LICHEN FALLS & MOSSES RISE - 26th December 2023

After a series of late autumn and early winter storms with destructive winds from every direction and lashing rain resulting in many floods, I ventured out on a clear Boxing Day morning for a walk in two of my favourite local places. In the old beechwood I found lichens still surviving on the fallen branches as mosses rose up the tree trunks while in the disused quarry, mosses marched across its tree trunk littered floor as lichens thrived on its tool-marked walls.

THE OLD BEECHWOOD

The mature beech trees had long been stripped of most of their leaves, which lay as a shining coppery wet carpet in the sun, presenting a textured canvas on which nature could work its own designs. The wind had brought down lichens, many still attached to twigs and small branches from the uppermost reaches of the trees. The debris was, of course, randomly scattered on the ground and yet somehow it seemed the winds within the woodland spaces had made arrangements that caught the sunlight and shadows, guiding them into pleasing artistic designs, at least to my eye.

Meanwhile, the mosses seemed to enjoy the perfect moisture level to advance up the beech tree trunks with a fresh green exuberance. They say that you can tell the age of trees by how high the mosses grow. I don’t know the measures, but by any scale these mature beech trees are certainly well aged.

THE DISUSED QUARRY

In the old quarry the same forces have been at work but the canvas is more varied, with oak leaves in the mix and browned-off bracken not yet quite laid flat. Again there are fallen lichens and twigs from trees within the quarry and above its rim. But here the mosses lead the way in all their delicate detail across the ground, up and over decaying logs and beside the cascade that emerges from behind the quarry wall.

In one corner of the quarry, the heavy rain and water draining from the hill behind has filled a pool at the foot of the stone faces. Here, it is hard to tell which is moss and which lichen growing on the walls and reflected in the surface of the pool; here, the sun and shade make folded curtains against the solid tool-marked rock. But looking up towards the quarry rim, it is the moss, draping its deep green and orange from the exposed and overhanging tree roots, that paints a surreal work of art upon the quarry wall.

EQUINOX AT CALLANISH - Isle of Lewis Spring 2020 / Autumn 2023

SPRING EQUINOX (20th March 2020).

Despite the glorious sunshine, the ancient stone circle at Callanish on the Isle of Lewis was uncharacteristically deserted. We didn’t know it then but, 72 hours later, we would be back at home and at the start of the first ‘lockdown’ of the Covid pandemic. But on that day, very close to the Spring Equinox, we were lucky enough to experience the almost magical alignment of sun and standing stones, usually a time and place for celebration. The Gaelic name for the standing stones is ‘tursachan’, meaning ‘a place of sadness’ and so it turned out to be.

View over Loch Ceann Hulabhig from Callanish (the name is thought to be derived from the Viking ‘Kalladarnes’ meaning ‘promontory from which a ferry is called’, possibly from here to Great Bernera).

The view to the south-east from the stone circle encompasses a line of hills that together resemble a recumbent woman. She is known, paradoxically as either the ‘Sleeping Beauty’ (a representation of the ‘White Goddess / ‘universal earth mother’) or ‘Cailleach na Mointeach’ (‘old woman of the moors’). At regular intervals in the lunar cycle the moon rises over this figure and swings around the southern horizon, on rare occasions appearing briefly among the standing stones. As with other stone circles, such phenomena lend weight to the idea of astronomy, in particular alignments of the stones with the moon and/or sun, being the motivation for the construction of a monument on this site about 5000 years ago.

With our backs turned to the ‘Goddess’ or the ‘old woman’ at around noon that day, it was close enough to the equinox for us to observe the sun shining through a tiny hole in the natural rocky outcrop (Cnoc an Tursa) at the south end of the monument. The pencil of light falling on the grass beyond points the way north towards the central circle of 14 megaliths surrounding the tallest stone which stands at about 16 feet.

At midday on the true equinox, the shadow of each standing stone touches the foot of the next stone in a row that leads north to the central circle. From there single rows of stones emerge to the east and west, their shadows falling ahead of them while a long corridor of currently 18 stones stretches out slightly to the north-east of the central group.

Such was the strength of the sun that day that it was only in the shade behind each stone that we could make out some of the textures and patterns on the megaliths. Each is a slab of local Lewisian gneiss and many bear an impressive array of lichens. These early simple plant forms can survive the harshest of environments and carry a long history of their own.

AUTUMN EQUINOX (22nd September 2023).

More by luck than design, we found ourselves back at Callanish on the day of the Autumn Equinox. While it is true that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, this only actually happens at the spring and autumn equinoxes. (During the summer the sun rises and sets to the north of due east and west; in winter sunrise and sunset occur to the south of due east and west.) So before sunset on this day the sun was low but still north of the western horizon where its beams radiated through breaks in the cloud. This time, despite the dull weather, there were many people, some wandering dreamingly around the stones, some hugging or stroking them; there was an air of peacefulness and almost reverence. The sense of people gathering to share an experience was tangible as if in awe of a special or even spiritual event at a place where generations of people have come together in mutual respect for the land, the natural world, the turning of the seasons, history and human endeavour

The overall plan of the monument as viewed from the north resembles a Celtic cross which led to speculation that it was an early Christian site, possibly built as penance for perceived sins. Yet it was apparently constructed in several phases, the first being the erection of the central 14 megaliths about 5000 years ago, long before the Christian era. Subsequently a cairn was constructed in the centre, probably for a burial, but it was later dismantled perhaps indicating a change in beliefs or funeral practices. Stories and legends about the monument abound, involving birds and animals, witches and fairies and even people turned to stone for their transgressions.

In the soft evening light in 2023, the central stones seemed to huddle together, some partially obscuring others and appearing almost fused to make a seemingly impenetrable barrier around the central area where the cairn used to be.

From around 3000 years ago peat began to form on much of the island of Lewis, burying the cairn and building up around the stones to a depth of five or six feet. It was only when the peat was removed in 1857 that additional stones were uncovered and the true height of the larger megaliths in all their magnificence was revealed. The whole monument then stood proud against a landscape now turned over to modern farming.

But it is the stones themselves that should have the last word. The local Lewisian gneiss slabs seem to have been chosen not only for their size and shape but also for their beauty, colour and patterning and especially for those containing large crystals of dark hornblende. Weathering then further textured their surfaces and lichens found a foothold to survive and grow over the centuries since.

Acknowledgement: Much of the information for this blog came form a wonderful wee book by Gerald Ponting, “CALLANISH and Other Megalithic Sites of the Outer Hebrides.” Published by Wooden Books Ltd 2007

'PADDLING' ON THE WAVERLEY - August 2023

Mention a trip on the Waverley and many people, especially in Scotland and including me, just smile. They are recalling with fondness their own ‘excursions’ or seeing her ‘paddling’ around the Clyde coast and local sea lochs. Many others will have seen or sailed on her further afield at locations all-around the coasts of Britain and Ireland and the term ‘paddler’ perhaps belies her capabilities as the “World’s last seagoing paddle steamer”.

My first memory of the Waverley is of a gloriously sunny day in 1969, on holiday in Scotland with my parents and sailing through the wonderful Kyles of Bute. Her funnels were a buff/yellow then but by 2023 when I was back on board, they had been restored to their original red, white and black.

I was also on a nostalgic journey, remembering my father’s love of paddle steamers and in particular the old Waverley (built in 1899) and her sister ship the Balmoral on which he had an exciting day trip to France as a young boy. Growing up in Southampton in the 1920s he saw the heyday of the paddle steamers, many of them Clyde built, offering ‘Excursions’ all along the south coast of England. He also recalled how the paddle steamers played their part in two World Wars and that the original Waverley was sunk in 1940 on its last trip back from Dunkirk rescuing troops from the Normandy beaches.

A new Clyde-built Waverley was launched in 1947 and although her fortunes waxed and waned over the years, she was bought in 1974 for £1 by the Paddle Steamer Preservation Society and has survived to provide many more excursions to delight us all today.

In the summer 2023 we took a cruise down the Argyll coast on the Waverley, embarking at Largs and calling at Millport, Lochranza and Campbeltown … but could it live up to my childhood experience and memories?

We left on a dull, forecast to be showery, morning but no sooner had the Waverley turned away from the sea front and Nardini’s Ice Cream Parlour at Largs than the clouds lifted and the sun shone. The weather, at least, was the same as 54years ago!

One of the joys and excitements of being on a paddle steamer is the thrill of going below decks to watch the steam engine at work and the paddles thrashing the sea against the portholes; just as my father described in 1926, so it was in 1969 and again now.

Coming into Campbeltown we passed the Tall Ship training vessel and, in full purple bloom, the heather covered hills of Davaar.

Davaar is almost an island and linked to Kintyre only by a causeway passable on foot at low tide. With time running short on our excursion, we headed out round the headland with its lighthouse towards Sanda Island to catch views of Ailsa Craig.

Turning around in a wide arc and with the cloud now building in billowing layers behind us above a sea still splintered by the sun, the Waverley returned to Campbeltown and the Tall Ship, now at anchor.

The colours intensified and the shadows lengthened on the land as the sun began to fade. We bid farewell to Campbeltown and set course for our return to Largs with new memories made and old ones enjoyed.

MEMORIES OF COLOUR - ARDNAMURCHAN/MOIDART (October 2022)

Autumn in Ardnamurchan and Moidart:

When better to make images and memories of colour and location, reflecting mood and meaning, than in the moments when I feared I could lose sight of it all and my mind was a whirlpool of distorted perceptions?

Where better to collect rich colours and memories than here, with the sights and scenes of its land and seashores and the details in its rocks, rivers and forests?

Volcanic beach at Swordle, looking out to Rhum, Muck and Eigg

Where better to gather contrasting hues and shapes of trees and leaves, bracken, ferns and lichen, than among its ancient oak woodlands and temperate rainforests?

Glenborrodale

Ancient Oaks reaching out over the River Moidart

Woodland near Strontian

Larch, Birch and Oak near Sàilean nan Cuileag

Where better to find the early morning sun rising over the mountain to reflect through bending reeds, than on its inland lochs beside abandoned crofts?

Glen Moidart

Where better to to see forms that catch the light, intensifying colour in reflections of clear or abstract detail, than in its sea-lochs and shorelines, its saltings and its rivers flowing fast and slow?

Reflections around Castle Tioram

Saltings at Sàilean nan Cuileag

River Shiel

What better time than now, a year later with my sight no longer at risk, to find that I can indeed remember with clarity and appreciation the locations, images and colours of Ardnamurchan and Moidart?

Curiously and perhaps paradoxically, I’ve also discovered that it is the two-dimensional photographs I remember best. I only have to think of those photographs without seeing them, to relive the whole experience of being there, the sense of composing order in the image out of the chaos of my sensory perceptions and even the whirlpools of raw emotion.

Whirlpools on the River Shiel

LIGHT AND LAYERS OF ORKNEY (September 2022)

In a layered landscape of sea cliffs, sand and shore, farmland, crofts, stone walls and ancient monuments, light calls the shots and colour follows the contours.

The photographer Gunnie Moberg titled her first book about the Orkney Islands ‘Stone Built’ and so they are, each island landscape determined by its underlying rock and coastal profile. From the gentle rolling farmland of Mainland Orkney and low-lying, wind-swept Sanday to the high moorland of Hoy with its towering cliffs and sea stacks, the islands align themselves thinly between a vast sky and an expansive sea. Surprisingly, some of the highest cliffs in Britain are at St John’s Head (346m) on Hoy and their layered form can be seen from the ferry in all their colourful sandstone glory.

Perhaps the most extraordinary feature of Orkney is the quality of the light; be that soft light through layered cloud illuminating green fields and white sands or harsh sunlight intensifying shadows and colours in the physical layers of stone and lichens. Then there are the blue and golden hours either side of sunrise and sunset, beloved of photographers, which flood the landscape with cool or warm colours. On this evening in the sound of Hoy, the blue hour highlights the tidal race and the angled rocks on shore evoking a feel of storm and shipwreck. Next morning, as the blue hour gives way to sunrise, a stillness on the water and the sharp reflection of Hoy High Lighthouse assures us that all is set fine and calm for the day ahead.

The bedrock of Orkney is mainly flat layers of ‘Old Red Sandstone’ and Caithness flagstone, the latter comprising siltstone and mudstone of various thicknesses. Both can be seen on the rocky shores at Warbeth and Nethertown just outside Stromness, where ribs of rock stretch out towards Hoy.

Similarly, the cliffs at Yesnaby are composed of thin layers in which fossilised remains of plants and fishes can be found; even ripples in the sand and mud of what was once an ancient sea bed are set in stone. Here also stromolites, known as ‘Horse-tooth stone’, are being gradually exposed between the layers of flagstone and eroded from surfaces where black coastal lichens are already growing. Stromolites are fossilised mounds of blue-green algae which can still be found growing in parts of the world today. Early in the Earth’s history they were one of several systems using photosynthesis to make glucose as an energy source, releasing oxygen into a hitherto toxic atmosphere and making it possible for life to survive on this planet.

The Caithness flagstone lends itself well to the building projects of humans, and on these virtually treeless islands, it has been used for thousands of years to build walls, dwellings, stone monuments, churches and gravestones. Flagstone was often used as roofing material, as on the croft at West Aith where the film maker and poet Margaret Tait stayed while filming Orkney life in the 1970’s. Now disused, a plaque to her rests in the window among layers of dust, cobwebs and shadows. Wherever there is stone, be that beside the sea at St Mary’s Church or rising from the fields, as does the dovecot at Rendell, there are lichens growing and patterning the surfaces, surviving the rigours of the island climate.

More recent constructions have necessitated the use of other materials, as in the many wind turbines scattered around Orkney. Concrete is often used when once it would have been stone, as in the making of the Churchill Barriers, which were constructed of huge concrete blocks cast on site. The barriers prevented enemy access to Scapa Flow in WW2 and the roads that ran along them linked the islands in the southern part of the archipelago, easing travel and communications for the Orcadians. Today they have become part of the landscape, quite literally in the case of Barrier 4 where layers of sand have built-up and, stabilised by marram grass, have completely covered the blocks on the east side, forming a beach beyond. Lichens also grow on concrete, slowly softening the edges of the blocks and breaking up the surfaces with colour. Looking back from the viewpoint on Burray reveals how the barriers link a patchwork of farmlands over slivers of sea.

There is plenty of livestock farming on Orkney but in September the most obvious signs of activity are the harvesting of crops and the bales awaiting collection in fields that run down to the sea. The shadows of the bales grow longer as the golden hour approaches. Warm light bathes the standing stones at the Ring of Brodgar before gradually fading away to layers of evening blue as the sun sets again over Hoy.

SANDAY HORIZONS - ORKNEY (September 2022)

In a horizontal landscape, light and land, sea, sky, stone and sand tend to settle into layers, no more so than on Sanday, one of the largest islands in the north of the Orkney archipelago.

Approaching Sanday from the south.

But there are concerns about the future for low-lying Sanday, a significant area of which (around 15%) already disappears beneath the twice-daily tides, which also cover the causeways to the Holms of Ire in the north-west and the lighthouse at Start Point in the north-east.

The photographer Gunnie Moberg called her first book about Orkney ‘Stone Built’, but Sanday lives up to its Viking name (‘sandr’ = sand and ‘ey’ = island) and is ‘sand built’, most obviously apparent in its sandy shorelines and shifting dunes.

Once very fertile and considered the ‘granary of Orkney’, Sanday even exported barley to Norway, but due to erosion by wind and sea the land is now known as ‘blawin’ and is no longer cultivated. The highest point is a hill called ‘The Wart’ which is a full 65m but the rest of the island is barely 15m above sea level. I wonder how much of the island will survive the rising sea levels due to global warming and melting arctic ice, and for how long?

Start Point lighthouse on the horizon.

The stone underlying Sanday is mainly Caithness flagstone with some red and yellow Orkney sandstone in the south but most stone structures visible now have been fashioned by human hands, with two possible (or impossible?) exceptions; the ‘Devil’s Clawmarks’ are scored deep into a sandstone block later used in a balustrade at the now ruined Lady Kirk, while the ‘Stone of Scar’, a 14-ton block of gneiss which is a glacial erratic left by the receding ice sheet to some, is to others a missile thrown in anger by a witch from the neighbouring island of Evie.

The archaeology of Sanday stretches back over 5000 years to include Neolithic remains, Viking boat burials, 16th century ruins, 19th century houses and abandoned villages. The various field boundaries, flagstone built crofts and roofs of many ruins, even tiled roofs of still occupied houses, are decorated with lichens, as are the memorials to the dead in the graveyards. The lichens survive and thrive in Sanday’s pollution-free air and, along with a profusion of wildflowers, provide a riot of colour all over the island. But the most prominent structural feature these days is the collection of five wind turbines that dominate the skyline of the southern approach to Sanday.

Meanwhile, out in the Bay of Lopness, the tides are gradually claiming the wreck of the WW1 German destroyer B98 and covering the wide expanses of silvery sands with reflected light until their horizons disappear between sky and sea.

CALUM'S ROADS - RAASAY (October 2021)

Most visitors to Raasay know about Calum’s Road, which he built almost single-handedly using simple tools over a period of years (1964 - 1975). It is a testament to his endurance and determination to save his community in the north part of Raasay, including on the islands of Fladda, Eilean Tighe and Rona, by improving communications and access to the south of the island. Numerous requests for a road had been submitted to the various authorities by Calum’s parents, their neighbours and later by Calum Macleod himself since the early 1920’s. All had failed, during which time, as he predicted and to his frustration, the number of people living in the north of Raasay had already dropped considerably.

As we drove along Calum’s Road, nearly 2 miles from Brochel Castle to his home in North Arnish, we were welcomed at the start by a fortuitous rainbow. We wondered how many rainbows Calum had seen as he laboured on the road, which he constructed with great skill along steep rocky slopes and over headlands, creating dry-stone dykes and culverts where necessary. Only twice did he ask for, and was granted, assistance from the Dept. of Agriculture to blast small sections of the route. He achieved all this in his ‘spare’ time, between his work as a crofter, fisherman and crewing the Rona Lighthouse Attending Boat that ferried both the keepers and their supplies to and fro Portree on Skye.

It seems a sad irony that the north of Raasay was refused the road that could have saved the community, since most of the population of Raasay had been moved there about 100 years previously. The then landowner, George Rainy, wanted the land in the south for a deer park and sheep farming. A deer fence and wall were built across the headland, reaching the sea at a small bay on Loch Arnish, to keep sheep and deer on one side and people on the other. It was only after WW2 that the people were able to return to the south where new opportunities and services were centred. So it really was for lack of a road that many people left the north. Calum must surely have taken some pleasure in breaking down the wall, which was about 2/3rds of the way to Arnish, to make his road above the wee bay, and using some of the stone to make sheep fanks (folds) for himself. When he finally finished the road the battle went on to persuade the authorities to surface it with bitumen and so make it serviceable for ordinary vehicles, a task that was not completed until 1982!

Fewer visitors may have heard of Calum’s other road. This was actually a footpath, constructed by Calum and his brother Charles between 1949 and 1952. It provided a better route for the residents of Fladda using the tidal crossing from the island to reach North Arnish and the rest of Raasay. In particular, the children of Fladda needed a quicker route to the schoolhouse at Torran. Often they missed schooling not only due to high tides covering the crossing but also due to the arduous nature of walking the existing route over the high moor. There had been requests for a bridge or causeway to be built which were consistently turned down as being too costly. Eventually the council agreed to pay Calum and his brother to make the road they had proposed around the coast. Their paved path is still there and was maintained in good condition until relatively recently. Unfortunately, although its surface is still intact in places, in other stretches it is barely discernible through the bracken or has become waterlogged. It remains a beautiful walk as it hugs the coastline, rising over headlands, running along gorges and through woodlands.

We stopped at a high point as the path rounded a headland and Fladda came into view. Here we were treated to a farewell rainbow over the now uninhabited island, before we turned back. The symbolism of hope is unavoidable, certainly in the context of Calum and his determination to carry on in the face of unsupportive authorities in the past.

Recommended reading;

Calum’s Road. Roger Hutchinson. 2008 Pub. Birlinn Ltd

RAASAY IRONWORKS (October 2021)

The beautiful Inner Hebridean island of Raasay lies between Skye and the Scottish mainland. It seems an unlikely place to have an industrial history of mining and yet iron-ore mining started here in 1912 and played an important role during WW1. Some might consider the ruined buildings associated with this activity to be the proverbial ‘blot on the landscape’, yet they are strangely fascinating and thankfully dwarfed by the grand views especially to Skye.

During the submarine campaign of 1916, importing iron-ore for making munitions was both difficult and dangerous. Ironically, just as attention was turned to home sources of ore to meet the demand, the Raasay mine lost most of its workforce to war service. The mining company, William Baird & Co., offered to expand operations at Raasay and agreed for the mine be taken over by the Ministry of Munitions of War with the manpower problem solved by the controversial use of prisoners of war. The agreement ended in 1919 and although the site was maintained in working order for a while, its ore was never required again, even in WW2, after which it was dismantled and the remains left to deteriorate.

Access to the actual mines is no longer possible, but at Mine 1 the ruins of the ‘compressor house’, the ‘checkers office’ and the ‘weighbridge’ are still visible, now overshadowed by trees and overgrown with heather.

On the hill above, near the entrance to Mine 1, the remains of the ‘fan house’ still stand, with its curved walls of stone and concrete and the brick lined air intake. The housing can still be seen for a powerful 70-inch mine fan (no longer in place) which provided the ventilation for the roughly 8km of underground tunnels.

A second mine was little used as geological fault lines were discovered and its fan house is the also the main surviving structure, even as it is rapidly disappearing beneath a roof of foliage and young trees growing up through its ruins.

Perhaps the most impressive remains are above the pier at Suishnish, from which the finished ore was loaded directly onto ships taking it to the mainland. Looking back up the hill from the pier, the enormous hopper yawns open to the elements. Where once the finished ore was held before loading, now only bricks from the dismantled kilns and other structures lie abandoned as a turf of green gradually engulfs them. Huge concrete bastions march up the hill through the bracken; once they bore a gantry system bringing ore from the ‘crusher house’ above. There it had been mixed with coal and crushed to a smaller size before sending it along the gantry system and delivered to the top of the kilns.

Originally only 2 kilns were built side by side although another 3 were constructed later. All were built to the same design, with circular towers over 20m high and lined with a 0.45m thick layer of yellow ‘Morningside’ firebricks. Today only their bases remain, resembling a row of crofts or small cottages. With the outer cladding removed the interiors are linked as if by a continuous tunnel scattered with broken bricks. The purpose of heating the ore was to drive off water and certain minerals in the ironstone, in this case calcite, which required heating it to 950 deg.C.

From the kilns, the hot calcined ore fell onto steel conveyor belts that ran along the sides and carried it to the hopper. The cooled ore would then be released by 2 men operating doors manually from below, into a 2.5m square tunnel and conveyed along the pier to be loaded directly into the awaiting ship.

Recommended reading:

The Raasay Iron Mine 1912 - 1942; Where enemies became friends. Laurence and Pamela Draper

RAASAY ROWANS (October 2021)

October on the Island of Raasay and the rowans are in their full red-berried glory. Some, in sheltered places, are still clothed in green but most are only just clinging to their yellowed and browned-off leaves on traceries of bare branches.

It is the form of the compound leaves that gives rise to the other name, ‘Mountain Ash’ and although the rowan is unrelated to ash, the title is well earned since this hardy small tree can survive high up on mountainsides and hillsides, on crags and in rocky gullies. ‘Caorunn’ is the Gaelic name, or ‘Luís’ in the older Celtic tongue, which is the tree name assigned to the letter ‘L’ in the Gaelic tree alphabet.

In the woodland beside the burn down to Inver on Raasay’s west coast, the rowans have already lost most of their leaves and only the berries, hanging in bunches and glossy with raindrops, reveal them amongst the other native trees such as birch, hazel and willow. The bright red fleshy berries are attractive to birds and eaten by them. The hard seeds are then voided at some distance from the tree, often in unusual or inaccessible places such beside buildings, in ruins, on shingle banks or even in the forks of old decaying trees, anywhere they can take root away from grazing animals.

Along Calum’s footpath, which he built with his brother along the coast between the tidal island of Eilean Fladda and the old schoolhouse at Torran (north Raasay), there are many rowans; some are beside the sea, others grow high up from seemingly solid rock to overhanging the path and some reach for the sun from dark woodlands in a gorge below.

In folklore the rowan is a protective tree, believed to keep dwellings and livestock safe from witchcraft. Not surprising, then, that it is often found near buildings and growing in and through abandoned crofts and settlements. Even the ruined buildings associated with the old iron-ore mines have become adorned with rowans growing on or through the walls and crumbling steps.

Rowans also follow the road to the deserted village of Hallaig along a coastal path on the east of Raasay, with cliffs rising on one side and the sea far below on the other. In a sheltered spot, one old rowan still bears a mass of fruit beneath a crown of yellow leaves and among lichens decorating its branches.

The trees mould themselves to the terrain, tucking themselves into crevices where bracken and grazing sheep cannot reach, or stretching out their branches to dangle the berries over the sea.

Stone walls and enclosures are all that remain of Hallaig, laid out beneath Beinn na Leac, the distinctive highest point on Raasay. It was at Hallaig that the poet Sorley Maclean (1911-1996) was born and returning to the ruins many years later, he wrote the poem ‘Hallaig’. Wistfully he noted the boarded up window through which he used to see the burn and the woodlands of birch, hazel and the ‘straight young rowan’

Getting a 'GRIP' in Argyll (September 2021)

If you know where to look you can see the figure from afar. It’s not like Antony Gormley’s Angel of the North, huge and high on a hill; Gormley made ‘GRIP’ to more modest dimensions.

The human outline becomes more obvious as we draw nearer, but it is only after we’ve scrambled through the scrubland trees at the back of the beach, struggled over sharp pinnacles of layered rock eroded by the tides and the shifting shingle beach, waded across the stranded river and scaled the rocks on which ‘GRIP’ stands that we can see the clearly androgynous form.

The sculpture stands, feet together fixed firmly to the rocks, hands clasped behind, seeming to stare calmly out to sea. Over one shoulder is the sweep of Saddell Bay and Arran, over the other is Ailsa Craig, a distinctively symmetrical cone of rock inhabited only by seabirds. In meditative mood we notice, further out to sea, a mirage of small islands hovering above the horizon and wonder at the phenomenon.

I admire the figure’s fearless stance, defying the ankle turning rocks slippery with seaweed and daring the sea to do its worst as the tide rises to cover and corrode the metal structure. One day the sea will win, of course, but for now, unworried by its future fate, the human form stands secure and calm while tides ebb and flow and storms come and go. I wish I could overcome fears for the future, worry less about ‘losing my grip’, about a painful slip, a broken ankle, hip or head and concern myself less about the inevitable advance of time, rising tide, climate change and the fragility of life.

Instead, perhaps sooner than I need, I slither and stumble my way back over the wet weed and shingle, to wade across the river, now set in reverse flow by the tide and get ahead of the rapidly advancing sea.

As I reach the relative safety of the rock pools and leafy scrub, I steal a glance back to see the beach disappearing and ‘GRIP’, still seemingly untroubled, surrounded by sea.

Surely both feet must soon be submerged but ‘GRIP’ is made of cast iron stuff and can feel no fear, unlike us humans for whom fear is the first and final frontier of life.

'RONE' AND 'BLINTER': The Language of Ice

Early in January 2022 walking along a local hillside grazed by sheep, I came upon a sizeable patch of ice formed over a grassy dip in the pasture…

According to Robert Macfarlane in his fascinating book ‘LANDMARKS’ a patch or strip of ice is known as a ‘Rone’ in NE Scotland (p89), and in northern Scots ‘Blinter’ means ‘cold dazzle’ as when ice splinters catch low light or ice dust (p6). Both seemed apt descriptors for the winter sun playing on the surface cracks and scratches on my ice pool. The form and patterns of the ice itself were made even more complex by the embedded grass and and shadows above and beneath.

In the Shetland dialect the colours of ice are ‘Isetgrey’ and ‘Isetblue’ (p89). Here the sunlit grey gave way to deep blue in the shadows.

John Macfarlane, in the ‘John Muir Wild Nature Diary’, describes his photograph of ice on a shallow pool on moorland in Cumbria, where it is called a ‘bog-puddle’. He explains: ‘ice forms when the skin of water is able to cool very slowly due to warm ground temperatures’, and how ‘beneath the ice, fermenting grasses glow in the sun’. Perhaps I should call my discovery a ’pasture puddle’ where the water has drained away, leaving the sheets of ice suspended over the grasses below. The meteorological term for this kind of ice is ‘skim-ice’ (R.Macfarlane p136)

This, however, is a fragile state of affairs and it is only a matter of time before it turns to ‘clock-ice’, a Northamptonshire word (p88) for when the ice is cracked, crazed and in this case shattered into slates by the pressure of a walker’s pole, a jumping child or an unsuspecting sheep’s hoof! Then the sun gets to work melting away the sharp edges and revealing the ‘fermenting grasses’ below.

RHODODENDRON 'Fantastica' / ROSE-TREE / RÒS-CHRAOBH

May - June - July 2021

Dipped in blood, the spear-shaped bud breaks open;

deep red florets force their way up and out,

unfolding an array of trumpets that herald sun, shade and rain; 

through shades of candyfloss and salmon pink,

over days and nights, the florets fade to almost white.

Still fringed in pink, some florets fall, the herald falters;  

delicate petals turn to papery cream and brown; 

no need now to attract insects to the precious pollen;

but among distorted anthers and blackened stigmas,

green fruits ripen and spear-shaped leaves grow through.

ANEMONE / WINDFLOWER / FLÙR NA GAOITHE

May - June - July 2021

ANEMONE

Unfolding to the morning’s rays, 

a bowl of petals on slender stem, follows the sun 

collecting light along tracks of brilliance 

to entice insects to its fertile heart.

Refolding in the evening’s ‘simmer dim’, 

a cup of petals protects within, awaits another dawn. 

WINDFLOWER

Raising bold bowls of colour high,

slender stems twist and turn as they catch the wind,

sending petals fluttering to attract attention

and bring lowered blooms face up.

Standing strong now the flower is blown,

swaying stems send fluff –borne seed to ride the wind.

A WINTER OF DISCONTENT or "NEGATIVE CAPABILITY"? (Dec. 2020 - Feb. 2021)

Including the 200th anniversary of the death of Keats on 23rd February 1821

DECEMBER 2020

21st December, the shortest day of what seemed to be the longest year of loss and grief.
A sad and lonely time, restricted in travel, festivities and the warmth of reunions with friends and family.
I stumbled upon the concept of “Negative Capability”; an ability to tolerate uncertaintity, not knowing and accommodate negative as well as positive emotions, from which comes contentment.

DECEMBER 1817

22nd December - Keats, in a letter to his brothers, following a visit to a Christmas pantomime:

“ ... Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.”

December 3rd 11.40am

December 12th 15.45pm

December 28th 9.06am

December 24th 15.34pm

December 28th 16.06pm

December 29th 13.19pm

December 29th 13.30pm

December 30th 11.10am

December 30th 11.23am

JANUARY 2021

Frost and icy shadows on pools and soil; / Snow frosted onto the skeletons of trees.

Moments of warmth, thaw in the weak winter sun; / But frost returns and we fear for leaves and lives.

JANUARY 1818

When I have fears that I may cease to be / Before my pen has gleaned my teaming brain,

Before high piled books, in charactery, / Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain;

When I behold, upon the night’s starred face, / Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,

And think that I may never live to trace / Their shadows with the magic hand of chance;

And when I feel, fair creature of an hour, / That I shall never look upon thee more,

Never have relish in the faery power / Of unreflecting love - then on the shore

Of the wide world I stand alone, and think / Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.

Keats: a sonnet composed between 22nd and 31st January

January 3rd 12.51pm

January 6th 14.52pm

January 7th 13.37pm

January 8th 12.01pm

January 8th 12.05pm

January 21st 15.15pm

January 21st 15.30pm

January 24th 14.57pm

January 24th 15.15pm

FEBRUARY 2021

Sun warms the frost and snow and throws up clouds above the hills,

Colours, bright and subtle, old and new, emerge to cheer a little.

Aptly, the weather weeps in sorrow on the day Keats died and yet,

Fresh growth appears despite damaged leaves and lives.

FEBRUARY 1818

O thou whose face hath felt the Winter’s wind,

Whose eye has seen the snow-clouds hung in mist,

And the black elm-tops ‘mong the freezing stars,

To thee the Spring will be a harvest-time.

Keats: in a letter to Reynolds on February 19th

February 1st 12.37pm

February 12th 13.06pm

February 12th 13.23pm

February 16th 13.23pm

February 22nd 13.16pm

February 22nd 13.31pm

February 22nd 14.03pm

February 23rd 14.42pm In Memoriam JOHN KEATS - “Here Lies One Whose Name Was Writ In Water”

February 26th 11.00am

February 26th 14.39pm

From: Endymion

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:

Its loveliness increases; it will never

Pass into nothingness; but still will keep

A bower quiet for us, and a sleep

Full of sweet dreams , and health, and quiet breathing.

Therefore on every morrow, we are wreathing

A flowery band to bind us to the earth,

Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth

Of human natures, of gloomy days,

Of all the unhealthy and o’er darkened ways

Made for our searching: yes in spite of all

Some shape of beauty moves away the pall

From our dark spirits ...

Keats: published 1818

“…being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts…”

TO THE GARDEN DAISY; Daisy Chains

With apologies to:

Robert Burns (25thJanuary 1759 - 21stJuly 1796)  “To a Mountain Daisy - On Turning One Down With The Plough in April 1786” 

William Wordsworth (7thApril 1770 - 23rdMarch 1850) “To The Daisy” (4 poems) & “At The Grave of Burns - Seven Years After His Death”

Daisies always remind me of my childhood in London suburbia where they were common in gardens and on waste ground. I added them to my wildflower collection and as wee girls, we would play at making daisy chains, linking the flower stalks together to display the yellow gems in their white settings and make them into bracelets and necklaces. 

My father called the daisies “weeds” but he made little attempt to remove them from the “lawn” nor from the spaces between the crazy paving where they flowered in profusion from early Spring well into Autumn. And so they do now, in our own Scottish garden where they flower freely in the grass, on the drive and around the wooden seat. It is said that a ‘weed’ is a wildflower growing in the wrong place but how can the place be wrong?

Robert Burns in his poem reflected on his mountain daisy being in the wrong place as he crushed its flowers beneath the plough on the ill-fated Mossgiel farm and compared the loss to his own: 

‘Ev’n thou who mourn’st the Daisy’s fate, / That fate is thine - no distant date;’ (v.9)

William Wordsworth also associated the daisy with mourning but welcomed the idea of daisies on his own grave:

‘Sweet flower! belike one day to have / A place upon thy Poet’s grave,’ (poem 4 v.1)

During the Covid-19 ‘lockdown’ which started in March 2020 and included ‘no-mow May’ (good for the daisies and for the bees), there was time aplenty for many daisy-associated memories of family and friends, for thoughts of life and death and for poetry. My father would often quote favourite verses, many from the works of William Wordsworth and Robert Burns. Both poets wrote in praise of the humble daisy, its beauty, its resilience and of it being symbolic of life and hope.

Wee, modest,
 crimson-tipped flow’r

Thou’s met me in an evil hour;


For I maun crush amang the stoure* 

Thy slender stem: 

To spare thee now is past my pow’r 

Thou bonie gem. 

 R.B. v.1  (*‘stoure’ - dust)

With little here to do or see 

Of things that in the great world be. 

Sweet daisy! oft I talk to thee, 

For thou art worthy, 

Thou unassuming Common-place 

Of nature, with that homely face 

And yet with something of a grace, 

Which Love makes for thee! 

W.W. Poem 2 v.1 

Be violets in their secret mews 

The flowers the wanton Zephyrs choose; 

Proud be the rose, with rains and dews 

Her head impearling; 

Thou liv’st with less ambitious aim, 

Yet hast not gone without thy fame; 

Thou art indeed by many a claim 

The Poet’s darling. 

W.W. Poem 1 v.4 

The flaunting flow’rs our
 gardens yield, 

High shelt’ring woods and
 *wa’s maun shield; 

But thou, beneath the
 random *bield 

O’ clod or stane, 

Adorns the *histie stibble- field 

Unseen, alane. 

R.B. v.4   (*wa’s - walls; bield - shelter; histie stibble - bare stubble) 

There in thy scanty mantle clad, 

Thy snawie bosom sun-ward spread, 

Thou lifts thy unassuming head 

In humble guise;


But now the share uptears thy bed 

And low thou lies!

R.B. v. 5 

Fresh smitten by the 
morning ray, 

When thou art up, alert and gay, 

Then, cheerful flower ! my spirits play 

With kindred gladness: 

And when, at dusk,
 by dews opprest 

Thou sink’st, the image of thy rest 

Hath often eased my pensive breast 

Of careful sadness. 

W.W. Poem 1 v.8 

Thee Winter in the garland wears, 

That thinly decks his few grey hairs; 

Spring parts the clouds with softest airs, 

That she may sun thee; 

Whole Summer- fields are thine
 by right; 

And Autumn, melancholy Wight ! 

Doth in thy crimson head delight 

When rains are on thee. 

W.W. Poem 1 v.2 

Cauld blew the bitter-biting north 

Upon thy early humble birth;


Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth 

Amid the storm, 

Scarce reared above the parent earth 

Thy tender form. 

R.B. v.3 

Robert Burns and William Wordsworth lived in very different circumstances, may have been “diversely inclined” and certainly never met. Yet they were contemporaries for a brief time and for both the natural world was an inspiration for many of their poems, both addressing verses to daisies in terms of endearment. Wordsworth freely acknowledged his debt to Burns as having inspired his own works. 

And showed my youth / How Verse may build a princely throne / On humble truth. (v.6)

Neighbours we were, and loving friends / We might have been; (v.7)

True friends though diversely inclined;

But heart with heart  and mind with mind,

Where the main fibres are entwined,

Through Nature’s skill,

May even by contraries be joined 

More closely still. (v.8)

In the poem composed in sadness at the grave of Burns, Wordsworth speaks of Burns’s genius in words borrowed from the latter’s “Mountain Daisy”. 

W.W. At The Grave of Burns; Seven Years after his death.

Fresh as the flower,
 whose modest worth 

He sang, his genius
 “glinted” forth, 

Rose like a star that
 touching earth, 

For so it seems, 

Doth glorify its humble birth 

With matchless beams. 

W.W. At the Grave of Burns v.4 

Bright Flower! whose home
 is everywhere, 

Bold in maternal Nature’s care, 

And all the long year through the heir 

Of joy or sorrow; 

Methinks that there abides in thee 

Some concord with humanity, 

Given to no other flower I see 

The forest through! 

W.W Poem 3 v.1 

Is it that Man is soon deprest? 

A thoughtless Thing! who, once unblest, 

Does little on his memory rest, 

Or on his reason, 

And Thou would’st teach him how to find 

A shelter under every wind, 

A hope for times that are unkind 

And every season? 

W.W. Poem 3 v.2 

DAISY CHAINS:  Hope for Unkind Times 

From a Scottish Garden

Burns Day  - 25th January* 2021

“DANGEROUS SLIPWAY”

Mellon Charles Beach, 2020

Early one September morning…

Suddenly, clouds seem to explode beyond the dangerous slipway,

 sand tries to cover the crumbling concrete,

 limpets and barnacles cling on

 and seaweed lies low, drying along the rusty rails.

As the clouds disperse …

Slowly, sun and shade creep up the beach and the dangerous slipway,

 The tide turns to reclaim concrete and rails,

 sea restores the desiccated weed

 and life stirs again in the limpets and barnacles.

Warmth colours the rocks as wavelets of sky run ashore.

OUR FRAGILE COASTS: A Photographer’S DILEMMA

As communities living and working by the sea know well, coasts are among our most fragile environments.  Subject to pounding waves and storm force winds, the land itself, with its cliffs and rocks, is eroded to pebbles and shifting sand, while organic matter from sea and shore is torn from its anchorage, thrown up and stranded above the tideline. Only slightly less dramatic are the daily tides that sweep the beaches clean twice a day. Longer time frames are involved in the falling and rising of sea levels which change the coastal landscape, leaving raised beaches, under-cut cliffs or low lying areas lost to the sea.

These natural processes of creation and destruction impact especially on local people but most of us value these places where land meets sea. The scenery, the opportunity to breathe fresh salt air, to play on the beach or look out to far horizons; all this draws us to the land’s edge for recreation and improves our sense of well being. Often it marks the limit of what we regard as our homeland and we feel passionate in its defence from both invasion and destruction. Yet through ignorance and arrogance we have set in motion processes that are accelerating beyond our control and now we must face the consequences of thoughtless pollution of the oceans, the land and the air we breathe. The planet is warming, sea levels are rising and weather systems are disrupted. Although these are natural trends, it is human activity that has increased the speed of change beyond the capacity for biological systems, even ourselves, to adapt. How do we, as photographers respond? 

Firemore: Who could fail to appreciate the beauty of this beach and not wish to linger?

For photographers this is an exciting place where light plays on the wet sand …

creating reflections and silhouettes in sky and shade.

Surely everyone would be attracted to the colours of sand and sea …

and patterns sculpted by wind and water.

Many will see textures in the rocks created by erosion, plants and lichens …

and will take care to ‘leave only footprints’ beside the stream.

Not metal waste glinting but dried kelp. The farmer’s sheep harmlessly wander free but …

we are all responsible for human waste! Could we not do better with old tyres?

Cove Battery: A place of beautiful mountain views and the ugliest of wartime buildings.

A place of memory and memorial to bravery and loss. Even photographers struggle …

to lighten the mood evoked here and perhaps we shouldn’t try.

Yet the crumbling buildings are morbidly interesting, having a kind of beauty …

while slowly nature is claiming back the headland.

Light breaks through while the concrete weeps calcite …

and colours leach and bleach on the interior walls.

Soon the moor will reclaim the concrete blocks and the sea dismantle the brick walls …

while we sit, our backs turned, looking out to sea, perhaps trying to forget?

Cove Harbour: A safe haven from sea and storm for generations of fishermen.

Old creels and ropes hang waiting to decay into the long grass …

while ropes and chains still in use snake over the pebbles.

In time old anchors rust away but polypropylene ropes just fray and fragment …

and although the seaweed may anchor itself to them, nothing can degrade them.

Brightly coloured buoys and boxes make the photograph …

but do we glorify the use of plastic that also pollutes the seas.

The old blue boat rots naturally away in an unused corner of the harbour but …

modern materials resist decay. Yet who would deny fishermen lives made less arduous by their use?

As photographers we pride ourselves in seeing scenes that others may not notice. Perhaps, through our image making, we can raise awareness and stimulate thoughtful reflection; perhaps we have a responsibility to reveal not only the beauty of nature and what we stand to lose but also to raise questions about the, however unintentional, more destructive aspects of human nature?

GRAEMSAY MAERL

The small Orkney island of Graemsay lies in Hoy Sound at the western entrance to Scapa Flow between Mainland and Hoy, the two largest islands in the archipelago.

Looking south over the lighthouse slipway from the smaller beach at Sandside Bay, the high hills of Hoy can be glimpsed beyond the Graemsay farmland, while to the north the town of Stromness, on the Orkney Mainland, can be seen

Despite its size Graemsay hosts two lighthouses, Hoy Sound High (115 feet) to the northeast of the island and Hoy Sound Low (40 feet) to the northwest. Both were designed and built by Alan Stevenson for the Northern lighthouse Board and the lights were first lit in 1850. Less than two miles apart, they are termed ‘leading lights’ since they are placed in such a way that the two lights, if kept aligned from aboard ship, allow safe navigation through the Sound, which is notorious for its tidal race, sunken reefs and hidden skerries. 

At the time when the lighthouses were built, Graemsay had over 200 inhabitants mainly working on the 36 crofts but in modern times the population has gradually dropped to around a tenth of that. Many ruined crofts are scattered over the island, especially over the rough moorland in the centre. This contrasts with the rich farmland along the coast where the present community, consisting of one working farm and six crofts, continue to thrive. 

Sandside Bay is a large bay to the west of Hoy Sound High Lighthouse. The larger of its two beaches is of fine white sand backed by sand dunes that threaten to engulf the only road around the island. Its windswept strand is patterned like waves, the tide drawing the sand back to the sea. 

The smaller beach beside the old slipway, which was used to land materials needed to build the lighthouses, is very different being backed by a rocky grass bank above which farm buildings stand, some in ruins, and against which disintegrating machinery and boats lie. But most extraordinary is the beach itself, which comprises shell sand and sun-bleached maerl. 

Many of the famous white beaches in Western Scotland are formed of fragments of dead maerl brought ashore after storms and crushed by the waves. Often, as in Graemsay, the crushed maerl was used traditionally as a source of lime, along with seaweed, to condition and fertilise the acid soil for agricultural purposes. The bright dead maerl is everywhere here, scattered on the rocks, amongst the cowrie shells (‘groatie buckies’) and between the green seaweed in the shallows. In lumps and nodules or as delicate branched structures, it forms chalky white sculptures at the edge of a transparent sea that seems to crystallise the light as it rolls lazily over the shore. 

I had heard of ‘maerl’ before and imagined it to be some sort of coral but in fact maerl is a calcareous seaweed, which is purple-pink when living and deposits lime in its cell walls as it grows. It lives, unattached to any substratum, in sheltered sub-tidal areas, above deep gravel layers of dead maerl. These beds of living and dead maerl are an important marine habitat for many animals, including young scallops. How ironic then, that dredging for scallops causes significant damage to their maerl bed nurseries that now require our protection, not least to sustain the scallop industry.

TURF ROOFS OF THE FAROE ISLANDS

High pitched roofs of green turf are a common sight in many Scandinavian countries. In the Faroe Islands, set against a landscape of steeply terraced mountain sides and cloud covered peaks or alongside narrow sea inlets and island shores, they are especially symbolic traditional life, past and present.

A visitor might observe that good turf seems to be in quite short supply in these islands. Where it exists, around farms and villages, it is thanks to improvement of the land by human hands and the grazing of many sheep. It is perhaps surprising then that turf has remained the traditional roofing material for many buildings, from dwellings to barns and fishing sheds and in locations both rural and urban, even in the capital Tórshavn.

In modern times, moulded metal or grey slates have become more popular roofing materials to replace overgrown or threadbare turf. I wonder if it is partly the rise of tourism that has seen a return to fresh growing roofs in picturesque villages and in Tórshavn itself, where they adorn administrative and other buildings in the old parts of the capital and around its modern harbour. 

Traditionally the turf was laid on a lining of silver birch bark, left to curl against retaining boards usually painted black. Under these, in coastal villages, fish are still sometimes hung out to dry in the salt winds. Both bark and wood had to be imported, since no trees of any size grow on the steep basalt layered and windswept hillsides. 

Nowhere are turf roofs more evident than on the churches, especially those built in the 1800s. These were timber-framed buildings, constructed on a stone base or outcrop of natural rock usually painted white in stark contrast to the black-tarred walls. Fine examples are in Kollafjørdur (1837) on Streymoy and Funningur (1847) on Eysturoy. 

Other churches have whitewashed walls of stone or wood and may be roofed with modern materials, as seen beside the harbour on Nólsoy and perched between mountain and sea at Kunoy.

The small stone church at Saksun was built in 1858. This tiny farming settlement is at the end of the road on the NW tip of Streymoy, the largest of the Faroe Islands and is a popular place for a day out, enjoyed by both tourists and Faroese alike. Drawn by the remote location and magnificent scenery, there are also historical farm buildings on what is still a working farm and a museum which demonstrates how some aspects of rural life are little changed since medieval times. 

When it was built the church probably had a turf roof but a photograph taken in 1991 by Gunnie Moberg* shows it with a modern roof that appears to be metal. Today, with the traditional turf restored, it blends into the landscape between the soaring peaks and the Pollurin tidal lagoon below.  

*Book: The Faroe Islands by Liv Kjørsvik Schei and Gunnie Moberg (1991) John Murray (Publishers) Ltd.

BENEATH THE DUNES - Mellon Udrigle

Beneath the shifting dunes where breezes breathe sunlight through the marram grass, still water lies.

Fed by streams cutting through the dunes to reach the beach and topped up by seawater from occasional high tides, these shallow pools reflect the sky and sunlit scene above.

But it is in the shadow of the dunes that mysteries are revealed; ripples on the surface, patterns in the sand, mirrored rocks and inverted tufts of marram, create abstracts with stranded seaweed and coloured shapes of unknown origin .

Before the shaded pools I stand transfixed, lost in surreal imaginings, beneath the dunes.