variant energies

Uploaded 08/09/2009

I think part of the reason why Tim was sleeping when other people were running around on the beach playing rugby was that at the time he couldn't drive and had little else to during the journey which brought him to this point than get slightly beered-up. He was certainly very cheery when we met him and Chris (behind, with the ball and also appearing in the future and Simon and someone whose name currently escapes me (as she was mostly referred to by the initial letter of her forename) at the ferry terminal in Oban. We'd has a reasonably easy drive, setting off at about midnight and having a wee sit in the car park where we'd dumped the car to finish off the flask of coffee and eat some biscuits whereas the others had come from as far as London, Cambridge and Birmingham. As is usual on a ferry crossing setting out into nice calm seas between nice islands at about dawn the air, light and constant slight rocking motion revived most people but by the time we'd landed on Tiree, had a quick poke around for anything which might have been a shop, walked the half-mile or so to the small shop-let and bought some biscuits, wandered back to the ferry port and attempted to find some method of contacting one of the people elsewhere on the island with some sort of transport, been picked up in a van by a different Tim (he whose impending 30th had brought everyone here in the first place, dishevelled and limping slightly after somehow puncturing one of his feet on something) and dumped on the beach next to where everyone who was already here had been camping for the past few days it was deemed time to sleep by some people.

I'd brought the tent in case it was needed but the group had also rented out a bunkhouse near a former lighthouse to which the keys were retrieved at some point later in the day. There was a strange, slightly stranded feel to a lot of the weekend as we were without transport, didn't know most of the people (most of whom knew each other as they were all part of a largeish windsurfing clique) and the person who had called the accumulation was drunk for most of the weekend. but the island seemed a nice place and the weather was pleasant without being too burny. As the first day was a bit spaced from sleeplack I can't remember without checking dates on photos which things happened when... I suspect most of the rest of Friday was spent sitting about near this beach in the morning, getting bumped across to the bunkhouse in the early afternoon, playing ping-pong and pottering about in the afternoon and having a giant meal in the bunkhouse in the evening whilst there was still a large enough variety of foodstuffs and beer available with which to make a party.