This time of year always feels like a second midsummer to me, less sacred but somehow more true. All of the symbolism that accompanies midwinter n the northern hemisphere - a general sense of "getting to the middle of the worst bit and then feeling like things could get better soon" -  applies here in reverse. It's a true midsummer weather-wise, it's hot as hell, and it will be for weeks, but the promise of change isn't too far off either. 

There are other reasons this season has always felt transitional. My sister's birthday is around this time, and so is my wedding anniversary, and now, just lately the date of my aunt's funeral. Having spent much of life working at universities, the early weeks of January before uni term started were always in a different order of activity to the situation in term time. It's only a week or so until uni begins. 

With renewed social contact (and sweaty clothes and bad hydration) comes summer illness. This has happened before, quite often, between Xmas and Jan 21. One year I was sick as a dog for 4 weeks solid with a mysterious and unnamed viral disease later dubbed 'Long Steve'. This year, a friend has been wiped by influenza A for a similar length of time, I have had 'Long Gastro', and a really bad case of shigella (a much more nasty kind of gastro) has passed through the house, hopistalising our son for 2 days. All this disrupts the 'return to normality' that might normally come in the New Year.

I've noticed friends are getting cranky with each other on social media, sometimes over nothing at all. The brief sense of empowerment that came from making it through Xmas has dissipated. This year, this feeling is connected with recent events concerning the Adelaide Writers Week Festival. The cancellation of a Palestinian writer saw a mass exodus of other writers in solidarity, which seemed for a while like a rare moment of purpose and cohesion in a global situation in which we are otherwise powerless. But then, the Festival's shaky, crab-walking response came, and so did the acceptance of embarrassing apologies, and the impending realisation that Writers' Week is not only cancelled in solidarity, it's also actually cancelled. People are in disarray, trying to work out of an alternate 'rogue' festival is possible. That moment where our right to express our opinion felt powerful has changed, yet again, back to a sense that plain opinions are a very problematic way to maintain allyship and community. 

It's too hot to go anywhere near Burra. All I do is pay the bills and make plans for when things cool down. 

It's 41 today and I am inside. I am going to see David Byrne this evening, who is one of my favourite songwriters, but strangely, I haven't been at all focused on it and I keep having to remind myself it's on.

I'll post again in early Feb. 

My wife Louise had a working trip to Port Lincoln between Jan 5 and 9, and I decided to join her. The pics are from my new Nikkon Coolpix p1100, which is like a bigger version of my older camera with better focus control, but a wee bit heavier. I had a great time with it. 

I'm moving some of the 'lists' on here over onto their own blog at https://www.sjmckenzie.com/lists

Happy New Year. 

I have made a slightly abnormal decision re: resolutions for this year. 

My sister told me that "if your life is a to-do list you start each day behind," which was something that a friend had told her. At the time I thought this was very profound and original, even though variations on it turn out to be a staple of self-help websites across the Western world. Nonetheless, it has inspired me enough not to write a to-do list this year. (I actually know what I need to do, so writing it down really just seems like an extra step.)

Instead, I have decided to put some mental effort into answering the following questions: 

A - Why do people who think respect needs to be "earned" always assume they have already earned it?
B - Why are they always wrong?

Ideally, this might replace my previous mental fixation, which has been to think about why so many people insist that the world owes them a 'debate' on their political opinions, even though they never do anything to turn them into a reality. I have (slowly) worked out that this behaviour is ultimately borne out of a desire to complain freely from a position of no accountability, much as a child does to its parents. This is now completely clear to me, and hopefully I no longer need to think about it. 

On the subject of earning respect, I had previously assumed that people who thought respect must be 'earned' also assumed they had some kind of 'natural authority' and therefore did not need to earn it themselves, whereas everyone else needed to earn theirs. In other words, I though they were hypocrites. But I no longer think this is true. I am beginning to think that such people actually believe they have already earned everyone else's respect, by previous acts of skill or forbearance, which in fact mean nothing to anyone else, and are in many cases quite imaginary. People who pat themselves on the back for being 'battlers' are almost always self-flattering idiots. But how do they imagine that everyone else is impressed by them, despite so much evidence to the contrary? 

That the ancient British Celts celebrated the Summer Solstice is not well-supported in their literature. Attempts to rebrand the festival by the neopagans have turned either to the Germanic and Scandinavian tradition of 'Yule', or to a brief mention of a season called 'Litha', found in the work on the Anglo-Saxon Bede of Northumbria. There are few accounts of what the Iron Age Celts actually did at midsummer. We can assume that they did something, because the longest day of the year is hardly something they would have missed, especially seeing as there are specific mentions of their activities on the other three quarter-days. But on the subject of midsummer, the texts don't say much.

​An exception is the strange story of the Summer Goddess Áine. In a story from the Book of Leinster, called The Battle of Mag Mucrime, Áine (the fairy daughter of Eógabal) is raped by Aillil Ollam, one of the Eóganachta, when he spends Halloween on the sacred hilltop called Gnoc Aine (Knockainey, near Limerick). She bites off his ear in revenge. (In ancient Irish tradition, you can't be a king without a whole body.)

That event happened at Halloween, not midsummer, but Irish men were known to gather and light a bonfire on that hill at St John's Eve (midsummer), and in one tale, the goddess Áine appeared to them, telling them to go away, for she and her fairy kind wished to have the hill to themselves.

That particular tale mentions that the rape of her was conducted by Gerald Fitzgerald, a wizard, who was Count of Desmond at the time. He is a distant relative of mine. I am truly sorry that my ancestor thus had his evil way with the Fairy Queen of Summer, and his descendants claimed her lineage from then on. Another story regarding the Wizard Earl of Kildare (the same Gerald Fitzgerald) mentions him gathering ingredients for an invisibility potion at midsummer. I sense a series of stories coming on, about evil aristocratic wizards. 

Source: https://archive.org/details/revueceltique04gaid/page/186/mode/2up 
The Wizard Earl of Kildare: 
​https://www.askaboutireland.ie/reading-room/history-heritage/folklore-of-ireland/folklore-folk-tales-and-c/the-wizard-earl/

The original Irish texts are always more more strange and wonderful than the neo-pagan attempts to overlay modern patterned meaning onto old names and symbols. Always. 

Happy Midsummer. 

It's been just over a week since I got back. I spent the first 4 days in a bit of a frenzy of appointments and sorting out stuff that had been left undone while away. Then, I got up to Burra on Saturday and...slept. 

It's so quiet here, and lovely in the Spring. There has been a very wet winter and the yard is in full flower, but was also full of weeds. I have done my best with the whipper snipper but the place still looks a bit like an overgrown country jungle yard. 

The sleep was much needed. My physio has said I needed to take it easy, but I did not realise exactly how easy that would be. I have been taking the days slowly, going to bed at 10pm and getting 12 hours sleep over a 14 hour period, Sat, Sun and Monday nights, to awake at midday. I have one more night and am hoping insomnia doesn't kick in. Adelaide tomorrow. 

The equinox is over and my Adelaide life must start again, at some point. It is already full of appointments and needful activity. For now I am enjoying the last days of perfect temperature, and an even balance between day and night.

I've been mulling this over since getting back and decided to list the Top 12. Some ovbious ones and some surprises have made the cut. 

1 - Managing to get to see a former member of Steeleye Span play with a current member of Spiers and Boden and the Nettlebed Folk club
2 - Spending time with Nick and Anita on bird and butterfly trips, especially at Arne Bird Sanctuary in Dorset
3 - Spending time with Daniel H in County Clare, following up obscure placenames, visiting holy wells and shrines and so on. 
4 - Seeing Martin Hayes at the Feakle Folk Festival, Clare
5 - The sections of the Ridgeway between Chiseldon and Goring, especially the town  of Goring
6 - The sections of the Great Glen Way between Gairlochy and Drumnadrochit, especially Invermoriston
7 - Crazy dancing with Scottish girls at a pub in Glasgow
8 - Ullapool and the ferry ride to Stornowau
9 - The Antrim Coast, NI
10 - Two long walks from Belfast to the Giant's Ring and to Slievegullion, Mountains of Mourne
11 - Birding in Walthamstowe, London
12 - Callanish

I've been back nearly a week, and have had a lot to catch up on in terms of appointments, and sleep. I am currently in Burra and slept for 14 hours last night. My physio says not to do too much to allow my back a chance to recover. If things are still playing up on Thursday I might need scans. 

Despite drinking a lot of good beer while away, I did manage to lose 9 kilos, and wasn't under-eating, so it must have been the exercise. These are the best I can remember. 

1 - Tring Brewery Side Pocket for a Toad Ale
2 - Butcombe Original Ale, Bristol
3 - Wadworth 6x, Wiltshire
4 - Harviestoune Bitter and Twisted, Scotland
5 - Caledonian Brewery Deuchars, now owned by Green King / Belhaven
6 - Belhaven 80 Shilling (or Caledonian 80 Shilling aka Edinburgh Castle)
7 - Smithwick's Red Ale, Ireland
8 - Williams Fraoch Heather Ale, Scotland
9 - O'Haras Stout, Ireland
10 - Timothy Taylor's Landlord Pale Ale was a hit wherever I could find it on tap

Best whiskies (Top 6)

Lagg
Raasay
Hearach (from Harris)
Ledaig
Method and Madness Single Grain (Ireland)
Wiltshire

The weather turned towards the very end of my trip and road touring got a bit tedious. On the final day in Stornoway I drive to a few new places, but it was all getting a bit sameish, and I had to get the car back to the airport by 2pm. The biggest challenge of the day was filling it, when all the petrol stations were closed. (It was a Sunday and the whole place just shuts down on a Sunday). The highlight of the day was a Harbour Seal, found in Stornoway Harbour while I was having a final stint of birding. 

The flight to Edinburgh was delayed 4 hours so by the time I got in it was 9.30 and I had a quick bute and then went straight to bed. So much for my night on the town! The next morning I spent op-shopping, in Tollcross and Haymarket and other spots where there are loads of them, and managed to find a few choice Tweed items for friends but nothing that fit or suited me. Then it was on the train to Leighton Buzzard via Stoke, a 5-hour journey that took me through Gretna Green, Carlisle, the Lake District, and a lot of very poor industrial towns in Lancashire which a all looked a bit grim. Anita and Nick picked me up after work and it was another night drinking whisky on the canal bank and then snoring in the back cabin. It felt like a preliminary homecoming. 

I'm in an apartment in Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It's 3am and I can't sleep so I thought I would finally catch on on the blogging that has not occurred in the last 6 days. 

Well, I did it. I stood among the ancient Stones of Callanish, one of the oldest of all the circles. I got to the Outer Hebrides, and fulfilled a promise I had to to myself when I was about 25, that one day I would go. I saw them for three days, in all light, morning, noon, dusk and midnight, in sun and rain and rainbow and moonlight.  They were everything I had hoped they would be, and the area was even better. 

The first circle (2700BC, older then Stonehenge) is the best, and unique. It has a central stone, an circle, an avenue and a burial mound, and that's not normal. Later on it was a Bronze Age town and then the site was left to be buried under meters of peat, much of which was only excavate recently. As many of thirteen other circles also stand in the area within 5k of the main site, but only a few are impressive, the rest being rings of smaller stones. I went to five others. 

Having done all this, I had finished. This was the most outward step of my trip, and everything after it felt like a contraction to the centre, and also, like a random addition onto the last momemt of a planned schedule. I am glad I am in KL, with Louise, 6 days later. It's time to go. 

I don't have any bucket list items of this type, any more. There are plenty of things I want to do, but there isn't a single place that I know I must see, which I have not already seen before. Callanish was it. And it's done. I was extremely happy for the two days I was there. I even kissed a few stones...