going to say that we drove down to the floor of the valley but in reality it felt more like jumping than driving. It seemed like we were bouncing from one rock to the next. I even got the courage up to recommend to grandfather that the drive needs some work doing on it. I should have known better as his reply was predictable in that he said it was fine the way it was. I wasn't going to let it slide this time because I knew I was right and I told him so. He said that it's best that way because if it was a good road everybody would be down here with campervans and goodness knows what. Well I couldn't argue with that because no one in their right mind would venture down there as it was.

On reaching the floor of the valley grim, or glen, as they're called in these parts we came to a fast flowing river so we had to make a sharp right turn to follow the track along the valley floor. When on top of the hill the bottom of the valley looked flat but up at close quarters it was anything but flat. It's quite undulating. Sometimes the very rough track was close alongside the river and other times it moved quite away from it. Once we turn to follow the valley my side of the Land Rover took the full force of the storm. It seemed at times that the rain was being blown with such strength as to force it though the window but on inspection it seems the seal on the top of the door wasn't working properly and so the water was finding its way through. So every so often I would end up getting a shower down my left side.

It was at this point that I felt the cold setting in. My jeans had got soaked walking from the bus to the Land Rover. Also the hood proved to be useless in the wind so my hair was also wet. I asked grandfather if there was any chance of some heat. He shouted above the noise that it was on, pointing at a round biscuit tin sized object near to my right leg. Well if it was on I couldn't feel the effects of it. I can't really recall speaking after this, there seemed little point and besides which I was having to clench my teeth to stop them from chattering. I looked across at him from time to time. It looked like he was having trouble seeing because he was bent forward with the steering wheel pressed against his chest. I wasn't surprised what with the wiper doing such a great job and the fact that it was just about dark. It was hard to see what difference sitting in that position would make though...