the auld water bottle

The water Bottle

Mark Williams had been awesome taking me to see some of the local sites and taking me out on his hovercraft, also making me lunch on the beach, showing me smugglers cave and joining me for drams in my wee self-catered place in Scalloway, I wanted to show him some small token of appreciation for all that he had done for me, as it was truly above and beyond the pals call of duty, he had dropped me at the shop in scalloway before taking me back to my chalet, while in the shop I got him a good bottle of whisky and tried to leave it in his car as he dropped me off. He said no way can I take that kenny, I told him he had to as I had no way to carry it now that I was cycling of the next day, he said he would walk by at night and we would drink it together, ok good plan I said see you later, but he never turned up

While packing to go next day My panniers were full and the back packs, I had a half-finished bottle of whisky that I had carried all week in the front pannier, this full bootle that I had bought mark took the slot from the half empty one, I could not carry two whisky bottles? I had a brain wave I would just pour that half finished bottle into my water bottle that sits in the bike frame bottle cage, this worked fine I had my platypus for drinking water in my wee backpack anyway, sorted I cycled of to Lerwick to continue the trig point adventure This water bottle was a wee bit sentimental to me, although its just a plastic water bottle, its the old classic blue and yellow Lucozade water bottle, I had owned it for nearing twenty years, back then I helped out with Cameron’s football team and sourced them loads of equipment including these bottles, my mate marks wife at that time worked for Lucozade and sourced the whole team two baskets of water bottles for our boys football team which was great, this one bottle was the last of these crates that I once owned, I have no idea if the team still use the others that we left, sadly no idea if the team still exists, Cameron hasn’t played for that football team in nearing fifteen years, brings back happy memories for me though. I’ve had this water bottle up here on Shetland for seven years getting daily use while here, it has served me well and now it was serving me well containing whisky for me braw The whisky was in there for nearly two weeks before I finally went back to work, I finished off the whisky in order to get the water bottle back to drinking water duties in the office, I brought the water bottle into work by then it was empty of the whisky rinsed but not washed. It was absolutely reeking of whisky! Which was pleasant to me, but I didn’t want people to talk, whisky at work has a stigma to it! The sink we use is in the hall of the offices, this sink coffee/tea area has notoriously hot water, you have to watch and not get fingers burned from the taps, there is industrial strength washing detergent at the sink which I put in the water bottle with the mega hot water for a good suds wash, it lathered up and the smell was glorious, then I thought bloody hell this whole area was smelling of whisky, so much so that I heard from the supervisors office which is near the sink, one of the gaffers said to another can you smell whisky? OMG thinks I and gave it another scour with a scotchbrite pad, then another super-hot soapy wash then another, it still smelled but not the whole area! I put my cold drinking water in it smiling at the background whisky smell and taste as I drank my water,

I was laughingly letting the lads smell my water bottle, while telling them the story of the whisky, and stinking the offices hall out like a secret alky, but after a day or two of this I got to thinking about my knowledge of how whisky is made, it’s a two way street distilled alcohol blends in with the wood of the barrels to swap flavours the alcohol and wood co mingle, wood into whisky whisky into wood! If my plastic was smelling and tasting of whisky was my whisky now filled with micro plastics? I went on to tell my supervisor scott about this thought, he also likes a whisky and I had started to think I would never drink from plastic cups again, especially not whisky, he said that his wife who works in a lab where they had done experiments on plastic bottle lifespans, he said the older the bottle or plastic container is the more micro plastics it breaks down into what it contains! This information although on reflection I should have realised previously but hadn’t, this turned everything I thought about storage in plastics on its head, I thought all the VOC`s and harmfull vapours left the plastic reasonably quickly then once something was a couple of years old it would be less toxic, turns out I was now wrong on something else, always learning!

What to do about it? I would love to never buy plastic water or juice containers ever again but! I will not pledge to do that due to the sad fact that sometimes in some places it’s just too difficult not to use plastic containers, I have now replaced my old faithful with a metal bike water bottle flask style bottle, which I can also put tea in, I still use my platypus for drinking water if I need to, that is perhaps something else I will try to phase out, plastic in all its forms is now something I am going to actively try to move further away from, I now think there should be a ban or large tax on single use plastic, the present packaging etc for my community is unsustainable and killing the planet, I am going to try and no longer be part of that problem,