Hot and Cold Running Ancestors

Isle of Lewis from a YouTube Video. There’s a great one on YouTube, very professionally done.

I love my husband. That’s why I am going to Vegas in February for a few days. He likes that place, in the winter, when it isn’t too hot.

But there’s one place I probably won’t be going to soon, and that’s the Isle of Lewis.

I just took my husband on a tour of his ancestral home via YouTube. Just a few minutes ago. Because he’s the grandson of Marion Nicholson of Flo in the City.

He seemed entranced.

He’s also one of many great grandchildren of John McLeod of Uig Carnish. Just the other day I watched my husband shave and realized he has the same eyes and mouth as John. Indeed, except for his nose he is all McLeod. (His nose is a “Hardy” nose, that would be the same nose as his cousin General Douglas MacArthur.)

A tourist locale in Isle of Lewis, exact replicas of native homes.

It’s 25 below zero Celcius (a kind of record) outside and my husband still went out for a walk with the dog. (I haven’t ventured out in two days, despite having a mean craving for some Indian samosas.)

He likes the cold.

He likes damp cold the most, the kind that gets in your bones and makes you want to cry, the kind of weather found on Lewis. It’s in the genes, you know.

Me, well, my Dad was from Northern England (Yorkshire) and my mother was French Canadian, but I’m a mediterranean type.

The 100 degree temperatures in Greece last August suited me fine. My husband didn’t go on that trip. He would have hated it, anyway.

Above is a pic of stone circles in Uig Carnish (I think). “Look!” I said to my husband. “Here’s where you ancestors danced around naked.” Well, maybe not naked, in sheep skins and kilts. Playing the bagpipes.

Edith Nicholson visited Uig Carnish in 1932 or so. She brought back postcards and information about the Nicholson Institute, a school. I think she assumed her people established the place. But from what I know, the Nicholsons came to the Isle of Lewis by way of Skye, whereas the McLeods were long time residents.

The Nicholsons were coal-oil merchants or something. Nothing fancy at all.

Edith also went to France on another trip. She commented on how careful the French are with their food, “even the boiled meals.”

Sun, Sea and S.A.D.

My dark dining room.

The other day we had a strange visit while I was out. A local couple came by and wanted to check out our house! They had the exact same house in another development nearby.

The lady of the couple told my husband she was a retired high school teacher and gave her name.

Well, my husband invited them in for a tour and sure enough, they knew everything about our house: about the poor insulation in the far corners, about the meagre storage space and about the lack of light in general.

Our house has a cathedral ceiling and lots of windows, but not much direct light, especially in the summer, when the tall tall trees are all thick with foliage.

As it happens, this couple have fixed the problem by installing two skylights. I think that’s what I’ll do now. They’ve invited us over to take a look.

Then again, I probably won’t do anything about it, because when summer arrives, as per usual, I won’t feel any need. I’ll be in too good a mood.

I suffer from SAD syndrome and probably always have. I’m always happy on June 17, or whatever is the longest day of the year and I’m always down in the dumps in January.

(I think I just read in the Guardian that January 17 is the saddest day of the year.)

I’ve learned to cope, and I even bought a special SAD lamp a few years ago. It helps. But this year I painted the second bedroom a bright buttery yellow and turned it into my den. In winter, that room gets plenty of direct sunlight. And I sit in there, most non-cloudy days, surrounded by old lace and silk irises and tulips, and type away at my work.

I know I should go for walks in the winter, but when it’s bright out, it’s also very cold, so I seldom do. (Sometimes I do go for a drive.) And then suddenly it’s 6pm and I am getting that ‘time for bed feeling.’

I could always watch Mamma Mia again. That movie is better than Prozac. It’s so sunny (and stupid) it never fails to raise my sagging spirits. Or, speaking of stupid fun, maybe I’ll do Doris Day.

But instead, I do something else. I conduct an experiment.

I pull up the brown leather lazy boy chair close to the big screen HD TV and turn on the Playstation, click onto the Web Brower, go to YouTube and type in “Sunny Drive”.

I climb into the chair and suddenly it’s me driving along the Pacific Coast Highway near Monterrey, California. (Wow, pretty nice. Maybe my husband and I should give a call to his old school buddy who lives there.)

Now I have the TV on HIGH resolution, so the YouTube videos in expanded form are a little pixelated, so it feels as if I am driving in the bright sun with raindrops on the windscreen.

Now there are many many sunny drive videos from all over the world, but only a few are right for my purposes.

I don’t want any fancy camera work, or dizzying motorcycle (or Porsche or Lamborghini) rides with crazy background music; just a high-quality camera placed on any automobile dashboard, and a route that winds and twists, with lots of bright blue sky and glimpses of ocean-scape, sun-baked stucco homes and chalky cliffs.

One man has done it just right. 10 minutes on the Pacific Coast Highway, mellow music, and stationary camera. This man knows what he is providing:a vicarious mood-altering experience for snow-country shut-ins.

Does this work to bring me out of the winter doldrums? Well, yes! And, funny, the sunny drives have to be in southern areas, not Ireland for instance. South of France works well, too. Sanoma is pretty terrific. It must be the quality of light I am looking for.

Is it a substitute for the real thing? Sure. Why Not? It’s better than a sun lamp and it’s cheaper than a trip.

A trip….

Except, later that night, I’m on Expedia.ca looking up trips to Las Vegas in February. Vegas is cheap right, almost free? RIGHT?

And phoning my son (who had said high school teacher for 9th grade science)to see if he can watch the dogs on his Reading Week.

“But I want to go too,” he says.

“Well, maybe I can find someone else to house sit,” I reply.

If my son comes, I think, he can go gambling with my husband (my son is a mean poker player) and his girlfriend and I can do the spas and the shows.

We’ve been to Vegas in February (when my son was in the Go Fish stage but he stayed behind with Grandmaman) and it was nice, I recall. The purple hills. The relative heat.

I just hope it doesn’t rain.

Now, this is turning into a pretty expensive experiment, isn’t it?

California Dreaming: Ah, this is better.