(I haven’t posted about it because he has the snaps on his login and we can’t get the shared folder to appear on my login). The Outer Hebrides are pretty remote. It takes 6 hours on the ferry to get from Oban (western edge of mainland) to the little island of Barra (where Whisky Galore was filmed). There aren’t even small villages, but just isolated houses in the heather. We were occasionally aware of this thing called the Olympics going on by the newspaper headlines we’d spot in the occasional post office shop we’d visit to buy provisions from but most of the time we were just removed from all that.
Getting back is a shock because, although I never noticed how clean the air out there is I certainly noticed how grubby the air is around here. It’s thick and has a taste. Awful.
The other thing I am really noticing is the volume of advertising. Everywhere there are billboards and posters and bright colours trying to sell you stuff that a) you don’t need (would they have to advertise if you did?) and b) is often BAD for you. It’s non-food like chocolate bars, crisps, KFC, Lucozade or it’s perfect bodies and faces selling stuff that won’t make you look like that anyway. I know it’s always been there but coming back to it makes it stand out. It makes me consider changing my buying habits. Avoid buying anything that is advertised. Generally speaking they are advertising the things that have a high mark-up 
(read: are overpriced for what they are). When was the last time you saw broccoli on a poster? Or fresh meat? The stuff they advertise is where they’ve done stuff to it to up the price (value-added in their speak). The Sous Chef and I are both pretty good cooks and tend to make dinner from fresh ingredients anyway. So it shouldn’t be too hard.
Also, some things I noticed about Scotland were that even remote, desperately beautiful areas of the Outer Hebrides would have the side of the road littered with discarded bottles of Lucozade and Irn Bru. How much of the stuff do these people drink?! Assuming the turds who throw their rubbish out of the car window are a minority, that means a hell of a lot of orange coloured sugary fizzy pop is consumed in Scotland.
Also, (not unrelated) there seem to be a lot of chubby teenagers about in Scotland. Being fat is not a sin and I do strongly believe that carrying fat does not mean people are greedy or lazy or gluttons. Weight is a very complex interaction of foods and hormones and lifestyle and identity. I get annoyed at people who say “just eat less and exercise more” because it doesn’t work for most people. 
Weight can pile on after pregnancy, at middle age etc for hormonal reasons and not because they’ve suddenly turned into bad people. But I’m still not used to seeing a 13yr old with a large amount of belly hanging over the waistband. They weren’t big, it was the shape that surprised me. It was all around the middle and mostly fat under the skin. It is true that women tend to carry fat under the skin so it looks worse than it is, more wobbly. Fat inside the organs and muscle is less blubbery looking but still unhealthy. So-called TOFI (thin outside, fat inside) often don’t know they are carrying too much fat because it’s not as visible.
What are they eating that makes them this shape? I think Lucozade and Irn Bru being so popular might have something to do with it. Also, there were times we couldn’t find bread that wasn’t white. Chips were everywhere. I’m thinking the problem is refined carbohydrates. It was only through a concerted effort that the Sous Chef and I made sure to include plenty of protein in our meals and keep refined stuff to a minimum (though we did have danish pastries for breakfast once, ahem).
The fact that so many youngsters had this ‘over the waistband’ issue makes me think something is very wrong. They’re in a growing phase and while hormonal changes do set the body to fat-depositing mode (and boys are in muscle-building mode) it shouldn’t be going there. It shouldn’t be wobbling over the waistband when you’re in your early teens.
The last thing that’s shocked me is how I feel coming back. Being at home all day doing (or avoiding) my assignment has made me feel very low. I’ve gone from cycling 4-6 hours a day in the fresh outdoors to being stuck at home in front of a computer and I can feel my mood sliding toward the depressed. The last time I felt like this was in Indonesia when I was a housewife. Home all day with no one to talk and feeling like I didn’t want to go out anymore. I feel drab, miserable and (most alarmingly) feel I mustn’t eat (especially expensive food) cos it’s a waste. That’s familiar. Scarily familiar. So I’m going to buy myself something expensive for lunch today.
(But not wash it down with an Irn Bru)
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