A true account

Feel like I am in this athletics meet and the starter pistol has fired, everyone has gone hurtling down the straight and has entered the first corner, and I'm taking my approach for the javelin throw.

I hear of what people are up to back home and I will sometimes think to myself. "But that's the event I should be competing in. Surely I have the speed and can take on the oval."
Then I have the reminder I just need to change my training and commit to it. Work towards the event I aspire to participate in. But I know I can only do it next season. I'm committed to throwing that javelin now and I will keep aspiring to take gold in it. I will strive to excel at what I have elected to do this time around!

This is what goes through my mind as I contemplate my current position and what awaits.
I know what I want and I am adapting my training to suit that. Learning more and more!
As the days drip from the calendar and I watch my permanent marker strike through them all as they fall, I realise that I need to stick with the programme and keep going. I need to be prepared for next season. I need to keep up with the training.

So this is my little rant about where I see myself at what is close to the half way point of my stay.
I'm on Gough and working and striving for excellence in what I have to do here. But I have the reminder that my event changes next year. I move off the field and onto the track. The training will need to suit the event and I need to keep customising my routine to fit the new demands so I can be ready for this new challenge.
I feel that this is the case throughout life and we all need to stay focused, constantly training and ready to run in this new race. Whatever that might be.

I know what I hope for in this next season and I am working toward that. I am preparing for what awaits! Even if I may not know what that is exactly!

This is what comes from a quite week of island life. You come up with all sorts of analogies and ways to describe where you are.
It's not over thought, but it's well thought. Being able to take stock of everything in this kind of environment becomes a skill all on it's on. You have so much time to think, that eventually your thoughts can become your biggest problem and it can eventually weigh one down and see a serious level of anxiety develop.
But once you have this under control, you find you can be very productive. It may take a little bit of guidance from more experienced hands and a little bit of tweaking to make it fit, but once you have it you just keep working it!
There is truly an art to surviving isolation of this nature. And I'm figuring it out as I go along.

As I said, it was once again a quiet week for me. I was off work for the greater part of it and was able to continue with my training for what awaits next season and continue to find direction. This has been ongoing and has been aided tremendously by family and friends (yes, that's all of you reading. Give yourselves a pat on the back). If nothing else, I have once again been reminded of the value of family and and of true friends.
Something one hopes never to take for granted!

But, I know most come and read this to find out if I went and climbed a mountain, or wrestled a seal and tied it together with albatross feathers. But I thought this week deserved a change. Partially because this is just as much a part of the whole island experience as all the seal climbing and mountain wrestling. I'm trying to give a fair account of what life is like without scaring anyone off :)
I want everyone to some how take hold of what I encounter and experience it for themselves. I want everyone to try and experience Gough Island for them self.

I will tell you what I did do these past couple days though. After all it is part and parcel of my everyday life.
As mentioned in a number of posts, food is a large part of the island experience. And this week saw a fair portion of my time spent in the kitchen. Trying out new things that seem to grab me at the time. I may not be inclined to eat it, but I will still cook it.
This week I spent a few hours making puff pastry (time consuming only scratches the surface of describing this). Also threw what is basically a pot of sugar into a try and that came out as vanilla fudge wit a couple choc chips lightly melted to give that extra bit of creaminess. Too sweet for my liking, but it's there for those with a really sweet tooth.

Fudge. Mmmm, yum!!!

And for good measure in the pastry department I decided on a pumpkin pie. That was until I found that we have finished the pumpkin. Weren't given too much by the looks of it. So that was then changed to sweet potato pie. However, because of the pumpkin delay, the pie still needs to get finished. But the short crust pastry is ready to go and I can't wait to try this out.

Now these aren't things I would normally do at home, but because of the availability of ingredients and the vast amounts of free time we have every opportunity and incentive to try.


I short stroll to Seal Beach was also on the cards after a day of sunshine rolled though. The bulls seem to have relaxed and are less temperamental and the penguins seem to have left. Now that the penguins have finished there moult they have gone out to feed. After a long period of not being able to eat due to the fact that they can't swim whilst moulting, it is likely they will be out at sea for a fairly lengthy period.

And that sums it up! Another average week at home, and hopefully a greater insight in to what life out here truly entails.

Well, Gough house is apparently the pot of gold!

Islands sunsets. So beautiful!