The mad half minute

It's another typical evening at Chase the Wild Goose Hostel. The smell of six different variations on pasta and tomatoes is wafting out of the kitchen, the sound of bad British TV hums from the living room, the wood fire crackles in the lounge, and Eddy, Brendan and I are approaching the mad half minute.

We discovered this phenomenon when we lived in Petersham together. But it wasn't ourselves who were commonly affected by it, it was the cat, Peter, and he could stretch it out to a mad half hour. Come 9pm, he would wake up, have one of those amazing cat stretches that we all strive for, then suddenly come alive. His pupils would dilate, until looking into his eyes was like gazing into a pit of darkness. Then it would start. He'd race from one end of the house to the other, crashing into furniture and any other object that got in his way. Then, with the instinct of a born hunter, he'd hide behind something and wait for someone's, anyone's ankles to attack.

The human version of this phenomenon is unnervingly similar except that it seems it can strike at any time of the day, and due to inherent laziness, never lasts as long as the cat's did. We can be sitting around quietly, attending to our correspondence and embroidery, when suddenly Brendan will have a big stretch then throw something at Eddy (or the other way around) It starts- the calling each other names, the sissy violence and the dib-dobbing on each other to me. In an effort to quiet things down a bit, they tried doing jigsaw puzzles... You have never seen a more intense jigsaw session. The whisky sat untouched, the ferrero rochers unwrapped, and their pupils became so dilated it was like looking into a pit of... well, after a while, we ran out of jigsaws and now they're back to acting like ten year olds- and I'm grateful for it because it's hugely entertaining and we do get a bit bored. We work seven days a week, and we live where we work. I guess it was always going to be a recipe for stir craziness.

Running a hostel, like every job, has its ups and downs. In the past two months, we have experienced everything from very happy customers, to violent drunk Polish men, to people who have the very unfortunate habit of poo-ing on the floor in their sleep. Our friend Brendan, has stayed on as a 'helper', and as such has been extremely helpful. We have become experts on stains and smells and getting rid of both. We have learned to always put on another layer because it's always colder than it looks. We've met some interesting people with interesting jobs. One girl was a rhino keeper at a zoo they make a television series about. Another guy who stayed with us for a while was doing a diving course in the loch, hoping to be able to get work out on the North Sea oil rigs as an underwater welder. And then there are those crazy ice climbers. They come from all over the world and spend their time here climbing up frozen waterfalls and the like. It's always a good conversation, asking people what they did today, until they politely ask the same question back.

We do try and get out in the hours we have off each day, and have been known to do so even in blizzard conditions. There's no waiting around for the weather to get better here. The golden rule seems to be, if it doesn't look like rain, expect rain. If it looks like rain, expect lots of it. We have explored the area pretty thoroughly on foot and on bike and are hoping to get a car in the next week or so.

As I sit here writing this, it's snowing. Fine, fluffy snow that casts a blue-toned light on everything. It's the most snow we've had since we arrived. It's cold, wet and beautiful and the time is nigh for building a snowman.